“Is that the question you want to ask me first?” she has the audacity to say.
“Yes,” I growl.
Her eyes lighten, and a sly smile lifts on her cheek. “You’re always asking the wrong questions. Always putting faith in the wrong people. I’ll answer your question, but it will be the last one I answer.”
I frown.
What other questions do I have? A million, but none seem as important.
My eyes roam up and down her broken body. I don’t know how many bones Enzo broke; I just know that he did. Bile slips up my throat at everything this woman and I have been through together.
I married her.
Fucked her.
Thought she was the mother of my child.
I gave her my most precious possessions to take care of—my children.
I realize a question I need answering before she tells me where Rose is.
“Did you ever hurt them? Abuse them? Did you get your jollies off on hurting them?”
She looks me dead in the eyes. “I never hurt them.”
A sea of relief floods me at her words. But why should I believe her?
“I don’t believe you.”
She shrugs. “That’s up to you, but my conscience is clean.”
She’s baiting me. But why?
“I thought you loved me. I thought that’s why you married me. Not to control me and get my children to trust you until the time came for you to take them.”
“You’re upset that I didn’t love you? That our marriage was a scam? Our marriage would have been a scam whether or not I took Rose from you. You never loved me. It was always
her.”
She’s not wrong.
“You lied to me! You tricked me.”
“You lied to me. You tricked me,” she says right back.
I want to scream. I want to rip her apart and then put her back together only to rip her apart again.
I don’t trust her.
I don’t know if she ever hurt the kids.
I don’t even know if she’s hiding Rose somewhere safe.
But I have one more question before I find out where Rose is.
“Why? Why start all of this? Why marry me? Why take the kids? Why is Liesel’s treasure so important?”
She licks her lips and tosses her hair out of her face. “Now, you’re finally asking the right questions.”