Chapter 520

Olivia

“Now you know the truth, Olivia.”

Nathan threw the list of names down on the table in front of me—the exact same list that he had told me about during his story. With shaking hands, I slowly reached down and picked it up. And, just as he had described, there they were.

So he wasn’t lying.

“All this time,” I whispered, slowly lifting my gaze from the paper to meet his. “All this time, you…”

“I always told you I’d never cheat, didn’t I?” he asked in a hush tone so as not to be overheard. “And I didn’t.”

I swallowed, still shakily holding the paper. I felt like I was in some sort of dream, or perhaps a nightmare that had wound up turning out okay in the end. All this time, instead of cheating on me like I had suspected, Nathan had instead been doing dangerous, hard work.

He had been gathering intelligence on a secret sex trafficking ring that had been beneath our noses this entire time.

“Nathan,” I breathed, not even thinking about the cheating or the divorce or the stranger anymore, “this is dangerous. Really dangerous.” I threw the list back down on the table as though the paper itself had burned me. “You have to tell the police.”

But Nathan shook his head. “Trust me, I already thought about it,” he said, tapping on a name on the list. “But the chief of police is right there. We have no idea how deep this goes, Olivia. We can’t tell anyone yet.”

I swallowed again and bit the inside of my cheek, too stunned to even speak.

“Look, Olivia,” Nathan said, circling around the desk and taking both of my shoulders in his hands. “I know it’s a lot to process, and it feels hopeless and terrifying. But I have a plan; I promise.”

“A plan?” I whispered. “How do you intend on taking down a sex trafficking ring if there are people in law enforcement who would be working against us?”

Nathan sighed. “The union we’re a part of now wasn’t always here; there used to be an old union of packs, back before our parents’ times. And some of the packs who were once part of that union still exist. I plan to ally with them.”

“This sounds risky,” I said worriedly. “You don’t know whether those packs can be trusted, or if they’ll even want to ally with us.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t. But I know where to start.”

“The southern packs,” I whispered.

“Exactly,” Nathan said softly. “But Olivia, I need you by my side. I can’t do this without you. And I can’t do this in the middle of a divorce.”

As Nathan spoke, my eyes flickered over to the divorce papers that were sitting on the desk. I felt like a fool now for not listening to him and for getting those papers to begin with.

“Nathan, I… I’m so sorry,” I croaked around a sob that was bubbling up in my throat. “All this time, you were trying to tell me the truth and I wouldn’t even give you the chance.”

Nathan looked at me for a moment, still holding my shoulders. And for that moment, I thought he might send me away; after all, I had been nothing if not combatant for weeks now.

But then he pulled me into a tight hug, and he held me like I was the last thing on earth to keep him grounded. We clung onto each other like that for what felt like an eternity, just holding each other in our arms.

For the first time in weeks, I felt my soul relax into him; and even if only momentarily, that severed connection that I had felt snap when my son had been stillborn felt as if it had been mended, even just the slightest bit.

When we finally pulled back, we were both a bit breathless from the embrace alone.

“I take it you never read my letter,” he said with a slight chuckle.

I furrowed my brow. “Letter?” I asked, and then realization dawned on me; the roses and the envelope. Instantly, I felt my face turn bright red. “I, um… I threw them all out. Without opening the letter.”

Nathan sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It was now that the blindfold of fury had been lifted from my eyes that I realized just how exhausted he looked. There were dark circles around his eyes, his cheeks looked hollow and drawn, his hair had lost its usual luster and his eyes looked pale and dull.

“You should come home,” I said softly, taking his hand. “We can have dinner, talk about things, get some rest.”

But Nathan shook his head. “I can’t,” he whispered, glancing over at the door behind me. “It’s Dan.”

I frowned. “Do you think he—”

“I told him that I would stay in his mansion,” he said. “And for now, I think that’s the best course of action; I’ll be able to gather more information there, and we can keep up this facade of separation between us.”

As Nathan spoke, I realized that he was right—even though the thought of not being able to share a bed with him after all this time, despite learning the truth, felt like another shard of ice in my heart.

“He wanted this,” I whispered, gesturing between the two of us. “He wanted to pull us apart. Maybe he even hired the stranger who kept sending me photos of you.”

Nathan sighed again. “It’s very possible. Everyone is weaker when they’re alone; and until I was separated from you, I was a rogue cannon in his eyes. Because of you.”

“Me?” I asked.

He nodded. “You’ve been onto him since the beginning. He clearly knows that. And he knows that I’d listen to you.”

“So what now?” I asked, swallowing. “What do we do?”

Nathan walked over to his desk then and did the unimaginable: he grabbed a pen and signed his name on the divorce papers.

“Here,” he said, sticking them back in the folder and handing it to me. “Hold onto this.”

“You don’t mean—”

“Just hold onto it,” he said softly, circling back around to grab me by the hands. “Don’t take them to the attorney’s office; if anything, keep them out on the kitchen counter, where they can be seen easily. That way, it’ll look like—”

“Like we’re still going through with the divorce,” I finished for him.

Nathan nodded. “Exactly.”

There was a brief moment of silence as the gravity of the situation fully hit me. I felt rather deflated now, as though all of the air had been let out of me. Although I was glad that I had learned the truth, it felt as if the real drama had only just begun.

“I miss you,” I blurted out, without even really meaning to.

A smile began to twitch at the corners of Nathan’s lips. He stepped forward and pressed a warm kiss against my forehead—a sensation that I hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever. But we couldn’t do more than that, not here, not if Dan or someone else was watching.

“Go home,” he said softly, releasing my hands. “I’ll come to you tonight.”

I nodded; our time was up. Stiffly, I turned toward the door and walked out. I leveled the expression on my face as I opened the door, hoping to create an air of a woman who had just set a divorce in motion rather than one who had just discovered that her husband was gathering intelligence on a sex trafficking ring rather than cheating on her.

As I walked down the hall and past Dan, I could feel the sneer on his lips without even looking at him.

But little did he know that there was a sneer on my own as well.