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I glare at him again. Recalling those initial conversations we used to have. And it is abundantly clear to me now why they paired me with River.

He was sly. He was cunning. And he was so easily able to convince me he was nothing more than a boy. Just like me. A boy who I related to. One who I trusted.

"Before you get angry," River interrupts my thoughts, "Just know this, Javi. My friendship with you was real and sincere. That was not a lie."

"Everything you have told me is a lie," I sneer.

"Not that," he insists. "You were the only friend I had. They made me kill all my others."

I do not feel bad for him. Even when he goes on. Because it doesn't matter. Nothing he says matters anymore. I do not care about this girl or his plight. I only care about his reasons for bringing me here. For keeping me here.

"This story is boring me," I tell him. "If you have a point, River, get to it."

He nods. Retrieves another apple from his pocket and tosses it between his hands.

"They were watching me," he says. "Surreal, I know. It's the agency. But you get comfortable. You get it in your head that you are not the one they don't trust. That you are one of them. You do everything they ask of you. Why would they need to watch you?"

"So they found the girl," I say.

"They found the girl."

He turns away so that I cannot see the emotion on his face. Emotion that is rare for River. I thought he was a sociopath, and I did not judge him for it.

All those times he told me I was weak with Bella, I thought he was right. But I judge him for this because he is the one who is weak now. I tell him as much, but he ignores me.

"When they discovered her, they decided to make an example of me," he says. "They put her into the program. The assassins program."

They turned her into a killer.

Before he even tells me, I know how this story will end. The agency is predictable, at least in this one respect.

"She will come for you," I say.

"She will," he agrees. "And she will try to kill me. They've turned her against me."

"Then she was weak too," I observe.

This time, it is River who sneers in my direction.

"As weak as your Isabella?"

"My Bella has more strength in her little finger than you will ever possess.”

"You should hope so," he tells me. "Since you have abandoned her."

His words enrage me. I fight against the chains again, but it is no use. River is a skilled assassin. He would not do anything halfway. And most especially not with the likes of me.

“I did what was best for her,” I snarl. “I was wrong. I was wrong to listen to you. To use her for my revenge. She does not deserve to be tortured anymore. She deserves to live in peace.”

River stops. His face is serious now. So serious I know that he is not fucking with me this time.

“How can she ever live in peace when she carries your child?”

My limbs grow heavy, and my heartbeat sluggish.There is an ache in the back of my throat. A chill in my spine.

My child?

Isabella carries my child. I need to get to her. I was wrong. So wrong. She believes I am dead. That I have abandoned her. My Bella.

It is pure agony to imagine her, swollen with my baby. Crying in her bed with nothing more than her vile father to comfort her.

“I must go to her,” I tell River. “Let me go.”

“Sorry,” he says again. “But I was making a point before if you’d let me get back to it. This information will only serve to hasten my purpose for you now. And perhaps make you more willing to help.”

I thrash against the chains again until I am bloody, screaming out my loathing for him. He waits until I am calm before he explains.

"I am doing you a favor," he insists. "I know you will see this in time."

"You need not worry about your girl," I tell him. "Because I will kill you myself."

"Think of her father," River says. "Of what he did to you, Javi. Are you really ready to let that go?"

I do not answer him. But I can feel the vein in my throat, throbbing. The desire is still there.The desire to kill Ray. I don't know if I can let it go. River knows this. And he is using my own methods on me, quite effectively.

The agency may train us in the art of psychological warfare, but they cannot make us immune to our own methods.

"You only ever had two options, Javi," he says. "In the worst-case scenario, Isabella would have been poisoned by her father. He would have turned her back against you if he hasn't already."

"No," I argue.

"You are a skilled manipulator," River acknowledges. "I will give you this, Jav. But Ray is even more skilled than you or me. It is how he fooled you before. How do you think his own daughter will respond to his tactics?"

I shake my head and try to deny it. I don’t want to accept that it could be true. I don't want to believe it. River knows that everyone I have ever cared for has betrayed me, and he is exploiting that in the same way I exploited Isabella's fears.

"Trauma bonding," River continues, "is a powerful weapon. But the bond must remain for that relationship and dependency to flourish. You know as well as I do that Ray would not allow that to happen."

"No," I say again. "Isabella is not like us. She can forgive. She can..."

"That's the lie we all want to believe," River cuts me off. "Just as my girl's feelings were real too. Until the agency got a hold of her. Until they turned her into a killer. Just as our friendship was real, even as I lied to you, Javi. Even as I betrayed you like all the others before you."

"Bella is not that way," I insist.

But even I am starting to doubt myself. I am uncertain if she hates me now, just as I predicted. It was her hope for survival. She had only convinced herself that she cared for me to survive the circumstances of her situation.

"I don't think I need to remind you of the second scenario," River goes on. "But let's be hypothetical for a moment. Say that your Bella is as strong as you insist she is. Say that despite the odds and well documented psychological evidence to the contrary, her feelings for you endured in your absence. Would those feelings sustain even when you murdered her beloved father?"

I do not answer him because I already know the answer. The answer is no. Bella could not love me if I killed Ray. She could not forgive me for that.

"It is bound to happen," River says. "You know it, Jav. I know it. Let's not lie to ourselves anymore, okay? You would have to kill him. It's the only way."

"No," I argue.

"It's not so bad. You have accomplished what you set out to do. You have destroyed Ray by destroying his daughter. And now he must live with those consequences."

"You will not sway me," I tell him. "There is nothing you can say that will stop me from killing you and going back to Bella."

River sighs. Then he stops tossing the apple between his palms to meet my gaze.

"Nothing?" he repeats. "Oh but Jav, I'm afraid you're wrong about that."

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

THE SCENT of tobacco is the first thing to hit me. Tobacco and pipe smoke.

I see his shoes before I ever see his face. It's always the shoes that I remember. The shoes that have walked in and out of my life over the years. Shoes give away so much about a man. The way he wears them. The way he maintains them.

And in Ray Rossi's case, it is the way he shines them so meticulously. Cleaning up the evidence of where he's been. The things he has done.

My mother always told me that if someone’s shoes were too clean, it was because they had something to hide. In that respect, I believe she was right.

Ray has many secrets and many faces.

He hides his true nature well. Especially now, in his older years. Beneath the fuzzy gray of his mustache and the softness in his fading eyes, there lurks a master of exploitation.

I was only a boy when he came for me. A boy who had lost everything. A boy who the world believed ha

d viciously killed his own mother. And Ray was the only one who looked at me as if I did not.

He disguised himself. A wolf in sheep's clothing. I wanted to believe he would help me. But once upon a time, I wanted to believe that my mother would get better too.

Now here we are, years later. I am a man, and he is old and gray. I intended to exact my revenge. I planned it out so precisely. But instead, I fell in love with his daughter.

"Surprised to see me, Javier?" he asks.

I do not reply but instead look to River. He remains by the door, silent. The friend I trusted, working with my enemy all along.

"You should not be," Ray says. "You must have known this day would come. You must have known the moment you touched Isa, you would die."

This time, I do meet his eyes. And I make it known that I am no longer a boy. His threats mean nothing to me, and Ray must know there is nothing he can do that is worse than what I put his daughter through.

I was a monster to her. And still, she fell in love with me. I smile, thinking of her beautiful face.