He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, brushing his knuckles across the softness of her cheek. The slight frown on her face eased and she sighed.
“Did you regret it?” Warrick asked before he could stop himself.
Quinton didn’t even ask for clarification, seemed to know exactly what Warrick meant. Whether Quinton had regretted wiping Anita Peters’s memory.
“Every day of my life. She was—always will be—my mate. There’s never been anyone else.” Quinton paused. “When I learned that she’d died in a car wreck, I wanted to die. Knowing she was alive and happy had always kept me going. But knowing she was dead…”
And that she’d never been happy. Warrick didn’t need to say it aloud, and despite his determination not to, his stomach twisted with sympathy.
“If she wakes tell her I’ll be back soon.” Warrick leaned down and brushed a kiss across Sienna’s forehead, and then left.
Sienna squeezed her eyes closed, trying not to let the tears leak out. Not wanting to open them and face her new reality.
The tranquilizer must’ve faded from her system quicker than anyone had thought, because she’d surfaced to consciousness probably fifteen minutes ago. But she hadn’t given any indication of that fact.
Once again, she’d “played dead” to listen in on Warrick’s conversation with Quinton.
My biological father.
Her stomach churned and she bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain. But it wasn’t the excruciating physical stuff she’d dealt with last tonight. Instead, it was emotional. And almost more debilitating.
Everything she’d known was an illusion. Not a lie, because nobody had known. Not even Quinton. But he could’ve. If he hadn’t wiped her mother’s memory.
“How much did you hear?”
The muscles in her body went rigid, and Sienna blinked her eyes open. She’d hoped he’d just leave, but apparently he’d been waiting to talk. She’d avoided any one-on-one discussion this far, and had no intention of having it now.
“I heard enough.” She sat up, shoving the blankets off her and climbing out of bed, avoiding his gaze. “Where’s my dad?”
She saw him flinch from the corner of her eye. Too bad for him. Quinton might share her blood, but she’d never think of him as her father. He stood up and moved toward her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Sienna—”
“What you did to my mother was deplorable.” She rounded on him, her fragile composure snapping. “You stole her memory against her will. And you know what? I think you were right. She did remember deep down, even if she couldn’t quite put a finger on it. But she knew something was missing.”
Anguish flashed across Quinton’s hard face and reflected in his blue eyes. Eyes that were mirrors of her own.
Bile rose in her throat and her head began to pound. This man was a stranger. A stranger who was responsible for her life. It was insane. She needed to get away. Put as much distance between herself and Quinton as possible.
She wanted her dad. Her real dad—Kevin Peters. The man who’d raised her, loved her, and embodied everything a father should be. Jesus, what he must be going through right now?
“I can’t deal with you,” she muttered and backed away. “You’ve destroyed my life—my father’s life—in one night.”
“I never meant to hurt you, Sienna. I never even suspected who you were until back at HQ when you started showing symptoms.”
“It doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s all just a side effect of the drug. I’m not believing a thing until I see a blood test that proves it.”
“I know it’s a little easier to deny who I am, Sienna. What you are.”
It was a lot easier. She gripped her head in her hands, trying to ease the throbbing and strode from the room to put distance between them.
Quinton’s footsteps sounded behind her and she cursed, breaking into a run.
She spotted the keys to her dad’s car on the kitchen table and scooped them up, and bolted out the door.
“Sienna, stop!”
Before Quinton could reach her, she’d gotten in the car and locked the door. She ignored his thumps on the window and strained pleas for her to get out, claiming it wasn’t safe.
Bullshit.
Sienna turned on the engine and slid the gear into Reverse. The car eased out of the driveway and into the darkened street.
What a horrible man. She hated him. Hated him in a way that couldn’t be healthy. And there was no way in hell she trusted him.
If he—
“Shit!” She slammed on the brakes, the car screeching to a halt in front of the man who’d suddenly appeared in her headlights.