I looked away. I tried to be away. I didn’t want to hear this.
“Emma,” he whispered as he brushed some of my hair down. “Emma. Look at me.”
I didn’t. I wouldn’t.
“Emma.”
“NO!” I ripped out of his arms and staggered back. When he reached for me, I batted him away. “No, I said!”
His arm fell back to his side.
I killed him for her. She was going to die and I stopped it. I killed him. I took him away so she could live and now he was telling me—I refused to believe it. I shook my head again. “No. I don’t believe you.”
“The police found her.”
“Where?”
His eyes narrowed. “You can’t go there.”
“Why not?! She was my family.” She left and I thought she was starting over. That’s what Amanda said. Amanda was always right. They were starting over. I was starting over. We had all survived. And now Carter was saying that all of us hadn’t survived. Not her. I looked at him and whispered, “It should’ve been me.”
He jerked me against him and wrapped his arms around me. “Not you.”
“It should’ve been me.”
His arms tightened around me. “Not you. I’m sorry. I’d kill every single person to keep that from happening.”
“Well, you did.” I pulled away. “I got out. That’s what you wanted. You wanted me here and safe. So congratulations. I’m alive, but if I had stayed there, they could’ve traded me for her. She would be alive and I’d be dead instead—”
“Her boyfriend killed her!”
I froze. Ben? There was no way, but as I turned and stared in Carter’s cold eyes, I knew it was true. He would never lie, not about this. “What did you say?”
“Her boyfriend killed her. He went nuts, Emma. She was pregnant. Whose kid do you think it was? I’m guessing not the boyfriend’s.”
I reared back as if slapped. His cold tone whipped at me, but it was true. What he said was true. I shook my head. “Ben would never hurt Mallory.”
“He would if he was high on something,” he clipped out. “My guess, Franco got him hooked. He didn’t want all that cash to walk away. When the boyfriend found out that she was pregnant, he snapped. It wouldn’t be the first time a guy went into a rage.”
From the knowing tone in his voice, I stopped dead. My heart even held for a moment. “Have you done that?”
“To the woman I love? No. To those who would hurt her? Yes.”
I was struck speechless again. Carter hadn’t blinked an eye when he responded. He seemed calm even. He was, I shivered, the cold-blooded stranger to me again.
“That boyfriend of hers-”
“He wasn’t really her boyfriend. He never had been.”
“He wanted to be. I’m guessing he was pissed when she dated Dunvan. I’m guessing he thought he had put in his time, waited it out for her to finish with the last guy and he was next in line. Then when she started dating Dunvan, he was over all the time. He was calling? Maybe even stopping by the apartment when she was out with him?”
How did he know this?
Carter continued, “When you went to him, he was able to be the knight in shining armor. I bet he loved that. He had it in the bag. He probably convinced her that first night that she couldn’t stand the feel of Dunvan’s touch, she wanted another man’s touch.”
“She didn’t want to feel him anymore. She wanted to feel me. She wanted another man’s touch.”
I remembered Ben’s words and the scratches down his back. He hadn’t even looked remorseful except that she was crying. He had made her cry again.
“Emma?”
I focused on Carter again and blinked, startled. Why did he have to be so beautiful? And his wolf eyes, icy blues. Why did he have to save me? I murmured, “You should’ve left me alone.”
He drew in a deep breath.
I kept going, numb now. “You should’ve let them kill me back then. I could’ve been with AJ all these years. You would’ve been fine. You were going places. You got accepted to college before. Why didn’t you go?”
He leaned back against the counter. His arms slipped to my hips and he held me loosely between his feet. “You want to have this conversation now?”
“Indulge me.”
He stared at me, studying me. “Why now?”
I shrugged, turning away.
He caught my chin and pulled me back. “Why, Emma? What’s going on in that head of yours?”
I didn’t move from his hold. I wanted to lean into him. I wanted him to wrap his arms around me again and I wanted everything to go away. But it wouldn’t. She was dead. I had felt it. I knew something was wrong, but Amanda convinced me everything was fine. I had bought it. I really thought Mallory was happy somewhere, off with him, but Carter was right. Ben had done all of those things.
“You’re right.”
“About?”
Everything hurt. “About Ben. He said she wanted another man’s touch. I thought he really loved her.”
“He was sick in the head.” He tugged me closer to him. I closed my eyes when he moved to my neck and pressed a kiss there. I belonged to him. Why did I even fight against it sometimes? A feeling of being claimed, liking it, was mixed with emptiness. Mallory should’ve been alive. She wasn’t. I was, and I was with Carter. I was with my soul mate while she had her baby cut out of her.