"I was going to tell you," he says softly, averting his gaze again. "But I was...obsessed. I thought my people were next on his list. And if anything happened to them, what we've been trying to achieve would be lost."

Then he glances up at her. "Regardless of whether or not he would have harmed you, you wouldn't have been able to scour the globe with me, Tess. It was something I had to do alone."