🗝️Detective Ryker Viltarin must uncover dark secrets before he loses not only his heart but also his life.🗝️
You're on your own, far from home
The wind is blowing in the top of the pines
A gloomy sky where the sun never shines
Deep...
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Could the day get any worse? It was usually said that things could always be worse, but was that also true when you lost everything important to you in one fell swoop?
With a soft sigh, Ryker put his rucksack beside the bed before sinking onto the rumpled sheets. No, he couldn't sink any lower. That was impossible.
"Bloody hell..." the detective muttered into his beard before raising his hands and burying his face in them. But Ryker saw her face as soon as he closed his eyes. The betrayal, the pain, and the way she flinched away from him as he reached for her. The wide-open eyes as the realization hit. An image that followed him like a dark shadow made his broad, muscular shoulders tremble.
He felt the first small drop trickle into his palm and disappear. A tear. The first to fall, preceding the trembling sobs that began to shake him. God, yes, damn it, he had played a game in the beginning. He'd followed Dylan's order before putting the puzzle pieces together and stumbled upon the truth. He'd betrayed Kaylen. But that was before this woman had thrown him off balance and rocked his whole world. She and the little whirlwind that brought a genuine smile to his lips. Eve and Liam's laughter had been like a gift. A warmth that melted his cold heart and a light that filled his dull, lonely life with new meaning.
"What have you done?" he whispered to himself. He had known it would come to this. Ray had known that the mask would fall one day. It had been clear to him from the start. And yet he had avoided the conversation, fled from the truth, hid, and lived the lie as if it were real. As if Dylan didn't exist.
But at some point, the shadows of the past caught up with him. Ryker was constantly confronted with it and knew that better than anyone.
So why?
Why hadn't he sought a dialogue when he had the chance?
Why had he run away?
Had he hoped to get more time?
Or was he simply afraid of what would happen if he laid his cards on the table?
Sobbing, he sucked the air into his lungs again as he lifted his head from his hands, exposing the delicate, shiny rivulets that ran down his tanned skin.
