Page 65 of The Villain

“You’re going to bring my sight back?” She let out a shaky laugh, and I used it as an excuse to pause, letting my finger wade up and down along a single inch of her spine.

“I’m going to make it so you can see.”

I couldn’t promise a medical miracle, but I could promise this: to give her stars in the darkest of nights. And an apology—and the truth—for dragging her into the shadows that haunted me.

I finished the last leg of Orion and let my hand fall to my side. “Athena.”

She turned, her hand landing flat in the center of my chest, her fingers curling and crawling up my shirt, higher to my neck.

My jaw locked when she cupped it. I never should’ve let her touch my face, but the feel of her soft hand on me…damn, I was a strong man. Brave. Courageous. Whatever the hell other words they used to describe a man riddled with the scars of a soldier and haunted by heroism. But so help me, God, just her hand on my face was enough to bring me to my knees.

“We need to talk—I need to talk to you about earlier.” If I didn’t say it now, I never would.

“I understand how it looked—why you were angry.”

“Dammit. Don’t do that.” That same anger surged.

“Do what? Be understanding? You saved my life, protected me, cared for me, and to think I betrayed you?—”

“Stop,” I hissed and pulled her hand off me. I couldn’t stand her touch. Not now. Not after how I’d treated her earlier.Not knowing the truth I had to tell her.I couldn’t bear thereminder of her unfailing tenderness in the face of my cruelty. “Don’t make this okay—don’t make how I treated you okay because it’s not. There was no excuse for how I acted.”

Her chin notched up. “I disagree.”

Of course, she did.Of course, this bold, beautiful, and merciful woman had the forgiveness of a saint.

“You thought I lied to you—betrayed you.”

“No, Athena…it had nothing to do with you,” I rasped and heaved in a breath, my lungs feeling like all the air in the world wasn’t enough to keep me from drowning in guilt.

“I don’t understand.” She crossed her arms again, and the dim light that oozed out from the cabin captured the hard peaks of her nipples against the fabric. I swore I could even see their dusty pink color through the white shirt, but maybe that was my memory overlaying reality.

“My anger…it wasn’t at you. Or because of you.” The tension built in my bones, every word turning them more brittle, ready to crack under the weight of the truth.

“Then who was it for?” Her brows drew together.

“Me.”

“Why?”

My chest constricted, and it felt like I was trying to speak for the very first time. And maybe, after all this time, I was. Avoiding physical contact wasn’t the only kind of abstinence I’d engaged in since we’d come home; I’d also abstained from this story. This memory.

Like sex, I thought if I never spoke about what happened, it would suffocate out the guilt. It hadn’t. Instead, it packed it tight inside me, like C-4 into a stick of dynamite. Harmless until lit. Until now.Until Athena.

“Because the last time a woman betrayed me, it cost the life of one of my best friends.”

Chapter Thirteen

Athena

Iknew there was something weighing on him. Like a buoy in the midst of the sea, rising and falling with the waves like he were free, but tethered underneath the surface by an anchor that wouldn’t release him from its hold.

I imagined it was something—something more than a bank deposit—when he’d whipped into the safe house earlier with the fury of a firestorm. But I never imagined it was this.

I didn’t need to see his face to know his expression. Pain. Torture. It was in the ragged rhythm of his breaths and the way the ground bent under the shifting of his weight.

“My team and I…and Dr. Nilsen…we were Special Forces. Our mission was to infiltrate an insurgent camp. There was intel that one of the major rebel leaders in the region was hiding there, and we were tasked to take him out.”

I bit into my bottom lip. Meanwhile, the darkness in front of me twisted and shifted into shapes. Images fabricated from imagination to the tune of his tale.

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