Page 13 of Condemned By Betrayal
I refuse to think, even for a second, that he isn’t my Salvario. How can he not be, with those same eyes, that same voice?
“Nothing.”
My body steps back on its own. I lose my balance. But he doesn’t let me fall, he catches me by the waist, pulling me close.
“Sa—Sal—Salvario,” I whisper. Fear knots in my stomach, making me feel sick. It’s clear in my shaking voice.
His brows pull together, confusion filling his gray eyes. Coldness seeps into my body, and my burning chest turns to ice in a single, crushing beat.
He isn’t Salvario.
I pull away.
“Who are you?” My voice is now hollow. Neither fear nor hope remains. After burning fiercely for a few minutes in this stranger’s familiar warmth, the flickering candle is now dead.
Hunter
Her eyes turn lifeless, as if I’ve drained all the life from them. It feels like a knife has been driven into the center of my chest and twisted mercilessly.
“Hunter.” My own name sits like poison on my tongue. For the way it makes her eyes look more lifeless, I wish I could erase my own name.
She stays still, watching me with that pale face, punishing me for just existing. I thought I’d kill whoever she loves, but now I wish I could bring him here, just to stop her looking so bereft. I would trade my life for his if it meant bringing that light back to her golden eyes, the way it was there before she saw my face.
“You’re not Salvario?” she asks, in the same empty voice.
I want to say yes—I am Salvario. If I knew anything about that man, I would have definitely said that. But I know nothing.
“No,” I force out.
She looks down, her tears falling to the ground. My fists clench tighter. I’ve never felt this defeated in the life I remember.
“I’m sorry. I—I thought y—you were him.”
I can’t keep my hands down any longer. I reach for her, I need to pull her back into my arms. I don’t know if it will mend this broken state of hers, but I need it to make the pain in my chest go away. But she pulls back. She looks up one last time, through the wall of her tears, into my eyes, then turns and walks away.
I stay rooted there—for how long, I don’t know—until my phone rings. I pull it out and answer Logan’s call.
“Where are you? Don’t you want to go to her house?”
“I met her.”
“Where?” he asks instantly. “Wait… don’t tell me you were following her like some creep.”
I followed her this morning, when I saw her leave. I can’t help it, the need to be near her is more feral than the need to breathe. And when there’s an opening, I take it. Logan went to her house this morning, but the guards told him to come back in the afternoon. I knew that would happen, she was right in front of me at a burnt-out site then.
Someone destroyed this city a few years ago, and now she’s taken on the task of rebuilding it.
“Your silence is telling me you were. Now, man, tell me, have you lost whatever mind you had left? You know what’ll happen if her security spots you. For the sake of whatever god you believe in, get your stupid ass back here.”
“She thought I was someone else.” I ignore his rant and tell him what’s been eating at me since she left. “Salvario. Her lover, I think.”
He goes silent for a beat, then speaks. “And then?”
“She saw my face and realized I wasn’t him.”
The bastard laughs. “Karma’s a bitch, Hunter. Now you know how those girls felt. So sad, bro.”
“Find out who Salvario is, and where he is.”
