He braced himself.

“Is this necessary? Are these really bad people?”

“You sure you want this, Siena? I don’t want it for you. I want you to live your life free.”

“You’re mine. I can’t watch you go, knowing what’s going to happen, without you telling me what our lives are going to be like. I’ve been patient, waiting. Now you’re going and it’s . . . bad. I can see that. So give me that much. I have to know.”

“I wouldn’t go after an innocent, baby,” he assured her. “Hold on to Drake’s reputation, not the one that was mine. Is mine. I promise we’ll have that talk when I get back if you still want it. I’ll lay it out for you.”

“All of it.”

He closed his eyes. Knowing she saw. He fucking hated his family, what they’d made him, what they’d given him.

“Honey.” Soft. Beautiful. Loving. She kissed his hand and his heart turned over.

Elijah opened his eyes and nodded. “All of it.”

“Then go, but be safe. And come back to me.” She rubbed her palm over her belly. “To us.”

He put his hand on her soft pooch where his children lay safe and snug inside his woman. “I’ll always come back to you.”

He got the hell out of there before he lost his resolve. He would come back to her with blood on his hands. He swore with every step he took, furious at himself, at his life—a life he’d chosen when Drake had proposed it—and furious at the people who had taken a little boy and shaped him into a monster.

The men with him on that plane were good men. All of them. He trusted them when he didn’t trust very many. Joshua sat alone, face turned toward the window, looking like stone. Part of him wanted to go to the man and talk him out of his decision. It was easy enough to make when you didn’t have a woman, when you didn’t have decent, when you were alone with nothing and wanted to do something with your life.

“You okay?” Drake asked, dropping into the seat across from him.

Drake was one of the few people who could read him—or dare to ask him questions. Elijah had never been friendly. His leopard rode him hard. His upbringing had never allowed for friendship. He liked his brother-in-law, Rachel’s husband, but when he first met him, Elijah still had major trust issues. He didn’t like someone that close to his sister, not when he didn’t know him. Still, the man made her happy and Elijah had learned, over the years, that Rio was a good man.

“She saw me tonight,” he admitted. He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “She saw who I am. What I am.”