if it was the last chance she had. That was how deep her hatred went. She’d rather die with her resentment than let it go.
She turned around, her eyes unsympathetic. “Melanie—”
“We’re going to die out here.” If we managed to escape the men, we’d die in the snow. If we were captured, the result was the same. “I need you to know how sorry I am.” I needed her to understand it haunted me every night, every day I looked at her in the clearing, every waking moment…except when I was with Fender. He was the only thing strong enough to give my heart a break from its mental torture.
“I do know you’re sorry.” She still didn’t have the look she gave me in the cabin, when she hugged me, when she loved me. Her expression now was packed with endless layers of resentment and pain. It was full of accusation, and even worse, shame.
I was on the verge of tears, afraid this would be the last meaningful conversation I would ever have with her. “I need you to forgive me…” My eyes watered and tears dripped, hot for just a split second before they turned ice-cold and slid down my cheeks.
Raven turned around and continued to walk away.
Leaving her answer in the wind.
Eight
A Brother’s Plea
Fender
Two flashlights attached to my horse lit the path to the main road.
But I could make the journey in the darkness if I needed to.
I’d done it before.
The blizzard was approaching from behind, so I was unaffected by it as long as I made it to the road before sunrise. The wind did pick up subtly, stinging the back of my neck above my collar and below my hairline.
My satellite phone rang in my pocket, the only source of communication from the camp when I was in Paris and elsewhere. I fished it out and answered it. “What?” I held it to my ear, one hand on the reins.
“Boss, two girls escaped.”
My hand immediately tugged on the reins and forced my horse to a stop. There was nothing to look at except the circles from the flashlights and the darkness that surrounded them, but I stared like there was something there. “Which girls?” I already knew the answer before I asked the question.
But I needed to hear it anyway.
“The sisters.”
I inhaled a deep breath of rage, the exhale coming out as steam from my nostrils. I released a loud growl into the night, loud enough to make my horse neigh and jolt in fright. I yanked on the reins and forced him to turn around, to face the wind and the blizzard that had been on our tail. I kicked my boots into the sides and urged the horse into a sprint. I screamed into the phone. “Find. Them. Now.”
I sat in the armchair in my cabin. A glass of scotch was on the table in front of me. I was in desperate need of a drink, but I was too angry to do anything other than stare. “Do you know anything about this?”
Magnus sat across from me, his hood pushed back, his brown eyes locked on my face. His brown hair was tousled from the wind, and his skin was pale white from the cold. His stare lasted a long time. “No.”
I trusted no one in this world. Not a soul. Eyes were in the back of my head because I expected to be stabbed in the back by my own men. My butler had served me for years, but I kept tabs on him too. There was only one exception to that.
My brother.
So I accepted his answer without doubt. He wouldn’t lie to me—especially for a woman. “How did she escape?”
His forearms rested on his knees, and he leaned forward, massaging his hands so the ice in his knuckles would thaw. “She must have taken something from the clearing to allow her to pick locks. The doorknobs aren’t busted.”
“She’s the one who took the bow and arrow.” That fucking cunt was sneaking around in my camp, right under my fucking nose, making a fool out of me.
“We searched her cabin and found nothing.”
I clenched my jaw as I thought about Melanie. She couldn’t be forced to leave her cabin. She went willingly. She went out into a fucking blizzard with her dumb-ass sister to get away from me.