“I told them it was in their best interest to back down, since it was them who wouldn’t survive a confrontation.”
A huff of incredulity escaped her. “I bet you weren’t even exaggerating.”
His look was what she expected a god would give a mortal who asked if he could smite him down. “I never exaggerate. They’re formidable warriors, but their genius is in intelligence, applied sciences, medicine and subterfuge. My virtuosity is in termination.”
“You’re no slouch in intelligence and subterfuge yourself,” she mumbled, remembering how he’d totally taken her in. Suddenly a terrible thought crossed her mind. “But since you survived without a scratch, does that mean...?”
An eyebrow arched. “You think I’d spend years planning to help them escape, only to kill them when they got their knickers in a twist?”
She exhaled in relief. “So how did it end with both sides alive, if you didn’t put them straight and antagonized them in the most provocative method you could?”
“I was just stating facts. If they hadn’t been using their macho hindbrains, they would have realized if I was the enemy, they would have all been already dead. Luckily, before I had to drive my point home, Numbers put himself between us and they backed down only for him. I let them continue thinking what they liked. I wasn’t interested in becoming their friend, just in leading them in establishing our joint business.”
“All your partners in Black Castle Enterprises are escapees from The Organization.”
It wasn’t a question but a realization. And it explained everything. Those men were all larger-than-life; they must have been forged in the same hell Richard had been.
He nodded. “Once I made sure they were safe and our plan to dismantle The Organization was in motion, I could finally take my revenge on Burton. You know the rest.”
No. She’d only thought she did.
It turned out she’d known nothing.
Now she did. And the more everything he’d just told her sank in, the more baffled and devastated she was. It did horrify her. But not in the way he’d thought.
He’d thought knowing he’d been the top executioner in such an evil establishment would validate her suspicions about him and...well, horrify her. What agonized her was realizing how much more nightmarish his life had been than hers. And that he’d had the best justification for all he’d done.
In fact, believing her to be Burton’s willing wife, it was a wonder he hadn’t punished her as viciously as he had him. It said a lot about the extent of his desire that it had curbed his killer instincts and stayed his hand.
Not that such desire mattered now. Those earth-shaking disclosures didn’t change a thing.
While he might still want her, everything that had happened to him in the past had made him what he was now. If there was one man on earth who was unavailable for a
nything...human, it was him. That he hadn’t said a thing about Mauri was proof positive of that.
So what she’d come here to tell him stood. She couldn’t afford to have him in her life.
No matter that she craved him like a drug.
Her priority remained Mauri.
Inhaling a breath that burned like tear gas, she rose to her feet. He remained sitting, not even looking at her.
She waited until he looked up. “It’s great we got things out in the open. But now you know my real history, you know I am not a danger to Rose, either myself or by association. Now we can go our separate ways, never to cross paths again.”
Before he could say anything, she turned and rushed away.
It turned out she didn’t have to worry. He just brooded after her in silence.
Once at the door, she remembered he had to open it for her. Before she could walk back to ask him to, the door opened. She hurried out, relieved, demolished.
This was it. It was over for good this time.
She’d never see Richard again.
Eight
When Rose entered her office the next morning, Isabella wasn’t a mute, paralyzed mass like yesterday. She was a hopeless, miserable one.