Dark Captor (Dark Syndicate 2)

The pang of sorrow that presses against my heart isn’t something I expected. I knew this was coming. Saying goodbye was always on the horizon, I just didn’t know it would feel like this.

“I didn’t know it was all going to happen so soon, so fast. It was just this morning we spoke.” I sound so foolish. I’m making it sound like we really were in a relationship. We barely know each other. It’s been three weeks since that day we met in the park. That’s not long even if it feels that way.

“I’m not a man you should see ever again Isabella. I’m not a man you should have in your life, someone who treats you like collateral damage. You and I both know you deserve better and so much more than that,” he stops talking and draws in a slow breath. “You need someone who can look at you and the second they see you they think of the person you are. It doesn’t matter where you came from, or whose daughter you are. You are your own person.”

I press my lips together and nibble on the skin. I appreciate his words and confession of what he wants for me, but I’m not ready to say goodbye to him yet.

“What if I want to see you again?”

“Isabella, I kidnapped you. I drugged you and took you so I could use you to get the location of your father. I will always hate myself for that. I can’t even say sorry, it’s not enough. There’s no sorrow anyone can express for doing what I did. There’s nothing I can say to make it right because it was wrong and of anyone, I should know better than to do something like that to you.”

Everything he’s saying he’s right. Any normal person would agree. In fact it should be me saying those things to him. Me telling him he can’t apologize and there’s no words of sorrow to suffice the terror I felt when he first took me.

It should be me telling him I shouldn’t have a man like him in my life but I can’t.

“Are you sorry?”

“I am. I am truly sorry and if I could I’d go back to the night we were at the club and do everything different from there. Everything.”

“What would you have done?”

He gives me a smile. “I would have taken you home. Then I would have gotten to know you. We would have watched those classic films, and I would have danced with you under the stars every chance I got. Most of all, I would have tried to be the kind of man you deserve.” A tear runs down my cheek and he catches it. “ Even if you could forgive me, my problems are not going to end with your father. I’m always going to have danger in my life. As long as you’re with me, you’ll be the caged bird who wants to fly and can’t. So this is best. ”

I shake my head. “Tristan...”

He lowers and plants a kiss on my lips. It’s another kiss but one that feels final. One that signifies the end of this whirlwind romance. The forbidden romance we shouldn’t have had.

“Mne zhal' my Bellezza,” he says and give me a curt nod. Then he turns to go.

I watch him leave and my heart squeezes.

I remember wanting to escape.

I wanted to escape my father and then I wanted to escape Tristan.

I never realized that being with Tristan was my escape from my father, and being with him was freedom. He allowed me to just be me.