Take (Deliver 5)

“I don’t believe that. All humans are capable of giving and receiving love. Everyone has a someone out there.”

“Semira believed the same when she married me. I loved her deeply, and no matter what I did to earn her love, her feelings never developed. It was hard for her to bear, knowing that while I cherished her above all else, she couldn’t bring herself to reciprocate. She wanted to fill that void with children, and I would’ve done anything to give her that. But I couldn’t. It was another part of me that didn’t work. Another thing for her to resent.”

Jesus. He had years to dwell on this, to let it eat at him, and now his infatuation with the romance between Tate and Lucia had an explanation. It seemed his own failed relationship had fostered a fascination with happy endings.

Was it possible that he craved love?

She wanted to know about his wife’s death. It seemed that was the key to everything. “Why did your colleague betray you?”

“Because the good guys aren’t always the good guys. Integrity isn’t a guarantee, just because you’re fighting on the right side of the law.”

“So your colleague was a traitor?”

“I can’t talk about the fucking job.” His voice vibrated with so much threat it stopped her heart.

“Will you just explain one thing?” Swallowing hard, she sat taller and glared at his back. “You went from a straight life to that of a crime lord. It changed when your wife was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“You said it isn’t about the job, yet the job was connected to your wife’s death. You must hold resentment for everything that life represented—the legitimacy of it, the paid taxes and moral righteousness. Could it be that if you let go of that grudge, you might—”

“Be a better man?” He barked out a self-depreciating laugh. “When I held Semira in my arms, with her intestines in her lap and her life spilling through my fingers, it was neither love nor hate that shone from her eyes. The last look she gave me was saturated with pity. Pity for a husband she couldn’t love, even in death. Pity because she knew that without her, I would forever be alone, because no one would put as much effort into me as she did. I hated her for that. I hated her pity to the depths of my soul, and I made damn fucking sure no one would ever give me that look again.”

He became a monster.

In a deranged, fucked-up way, it made so much sense. Monsters were abhorred and feared, but never pitied. In that, he’d succeeded.

Kate had never felt bad for him. Never felt sorrow or disappointment. Not even now. Because it was inconceivable to think of him as weak or helpless. He didn’t evoke that oh-you-poor-thing, head-patting kind of emotion from anyone.

What she did feel was compassion. That innate goodness that most people possessed was what compelled her to sway toward him, filling her with the perverse need to comfort him for the pain he had inflicted on her.

Talk about messed up. But the more she thought about it, the more she understood. For the first time, she felt a real sense of hope.

Hope for him.

He was a self-aware bully, open-minded and regretful, imperfect and human. She could work with that, relate to it, and maybe, just maybe, she could convince him to let her go.

“A terrible thing happened to you.” She quietly inched to the side of the bed. “But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can change the course of your life. Stop kidnapping and terrorizing people.”

His neck slowly turned, bringing the intensity of his eyes over his shoulder to grab hold of hers. “I’ll stop being heartless when you stop looking at me like it’s the only thing I am.”

She emptied her expression but couldn’t clear the guilt. It stuck in the press of her lips, accusing and judgmental.

“Or don’t stop.” He jerked back around. “Either way, it doesn’t change your circumstances.”

Reality crashed in, banging in her chest. What was she doing trying to reason with her captor? He just fucked her ruthlessly, while she screamed no until her throat bled. He didn’t give a shit about her.

Except something was happening deep in her gut. She felt this coiling, fierce objection to putting him in a category marked Irredeemable. He was so much more than a bad man, and she’d only scratched the surface.

Or maybe she really was just suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

Why had he shared his past with her? Was it a call for help? Was he begging her to see past his imposing, brutal good looks? Or was it a trick? A ploy to engender feelings from her so he could use them against her later?

An unusual sound broke through her introspection.

The plop of wet drops hit the floor near his position.