Unchained

by Roze, Robyn

  Sean’s eyes lifted to hers.

  “The day Scotty deserted me at your villa in Italy.”

  The shared memory played across his face.

  “I admit sometimes that dream of wishing you alive can feel like a nightmare. I knew there would be a price to pay for wishing it true. I can live with that, pay it. I have to because the alternative is unbearable to me.” She read the doubt haunting his eyes. “I’m here for all the right reasons. You have my word. I’m exactly where I want to be. With you.”

  He shielded himself with his arms crossed over his bare chest, appearing unconvinced.

  “We can’t give the past power over our future, or we will lose. We need to be honest with each other. We need to talk about it, all of it. Especially the ugly parts. It’s the only way we’ll be able to grow old together. I want that, Sean, more than anything.”

  He agreed with a small nod.

  She slid to the middle of the bed and pulled back the sheet. “Come here.”

  He remained stoic, planted in his spot.

  “Now.” The blunt command stiffened his body, hardened the planes of his face. Shayna knew her husband did not take orders from anyone, and that only she could get away with such a brazen tone.

  She hid her pleasure, dipped her chin, and patted the bed. “Please,” she whispered. Like magic, he transformed before her eyes. Icy steel warmed, leaving her the man with whom one short lifetime would never be enough.

  He stalked forward, hooked his hand under her knees and yanked her flat onto her back in one clean pull. Then he settled between her willing legs, hovering above her, searching her eyes for the truth. “I thought you liked actions, not words,” Sean said.

  He was right. How many times had she uttered those exact words to him?

  “Mostly,” she said. “But sometimes not talking about important things, significant events, gives them a life all their own. Power over the present they shouldn’t have.”

  The ruinous mistakes Frank had made in the past stood front and center in her mind’s eye. Painful memories of his betrayals, his gambling, and his infidelity combined with her regrettable choice to shut him out during their three-year, contentious divorce, had denied them both the closure they needed. If she had not cut off communication with him back then, she wondered, would he have revealed the predicament—his desperate financial situation and unpaid gambling debts—that resulted in Dani’s kidnapping and ransom demand? The worry that Frank’s death and Dani’s kidnapping might have been prevented, if she had allowed him the ability to ask for her help when he needed it, would always be a source of regret.

  Then there was her confession to her brothers, not all that long ago, of having found and concealed their estranged mother’s letters from them, back when they had all been teenagers. Only to realize she exacerbated the torment she had wanted to protect them from.

  She was old enough to have learned the answers to many of life’s questions, the hard way. And she was done retaking the same test.

  “We need to do better,” she said.

  He contemplated her for a moment longer.

  “What is it you need to say, Shay?” His thumbs stroked at her temples. “What is it you want to ask me?”

  Right to the point.

  Should she ask? The question felt trivial when his concentration belonged on the threat closing in on him in Singapore.

  She breathed in his masculine scent, studied him, and marveled at the tenderness of his hands, at opposition with the raw, coiled power vibrating inside him, always ready to strike.

  Decision made, she composed her question and steeled her nerve.

  “Why did you do it? Why did you hurt him after you promised me you wouldn’t?”

  He didn’t even flinch, just continued the hypnotic swirl of his thumbs on her skin, his pensive expression unchanged, as if he had somehow been privy to the question in advance.

  She worried if perhaps he had been, in the dark of night…

  He rolled off her, hands clasped behind his head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling.

  “I learned forgiveness late in life,” Shayna said. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten. I never will.” She twined her leg with his and nestled at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He remained unmoved. “Maybe that’s what you want. I don’t know, because we’ve never talked about it. We’ve avoided it by keeping ourselves busy, by—”

  “Living in the moment.” His interruption sounded like a reprimand. “Appreciating every moment for the second chance by making up for a lifetime of lost time. That’s what we’ve been doing, Shay. There’s nothing wrong with that. Life is short. Too fucking short.” He waited, the drum of his heartbeat resonating against her palm. “My answer won’t change anything. It won’t make it easier for you.”

  “I’m not looking for easy. I’m just looking for a way to move forward, to put the bad dreams to rest if that’s even possible. I think talking about it is the only way it is possible.”

  The ceiling fan circled above them, swirling the pained silence of the present and the past into a suffocating, needling presence.

  He pulled away from her and pushed out of bed to pace around the room, rolling his shoulders and shaking out his arms, his back to her, hands flexing.

  “Do you think I’m a monster, Shay?”

  Goosebumps flared across her body, and the blood drained from her face. Is this what she had been mumbling in her sleep? She drew a few deliberate breaths, then slid out of bed to squeeze between him and the bureau where he stood.

  He took a few steps back from her, his face unreadable.

  “No, I don’t think that,” she answered, the hem of her nightgown bunched in her hands. “I separated the man from the act.” She swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat at the memory of also having done the same for Frank, more than once.

  From the look of hatred burning in his eyes, Sean had figured that out, had somehow read her mind.

  “That bastard is six feet under and he’s still coming between us.”

  Outrage stained her cheeks and widened her eyes. “Is that why you killed him? Because you thought he was a threat to us?”

  He looked stunned, maybe even hurt. “Are you serious right now?” He stepped farther away, his arms stretched toward her like a plea. “I killed that son-of-a-bitch because he was a threat to you!” His eyes rolled over her body with the look of a man who had seen actual horror in the world. “I saw what he did to you, Shayna, every fucking place he hurt you; I saw it all. Did you think I could ever forget that? Did you really think I could just let him get away with it?”

  The old shame left her feeling exposed, and somehow accountable.

  “You weren’t going to make him pay. So I did!” His fist slammed against his chest.

  “So it’s my fault? Don’t you dare blame me for what you did!”

  “None of it was your fault. I’ve never blamed you!” he shouted. “Don’t put words in my mouth to make yourself feel better.”

  She charged forward and punched her palms against his chest. Her strength was irrelevant. She hadn’t budged him. “How the hell could I feel better about any of this!”

  “Blaming yourself is easier than blaming me—or him. You make justifications.” He leaned down into her face. “You separate the man from the act,” he repeated her words with scorn. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Don’t you dare handle me the way you handled him. I don’t deserve it, and I sure as fuck don’t need to be handled. Everything I did, I did because I love you. Because I will never allow a man to hurt you and walk around like he did nothing wrong. And to answer the question you’ve been asking over and over while you sleep? Hell, yes, I’d do it again.” He caught her wrist before her hand could connect with his face. “I will never apologize for protecting you. Never.”

  The chill of disillusionment squeezed around her. “You’ll never understand.”

  “Oh, you’re right abou
t that. I’d love to know what that son-of-a-bitch would’ve had to have done for you to write him off for good. For you to stop dreaming about him. For you to stop trying to justify marrying that loser in the first place.” He stopped the second incoming slap. “And don’t use Danielle as an excuse again. You almost lost her for good because of him. I’d think that alone would do it. But, no, he could fuck a girl in your bed—one of many no doubt, rape you, and you’d still find a way to separate the man from the act.”

  This time her palm hit its target with a resounding smack. Only because he’d allowed it. Shayna bottled the fury raging inside her, squared her shoulders, and willed her tears not to spill.

  She stood tall, chin up, and stepped closer to him. “You know all about separating the man from the act, don’t you, Sean? You’ve been doing it since the day we met, by withholding the parts of you that would explain why you’re being hunted right now. Why I need protection. The entire time I’ve known you, you’ve been separating the man you allow me to see, from the actions of the man you want to hide from me. Yet you stand here with the audacity to suggest you’re the only one allowed that leniency.”

  She scoffed and shook her head in disbelief. “You don’t live in a world I’m familiar with, or one I even want to be familiar with. No one gets to make choices in a vacuum, not even you. Everything we do affects someone. Now or later.” She glared up at him. “Because our choices follow us, don’t they? Even yours.” She let the bite of her accusation sink in, the current threats circling overhead like impatient buzzards. “You think I make justifications? Look in the mirror, Sean. You’ve justified keeping me in the dark this whole time. Where has that gotten you? Because it’s your actions before we ever met that are affecting both of us right now. No matter how hard you’ve tried to separate the man from the acts.”

  He backed away from her as if she had pushed him, his dazed expression forming a motley picture of turmoil that morphed into stony comprehension. Maybe it was wrong, but right now she felt satisfaction at having returned the favor, at having spit the venom back in his face.

  How could an evening that only a few hours earlier dovetailed with them naked, happy, and in sync again, nosedive like this?

  Easy. The stress of carrying a terrible secret, coupled with the strain of being hunted like animals.

  Then, right before her eyes, his lifetime of training kicked in and his steely armor reassembled to deflect the emotions gnawing at him. He was done with this fight, and with her, for now. The man standing rigid before her at this moment didn’t feel remorse, or love; he was a stranger, a dangerous machine with a job to perform.

  This was the man she met last year on the Tuscan Dream; the man who assembled the team that saved her daughter…The same man he refused to share with her then and now.

  She glimpsed her husband in those sea-green eyes the second before he turned away and marched out. He swung the door open with such force it bounced against the wall-stop and then slammed shut behind him, followed by the echo of a second door slamming shut.

  In the other bedroom.

  Chapter 7

  The muffled sound of male voices in the suite woke Shayna from the sticky fog of a restless sleep. She unstuck her lids and glanced at the clock, then pushed the glare of the early hour in the other direction. After shifting her tired body into a sitting position, she rose and walked to the door, letting her hand dangle on the knob. It sounded like Sean with several other men, but she couldn’t make out what they were discussing. She could slip on a robe and go find out, but, in truth, she preferred not to know.

  Ignorance was not bliss. It was just easier than adding to her already mounting worries.

  Out of habit, she pressed a button on the wall panel to draw open the drapes to the coming glory of a sunrise about to burst on the horizon. Instead of enjoying it, she headed for the shower, ready to wash away dried tears and bitter disappointment.

  After Sean stormed out last night, they stayed in separate rooms without another word to each other. Probably for the best, all considered. The timing had felt, at least to her, inappropriate for such an emotional discussion, anyway. However, timing didn’t seem to matter to Sean. It was like a switch he could flip on and off. He could spend time with her behaving as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. As if he wasn’t planning a deadly mission. As if there weren’t people hell-bent on killing him.

  How was he able to do that? When it was all she could think about.

  She lifted her face to the luxe showerhead and let the indulgent deluge of water flood over her, not caring that she hadn’t given it time to warm up. The tepid water soothed her aching muscles from having run her excess, angry energy out a few hours earlier on the treadmill in their suite’s private gym. A part of her had hoped Sean would hear her relentless pounding and join her. Not to be. The silent treatment won out. Though sometimes silence was better than harsh words that could never be unspoken, or unheard.

  Was he sorry about anything he said last night?

  Should she feel sorry?

  She did not.

  He didn’t understand; he had never even tried. Not really. That is what bothered her most. It was as if he thought she should be thankful he had gotten rid of some annoying pest for her—not a human being. Not someone she had once loved, had shared a life and daughter with. Even if he would never understand, she at least needed him to hear her. She needed him to listen without judgment, without thinking her feelings diminished him, or their marriage. Or her. Because she was complicit with him, having married him knowing what he had done.

  Her eyes popped open with a sudden realization. She swiped the water from her face, zooming in on her new understanding: she needed his acceptance, just as she had accepted him.

  Or had she?

  She could not help but question herself after the sampling he gave her last night of the awful things she had muttered in her sleep. For how long? She scrubbed shampoo into her hair and considered the feasibility of taping her mouth shut at night going forward.

  She finished with a final rinse, toweled off, applied moisturizer and sunscreen, then dug out her favorite purple bikini. After breakfast, she planned to relax for a good chunk of the day at the infinity pool, hoping Sean would join her and they could start over with cooler heads. She wanted him focused on accomplishing his immediate goal, not distracted by their fight last night.

  If those were her last words to him, she would never forgive herself. A sentiment that might seem melodramatic to some, but her life experience had proven otherwise.

  More than once.

  She slipped on her scanty, silver-beaded mesh cover-up and listened at the door for voices. Only the indistinct drone of the television spanned the hollow distance; Sean’s men must have left. Time to face the music.

  With a smile and a positive attitude, she pulled open the door and strode into the living room expecting to see Sean. However, the area was empty. The sound of a door opening on the other side of the suite and the whistle of a song in the short hallway got her attention. Mick rounded the corner into her space and stopped dead in his tracks, swallowing the whistle that had been on his lips.

  Shayna bit back a perceptive smile, aware of his swift, involuntary once-over.

  “Morning, Mick. You and Sean still working?”

  He looked confused. “Uh, no. He had to leave for a while. You’re stuck with me until he gets back.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Thanks for the heads-up, darling. She glanced around the room and muttered under her breath, “Couldn’t tell me yourself. Leave me a damn note.”

  “Uh, sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

  She waved away the question. “Have you had breakfast? I’m starving.”

  He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I grabbed something before I got here.”

  Mick Torres looked strong enough to stiff-arm a tank, which made her skeptical that a man built like him ever filled up for long.

&nb
sp; Now she gave him the once-over. “Oh, come on, you must be hungry twenty-four-seven.”

  He chuckled and scratched at the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess you could say my tank takes a lot of fuel.”

  “Great. I don’t want to eat alone.” She picked up a nearby hotel binder, opened it to the breakfast menu, and then handed it off to Mick. “Fill up your tank. It’s on Sean.”

  Sean hugged the corners and skimmed the curves, testing the agile handling of the sleek Maserati the hotel concierge had hooked him up with earlier. He hoped to return the powerful beast in one piece, free of bullet holes.

  Window down, arm slung outside, fingers drumming an imaginary beat on the glossy black panel, he looked like a man without a care in the world—or killers on his ass. He checked his side mirror and watched his tail switch lanes to gain ground on him. Then he merged onto the East Coast Parkway and accelerated, glancing in the rearview mirror at the new ‘friends’ he picked up while taking the twenty-three turns on the same F1 route the professionals would race next month on the Marina Bay circuit of the Grand Prix; it would have been fun redlining the tachometer like them too. But not today. This was not a pleasure ride. It was the start of an operation to bait and eliminate the immediate threat—Dix’s crew, then the ringleader himself. A complex strategy more than a decade in the making was on schedule.

  Over the years, Sean had considered letting Dix suffer the same humiliation and political and financial devastation that awaited his associates on the open waters off Singapore. However, he wasn’t satisfied with Dixon being netted along with his partners in crime and only facing the grinding slog of sanctioned justice. The senator deserved an expedited and more personal type of reckoning.

  And Sean had docked in Singapore just so he could give it to him.

  Right now, Graham Dixon suffered from two dangerous delusions: believing he had the upper hand, and believing he caught his opponent unprepared. To further the senator’s misconceptions, Marcus had been sent back to him, not only beaten and fearing for his son and girlfriend’s lives, but also thinking Sean was short on reinforcements and needed time to regroup. Soon after, Marcus had relayed Dix’s laughable offer. The senator wanted to meet, said he would rein in his hounds until he could reach the island and try a man-to-man accord. Sean snorted at the absurdity of the lies. The son-of-a-bitch was already on the island, had arrived before him, and he had not called off his henchmen two car lengths back.