Page 75 of Ride Hard
The bathroom door opened, and I jumped, my heart skipping a beat. Chaser’s gaze fell to the wallet in my lap and then to the photograph in myhands.
“Get a good look?” hesnarled.
I swallowed hard and held up the photo. “Who isshe?”
Chaser’s expression was pure anger, and for a split second, I faltered. Then he said the last thing I wasexpecting.
“She’s mywife.”
Everything fell away, and my hands trembled, the photograph shaking. It was as if my body was tearing apart, my heart barely holding on. The world shook, and the foundations of everything I believed inshattered.
Destruction only took a second afterall.
His…wife?My gaze fell to his hand. He didn’t wear a ring, and there wasn’t a mark… There wouldn’t be, though, wouldthere?
At the beginning of our road trip nightmare, Chaser and I had sat at that diner and argued about trust and death. I’d found no one I would die for, not until I’d shot that guy by the side of the road before he could kill Chaser. Not until his life was on theline.
At that moment, I knew I would die for him because that was what you did for those you trulyloved.
Back then, at that diner, he’d told me I was naïve, but now I saw I’d fallen for just another trick. One of the oldest in the book. Give a girl a little cock, and she would believe anything. She would even believe she was in love if you could give her a half-decent orgasm. She would give her life to save your selfishass.
It was the ultimatemanipulation.
“You did,” I said. “You found someone you’d diefor.”
And it wasn’t me. It was the most selfish thing I could’ve thought at that moment, but it hurt. I would never have Chaser like he had her. I was nothing to him. After everything we’d shared, after everything we’d been through, I was nothing tohim.
I’d always been the package he was ordered to deliver toFortitude.
I was noone.
“You said… You said there wasn’t any point hiding shit anymore,” I began, my voice trembling. “You were never going to help me, wereyou?”
“You know Ican’t.”
“Why?”
“Because of her.” He snatched the photo out of my hands and shoved it into his jeans’pocket.
His admission only drove another hot pincer into my heart, and I glanced away before he could see my wellingtears.
“I told you Fortitude helped me with something big,” he went on, his voice thin. “That I’m indebted to them for life.They—”
“I don’t need to hear it,” Isnapped.
“Youdo.”
“You’re dead to me.” I seethed. “Dead.”
“That’s what they did to her,” he said, sitting besideme.
“Stop it.” I leaned my forehead against the window, the cool glass numbing myskin.
Chaser growled and grasped my arm. Wrenching me toward him, I let out a cry as I hit his chest. His gaze caught mine and wouldn’t letgo.
“Let mego.”
I didn’t want to hear the words come from his mouth. I didn’t want to hear him say how he loved another woman. Alive or dead, it didn’t matter. He loved someone enough to marry them and throw away his entire life for revenge. How could he love me? I was nobody compared to what he was doing forher.
