Desiree
The squint on my face was growing deeper as I stared at pictures of myself while fighting to understand Khane. I turned back to him and aimed my finger over my shoulder at the collage featuring images of me at every imaginable angle. There were so many pictures that they took up the full back wall of the closet, some overlapping others.
“Were these all taken from a distance? Were you ever close enough to touch me? Did you ever sneak into my apartment? Did you stand over me while I slept?”
He shook his head. “I observed at a distance. Never entered your apartment. I never got too close.” There was no hint of regret. I don’t even think he was ashamed of what he had done. His confirmation that he hadn’t been stalking me closely provided a little relief, but not enough for me to relax.
Why wasn’t I running and screaming my head off at this situation? Because you’re on top of a mountain with no place to run, the irritating voice in my head decided to remind me. Because he kills people for a living and could take you out within seconds. I shook off the warnings I tried to give myself.
After another long hard stare at the wall, I turned and faced Khane full-on.
“We need to talk.” I marched past him, my eyes formed into slits as my feet slapped hard against the floor.
My sharp tone made him tense, but he followed me from the closet. Neither of us spoke a word as my quick steps sounded until we were in his living room. I pointed at the couch, demanding that he sit. The Evans’ temper had emerged, and I no longer cared who the hell Khane was, because right now, I intended to give him a piece of my mind.
He clamped his mouth shut, but I had caught his dropped jaw and quick eyes when it registered that I wasn’t afraid of him, even in light of what he had revealed. I sat on the couch next to him and turned so that I could get a close view of his face as we talked.
“I know why you showed me your little shrine.” It was anything but little, but I had to find a way to minimize it in my own head. “I know you know that I’m drawn to you, attracted to you, and in a desperate attempt to scare me off, you revealed what may have been one of your deepest secrets.”
A few quick breaths rushed out and sounded loud in my ears as I sat waiting and staring at him. “Make me understand this, Khane. I need to understand how you, the epitome of strength and confidence, could fear approaching me enough to do something like this.”
He eyed me, unblinking, before releasing a harsh breath. He squinted before closing his eyes for a few seconds, his head tilting in what appeared to be confusion. He eased back into the couch, brushing his hand along his legs before releasing a sigh. He reconnected his gaze with mine when he was ready to talk.
“I didn’t fear approaching you. I had been taught not to. I had been taught to live in the dark. Hunt, kill, train, and use anger as my motivator. I was trained to look the part, to act the part, and to play the roles, but I had never allowed myself to enjoy anything other than what I had been trained to love. After our father, Arjen caught on quickly to the fact that we could start embracing other joys in life.”
The anguish in his tone was palpable, a living representation of the pain he had endured. I wanted to know so much more and wondered if he would tell me if I asked. For now, I needed to focus and figure out why he had me as the wallpaper in his closet.
“When I saw you that night at the party, it set something off in me. That one encounter with you, that one shared touch was like an awakening. It was like a calling that revealed to me that I wasn’t all monster, that I didn’t have to be all monster, and that there was more to be had than what was drilled into my head. However, the fact still remained, that I was still a monster who had nothing to bring to the table but death.”
His words were a revelation of release and warning. A strange combination of fear and concern kept me glued to my seat.
“After that night, the thought of you would ease the tension and calm the monster inside. For the first time in my life, I wanted more. I wanted to see you again. I wanted to see if I had imagined the brief connection we shared. I discovered that being in your presence, even at a distance, gave me a certain level of solace I couldn’t get anywhere else.
“You became my therapy. I made you the anchor I needed to ground me when I was on the verge of losing my self-control. You were my way of dealing with mental demons. I had also convinced myself that you were so far out of my league that it wasn’t possible that you would even talk, let alone interact with me. Although I didn’t fear approaching you, in my head, it made no logical since to do so. Until you revealed it tonight, I didn’t think you knew I even existed.”
The crease in my forehead deepened. “I have always been approachable and easy going. It’s one of the reasons I became an easy target in my family. What about me made you think that I was out of your league?”
He turned his hands up in an I-don’t-know gesture before he dropped them. “I believe in being real with myself. You are a beautiful woman, inside and out. It radiates from you and pulls people in. No matter where you went, men would stare and ask you out and people wanted to be around you. The fact that even my brother liked you was reason enough for me to keep my distance. Arjen rarely even looks at a woman twice, but you he remembered.
“The way I saw it, you could have whoever you wanted. So, naturally, I asked myself, why would you want me? I had nothing to offer you. We had nothing in common. Honestly, I have nothing to offer any self-respecting woman, but a life in the syndicate, and a partner who puts on guns instead of suits for his job.”
Why was I shaking my head at him when he was right? My eyes closed as I gathered myself. “You are right. But, only about some of it. If you’ve been spying on me like you said then you saw the kind of riff-raff I attracted. The horrible choices I have made with men. Have you seen me truly happy with any of the men I’ve dated?”
“No. But…” He dropped his head this time, and his eyes squinted like he was carefully contemplating his next words.
“But what?” I asked. When he appeared to avoid meeting my gaze, I bent to capture his. “Khane?”
“There were a few times I intervened.”
Intervened?The implication of his words was driving another flood of anger through me.
My breaths grew sharp, and I eased back to eyeball every inch of him. “Are you telling me that you were sabotaging my relationships?”
His gaze met mine this time, his nonchalant expression letting me know he couldn’t care less about the actions he’d taken. “Only the ones I knew would end up hurting you.”
“Explain!” I barked the word through bared teeth. I was like one of those little dogs that attacked the big dogs that could bite them in half with one chomp.
“If I found out the men were already in a relationship or married, or abusive, I intervened. I threatened some. Keith, from a few years ago, was twice divorced and had two domestic disturbance charges filed on him by his exes. Marcos had a long-time girlfriend that would get violent towards the women he had cheated on her with. Liam was an ex-con who had served two years on a rape charge.”