Page 75 of The Villain

“How many days have you ripped yourself apart over this?”

I wondered how many times I would remember her words before I forgot the sound of them from her lips or the unspokenplea to forgive myself. She couldn’t fix me. And if she knew the truth, she wouldn’t want to.

Yet,I opened up to her. I gave her part of my past and let her feel her fill. I suffered every painstaking touch, barely breathed when she found the heads of my piercings—the cross I’d nailed my celibacy to—and then died under the heat of her mouth. What kind of man was I to fuck her mouth like I had? So rough and savage. To unload so much cum I had to pull out and empty the last of it onto the grass. Sure, my cock hadn’t felt a woman’s touch in a decade, but this was more than that. This was her.

My undoing was all her.

And she’d wanted me to stay, even after all my broken pieces had cut and scraped her in order to get close.

And now, I had the proof it was safe to let her go. The thing I’d wanted from the start. Her safety.Her distance.And I should be relieved. She deserved better than me. Better than my apology. Better than all my broken shards. I was nothing more than a means to her safety, and now, my purpose was fulfilled.Finished.

So why couldn’t I stop wondering what would happen if I gave in? If I stopped walking away from her and stayed instead?

“Does this scene make sense?”

“What?” I shook off my thoughts and refocused on Ty; he was snapping photos of the crime scene with his phone, documenting all of the details so he could examine it all later.

“Does the position of their bodies seem strange to you?” He looked between the bodies. “If they shot each other, wouldn’t they both be facing up?”

My head cocked. Brandon was on his back with the three gunshot wounds to his chest, but Ivans was on his stomach.

“He was hit in his shoulder.” I point to the wound. “Itcould’ve made him turn as he was going down.”Possible, but was it plausible?

“I guess we’ll see what Rorik has to say,” he said, finishing up his photos. “I wonder how long they’ve been dead.”

“Brandon escaped four days ago.” I wrinkled my nose. “I’d bet around then.”

“So, Ivans busted him out of police custody and then killed him?”

“He was a loose end.”And a piece of shit.“At some point, he would’ve tied the bomb back to Ivans.”

Ty made a rumbling noise, and I couldn’t tell if it was agreement or uncertainty.

“You’ll wait for Rorik?” I said, stepping over Ivans toward the front door. “I’m going to head back.”

“To tell her?”

My lip twitched. “To take her home.”

He stilled. “You think that’s wise?”

“Brandon and Ivans are dead,” I said tightly. “She’s not in danger anymore.”

“You should wait for Rorik to confirm?—”

“Why?” I didn’t let him finish. “Even if someone else was here—if someone else did this—the only reason Athena was targeted was because of Ivans, and now he’s dead.”

“That may be?—”

“So, then what’s your concern?” I demanded.

“That you’re not thinking,” he said low.

My fist balled at my side. “This is the first clear thought I’ve had since I brought her back to Sherwood.”

She was safe.Yes, she still couldn’t see, but that didn’t require her to stay in my cabin. In my bed. She could go home. Be comfortable. Be in a place that was familiar to her. Try to get back to some semblance of her life. And then she could forget about me.

“Is it? Or are you just afraid of what will happen when she realizes who you are?”

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