“Lock it,” I said between sips. “Put the chair back under the knob.”
“Fucking A, Ari,” he said as he did as I’d asked. Then he gently clasped my biceps and demanded in a low tone, “What the hell happened to you?”
His gaze roved my face. I saw the shock and pain in his blue eyes. Mixed with instant anguish.
Shifting away from him, I set the tumbler on the counter and said, “I walked into a door.”
“You fucking—Goddamn it!” His outburst filled the room. “You can’t just say shit like that! Tell me, seriously.”
I turned back to him. “Why are you here?”
“What?” His brow furrowed. “You haven’t been at the hotel in two days and Dane looks like … Christ.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what the hell Dane looks like, but the best way to describe it is the walking dead. He’s so … not there. Even when he is.” Another shake of his head. Then he said, “I had to get up in his grill, you know? Demand to know where you’ve been and why he looks all zombie-ish … I mean, still intimidating as hell. What is it with that guy?” he added under his breath.
I knew that expression he was talking about—the one where Dane was clearly someplace dark and scary in his mind. “So, what … he told you?”
“Sort of.” Kyle whirled around and slammed his hand on the counter. “Fuck, Ari. Your face.”
“Stop looking at it if it bothers you,” I hissed. “I didn’t invite you here.”
His head whipped in my direction, his jaw tight, his eyes flashing with anger and concern. “Hell, yes, it bothers me. One side is black and purple. You’ve got a bandage peeling off a cut that might actually need stitches. Your skin’s sallow and you have the most vacant expression of anyone other than your goddamn zombie boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” I returned to the sofa. “Not anymore.”
“Ah, fuck.”
Kyle sank into the chair adjacent to me. “What’s going on, Ari? I mean, I got all Rambo on the dude and he let me. In what world would that happen?”
Ignoring that sentiment, I asked, “What’d he say?”
“That he’d appreciate it if I checked on you. That I was probably the only one you’d see, the only one you’d talk to.”
I gave a small, humorless laugh. “He knows me too well.”
Between clenched teeth, Kyle said, “It was these people fucking with the Lux that came after you, right? Or…” He glanced away, then flicked a look back at me that was pure challenge wrapped in agony. “Or did he do this to you?”
My eyes bulged.
Oh. My. God.
I pressed a hand to my mouth as my heart wrenched. Acutely painful as the days before. Would this torture never end?
Dragging my hand away, I insisted, “You can’t think that. Don’t ever, ever think it. He wouldn’t do this to me. He never would, Kyle.” My tone became more assertive. “All he wanted to do was protect me—and the Lux. All he cared about was making sure no one hurt me. No one. He’s been twenty-four-seven tormented with anything bad happening to me for reasons beyond his control. My God!” I jumped to my feet, even though that made the throbbing in my face and head return. “He’s not the bad guy!”
I stared at Kyle as something shifted inside me. Tears burned my eyes. I sank onto the sofa. “Oh, my God.”
“What?” he demanded.
The drops rolled down my cheeks once again. My insides were raw, as if I’d been sliced open by my own machinations.
“He didn’t do this to me,” I whispered. “He did everything he could to keep me safe. Same with Amano—for Dane’s sake as much as mine. It’s just that someone was a step ahead of him, from almost the beginning. It’s not his fault. None of this is his fault.”
The tears came faster.
“Hey, Ari.” Kyle moved to the sofa, sitting next to me and draping an arm around my shoulders. “Come on. This is crazy.”
“Yes. It is. And so beyond fucked up. But Kyle, it’s not Dane’s fault,” I insisted. “I thought he was the villain when I watched him beat the hell out of the guy who’d kidnapped me and almost ra—” I shook that thought out of my head, not wanting to share it. “I couldn’t reconcile any of it in my mind, because I was so terrified. But everything Dane has done, did that night, all comes down to saving what’s his. The hotel. Me.”
Kyle grunted.