Page 80 of It Destroys Me

“How can I be at peace when your woman is gone?”

My eyes shifted away.

“Astrid is a prisoner again.”

“Axel, I’ll never get the image of Scarlett’s black eye out of my head. I can’t risk your family, because they’re my family too.” I’d watched my wife die, and I didn’t want Axel to ever know such misery.

His eyes shifted back and forth between mine. “Astrid is family too.”

“She’s not my wife?—”

“But she will be—someday. I wouldn’t put my family’s life on the line for just anybody. I know the way you feel about her. I can see it on your face every time you’re in the room with her. Whenever you talk about her, your entire energy changes. You love this woman—which means I love her.”

I couldn’t look at him. He’d already done so much for me. I couldn’t ask him to do anything else.

“Theo.”

I gave a sigh before I met his look.

“Let’s get your woman back.”

“But he’ll come for your family?—”

“I’ll send Scarlett and the kids away. She won’t even tell me where they’re going. And this time, we don’t leave until Bolton is dead. Until his heart has stopped and his blood needs to be mopped off the floor. Until that oil drum is sealed. We don’t leave until this shit is done. You hear me?”

“I can’t let you do this for me.”

“Well, I am.”

“Talk to Scarlett first.”

“I will, but I know she’ll agree. I got my woman—and you deserve yours.”

Chapter 17

Astrid

Bolton sat across from me at the table in the restaurant. The other tables were full of couples enjoying a late-night dinner on a beautiful summer night. When we got on the plane, Bolton didn’t tell me our destination, but the second we landed, I recognized Madrid. We had a summer home there we’d hardly ever used.

It’d been a rough couple of weeks, but there’d been a lot of improvements. I told Bolton if he ever struck me again, I would never try again. That he would only look into my soulless eyes until he decided to kill me. Those words seemed to wound him because he hadn’t shown a hint of anger around me.

I participated in conversations like I did in the past. Seemed invested rather than indifferent. Pretended to try…even though I was dead inside. He tried to be intimate with me a couple of times, but I told him I wasn’t ready. Instead of getting angry or forcing me, he accepted it without complaint.

It seemed like giving him just a little bit of myself was all he wanted.

I drank my sangria. “It’s good.”

He gave a nod in agreement, but his eyes remained focused on me. Intent and possessive, the way he used to be when our relationship first started, when I was the only thing that was ever on his mind.

But there was no amount of progress he could make to change the way I felt.

To change the fact that I hated him. I hated him for what he’d done to me, but I hated him more for what he’d done to Axel and his family. The way he’d destroyed the lives of innocent people to get his way.

A part of me hoped that Theo would come for me, but I knew that was just a dream. Once a few days turned into a week and he didn’t break down the front door, I knew he’d let me go. Not by choice, but because he had to.

Because Bolton was perfectly capable of killing an innocent child.

It hurt to be abandoned, but I knew it was the right decision.