Page 81 of Her Mercenary

Bear was dead. Dead.

My brother in arms, my friend, had been tortured and murdered for his involvement with the Samantha Greene case, the case that I’d begged him to help with. Called in a fucking favor for.

He was dead—because of me. Because of her.

It’s her fault, I thought, stomping through the jungle.

Samantha Greene, the missing American who had turned my life upside-fucking down. The woman had singlehandedly made me question killing Conor Cussane—the one goal I’d built my entire fucking life around.

What the hell was wrong with me?

Yes, it was her fault for looking at me the way she did. For touching me, smiling at me with that goddamn smile the way she did. Pushing me, poking, prodding with her damn questions. Her fault for taking care of me. Making me think I could be someone I wasn’t. Making me imagine a life with her, me as her husband, a house, children, a fucking white picket fence.

Her fault for making me fall in love with her.

Then, no, I thought ... It’s my mother’s fault.

Her fault for not finding a way out of her own captivity. For not going to the cops in the first place. Why hadn’t she? Why had she allowed it to happen?

Because of me. Because they’d threatened me.

My mother had died for me.

Bear had died for me.

Fuck me, it was all my fault.

I was a walking fucking curse. A plague on this earth that did nothing but destroy whatever I touched.

Samantha deserved better than me. I knew this, and yet I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want her to leave me.

How fucked up is that?

And then what, Roman?

She would ... what? Be my ride-or-die in a life filled with darkness and death? I couldn’t put her through that. She could get hurt. The kind of life I lived didn’t allow for keeping a woman.

And what if I left this life? What if I walked away? Left it all for her? Walked away from the opportunity to finally kill the man whose father had murdered my mother, and now he’d killed Bear?

Could I let my mother down? And Bear? They deserved more. They deserved justice.

A flash of white caught my eye, a vivid lightness against the impending night. I paused, squinting at the white plumeria flower peeking from the withered brush, its petals turned toward me, its leaves stretching above the bush as if searching for something.

I knelt down and studied it. It was clean. Flawless. Beautiful.

I picked it, turning it between my fingers.

It was innocent. Like Sam.

Samantha deserved more. She deserved love. Happiness. A stress-free life with someone who laughed often and made her happy. I could never give her that.

I surged to my feet.

What the fuck was I thinking?

What the fuck was wrong with me?

What the fuck was I going to do?