Page 3 of The Villain

My mouth went dry, and I brought the image closer like I could step right into it, absorbing every detail of a face I’d never forget.

Blond hair like soft wheat. Cornflower-blue eyes. But it was that smile.Fuck me.I pressed my fingertips to the image, tracing the gentle sweep of her cheek to the dimples pinned at the edge of her wide, beaming grin.

Athena Holman.

God, I’d never forget how that smile felt like the sun when it had shown on me—or the way I’d sentenced myself to a life of darkness when I’d broken her heart.

Fuck.

In almost two decades, I hadn’t let myself think of this woman. Hell, she’d hardly been that the last time I’d seen her standing on her mom’s front lawn with tears in her eyes. She’d been heading off to college, and I’d been heading off to war.

We were young. Hopeful. Foolish to think it could last. I’d ended it before someone got hurt.

And after I came back from war, trying to think about who I was, the people I’d known and cared for…hurt.There was no going back—no making it right. To try would be like trying toopen a door with no knob. So, for two decades, Athena Holman had remained safely and securely behind that door, untouched by any more of my trauma and tragedy.

Until now.

Until this photograph, where she sat at a restaurant smiling at the very man I was hunting—smiling at him the way she once smiled at me.

Fuck.My blood turned to ice, hard and sharp as it sliced through my veins.What the hell was she doing with Ivans?

In less than a minute, I’d searched her information and found her current address—ironically, it was her old address, too. Her mom’s house, which was only about twenty minutes from here.All this time, and she was that close…and so was he.

I dropped the photograph and shoved up out of my chair, ignoring Rhys and Merritt’s stares as I headed for the door.

“I’ll be back,” I shouted, not needing to be stopped by one more of Rhys’s welfare checks.

I made it down the hall in a blink, the door to the garage banging open into the wall before it slammed shut behind me. It couldn’t have taken another ninety seconds to make it through the massive ten-thousand-square-foot garage to where my Harley was parked. My leathers stretched over my shoulders like a second skin. I didn’t bother with the clip on my helmet before revving my bike to life.

I flew down the miles-long length of the tree-lined drive, the overcast sky turning everything gray. The irony of the shadowless day mocked me at every turn, as if it were the shadows of my past looming heavily over me.

Twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes to figure out what I was going to say to a woman I hadn’t seen in twenty years. A woman I’d promised forever back when we were too young to understand everything forever could mean.A woman whose heart I’d broken.

Twenty minutes to figure out how the hell I was going to tell her that her new boyfriend—an assumption I made on her smile—was a criminal. A murderer, thief, and liar.Twenty minutes to figure out how to get a woman who surely hated me to believe I was telling the truth.

The house was a small, single-level structure at the end of a cul-de-sac. Brick with worn red shutters and a bright red door.

… I don’t want a house with a white picket fence, but I do want a red front door. Do you think that’s too much? I just want to look at it and know I’ll never have to watch you leave through it again. I miss you. —Athena

The smallest smile started to curl at the corner of my mouth, remembering her words from the very first letter she’d sent me after I left.God, those letters.Pain seared through my chest, my small smile dying like an ember tamped out before it could turn into a flame. Remembering what I had—what I could’ve had—would only make this worse.

Those letters…that woman…she didn’t belong to me anymore.

I slowed and parked in front of the neighbor’s yard, letting my bike rumble so I wouldn’t have to be alone with my thoughts. There was a car in the driveway; hers, I presumed, and it was still running. I’d gotten here just in time.

I peeled my fingers off the handlebars and unclipped my helmet.Fuck,this was going to be difficult. But that didn’t matter. I would protect her even if she didn’t want me to. Even if she hated me. After everything, I would always protect her.Even if she wasn’t mine to protect.

“Hey, Athena. It’s me, Darius. I know we haven’t spoken in a long time, but I had to find you and tell you you’re dating a killer.” No—“Hey, Athena. Sorry to come back into your life like this, but you’re dating an internationally wanted criminal.”

Fuck.My fingers went to my scar, feeling the ragged flesh.

How was I going to get her to believe me? Tell her the truth? The truth was hardly believable—a criminal doctor who had a full-face reconstruction and turned into a thief was taking her to dinner. A short, bitter laugh escaped. The alternative was I could beg her to trust me—to trust the man who’d broken her heart.My laugh turned into a groan, weighing the options of bad and worse.

What if she already knew who he was?

No.

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