Pretending to adjust her position, she pulled away from him. He only compensated, touching her along her whole left side, zappin
g every inch of her flesh with agitation. She had to spit out a conclusion and hope it would satisfy him.
“When I asked what would happen if I couldn’t get close enough to you or if it took too long to do so, he said not to worry. He’d do everything to give me all the resources and time I needed to get him his proof. Then, I guess to make me committed to his cause, he said if I got him the proof he needed, he would ensure my freedom from The Organization.”
Everything she’d said so far had been specifics of the facts he had already known or deduced. Nothing seemed to surprise him.
She went on, “He said he’d extort you for a huge sum, pretending it was his price for not exposing you. He said he’d give me a portion of the money to build a new life for myself, and to fake my death so The Organization wouldn’t look for me. Just promising me that behind my handler’s back, he told me he would betray anyone to get what he wanted, starting with me. But I had no option but to do as he wanted, and to keep his secret. It was clearly implied my life depended on both actions.” She paused, taking a shallow, shaky breath. “The rest you know. I came after you with my fabricated identity, and we became lovers until I slipped and you found me out. We made the deal and I managed to escape Medvedev after misleading him. I used the money to create a new identity and fake the death of the old one.”
She fell silent, but Raiden’s eyes continued to set her every nerve aflame. He was waiting for her to confess more.
She couldn’t. The rest was just too horrible.
When he made sure she wasn’t adding more, Raiden faced her fully. “Knowing Medvedev and his obsession with me, and what I cost him when I escaped him, being thwarted once wouldn’t have stopped him. He would have never stopped. That was the biggest question I had when you told me he was the one who recruited you—how he let you go, how he didn’t come after me again. But now I know how.”
Her heart stopped as she prayed he only thought he did.
Then he went on and her prayers were aborted.
“He died five years ago, stabbed in the eye in a hotel room.” His eyes turned to infernos as he pulled her closer. “It was you who killed him, wasn’t it?”
Seven
Raiden’s words weren’t a question. Just a statement demanding only the corroboration of details. They ricocheted in Scarlett’s head until she felt it would burst.
It was you who killed him, wasn’t it?
Needing to silence the reverberations, she tore herself out of his hold, feeling as if her flesh had peeled in his hands.
But he wouldn’t let her get far. He caught her back into a fierce embrace. “Just tell me, Scarlett.”
The terrible memories welled like poison-tinged ink in her system. “Please, Raiden. Don’t make me.”
His embrace tightened, the hand pressing her head into his expansive chest, convulsing as if he wanted to push her into his rib cage, hide her inside him. “Let it all out, Scarlett. Let me relieve you of it. Let me take it all on for you.”
She writhed in his hold, as if she was drowning and trying to kick to the surface. But he held her tighter, letting her know he wasn’t letting it go this time. For he must know she hadn’t told him everything. Not only about Medvedev but about her, them, everything. And he wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than the whole truth now.
Unable to make such confessions while in his arms, she choked, “I’ll tell you everything...just...just let me breathe.”
Cursing himself ferociously, Raiden let her go at once, thinking he’d been suffocating her. She didn’t have enough breath to tell him he wasn’t the one starving her of oxygen. It was the thought of letting go.
It was harder than she’d expected to let go of the masks she’d hidden behind since she was seven years old. Tearing off her facade was almost as scary as the thought of tearing a layer of skin off her face.
She sat there beside him, feeling his empathic gaze sear her, gathering every spark of will and courage to do what she must do. Show him the real her for the first time.
Inhaling one last bracing breath, she looked him in the eyes and let her barriers crumble.
Raiden’s eyes shot wider, his nostrils flared, his chest deflating as if she’d punched him in the gut. That meant she’d managed to show him inside her. And it flabbergasted him.
She let go of her last reluctance. “About Medvedev...”
A finger on her lips stopped her halting words, his face gripped with emotions she’d never seen. They were so complex, she couldn’t fathom them. “Start at the beginning, Scarlett. Tell me everything from before you approached me.”
Nothing but every last detail would satisfy him, would it? As it shouldn’t. She owed him at least that.
Nodding, she let out a ragged exhalation. “Before I did, I investigated you, as I always did, to tailor my approach to every...case. But you were an enigma, with no information indicating your character. So I watched you, and from my observations, I knew you wouldn’t respond favorably to a direct approach, wouldn’t respond to overt seduction, like almost all men in my experience.”
His teeth gritted, his frown deepening. No doubt he hated hearing how he’d been a mission, how there’d been so many before him.