Page 77 of Her Mercenary

“Tell me.” I put my hand on his arm. “Talk to me. It’s okay to—”

“I don’t know if I can come back,” he snapped, his eyes cutting to mine like glass.

“Come back from where?”

“From all the shit I’ve seen and done, and what I didn’t do. I don’t think there’s any coming back from it.”

“Don’t say that, Roman.”

“You don’t understand, Sam. Going undercover for so long changes you. The things I’ve seen ...” He shook his head. “I always thought that once I killed Conor, I would be able to walk away from it all. But now I can’t seem to find the line that separates me from Ardri. A part of me feels like I’ve turned into these men.” He looked at me. “I’m one of them, Sam.”

“No, you’re not.” My grip tightened around his arm. “If you were one of them, you would have let those men rape me. You wouldn’t have risked blowing your cover to kill them.”

I turned his chin to face me.

“You are innately good, Roman. In here.” I tapped his heart. “You are a good man, it’s just the application has gotten muddled along the way.”

“What would you do?” he asked, surprising me. “What would you do right now, if you were in my shoes?”

“I would want to kill Conor, yes. But I hope I’d be strong enough to do the right thing—to rise above it.”

He slowly shook his head, then with a growl, angrily pushed off the rock and strode to his backpack.

Conversation over.

That’s when I realized his mind was made up. Nothing I could say would change that.

Roman would kill Conor. He would do this because he wouldn’t be able to control himself. He’d get his revenge.

Exactly as his mother begged him not to do.

Roman was right. He’d gotten morally lost, twisted, in his mission to bring these evil men to justice. And I worried that it might cost him his life.

“We need to stay on schedule,” he said tersely.

I stood, watching as he shrugged into his pack and pushed up his shirtsleeves, the internal torment etched across his face.

My heart broke for him. What was it like to live inside his body? Deal with that kind of guilt and unbridled anger every day?

“Let’s get moving,” he said.

“I need a quick second,” I said, which was my code for I need to use the restroom.

He nodded and turned his back.

After taking one last look at the waterfall, I crossed the rock, then stepped past Roman and into the jungle. The trees lining the cliff were thin, spaced far apart, and allowed for zero privacy. I glanced over my shoulder to ensure I could still see Roman as I picked my way deeper into the brush.

Finally, I spotted a tall, thick tree with a moss-covered log fallen just behind it.

Bingo.

Untying my pants, I hastily stepped over the log, my foot twisting awkwardly on something soft.

I stumbled as I fell forward, catching myself on the log before hitting the forest floor with a hard thud, jarring my tailbone.

I gasped, gaping down at the human hand between my legs.

As if reaching for me, a long, thick, ghostly pale arm stretched along the leaves, palm up, reaching for the sky. It was attached to a body.