Whatever you choose, Damian, know that I will always, always love you, she had said to him.
He wanted to believe that. He wanted to believe that so much, but how could he, knowing that she was withholding the one thing that would have earned him some lenience? The fact that he had let her go. He had set her free, dropped her off and she had come back to him. That was something only the two of them knew. Yes, he had made the wrong choice. He had given in to the darkness when he should have stood by her, but he needed to know that she still cared. He would happily spend the rest of his life locked up in a cage for all the things he had done, but he needed that one fleeting moment of light, so he could go knowing that it had been real for her.
As Damian stood before the judge, ready to receive his sentence, his eyes fell on Skye. One look, one glance from those haunting gray eyes, and he’d be redeemed.
Say something, I’m giving up on you.
But she kept her head bowed. She had not looked at him the entire time, and she did not look at him then. Skye knew that if she did, if she looked up from her lap, she wouldn’t be able to keep anything from him, and she had held it together for too long to let everything fall apart now. The sooner this case got wrapped up, the better for them all.
She had told her father and Nick that Damian had let her go, that she was the one who had gone back, but they were convinced she had suffered some kind of psychological breakdown. They were prepared to call in a psychiatrist to discredit anything favorable she had to say about Damian, and testify that she was suffering from Stockholm syndrome and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
“I can’t understand why you’re defending him, Skye.” Her father had paced the hospital room where she was recovering from the bullet wound. “Look at what he’s done to you. He shot you, Skye. He was going to shoot me, but he ended up shooting you. Is this the kind of guy you want walking free? Someone who is so blinded by revenge that he can’t see straight?”
“You were blind too, Dad, so blind that you couldn’t see what you did to MaMaL—”
“You want to know what I did to MaMaLu?” Warren’s eyes flashed with indignation. “I saved MaMaLu. That’s right. I saved her. El Charro and his men would have killed her. Prison was the safest place for her. Out of sight, out of mind. I paid Victor a small fortune to make sure Esteban was looked after and that MaMaLu got everything she needed in Valdemoros. I don’t know if any of that money made it to her. I suspect Victor used that money to start up his private security business, but that’s irrelevant now. As soon as we were settled in our new home, I was going to send for MaMaLu and Esteban, get them new identities, and sponsor them over. I owed it to her. A new life, a fresh start. But it didn’t work out that way. She died before I could get them out. I went looking for Esteban, but his uncle was gone and he had disappeared. There was no trace of him. No one knew where he went or what happened to him. I closed that chapter of our lives with a heavy heart, Skye. I burned the letters you wrote. It broke my heart, but I wanted to protect you. You were so young, I was sure you’d forget. I thought it would be easier if you assumed they’d moved on.” Warren sighed and sank down onto the chair. “If there’s one thing I regret, apart from not leaving Mexico while your mother was alive, it’s MaMaLu. And if Damian wants to come after me for that, fine. But I’m not letting him get away with this.” He gestured to Skye’s bed and all the machines beeping around them.
Skye closed her eyes. So many misunderstandings, so much time wasted, each man standing stubbornly in his corner.
“Damian needs to know what happened, Dad, what your intentions were.”
“He never gave me the chance to explain, did he? He just made his assumptions. Judge, jury and vigilante justice. He kidnapped you, hurt you, and he permanently injured a man. Victor will never have use of that arm. The doctors have reattached it, but the nerves are severed. That’s irreversible.”
“It was self-defense!” said Skye. She was sick of the endless tug of war. “Victor was under contract with you. He knew what he was getting into. The risks go hand in hand with his job. Damian didn’t have a weapon. He was hurt. It was Victor who threatened him with a gun.”
“Why?” Her father looked exhausted. “Why do you have to fight me at every turn? Let me handle this, Skye. One day you’ll look back and you’ll see. You’re not yourself right now. You don’t know—”
“Enough!” Skye cut her father off. “Enough.”
That was when the old Skye switched off and a new Skye took her place.