Page 46 of Betrayed
He meets my gaze. “It’s time you told me what really happened back then. With Carlos.”
I tense. “I didn’t leave. I was pushed out. You know that, right?”
“By Carlos?”
My jaw tightens with my answer, “Yes. Carlos.”
“Bayne told me… bits of the story, but I want to hear it from you. He said you survived something awful. A fire? Then stayed in one of his safehouses for a while.”
I stare out the window. The trees sway. My voice is low when I say, “Warehouse in Manhattan. Carlos set us up. Burned half my crew alive. We lost everything. Including—” I break off.
His brows raise, and he lowers his voice. “Isobel?”
“Yeah.” My hands curl into fists. I force a breath. “I kept you out of it all for a reason. You were meant to live a normal life. Get your degrees. Get married. Be boring.”
Gregory smiles faintly. “I did all that. Got the degrees. Didn’t get married. And I’m not here because I want to play mobster.”
“Then why?”
He sets the mug down. “Because I know what it feels like to lose a brother.”
I close my eyes.
“You disappeared,” he continues. “And when Bayne reached out from nowhere, I figured if you were finally this close to me, standing on the same soil, and I had a chance to fix that—I’d take it.”
Erin comes back then, handing him a plate of toast and eggs, just like I made for her earlier this morning. He accepts it with a grateful nod. She stays next to me, and I tuck her under my arm.
“Thanks, Erin,” I murmur.
Gregory quirks a brow. “So…girlfriend?”
“More than that,” I grin. “Try…feral housecat with a kitchen knife.”
Gregory laughs. “I like her.”
I press a kiss to her temple. “So do I.”
Erin leans in and whispers, “You okay?”
“Now I am,” I whisper back.
“Let me know if you two need anything at all. Except for real coffee. But I make a mean cuppa tea.” She goes to the stove to make herself another ‘cuppa,’ but I know she’s giving us space.
Gregory leans forward. “You really like this one, huh?”
“I do.” My jaw tightens. Too much.
He studies me for a moment. “That’s new.”
“Yeah. She’s new.”
Gregory lifts his cup. “To women.”
I lift mine. “To surviving them.”
As we clink mugs, I can’t shake the feeling that the past I've buried is creeping back. The moment I saw Gregory, I felt complete, as if everything I needed was in this cabin. But it also means the walls between my two worlds—blood and peace, violence and love—are thinner than I thought.
And now, my two favorite people are in serious jeopardy.
