Page 18 of The Villain

“Dare—”

“She just woke up to the news that she’s blind because hercar fucking exploded. I don’t think random new people confronting her is fucking ideal,” I ground out.I also wanted to know what Athena’s relationship with Ivans was—how far her involvement with him went—and I wanted to knowfor all the wrong reasons.

Rob’s brow lifted, and I should’ve felt good—relieved—when she then nodded; instead, I was afraid I was only proving the very thing I insisted wasn’t true:that Athena was here because I still cared for her the way I once did.

“Okay.”

A few minutes later, I’d grabbed the evening meds Rorik instructed me to give her and was whipping up a grilled cheese sandwich in the kitchen. It was quick and easy—and they’d been a favorite of hers back then.

“Smells good.”

I didn’t turn when Rob joined me.

“I’m almost done, and then we can go.” I flipped the sandwich in the pan one more time, wanting the bread to be golden.

“You put her in your cabin, not the guest one,” Rob said, not bothering to make her change of topic a smooth one.

“My cabin is more open—easier to get around.” The excuse was lame; the layout of all the cabins wasn’t much different between them, but compared to the guest cabin, my space was a little easier to navigate.

“Because you hardly have any furniture.”

I gritted my teeth. Since all of uslived more or less at Sherwood, except Rob, though she still had her own cabin, we didn’t really frequent each other’s homes. There was no point. Wehad the rec room and communal kitchen in the clubhouse. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone else had been inside my cabin until Rorik, Harm, and I had brought Athena there earlier.

I’d ignored my brother’s hard look when he realized I only had a bed and a single chair to break up the modest space.

“Like I said, easier to get around.” I slid the grilled cheese sandwich onto a plate and covered it with a piece of foil. “Let’s go.”

I moved around her and went to the elevator, jamming my finger onto the button.

“Dare…”

Dammit.Air hissed through my lips, and the door opened.

“You should tell her the truth.”

“Why?” The word fired like a warning shot. “It doesn’t matter who I am.”In fact, it would only make things harder—worse.“It’s bad enough asking her to trust strangers, let alone asking her to trust someone who hurt her; it’ll be easier for her this way.”

Rob lifted her chin, having no intention of leaving this conversation alone. “For her, or for you?”

My spine snapped straight, and I replied with a low, firm voice, “It doesn’t change what I’m doing…or what I’ve done.”

“You’re afraid of her…of what she meant to you.”

“It was a long time ago. We were practically children.”Not even close, but for the sake of this conversation, it had to be.

“So, you feel nothing for her now? Nothing but duty?”

I turned and loomed over her five-foot, fire-haired frame. “I feel nothing. Period.”

That made her eyes widen. A small crack in an otherwise impenetrable facade.

“If you felt nothing, you wouldn’t have brought her here.” Her accusation was hardly loud enough to top the elevatordoors sliding open, yet even the smallest noise resounded in a hollow space, and so her words boomed in a loud echo around the empty cavern of my chest.

Sherwood was a secret—sacred for a reason. Not the garage itself, but the real work we did here, and anytime any of us brought an outsider in, it risked exposing the lawless way we exacted justice. I’d criticized the others for doing so in the past, and here I was, without a second thought, to bring Athena here for her safety.

“Dare—”

“Wonder again why I won’t tell Athena the truth, and I’ll start to wonder what it is about Remington that brings you running the second he’s involved,” I interrupted before she could ask anything else—saying the only thing I could think of to get out from underneath her microscope.

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