A perfect gentleman.
Hard to reconcile it with what she’d seen as he’d handed her the cell phone to speak with her grandmother. Then, he’d been unhinged, with blood running down his chin as if he’d taken a hunk out of someone. His hands, too, had been red with blood …
Considering she’d killed everyone in that horrible place before she’d left? He’d obviously brought someone up with him.
Oh, God … she was a murderer.
Assail came back in and sat down, crossing his legs at the knee, not ankle to thigh as men usually did. Steepling his hands, he brought them to his mouth and stared at her.
“You killed him, didn’t you,” she said softly.
“Who.”
“Benloise.”
His magnetic gaze drifted elsewhere. “We shall not speak of it. Any of it.”
Sola took elaborate care folding the top edge of the blanket down. “I can’t … I can’t pretend that last night didn’t happen.”
“You’re going to have to.”
“I killed two men.” She flipped her eyes up to his and blinked fast. “I killed … two human beings. Oh, God…”
Covering her face, she tried to keep her head together.
“Marisol…” There was a squeak as if he’d moved that Pottery Barn chair even closer. “Darling, you must put it from your mind.”
“Two men…”
“Animals,” he said sharply. “They were animals who deserved worse. All of them.”
Lowering her hands, she was not surprised that his expression was deadly, but she wasn’t scared of him. She was, however, frightened of what she’d done.
“I can’t get…” She gestured at the side of her head. “I can’t get the pictures out of my—”
“Block them, darling. Just forget it ever happened.”
“I can’t. Ever. I should turn myself in to the police—”
“They were going to kill you. And do you think if they had they would have paid you any honor of conscience? I can assure you not.”
“This was my fault.” She closed her eyes. “I should have known Benloise would retaliate. I just didn’t think it would be to this level.”
“But, my darling, you’re safe—”
“How many?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How many … have you killed.” She exhaled hard. “And please don’t try to pretend you haven’t. I saw your face, remember. Before you washed it off.”
He looked away, and wiped his chin as if the blood were still on him. “Marisol. Put it away, somewhere deep—and leave it be.”
“Is that how you handle it?”
Assail shook his head, his jaw clenching, his mouth thinning. “No. I remember my kills. Each and every one.”
“So you hate what you had to do?”
His eyes stayed steady on hers. “No. I relish it.”
Sola winced. Finding out he was a sociopathic murderer was really the cherry on top of the sundae, wasn’t it.
He leaned in. “I’ve never killed without a reason, Marisol. I relish the deaths because they deserved what befell them.”
“So you’ve protected others.”
“No, I’m a businessman. Unless I am crossed, I am far more content to live and let live. However, I shall not be tread upon—nor shall I let those who are mine own be compromised.”
She studied him for the longest time—and not once did he look away. “I think I believe you.”
“You should.”
“But it’s still a sin.” She thought of all those prayers she’d offered up and felt a guilt like she’d never known before. “I realize I’ve done criminal things in the past … but I never hurt anyone except financially. Which is bad enough, but at least I didn’t burn their—”
He took her hand. “Marisol. Look at me.”
It was a while before she could. “I don’t know how to live with myself. I truly don’t.”
As Assail felt his heart pound in his chest, he realized he’d been wrong. He had assumed that getting his Marisol physically safe and taking care of Benloise would end this horrible chapter in her life:
Once she was within his own control, and he had ensured her return to her grandmother, then the slate would be clean.
Wrong. So damned wrong—and from her own emotional pain, he did not know how to rescue her.
“Marisol…” The tone in his voice was one that he had never heard before. Then again, begging was not his practice. “Marisol, please.”
When her lids finally lifted, he found himself taking a deep breath. With them down, her stillness reminded him too much of the other outcome that could have been wrought.
What to say to her, though? “Verily, I can’t pretend to understand this concept of sin that you uphold, but then your religion is different than mine—and I respect that.” God, he hated that bruise on the side of her face for so many reasons. “But, Marisol, the actions you took were in the name of survival. Your survival. What you did back there is the reason you have breath within your lungs the now. Life is about doing what is necessary, and you did.”
She turned away as if the pain was too great. And then she whispered, “I just wish I could have … hell, maybe you’re right. I have to go back way too far with an eraser to get me out of where I was two nights ago. This whole thing is the culmination of so much.”
“You know, if you so choose, you could change your course. You could stop having anything to do with the likes of Benloise.”
A ghostly smile touched her lips as she stared at the door. “Yes. I agree.”
He took another deep breath. “There is another way for you.”
Even though she just nodded, he had the sense she had made peace with her retirement, as it were. And for some reason, that made him want to tear up—not that he would have admitted it to anybody, including her good self.
As she grew quiet, he stared at her, memorizing everything from her wavy, dark hair that had been thoroughly shampooed when she’d showered in her bathroom here, to her pale cheeks, to her perfectly formed lips.
Thinking of everything she had been through, he heard her say that she hadn’t been raped—but only because she’d killed the bastard first.
The one in the cell, he thought. The one whose hand she’d used to get herself out of that facility.
His whole body ached for her, it truly did—