by Mae Doyle
Eva starts nodding immediately and I feel a surge of hope in my chest. I’m still not entirely sure how I’m going to keep her safe, but I’m going to do my best. I can handle people wanting to kill me and her getting into the crosshairs on accident, but when my family doesn’t trust her, then things are bad.
She’s silent on the ride to my house. At the last minute, I’d grabbed all of the extra bags of clothes and makeup and thrown them into the backseat. We’d be coming back to Pops’ house, that was for sure, but I wanted to be able to keep her to myself for as long as possible while we sorted all of this shit out.
Eva pipes up right when I’m about to turn off of the main road onto a gravel one that leads up to my house. The rest of the family all wanted to live relatively close to each other, but I knew that I’d need a private place to be able to get away from everything once in a while.
Even though my house isn’t more than twenty minutes from Pops, it feels like it’s in an entirely different world. It’s much smaller than I could have afforded, but it’s secluded by a lake and has a huge yard. Woods surround the property, which means that I don’t have any nosy neighbors peeking in on me, and I can’t hear anyone.
It’s heaven, and if I’m honest, I’m a bit nervous about taking Eva there. I’ve never taken a woman there before, especially not one that I think I may have a future with – one that I can’t get out of my mind.
“Are we almost there? Is this really your home or is it like a murder home or something?” She sounds a little nervous and I can’t help but smile at her.
“It’s my home. Not a murder home, don’t worry.” Even though I think that the question is ridiculous, I can kinda see why she may think that. Strange man, threatening family, murder attempt, secluded house? Murder home, definitely.
“Okay.” She blows out a breath of air and turns to look at me for the first time since we got in the car. “So, do you want to tell me why you’re taking me here? Why can’t we just hash things out where we were? And tell me again why I can’t go home.”
Chapter 17
Eva
It’s not that I don’t trust Roque, it’s that…well, okay. It’s that I don’t completely trust Roque. I mean, I want to. I look at him and I feel my heart flip in my chest in a way that it’s never done before, and he certainly does things to my body that nobody has ever done before, but that doesn’t mean that I want to go with him to his house in the middle of nowhere so we can…what? Talk.
Yeah, right.
He doesn’t answer my questions until he parks the car. The house we’re sitting in front of us a lot smaller than I would have thought that someone in the mafia would own, and there’s a pond off to the side. My heart leaps when I see an overrun garden near the house. It would look great if someone would clean it up, and I immediately think about how good it would feel to get my hands in the dirt when I stop myself.
I’m not here to work on his gardens, no matter how tempting that may be. I’m here because he’s taken me and he’s not going to let me free until he knows for sure that I’m not a threat.
“I brought you here, Eva, so that you and I can talk without being interrupted. Now, I’d like it very much if you walked with me to the house and didn’t cause a scene by trying to run away. If you do, I promise you that I will catch you, and I won’t be happy about it. Your choice.”
Nervously, I pick my purse up from the floorboard and nod at him. Okay. I’ll walk with him to the house. I already know how bad it can be to be tackled by one of these guys, and I’m not looking to add another injury to my list. Besides, even though I can put some weight on my ankle as long as I’m careful, running on it would surely cause me to go down. Hard.
“Great.” He’s out of the car in a flash and opens my door, reaching in to help me out. I have to suck in a breath at the fire that flames through me when we touch, and I get the feeling looking at his face that he feels the same thing. Well, at least I’m not alone in wanting to rip off his clothes.
There’s a short path to the house and then a great little front porch, where I wait while he unlocks the door. “Don’t you want to sit outside?” I ask him, but the look on his face tells me that he thinks that’s a stupid idea.
Right. I’m a runner, apparently.
“We’ll be more comfortable inside. Come on.” He holds the door for me and I hobble inside, a little scared, but also really interested to see exactly what his house looks like.
It’s…not what I’m expecting. There are huge windows all around the house, and they let in a ton of light, so even though he hasn’t turned on a lamp yet, the entire house is bright enough to easily see around. We’re in a living room, and there’s a comfy rug on the floor along with huge floor-to-ceiling bookcases in between the windows.
When I look to the right, I can see into the kitchen. Something smells good in there, and my stomach rumbles. Up until now, I hadn’t really realized how hungry I was. Sure, they gave me some things to eat before, but I wasn’t really in the mood to enjoy it. Now, all I want to do is each and perhaps have a seat on the sofa, which looks incredibly comfortable and has a blanket thrown over the back.
It’s a dream setup and I sigh without realizing it.
“Everything okay?” His dark eyes search my face and I see a flash of concern there.
“Oh, no, it’s great,” I tell him, instantly realizing that I don’t want to hurt his feelings. “It’s just not what I expected, but I really like it. Really. And I’m hungry, I guess.”
He nods. “I heard. Sit.” When he gestures at the sofa, I go and snuggle into the corner, pulling the blanket over me. He locks the front door and then walks into the kitchen without looking back at me. There’s a book perched on the table by the sofa, and I pick it up to flip through it until he gets back.
It hits me that this feels normal and that I feel surprisingly comfortable here, but I force myself to push those thoughts away. The problem is that this isn’t normal, no matter how much I might want it to be. I can pretend all I want that Roque and I are just two people who found each other under ordinary circumstances, but nothing in my life has ever been ordinary.
The microwave in the kitchen beeps and I put the book down without really paying much attention to it. I can smell something delicious and my mouth starts to water as Roque walks back into the living room carrying a tray.
“Leftovers from Ma,” he says, sounding almost apologetic. “I haven’t really had time this weekend to do any shopping or cooking, but she’s a better cook than I am, so you’re really getting the good end of the deal here.”
He hands me the tray and I greedily dig in, burning my mouth on the first bite, but not letting that slow me down. Holy hell, the woman can cook. Moaning, I swipe some bread through the sauce on the plate. I don’t even know what this is, but it doesn’t matter because I’d be willing to eat it every single meal for the rest of my life, my waist be damned.
Roque’s watching me with a half-smile on his face. “What?” I ask him, pausing with bread halfway to my mouth. “Is something wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Not at all. I just like seeing you with an appetite. I know that this weekend has been hard, to say the least.”
At his words, the delicious food turns to a hard lump in my stomach. I nibble a bite of bread and then put it back down. “I need you to know that I’m not going to do anything to hurt you or your family,” I tell him slowly, watching his face to try to gauge his expression. “All I want is to be able to go home and forget that this happened.”
Even as I say it, I know that it’s not entirely true. I don’t miss the flash of hurt on his face, but before I’m sure that I even see it, it’s gone and has been replaced by something harder.
Conviction? No.
Determination. Maybe.
Whatever it is, there isn’t a lot of room in his look for passion. Or compassion. My palms suddenly feel sweaty and I wipe them on my jeans as he watches me.
“The problem, Eva, is that eve
n if I trust you, I can’t guarantee that the family will. And we need to make sure to keep you safe until the issue with our extended family has been taken care of. I don’t want another bullet coming anywhere near you.” His eyes are locked onto mine like he’s searching me for an answer, but I’m not sure what to tell him.
I’m also not sure that I’m going to be able to talk my way out of this. If the two options are make a run for it and die or suck it up and stay here alive, then I know for sure which one I’m going to choose.
“Okay. Then I’ll stay here with you until things settle down, okay? But I still need a job. I have bills to pay. And I want my phone back.”
He smirks, and I know full well that he’s not going to willingly hand my phone back, but at that very moment, it goes off. The sound makes me gasp and I sit up, staring at him. “You have it. Why the hell can’t I have it?”
“You know why.” He pulls my phone from his pocket and glances at the screen as the ringing stopped. “You’ve been missing a hell of a lot of calls from this one guy, Eva. Care to explain who David is?”
My heart drops. Crap. In all of the excitement of everything with Roque, I’d completely forgotten that my ex-husband has been looking for me like his life depends on it. Slowly I shake my head and reach for my phone.
“Give me the phone, Roque.”
He laughs, and the sound almost shakes me from my reverie. “Holy hell, Eva, you don’t think that you get to tell me what to do, do you? No, you’re not getting the phone. Now, should I call this guy back or do you want to tell me who he is?”
There’s no use weighing my options. He and I both know that I don’t want him to call that number back, and I know full well that he’s not afraid to do it. “It’s my ex,” I tell him quickly, watching as his finger hovers over the screen. One little tap and he’ll have David on the other end of the line, and that makes me sick. “He won’t stop looking for me. I thought that I’d shaken him, but he tailed me. He found me. He…he wants me back.”
Roque’s eyes narrow. “He’s been tailing you? How do you know?”
Tears are leaking from my eyes but I do my best to ignore them. “I’ve seen strange men around and they follow me. None of them have ever approached me, but I know. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t let go easily, and I know that they’re from him. I just…I don’t know what to do about it or how to get away.”
Roque doesn’t answer but he stands up, swiping at my phone as he moves away from the sofa.
“No!” I cry out, moving the tray off of my lap as fast as I can without knocking everything to the ground. “No! You can’t call him, what are you doing?” My ankle twists under my sudden weight and I cry out, falling back to the sofa, but Roque doesn’t even turn around.
He’s crossed the room now and is headed down the hall. I want to follow him, but I don’t think that I can put weight on my ankle.
But I could crawl across the floor.
Dropping to my knees, I start to crawl, doing my best to keep my ankle elevated off of the ground so that I don’t accidentally knock it on anything. It’s slow going, and I don’t know where he went, but I head down the hall after him, trying to listen for him over the sound of my heart pounding in my chest.
“Roque,” I hiss out, then pause to listen. A door slams ahead of me and I pick up the pace, breathing heavy as I crawl down the hall. Thank goodness he has some rugs on the floor, because otherwise the hardwood would dig into my knees.
Nothing. Not like I really expect him to answer, of course, but it would be nice if he at least let me know where he was. Finally, I make it to the end of the hall, and I’m surprised to find a door there that leads outside. Taking a huge breath, I push myself up onto my feet and pull myself to a stand using the door handle. It’s unlocked, but I take a moment to look out the window before I burst out there like an idiot.
Roque is standing with his back to me, gesturing wildly while he talks on the phone. The backyard here is just as gorgeous as the front, and I enjoy the sights for a moment before my eyes fall back on him. Even though I can’t see his face, I can tell that he’s pissed.
Who knows what David is saying to him?
For that matter, who knows what Roque is saying to David?
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and turn the handle, but the door flies out of my grasp. Roque has pulled it from me, and he’s standing right outside the door, his eyes locked on mine, breathing heavily.
Without saying a word he bends and picks me up, pulling me close to his chest and walking back into the house. He pauses only long enough to kick the door shut behind us and then marches back down the hall to the living room.
“Roque?” I venture, but he doesn’t answer. There’s a hot heat coming off of his body that I haven’t felt before. It’s not like when we were together, and I realize with a start that he’s really mad.
Even though I’m half expecting him to throw me onto the sofa, he puts me down gently and then paces the room, running his hand through his hair. I watch him for a moment before I can’t stand it any longer and I pipe up.
“What the hell was that?”
He turns to me, his eyes wide. “What the hell was that? That was me calling your piece of shit ex-husband, Eva! Why didn’t you tell me before that he’s been looking for you? Do you know that he’s absolutely fucking crazy?!”
I do, actually, yeah, but instead of saying that, I hold my tongue. I have a very good feeling that Roque isn’t done just yet, and I’m right.
“He seems to think that you belong to him, did you know that? And you were right, he hired goons to find you, and apparently they did a good fucking job of it, because guess where he is right now?”
I don’t want to guess, and I shake my head to tell him that.
He acknowledges me with a glance before going off again. “Your apartment. The fucker’s waiting for you at your apartment, Eva, and he told me that he has no intention of leaving until he has you back, so how do you feel about that?”
Nothing. I don’t feel anything. Maybe cold. Terrified. Everything that I’ve worked so hard for is about to come crashing down around my head, and it’s all because of David.
“No,” I whisper, but that’s the only word that I can get out. I feel incredibly lightheaded and I reach out for something to hold onto for balance, but there’s nothing there and my hand swipes out at open air.
The motion throws me off-balance and I feel myself start to tip off of the sofa. Roque is standing across the room watching me, and by the time I see his face start to turn from anger to fear, it’s too late.
I’ve always had issues with my blood pressure, and all I can hope as I fall is that I miss the coffee table.
Chapter 18
Roque
“Eva!” Fuck, fuck, fuck! Eva’s fallen off of the sofa, just fucking tipped off of it like gravity suddenly became too much for her to fight against, and she clipped her head on the corner of the coffee table as she went down.
There’s already a pool of blood around her head when I reach her, but it’s a head wound, and everyone knows that head wounds bleed excessively, so I’m not really worried about that, but I need to see her face and her eyes and see if she knocked herself out.
Grabbing her by the shoulders, I easily lift her to a sit and then pick her up to put her back on the sofa. She moans, and I pull my shirt off, holding it tightly to the cut on her temple and reach up to open her eyes.
They flutter open before I even touch her face, and I feel relief course through me. “Eva, holy fuck, are you okay?” I think that she’s going to be okay, but I don’t know yet, and I need her to look at me and talk to me so I can rest easy that I don’t need to call a doctor.
We don’t do hospitals in my family. We have a local doctor on payroll, but I’d rather not bring him out here if I don’t need to. It’ll only add fuel to the fire with the family. Hell, we have everyone we could ever need on payroll, but that doesn’t mean that I want them all involved in the shit th
at’s going down right now.
The thought of anyone else having their eyes on Eva is enough to make me sick. She’s all mine, and I want to keep it that way.
“I’m okay, I think. I just…wow. That hurts really bad.” Eva lightly reaches up to touch her temple, but her fingers graze mine instead. I have to focus hard to keep from dropping the cloth and pulling her into my arms. It’s amazing to me that just a little touch from her hand is enough to make me dizzy.
“Do I need a doctor?” She glances up at me, biting her lower lip, and I feel a twist in my stomach as I think about taking her into my arms and sucking her sweet little lower lip into my mouth. She’s delicious to kiss but the look of pain on her face stops me.
“No doctor,” I tell her, lifting the edge of my shirt so that I can look at her cut. It’s still bleeding, but it’s slowed a little. She could use stitches, but I have something in the bathroom that can be used to hold the two sides of the wound together. “Hold this right there and I’ll be back. I’ll take care of you, Eva.”
She doesn’t answer and I run back to the bathroom quickly, not wanting to leave her alone for very long. When I get back with the butterfly closures, I breathe a sigh of relief that she hasn’t moved. Part of me was afraid that she was going to get up and make a run for it, but where would she go? Into the woods?
Yeah, right.
“Okay, darling, let me look.” Eva drops her hands back into her lap and I remove my shirt, working quickly to close the wound with the closures. It looks neat and clean, and for the first time ever, I’m glad that I’ve had plenty of practice. Dropping two pain pills into her hand, I pick up her water and give it to her.
“What are these?” Her voice is suspicious, and the sound pulls at my heart.
“Just pain pills. Take them, Eva.”
She sighs but pops them into her mouth and swallows them without water. “Now what?”