“Ah,” she murmured, finally seeming to understand. Her fingers trailed along the side of my face, “You think me trying to leave you again is inevitable.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she kissed me deeply.
“Mason, when you were breaking my heart, trust, and sanity, even then I neverwantedto leave you.” I met her gaze, surprised to find the sheen of unshed tears when her voice sounded perfectly normal, “I am where I want to be and doing my best to let the past go. It would help if you did the same. We're married. You are stuck with me. I won't betray you, I promise.”
“Choice isn’t the only way you could leave me, and I’ve almost watched that happen too.” The thought of her riddled with bullets and cold filled my mind, clouding my vision with rage. “I can’t think of a greater betrayal than you leaving me in this world without you.”
“Mason, I won’t. Have some faith in us!”
“Being too trusting is how you die in this life,” I told her as I captured the hand trailing my jaw with my own and moved it to my lips.
“Then we die,” she shrugged like it was that simple.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” she disagreed, “I would much rather be dead than trust no one and spend the rest of my life assuming the other shoe was always going to drop.”
Her words caused a deep ache in my chest. The other shoe was always waiting to drop. “That's exactly what will be required of you if we make it out of this alive and I take my father's position.”
“No! That’s what your father did,” she patted my cheek. “You are not him. He's a wife-beating rapist cunt. You’re a better man than he could ever dream of being, Mason, and there’s no way in hell I’ll let you accept the fateheorchestrated for you.”
I felt my cheeks growing hot, and my throat thickened, but she pressed on. “He's not God. It may feel like he has all the power here, but he has nothing real, nothingworthanything. I won’t let him ruin your life.”
When I told Claire about what he had done to my mother, the way she cried for me… It was still hard to accept she could feel so aggrieved on my behalf.
Her words reached inside me, simultaneously soothing and poking at something aching and sore, “Do you think that's possible? That I can take his place andnotbecome him?”
The sparkling sound of her laughter filled the room, “Yes, Mase. You could never be him.”
I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed the back before biting the tip of each finger. “Thank you, baby. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mase. No matter what. Speaking of your love for me, all the things you did to find Mila, you did them for me, didn’t you?”
I shrugged around her. “No, I did them for Victor. I'm worried about what he'll do if we don't find her. I'm hoping that if I can prove she left, he'll let whatever this is go.”
“Do youreallythink he will?”
“I don't know. He yelled at you, and while that may not sound like a big deal, that's incredibly unlike Victor.”
She sighed, fully emptying her lungs, “I know it is. Why does he care so much about her?”
“I'm not sure. But if I had to guess, I would say she reminds him of his mom. She's nineteen, has been forced into a horrible life, stolen from what she knew and loved, and separated from her child. I think Vick sees a chance to right the wrongs done to his mother through her and can't help getting involved.”
“I wonder if he has feelings for her.”
Holy shit.That couldn’t be it, “I don’t think so.”
She shrugged once more. “Maybe not, but he is taking this personally, and I'm not convinced it has anything to do with his mother.”
I patted her knee, agreeing to disagree.
A few hours later, I got a call from James telling me the surveillance team had found a dip in the footage from the library around when Mila disappeared. It wasn't likely that it had anything to do with her since service dips weren't uncommon, the building was old, and the wiring was dated.
“I'm going to head to the library and check things out with Victor.”
“Why?” Claire asked as she stretched from her spot on the couch. I explained why we were going, and she nodded. “I'll come.”
“You should stay home and relax,” I tried to sound nonchalant, like staying home was a lovely option. But the expression on her face told me she wasn't having it.