Chapter 80

• After moving to L.A., I changed my last name, and even my mother did. We swore never to talk about the past few years to help me recover from the haunting memories. I had moved on with my life and had never intended to look back. And so when Danzel told me he was looking for Ethan Williams, I never thought that the person might be somehow related to me. I hadn't seen my father, didn't know where he was. So how the hell was I supposed to know Danzel was searching for my father and his son? How was I supposed to know that the man who was my hero the entire life was a man who had destroyed an entire family? Even though I was unaware of everything, I blamed myself for everything that happened during the two years with Danzel.
• Falling in love was something I had never planned. Never would I fall in love with a man who has killed hundreds of people. But his deep blue eyes and the soft touch of his calloused hands had me in their trap. I should have known he would never love me. He only loved one girl who was killed in front of his eyes, who was raped in front of him and he could do nothing about it. He had her name tattooed over his heart so that every breath he took, every time his heart beat inside his ribs, it would remind the very sole purpose of his living. Gabriel had told me how close Isabella and Danzel were, he was a normal loving guy with her. She was his first love and maybe, maybe his last.
• He never said he loved me, even when I did the stupid thing of blurting out my feelings. The look on his face, the way his eyes went rigid within seconds made me realize that I had asked something out of line, something I was allowed to ask, something I would never get in return.