Page 48 of Ricochet

I was wrong. Alec was wrong. We’d been so focused on Michael Culling that we’d failed to see the truth behind those fake smiles. The glaring, irrefutable fact—that Aubree wasn’t some political princess.

She was the abused maiden, locked in the tower. And I’d made her out to be a monster.

Jesus, what had I become over the last three years?

I stand at the window, looking out at the city below as I hold my newborn son in my arms. I hate this apartment, but at night, with him, it’s beautiful. It’s home.

“That’s the kind of sight that makes ovaries drop.”

I turn to see Lena leaned against the doorframe, in one of my T-shirts that hangs down to her knees.

“You better stop, or before you know it, you’ll be holding two.”

I lift an arm, holding Jay in the crook of my elbow. “Plenty of room.”

Crossing the floor, she nestles herself into my shoulder. “Just as long as you have a place for me.”

“Always.”

She glides a thumb down our son’s temple. “I can’t believe how much he sleeps. All those horror stories of sleepless nights.”

“Think he takes after his mom.” I laugh when she playfully slaps my ass.

Resting her head against my chest, she cradles his head in her palm and plants a kiss to his cheek. “I hope he takes after his dad.” Her face lifts to mine. “Promise me, no matter what—through the struggles, the lows, the highs, pain and happiness that’s ahead of us— whatever comes of these dreams we’re building now, promise me you’ll never change who you are inside, Nick.” She grips my nape and kisses me. “You’re a good man. And I couldn’t have chosen a better father for our son.”

I stared down at the swirling amber liquor before tipping it back. I hated what I’d become. Thief. Kidnapper. Killer. Bastard.

She’d have hated me, too.

What now? I couldn’t let Aubree go. Not yet. I wouldn’t send her back to the butcher who’d carved her back, but I couldn’t set her free, either. She played a role in it all, but the plan would need to be modified, because no way in hell I could hurt a woman who’d been victimized by the same bastard to whom I’d planned to feed a bullet.

I wouldn’t be killing her in the end, but I’d sure as hell be killing her husband. Unfortunately, Aubree still had to play the pawn.

In the meantime, there was something I owed her.

CHAPTER 21

Aubree

I slid to the floor beside my bed and buried my face in the covers. As if a dam had broken inside of me, the tears flowed without restraint, without any signs of stopping, and I succumbed to the encroaching tide that demolished all the perfectly stacked compartments inside of me.

It was my fault. I knew the scar was there, and that the stature I’d been given the last five years would have been staring him in the face if he’d slammed into my body, taking from me what I’d have been perfectly willing to give, had it meant freedom in the end. Perhaps a part of me wanted to blow whatever Barbie Doll image he’d conjured in his head right out of the water. I wanted to give him the smallest glimpse of my secrets.

I hadn’t counted on him attempting to breach my defenses. He’d made it clear in the last few days that he’d no intentions of knowing about me or trying to humanize me in any way. I was a caged animal—a stolen prize, from which he hoped to gain.

It was why he’d worn the gloves the first day. Touching skin meant touching the soul, connecting with another person in a way that couldn’t be made pure and chaste again.

In truth, I’d wanted him in that moment. Not just for my freedom. His kiss had surged with passion and anger, fervor and fury, and I’d wanted to be trapped inside that violent storm of confusion. I’d wanted it to crash over me, consume me, and drag me to the depths of whatever darkness it’d recede, because at least in those moments of trying to catch my breath, I’d feel alive. For once, I’d feel a reason to fight my way back.

Michael must have hurt him, too, somehow. I could sense it, feel it seeping into my bones when his fingers had dug into my flesh. In that, we shared a connection. Perhaps Nick and I were opposites in life, as he said, but in pain, we were the same.

Two broken halves, with jagged edges that seemed to fit together in some messed up way.

To hell with the fact that I was a married woman. My husband broke his vows to honor and protect the moment he laid a hand on me, so fuck him. I’d spent seven years locked in a prison of pain, devoid of emotion, and for once, it felt good to feel something. I couldn’t say it was entirely lust, because an undercurrent of ferocity had laced every action—mine and his. In that intensity, though, I’d felt a certain passion, a hunger that I’d never experienced with Michael—or any man, for that matter.

In one moment of weakness, of unabashed bliss, I’d surrendered to the exquisite destruction of Nick’s kiss. My fingers traced my lips, remembering the feel of his mouth on mine.

How easily I’d have given him more. A thought that scared the shit out of me.