Deep Burn: (Asher & Elodie: Easton Family Saga) (Burned Duet Book 2)

by Abigail Davies

  “I—"

  The lawyer swiped his hand through the air, keeping his gaze fixated to mine. “No further questions.”

  I gasped. He hadn’t even let me explain. He’d portrayed me to be something I wasn’t and now there was nothing I could do about it. He’d left me hanging, knowing the last of his words would impact the jury.

  “You may leave the stand now,” the judge said. “Let’s break for lunch and return at one thirty.” He stood and walked out of the courtroom through a back door, leaving me sitting here not knowing what to do or how to act.

  I hadn’t told anyone how I’d earned my money, and I was hyperaware that Brody, Lola, Belle, and Leo were sitting in the same row as Asher. They’d heard what Knox’s lawyer had said. Would they look at me differently now? Would they see me the way the lawyer had made me out to be?

  “Elodie.” I whipped my head up, my stare meeting Mylee’s. “You can come down from there now.”

  “I…right.” I cleared my throat and stood on shaky legs. I kept my head down as I passed between the two tables and pushed through the swinging doors toward the row of seats.

  “You did great up there.” Asher’s voice was the first I heard. I couldn’t bear to look at him, afraid of what I would see on his face. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, placing his finger under my chin and tilting my head back. “Don’t let it get to you.”

  I sniffled, trying not to let the tears escape. “I didn’t expect it to be like that. I thought…I thought.” I paused. “Everyone knows what I was. They know and—”

  “We won’t look at you any differently,” Lola stated. I turned my head to face her, preparing myself to see judgement on her face, but there wasn’t any, if anything, she only expressed understanding. “You’re our Elodie, and that’s all that matters.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “You did what you had to do to survive. In my book, that makes you stronger than anyone.”

  “Really?” I whispered.

  “Yep.” She shuffled to the side. “Now, what do you want to do? Stay or leave? Because I’ve about had it with watching that piece of shit from back here.”

  I pulled in a breath, knowing exactly what I wanted to do. I hadn’t looked at the defense table the entire time I’d been in this room, but now it was time for me to face my demon head-on.

  I spun my body, knowing Asher was at my back, and stared Knox square in the eyes. He narrowed his eyes at me, his wrath clear for anyone to see, but in the blink of an eye it was gone. I’d had an entire speech built up in my head of what I’d say when I saw him again, but in that moment, I felt like I didn’t need to say a word. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I hadn’t been afraid of him for months. He was just a boy—a boy who thought the world owed him something. Life would teach him a hard lesson, one that I wasn’t sure he’d survive.

  He leaned back in his seat, blew me a kiss, then laughed up a storm. The sound echoed around the room, but without the judge or jury in here to witness it, it would go by unseen. But it didn’t matter anymore.

  He thought he’d come here and win, but he was losing. He’d lost the moment he’d walked into my apartment. He’d lost the second he’d laid his hands on me.

  “That fucker,” Asher ground out from behind me. His chest met my back and I grabbed on to his arm, silently telling him not to say or do anything. It was what Knox wanted. He lived to rile people up and making them react to him because it was all a big game to him.

  I spun around, turning my back on Knox. “Let’s go home,” I told Asher. “I just want to go home.” He glanced down at me, his dark eyes lit with burning rage. His chest moved rapidly, and I could see he was trying to calm himself down. “Ignore him.”

  “It’s real fuckin’ hard, sweetheart.”

  “I know, but he’s not worth it.” I placed my hands on either side of his face. “He’s never been worth it.”

  Asher inhaled a deep breath, closed his eyes, then wrapped his arm around my shoulders and led me out of the room. It wasn’t until we were at the doors that I heard Belle say, “Oh, shit, Dad has gone over there.”

  We all halted, our heads swiveling back to the front of the courtroom where Brody was standing in the middle of the tables talking to Mylee. We couldn’t hear what he was saying from here, but he smiled at her, nodded, then took a step away. At the last second, he darted to the side. His palms landed on the table Knox sat behind as he bent down, and my body jerked.

  “What is he doing?” Leo asked.

  “He’s making sure the dirty fucker doesn’t come anywhere near Elodie,” Lola answered, her voice neutral. Leo said something back to her, but I wasn’t paying attention because I was hyper focused on Brody. His lips moved rapidly, Knox’s face paled, and then his lawyer stood, but still Brody didn’t move. He stared him down, making sure he understood whatever he’d said, then stood, grinned, and walked toward us.

  Brody winked at me as he got closer to us, and I remembered what he’d said to me the day after Asher’s court appearance. He’d told me I was part of this family, and I was guessing this is what he did to protect his family. He didn’t say a word to any of us as he walked out of the room, and everyone followed after him.

  I couldn’t resist one final look at Knox. His head was down, his shoulders slumped. I’d finally done it. I’d finally confronted him. I’d faced the monster from my nightmares, but he didn’t look that scary anymore. And in that moment, I realized I wasn’t going to waste another second on him. I’d told Asher Knox wasn’t worth it, and it was the truth.

  “Let’s go home,” I said to Asher, feeling like I could finally breathe again.

  Epilogue

  ELODIE

  I stood at the side of the stage, nerves rolling through me as the song playing through the speakers reached its crescendo. Two minutes felt like both a lifetime and the snap of fingers when you were on the stage, dancing your heart out. I’d placed my feet in the same starting position over and over, but the way my stomach churned and excitement took over never changed. Each time my bare feet hit the bouncy floor, a rush like nothing else slammed through me, and today wasn’t any different.

  The song ended and then it was time. Time to show the people watching what happened when you poured every single emotion you had into each movement of your body. Time to show them what losing yourself in dance was really like. The crashing beat of the music rang out and a smile drifted onto my face.

  “She looks so much like you right now,” Asher whispered in my ear. “Look how much she’s concentrating.” He chuckled, his breath fanning over my neck as he placed a kiss there. “She even gets that little V between her eyes like you—”

  “Shhh.” I tapped his arm but couldn’t help grinning as I watched my students on the stage. “She’s trying to do all of her extensions properly.” I lifted up onto my tiptoes at the same time as they did, trying to urge them as high as they could go.

  Asher wrapped his arms around me from behind and I leaned back into his chest, relishing in the moment of happiness. He always held me in the exact same way, and it never failed to make me feel safe. Even after all this time, I still craved to be cocooned inside his arms. “Well, someone needs to tell her she’s only three and has tiny arms that can’t extend like the ten-year-old kids' can.”

  I huffed out a breath. “Well, I’m not going to tell her.” I raised my brows and turned my head to face Asher. “Have you seen what she does when you tell her she can’t do something?”

  “Erm, yeah, she likes to prove you wrong.” Asher pursed his lips “Kinda like her momma, huh?”

  “Yeah, right. That’s the Easton genes through and through.”

  He snorted. “I’m not gonna argue with that, sweetheart. The Easton women are a breed of their own.”

  The music drifted down into a soft melody, the fall before the high at the end of the piece, and I pulled out of Asher’s hold. “Quick, get back out into the audience. If she looks out and you’re not there…” I didn’t need to say anything else
because our daughter, Lilac, was a force to be reckoned with. She may have only been three years old, but she had every single member of the family wrapped around her tiny pinky finger, including her uncle Leo, her favorite. Leo and I had attended the same college, but when I’d left education, he’d continued on, deciding he wanted to get another degree before doing his master's.

  Lilac had been a surprise to us the year I’d graduated from college with a major in dance and a minor in teaching, but it had been the best surprise we ever could have asked for. She was the light at the end of a dark tunnel we’d spent years wading through.

  I’d thought Knox’s court case would have been a finality in my mind, but it wasn’t. There wasn’t one moment that could stop the way you felt. It took time to truly work through the darkness and pain I’d been dragged through. It didn’t matter than Knox was sentenced to prison time. It didn’t matter that Asher supported me every step of the way, because in the moments of despair, all I wanted was to hide away from the world.

  And there were times I did that. I’d lock myself away from the world because it was what I needed to simply make it through another day.

  But the day Lilac was born, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to be the best person I could possibly be, so I’d finally gotten professional help. I’d spoken about everything I’d been through, starting right from the beginning and my mom’s addiction up until the night that turned my life around. Because if I were honest, without the trauma that happened that night, I wouldn’t have been where I was today. That was something that took me years to fully comprehend.

  Therapy was a process, a process I was still going through, but it was worth it. Every single thing I’d been through was worth it.

  When the song came to an end, Lilac held her finishing position, and then ran to the side of the stage and straight into my arms.

  “Did you see, Momma? Did you see?”

  “I did!” I squeezed her to me and planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “You were amazing!”

  “Daddy!” She squirmed down and rushed around my legs, and I realized Asher hadn’t made it back to the audience in time. “Did you watch me too?”

  “Of course I did.” He boosted her up to his shoulder. “I always watch my favorite girls dance.” He glanced over to me and winked. From the moment I’d started dancing in college, he’d never missed one of my performances, just like now. Whether Lilac was dancing or not, he was the backbone of my support.

  My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at the two most important people to me. Lilac was the light I’d never known I’d needed, the hope that life would never be as dark as it once was. But Asher was my strength, a strength I could never live without.

  “I love you,” I mouthed to him.

  “I love you too,” he mouthed back, and my heart fluttered, just like it had the first time he’d said those words to me. “Forever.”

  Acknowledgments

  I’m so sad the Easton Family Saga is over. These eight books have been such a huge part of my life over the last twelve months, and I’m not really sure how to feel now they won’t be at the forefront of my mind.

  The Easton Family will always hold a special place in my heart, and I hope they will with you too. I’m never saying never to revisiting these guys so keep on the look out in case I decide to do a random novella to catch up with the entire family…maybe… ;)

  My first huge thank you needs to go to Paige. You’re the most awesomest Alpha Reader and PA. Thank you for loving my stories as much as I do, and generally just being you! But most of all, thank you for reading these on a time constraint. I’m not sure what I’d do without you!

  Thank you to my husband and two awesome daughters who never fail to make me smile and continue to support the crazy road that is being an author. I love you all lots and lots like jelly tots!

  My next thank you has to go to Jenn, my editor. I swear you saved my life and I appreciate so much you understanding everything that has been going on and still fitting me in. You’re the best Canadian a girl could ask for!

  Linda. I swear I’d be lost without you! Thank you soooo much for everything you do. You’re always there no matter what, and I’m not sure what I’d do without you! You push me when I need to be pushed, and tell me to slow down when I need to stop. You save my ass more times than I can count, and I love you!

  My proofreader, Judy. Thank you for putting up with me! Thank you for switching dates with me constantly. I swear, one of these days I’ll be on time. Never leave me, because I’d be lost without you!

  I’d liked to say a huge thank you to my BETAs readers: Nikki & Yvonne. You ladies are amazeballs and I couldn’t do this without your continued support.

  My second thank you needs to go to my husband and daughters. This book became such a huge part of my life, and I can’t thank you enough for putting up with my weird ways.

  To my ARC team. You ladies are simply amazing and I love for each and every one of your messages! Thank you for taking the time to ready my stories, I appreciate so much.

  To the bloggers who help share EVERYTHING. I love you so much, and I can’t put into words how grateful I am! You are a special bunch of people who continue to put a smile on my face.

  To all the authors in the community. You continue to support me and I can’t thank you enough for that. I love our little slice of heaven, and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else!

  Lastly, I want to say thank you, to you. Thank you for taking a chance on this book. Thank you for reading. And thank you for being awesome!

  Also by Abigail Davies

  MAC Security Series (Alpha Security/Military)

  Book 1: Fractured Lies

  Book 2: Exposed

  Book 2.5: Flying Free (Standalone Spin-off)

  Book 3: The Distance Between Us

  Book 4: ReBoot

  Book 5: Catching Teardrops

  Six Book Boxset

  The Easton Family Saga

  Fallen Duet (Forbidden Angst)

  Book 1: Free Fall

  Book 2: Down Fall

  Fated Duet (Student/Teacher Angst)

  Book 1: Defy Fate

  Book 2: Obey Fate

  Bonded Duet (Age gap/Forbidden Angst)

  Book 1: Torn Bond

  Book 2: Tied Bond

  Burned Duet (Age Gap/Emotional Angst

  Book 1: Fast Burn

  Book 2: Deep Burn

  Confessions Series (Romantic Comedies)

  Book 1: Confessions Of A Klutz

  Book 2: Confessions Of A Chatterbox

  Book 3: Confessions Of A Fratgirl

  A. A. DAVIES (Darker, alter ego)

  Verboten (Extreme Taboo. Inferno World Novella)

  Broken Tracks Series,

  (co-authored with Danielle Dickson)

  Book 1: Etching Our Way

  Book 2: Fighting Our Way

  Destroyed Series,

  (co-authored with L. Grubb)

  Destroying the Game

  Destroying the Soul

  About the Author

  Abigail Davies grew up with a passion for words, storytelling, maths, and anything pink. Dreaming up characters—quite literally—and talking to them out loud is a daily occurrence for her. She finds it fascinating how a whole world can be built with words alone, and how everyone reads and interprets a story differently.

  Now following her dreams of writing, Abigail has found the passion that she always knew was there. When she’s not writing: she’s a mother to two daughters who she encourages to use their imagination as she believes that it’s a magical thing, or getting lost in a good book.

  If she’s doing neither of those things, you can be sure she’s surfing the web buying new makeup, clothes, or binge watching another show as she becomes one with her sofa.

  Connect with Abigail

  Reader group—Abi’s Aces

  Newsletter

  www.abigaildaviesauthor.com

  Abigail Davies, Deep Burn: (Asher & Elodie: Easton Family Saga) (Burned Duet Book 2)