I held her and squeezed her tight, my face in her shoulder, holding on to this feeling as long as I possibly could, soaking up every single moment. The hug lasted a long time because it was the only way to truly share the way we felt about each other. Words were insufficient.

When we pulled apart, she looked at me. “You look so gorgeous, Melanie… Wow.”

I shook my head. “That dress was made for you. Magnus can’t stop looking at you—along with everyone else.”

She gave a slight smile. “I guess black is my color.”

A long stare ensued, full of questions neither one of us wanted to ask.

I went first. “How are you?”

She didn’t answer the question directly. “I like being in Paris with Magnus.” She told me she was allowed to go shopping and get coffee on her own, that the two of them had a relationship built on a bedrock of trust. She wouldn’t run and put him in jeopardy—and he knew that. “What about you?”

I wanted to tell my sister the truth because I told her everything, but the shame was too big to conquer. If I told her the way I really felt about Fender, her reaction would be explosive. She would probably hate me the way she hated him. “No complaints.” I took the path of a coward and shared very few details of my life, of the deep and profound connection I had to the man who slept beside me every single night. We were unmarried, but he felt like my husband, a husband I’d had for years. He was everything I could want in a man—except one thing. How could I possibly justify that when my sister was his prisoner? It made me feel like shit just thinking about it. “He’ll let you go. It’s taking me some time, but he will.”

She released a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, that will never happen.”

“It will.” Confidence burned in my voice, because I knew him better than she did. I knew his heart—because he’d given it to me.

A long silence passed before she gave me that look—a look that said she had an idea. “You know…if you were to kill him…it might fix all our problems.”

Shock hit me like an electrode was attached to my finger. My back straightened with the jolt, and my eyes widened at the suggestion because it was so innately repulsive.

“In his sleep or something.”

An image flashed across my mind, a faceless man putting a gun to his wife’s head and pulling the trigger, wiping out an entire family—except two survivors. The thought nearly brought me to tears. “I…I can’t do that.”

“If you do, the camp will belong to Magnus. He’ll let everyone go—”