She’d fought for her life and defeated a professional hitman. Admiration didn’t begin to express how he felt about her. A heady, complex cocktail of emotions hammered at him, mixing with adrenaline and twisting in his stomach.
He’d lost her four days ago. Almost lost her for good today.
Just like that, he forgave her for invading his privacy. Her life was in danger, and he felt responsible for that. He shouldn’t have let her leave with the detective. He should’ve fucking protected her.
She wasn’t the enemy.
Fate was giving him a second chance. A chance to right his wrongs with her and maybe, just maybe, find happiness again. He wouldn’t fuck it up. He’d meant what he told her. Tonight, he would begin anew.
A fresh start.
With her.
His mind had gone there so quickly. The instant he thought she was dead was the exact moment he realized she was more than the best sex of his life. More than a throat he wanted to throttle. More than any word he’d ever written in an email.
He survived Caroline’s death. But he knew, deep in his fractured soul, he wouldn’t survive Rylee’s.
The simmering sensations at the base of his throat, behind his breastbone, and in the pit of his stomach were an accumulation of violence and desire, chemistry and possessiveness, fire and rage. The extreme passion she produced in him was the antithesis of the tender, doting innocence he’d felt with Caroline.
It was difficult to think about, but he couldn’t help but wonder if he and Caroline would’ve been as compatible as adults as they’d been as children. Caroline had been a gentle soul, sweetly passive, always smiling. If she hadn’t died, he probably would’ve still gone to Austin, grieving the loss of his mother, and ended up in Van’s attic.
That experience had fundamentally changed him. Ten years later, he didn’t want Caroline’s kindhearted brand of love. He wanted explosive, no-holds-barred, raging, brutal passion.
He wanted Rylee.
But she wasn’t ready to hear any of this.
“Where are we going?” She sat beside him in the backseat of the SUV with her hands balled on her lap.
Liv drove in silence with Luke in the front seat next to her.
“A safe house.” Tomas would eventually have to tell her it was thirteen hours away.
“How did you find me?”
“When you left with the detective,” he said, “I called in my team. We traced your credit card and identified the cash machine you used. It took us several days to track down the motel employee who helped you.”
“She told you where I was?” She heaved a frustrated sound. “I paid her an extra two-hundred to keep her mouth shut.” Her shoulders tensed, and her gaze flashed to him in the dark. “Tell me you didn’t hurt her.”
Rule number one in this business: Never leave loose ends.
But Rylee didn’t live in his world. She didn’t know.
“The motel clerk took her bounty of cash and drove to San Antonio,” he said. “A spontaneous vacation to visit a friend. If she hadn’t left town so quickly, we would’ve located you within twenty-four hours.”
“What did you do, Tommy?” She shifted to face him, her voice rising. “Answer me.”
He had a lot of bad news to give her. Christ, she’d already been through so much. He wanted to spare her this. For just a little while longer.
“She just butchered a man, Tomas.” Liv met his eyes in the rearview, her voice melodic yet icy in its command. “Don’t coddle the woman. She can handle it.”
He knew that. Fuck, he still wore the vicious marks of Rylee’s claws and teeth. He knew exactly how she handled things.
With a steeling breath, he turned toward her.
“The hitman located the girl before we did.” He reached for her face, her expression falling, collapsing in agony before his eyes.
“No.” She jerked away, shaking her head. “No, no, no!”
“She’s dead.”
Killed slowly. Body parts removed. All left for his team to find.
Her eyes glistened with tears, but she didn’t let them fall. “So the hitman learned my location and killed that poor girl.” She inhaled deeply. “How did you follow him?”
“Cole and I stayed behind, working it from a different angle.” Tomas hadn’t been much help, his technical skills no match for Cole’s. “It took days, but Cole managed to trace Paul Kissinger’s phone to multiple other devices. I still don’t know how he did it, but one of the devices he locked onto was traveling from San Antonio back to this area. We knew that was our guy and scrambled to catch up. When the phone stopped moving at your motel, we were still ten minutes out.” A hot clamp squeezed his airway. “Ten minutes too late. I’m so sorry, Rylee.”
“I got myself into this.” She leaned back and looked out the window. “I won’t forgive the way you treated me, but I know you didn’t send that hitman after me. That is a result of something I’ve done, evidently. Not your fault.”