Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
“Rory, breathe with me. Follow my lungs.”
She heard that. She felt the movement. In. Out. She was making a fool of herself again. He’d said a name. She couldn’t even remember who he had said. Someone. Was he important? Had he asked her more than once? She drew air into her lungs and kept breathing, trying to remember.
“Who is he?” She gasped out the question. “Don’t say his name.”
“He’s a man who took young girls, infants and toddlers from orphanages and performed experiments on them. He’s still doing it. He’s committed so many terrible atrocities, and yet he has a coalition of people in the government protecting him. So far, he hasn’t been found.”
“Why would anyone want to protect him when he’s experimenting on children? That’s criminal.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Do you hunt this man?”
“We’ve fought his guards and his soldiers at times, but he’s always gotten away.”
Rory found herself rocking back and forth. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I thought we were going to talk about you, Gideon. What does he have to do with you? Did he take you away from your home when you were a boy? I wanted to know about your childhood.”
Beads of sweat formed on her forehead. She pulled her hand away from his and wiped at them. With her other hand, she formed a fist and pressed it tightly into her stomach, where a knot had formed. “How is this conversation in any way me getting to know you? You know quite a lot about me, but I don’t really know much at all about you. You’re the big mystery man.”
“He didn’t take boys to do his experiments on, just girls,” Gideon said. “No, I actually was someone you wouldn’t have wanted to know when I was growing up. I was bigger than some of the other kids. Mack had a home, and he would let us into his basement at night when it was freezing. He was smart. Always way ahead in school, and he was popular. He tended to collect those of us without parents.”
Rory waited when Gideon fell silent. He had said more about Mack than he had about himself. She’d learned he was bigger than some of the other kids and that he was someone she wouldn’t have wanted to know. That was it. “Gideon, you aren’t sharing much about yourself or your life. You don’t have to. I don’t know how we’re going to get to know one another if we don’t talk, but I get it. I don’t remember my past, and yours wasn’t that pleasant.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s late. I should probably go.”
He put a restraining hand on her knee before she could uncurl. “Not yet, Red. I really do want to sort through some things. It’s necessary. I just don’t know how to get us there.”
What had he had to do to survive? Was that what he was finding difficult to tell her? He was so reluctant to tell her about his past. He didn’t want to tell her the slightest detail. Not about when he was a child or a teen, and not about his life with his security company.
“I’m trying to let you off the hook, Gideon. If you’re some kind of assassin, you don’t have to tell me. I’ll just slip away quietly, and we’ll call it a night.”
She tried to make a joke of it, but neither of them laughed. She hoped she hadn’t hit too close to the mark. If someone told her Javier was an assassin, it wouldn’t shock her. There were moments when Gideon looked menacing enough that she might believe it of him, except that most of the time, he was just too kind and gentle.
“I just need to get some things out into the open, Rory. We have some concerns, and we want to put them behind us so we can get on with our relationship.”
“Concerns? Now I’m really confused. For some reason, I thought you were going to talk to me about your childhood and teenage years. Maybe about your work. I talked to you about the things that bothered me about my past. I told you things I’ve never told anyone. I opened up to you. You know things about me, but I really don’t know anything at all about you. Now you’re talking about concerns. What concerns do you have, Gideon? Concerns about me? About us?”
That knot in her gut was pulling tighter. The flag was getting stronger. She had a bad taste in her mouth. He reached for her hand, but she refused to let him take it.
“Just answer the question. What concerns do you have? You didn’t seem to have any before. You were sure about us. You said so over and over.”
“I’m still sure about us. I know we belong together. That hasn’t changed,” he assured. “Don’t sound afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”