Ethan sighed, brushing a hand through his hair. “I didn’t have a choice, Amanda—not really. If they realized I wasn’t who they thought I was, I would have put all of us in danger. I might never have come home. They could’ve killed me. It’s not like I did it because I wanted to.”
“Didn’t you, on some level?” she shot back.
“That’s fucked up, Amanda.”
“You’re right, it is fucked up, Ethan, but you’re fucking her now, aren’t you?”
He averted his gaze, and Amanda nodded.
“You’re unbelievable. I honestly don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Something between a sob and a laugh shot out of her. “That is so far from being a good enough response, Ethan.”
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“Please, feed me another generic line.” She punctuated the sentence by ripping her cell phone charger out of the wall and throwing it in her suit case.
“Please don’t leave,” he said quietly.
“I don’t see that I have a choice. If you think I’m sleeping in this bed next to you tonight, you’re more delusional than you sound right now.”
He couldn’t really argue that. “Okay. Look, if someone has to leave, I’ll leave. Stop packing, I’ll—”
That time she looked up at him, her expression wounded. “No, Ethan, we’re leaving. I don’t feel safe in my own fucking house right now—and who the hell was that man? I have so many…fucking questions that I don’t even want to know the answers to. How could you keep all of this from me?”
Guilt walloped him. “It wasn’t easy. I… didn’t want you to… I thought I could shoulder it on my own and you’d never have to know.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Never have to know that the father of my children is a rapist? How magnanimous of you.”
His jaw locked—it was difficult not to be defensive with words like that being thrown at him. “Would you have preferred that I died? Because I would have. The ringleader didn’t fully trust me even after I did it, and since he was going to have me killed when I blew my cover, I’m pretty goddamn sure that I would have died before I ever got to tell the cops where the girls were being taken, so not only would I be dead right now, but all three of the girls who are home with their families right now—hurt, yes, but alive, and not living in forced prostitution—would be living in forced prostitution in the very best of scenarios. I’m not saying it’s okay, but I literally had no better option.”
Amanda hung her head, rifling through the suitcase. “And that may be true, Ethan, but it doesn’t mean I can forgive you. It isn’t my place to forgive you, honestly.”
“Give it time,” he said gently. “Even she forgave me.”
At that, her mouth thinned into a hard little line. “Yeah, I heard.”
“I’m so sorry, Amanda. It isn’t what you’re thinking—what it sounded like downstairs.”
“So you’re not fucking her, then?” she asked, looking up at him sharply, daring him to lie to her.
He forced himself to hold her gaze. “It was only once. I know that doesn’t make it better, but…” He had to avert his gaze then, sighing. “She was a goddamn virgi
n, Amanda. Lane and his band of psychopaths cheated her out of her first time, and…I was trying to help her.”
“With your dick,” she supplied.
“No, it wasn’t like that. We… were just sort of survivors of the same horrible experience at first, she couldn’t assimilate back into her life, she was haunted by dreams, she was afraid…to even walk out on her front porch after the sun went down. I felt terrible, and I just wanted to make it right. I just… I can’t even explain it, Amanda, because it sounds so much more fucked up than it was. She needed a friend.”
Amanda shook her head wordlessly. After a minute passed, she said, “I need you to get Alison’s suitcase out of the closet, I can’t reach it.”
After Amanda disappeared into the bathroom, Ethan closed his eyes for a few seconds, then he slowly made his way to the closet to get his daughter’s suitcase.
“Why isn’t Daddy coming?”
Ethan stood by the driver’s side window, forcing down the instinct to beg Amanda to reconsider—not in front of the kids.