Page 79 of His to Love
“But what you don’t know—” He stopped and snapped the folder closed. My eyes flickered to Malik’s immediately. My mind was swirling with confusion and anger and…betrayal? His hands clasped together and his elbows dropped to his knees. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost patronizing. “What you don’t know is that after he left college, he immediately joined the FBI. He’s been an agent with them for the last four years.”
I shook my head, unable to stop. “No. He wouldn’t.”
“The man whose bed you’ve been sharing is currently working on taking down your family.”
“Impossible,” I said, but my lip was trembling.
“And he’s using you to do it.”
My chin trembled as I fought the urge to look away from Malik.
This was so similar to ten years ago. Tyson wouldn’t do this to me. I refused to believe it. But this time, I had proof in photos. It was the same…but so different. My father had lied before to get his way, and he could have been doing it now. Although I would have expected him to use a new trick.
“What have you told him?” he asked, his voice hardening.
“Nothing. I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re sure? You haven’t mentioned a single thing about your father? About me? About anything that your father is involved in?”
“I don’t even know anything, Malik! And he already knew,” I said, memories quickly flickering into my mind. “He knew things, but I thought—”
“That could probably be debated,” he interrupted, clearly thinking I was an idiot.
I had never felt more like that could very well be the case.
“I only knew that my father had Tyson’s father killed several years after I was already in Colorado. His dad was in the DPD and investigating my father.”
“And did you ever stop and think that he might want vengeance for that?” Malik roared, leaning forward. His voice was so loud, so completely furious, that I jolted back into my seat and wiped tears from my eyes.
“Fucking Christ, Gabriella. You’re a goddamned Galecki and you’ve literally been in bed with our fucking enemy! How could you be so damned stupid?”
“I’m not!” I shouted, losing the grip I had been maintaining. “I’m not stupid and I’m not an idiot. It’s Tyson. I’ve loved him since I was fifteen years old. He was the first person I saw when I came back to town and I thought…”
“What? That it was all coincidence?” His look of disgust slashed right through me and I looked away, down to my lap. Admitting that yes, that’s exactly what I thought, or maybe worse—that it was fate—would make me sound more like a moron.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered. “This is shit I don’t need. It’s shit your father definitely doesn’t need right now. Do you know how much he’s going to fucking flip out when I tell him?”
“You can’t,” I gasped, snapping my head to his. “He’ll kill him.”
“And he’d deserve it.”
My jaw dropped in shock.
But this was Tyson. He wouldn’t betray me like this. There was no way.
Malik and I stared at each other, the fury pulsing off him making it difficult for him to breathe. But even as I looked at his heaving chest, and a vein thumping at his temple, I wasn’t really seeing him.
I was remembering Tyson and the things he’d said to me.
The things I’d overheard from phone calls.
The way the man in his office glared at me earlier this week, and the tidbits of their conversation I had heard.
How he’d said he wanted to wait to be inside me until there was nothing between us.
How he told someone on the phone that he was working on it. A case, he had told me later.
Pieces clicked into place at the very time my heart broke in two.
