Page 66 of The Villain

“For weeks, we’d been working the area—in the local village—to collect information on where the camp was, how to best access it, and when.”

The trees rustled with a slight breeze, but I didn’t turn my head from the direction of his voice.

“It was a slow process. Grueling. Everyone was afraid to trust us. Afraid of what would happen to them. One day, there was an attack on the home of one of the local village leaders who supported us. A bomb. It destroyed most of the structure. I was closest when the attack occurred—I got there first to find him dead, his daughter wounded and weeping over him.”

My arms pulled tighter around my stomach, trying hard to hide how the pit there seemed to grow.

“I pulled her away. Stayed with her. Comforted her.” He paused as though telling this story involving the creation of a new language in order to speak it. “I saw her regularly after that. First, to check on her. Then, because she wanted to help us…”

“Because of her father.”

“Yeah,” he rasped and then cleared his throat. “She started bringing me information. Good intel. The best we’d gotten. And we…became close.”

Something new coiled in my chest at those words. Something sharp and possessive that tinted all the darkness around me green. Something I definitely had no right to feel.

“For a few more weeks, we pooled all our data. Analyzed it. Tested it. Came up with a plan.” His voice grew tighter, like a rubber band being stretched closer to the brink of its elasticity. “And then she told me the camp was moving. Imminently. Our plan had been to hit them when they were going to move, but we thought it would be another week at least. Now, we had one night, or we’d lose our best shot.”

My lips peeled apart, my breaths growing shallow.

“We argued. My—our team leader and I went back and forth for hours, but I swore up and down that I was right; that my source could be trusted.”

“The woman you loved.” I couldn’t stop myself from speaking, hating the heartbreak in my voice. Not just for him, but for some insane reason, my own heart hurt, wondering what it would be like to be loved by a man like Dare.

He ignored my words and pressed on like a recording that couldn’t be paused. “We moved up our timeline. And I was so sure. So damn sure that come morning, I’d be collecting apologies from all of them for their doubts.”

“Dare…” I pressed my hand to my mouth, willing myself to stop. I wanted to comfort him. To touch him and hold him and, in some way, make it easier to wade through this pain like he’d done for me. But he didn’t want that; I could feel it. He wanted the pain. He wanted to walk through this memory like it were a bed of hot coals, each step scorching his flesh and burning the guilt in his soul.

“It was an ambush. There were dozens of them waiting for us, and by the time we realized what was happening, it was too late.”

I knew the end of this story before it began, but only now, when his voice sounded like it was losing its grip, did the hot drip of tears leak down my cheeks. I had no idea if he could see them or not—if he was even looking—but I didn’t wipe them away just in case; I didn’t want to draw attention—I didn’t want him to know. I hoped the darkness hid them.

“Thank God, Ty managed to get us a single fighter on air support, otherwise, we all would’ve died. Instead…instead, it was only my friend Ryan who was wounded badly. We got out of there, but he…he didn’t make it.”

“I’m so sorry.” The words didn’t feel big enough. They never did. I thought back to when Mom had passed, all theapologies felt like a single drop in the sea of sorrow, evaporating too quickly before they even had a chance to soak in.

“Why? Why did she betray you?” As deep as the hurt I felt for his loss, I also felt a sharp surge of anger.How could she have forsaken a love like yours?“After her father?—”

“She killed her father.”

I sucked in a breath, another gust of wind blowing around us, even nature shaken by the depth of his pain.

“She’d been working with the insurgents the entire time—brainwashed by them first to spy on him, but when we showed up asking questions, they decided on a bigger plan.”

“She killed her own father…”

“To gain my sympathy. My trust.”And his blind affection.

“Dare…”

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” he ordered harshly, his words sounding like a kind of self-flagellation. “Feel sorry for Ryan who lost his life because of my mistake. For the rest of my team who almost died that day. Feel sorry for them, but not for me.”

I wanted to protest. I wanted to protest so badly, it made me nauseous to swallow the words down. And then it made me start to shake. My stomach. My chest. My shoulders. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it wasn’t enough to stop more tears from falling.

“Athena…” His groan tore from the center of his chest, and then the warm pad of his thumb brushed my cheek. “Don’t cry for me. I don’t deserve your tears.”

I lifted my chin. “Then what do you deserve?”

“Pain. Penance.” His suffering was raw and bleeding from his voice.

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