Say It's Forever (Redemption Hills #2)(114)

Darius blanched before awareness raced in to take over his expression. Groaning, he scrubbed both palms over his face. “Shit. Knew this was gonna happen.”

Ice froze me to the spot, and I blinked through the stupor. “What?”

Darius let go of a harsh sigh. “Warned you to stay away from him. Told you he was trouble.”

There was something in the way he said it.

As if he were annoyed rather than panicked.

Dread slithered down my spine, a slow awareness that I didn’t want to take hold. “What do you mean? Tell me what you’re talking about, Darius.”

Darius shook his head and took a lumbering step forward. “I told you I was gonna make it right for you.”

My brow twisted, and I took a step back. “I don’t understand. You’re scaring me.”

Darius slowly approached. The words dropping from his tongue were daggers that pierced me through. “Carlo found me, Salem. He promised he wasn’t after you. He only wanted the man who killed his brother. The one responsible for him losing his son.”

“No.” I stumbled a step back farther. Dull blades sliced through my middle. Pierced me to the core.

Darius wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

“It was time, Salem. I had to do it for you. For Juni.”

“Oh my god.” Horror gusted from my lungs, and I pressed my hands against the cavern carved in my chest like I could hold myself together as the panic multiplied tenfold.

There was no question then.

Carlo was there.

He’d been watching.

The car.

It was him.

It was him.

Darius kept coming my way. “All I had to do was get in with Jud. Find his weaknesses, Salem. See what was gonna hurt Jud most, and you’d be free. But first, I had to prove my loyalty. That’s why I brought you here. To convince Carlo that you and Juni were still alive but no longer a threat to him. In exchange, you and Juni are free to live your lives in safety.”

“You’re lying. You’re lying. You wouldn’t do that to me. To us.” I begged it.

“Do it to you? I did it for you.”

“No, Darius.”

“You were supposed to stay away from him, Salem. I’d hoped last night…that the fire would remind you of what was important. That you’d realize you didn’t belong there. That you’d come to your senses.”

“I can’t believe you’d—”

The words clipped off when I felt the commotion at the end of the hall, and my attention whipped to the right to find Mimi shuffling into the living room. Confusion was written on her face, her aged eyes darting between us, though hurt was written there as she caught up to Darius’ confession.

She hadn’t known.

Darius had done it.

He had set us up, and I wasn’t sure we would be able to get out.

I grabbed Juni’s hand. “We have to go, sweetheart.”

“No, Mommy, no more adventures. Please.” She tried to yank her hand free.

Agony lanced while the betrayal whipped.

How could he do this to us? When we’d finally had a chance?

“I can’t believe you’d do this to us. I can’t believe it.”

My gaze jumped to Mimi, and I felt my heart breaking all over again. “We have to go, Mimi. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Old sorrow spun through her eyes, but it was pained disbelief when it shifted to Darius. She looked back at Juni and me. “I understand, sweet girl. Don’t be sad. I’ve cherished these months with you two. Months I never thought I’d be given.”

Tears streamed, and I tried to hold back a sob, but it was so big it busted through and banged against the walls.

“Come on, sweetheart,” I begged.

Darius hustled behind me as I dragged the suitcase and tried to coax my daughter into following.

She cried and whimpered and tried to dig in her heels. “But this is our specialist place, Mommy. We gots to stay with Mimi and Gage and the Motorcycle Man.”

My teeth gritted, and I forced out, “We have to go.”

Darius moved forward and grabbed me by the wrist. “No, you don’t, Salem. You’re safe. Carlo gave me his word. You’re safe. He just wanted the details of Jud’s family, how to hurt him most, in exchange for your safety.”

“And you’re a fool if you believe that’s true.”

Dismay pulsed through my being, the thought of Jud or his beautiful family being harmed in any way. The people who’d accepted me and my daughter as if we were one of them.

Good, kind people.

I had to warn them.

Darius tightened his hold. “No. You were the fool for falling in love with a man you don’t belong to. A fool for leaving Carlo to begin with.”

Shock cleaved through my being. The treason my brother had meted nearly dropped me to my knees.

“How could you say that?”

Pain curled his face and a strained breath wheezed from his lungs. He flung a frustrated hand out into the room. “Because you and I both knew what would happen if you left him. The lengths he would go to get you back, and you agreed to testify against him, Salem. Took his children and went into hiding.”

He swallowed hard. “I’ve been terrified for years, searching for a way to make this right. To take back what never should have happened in the first place. But I couldn’t do a fucking thing. Carlo had claimed you as his and there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could say. It didn’t matter you were my sister. He was the boss. So now, all these years later? If I had a way to finally give you the life you deserved, to set you and Juni free? I had to do it.”