Not Letting Go

by R B Hilliard

  “We will talk later, sweetheart, but for right now I am here to collect you and bring you to the main house.”

  Tension poured from my body. “What? Why?”

  He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and steered me out the door. “You’ll see.” We circled around the pool to Kurt and Joss’s house. I figured that Kurt, Joss, and possibly Max would be waiting. When I caught a glimpse of the group that had assembled, I balked and a “Holy hell,” slipped from my lips.

  Kurt and Joss’s house had an open floor plan. The kitchen, living room and dining room were basically one large room. Tonight everyone had congregated in the middle. Max sat in a chair with Ellie on his lap. Benny sat beside them. Tut and Twon were on the love seat. Kurt and Joss took up one half of the sofa and Garrett the other. Susannah and Zippo were at the dining room table, while Dillon occupied one of the four barstools at the kitchen island. He motioned for me to sit.

  “Susannah came by my office this evening,” Max began.

  “And he rats me out straight off the bat,” Susannah sarcastically stated.

  Max raised his eyebrow in question. “Did you not come by my office?” I would not admit this out loud, but alpha Max was super hot. I could totally understand why he was Ellie’s one and only.

  “No, I did. I just didn’t expect you to lead with it. Please carry on,” she said.

  His eyes returned to me. “She told me that you received a disturbing phone call by the pool today.”

  I stood there staring at him.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake! If we wait for you to get around to actually asking a question, we’ll be here all night,” Ellie huffed. “Why does Reyn want you back in Austin, Piper?”

  I sat down and after a pause Ellie said, “Do you need me to repeat the question?”

  I shot a glare at Susannah and she flinched.

  “Don’t blame her,” Zippo angrily growled.

  What the hell? I raised my eyebrows at him before looking around the room and then back at him. “Well, she is the reason you all are sitting here. Right?”

  “No, you are the reason we are here,” Zippo replied.

  “That’s enough, Zip,” Max said. “You’ll get your chance to talk. Right now Piper has the floor.”

  “Piper, honey, you have to tell us what’s going on so we can help you,” Joss said. I could hear the hurt in her voice.

  Before I could think of another half-truth, Susannah cut me off. “Don’t even try it. You have to tell what Dooley and Lester did to you. This time, don’t leave anything out.”

  The room went completely silent and I squeezed my eyes shut. Flipping hell.

  Max and Kurt dropped simultaneous F-bombs. At the same time, Dillon grabbed my hand and Zippo flipped his lid.

  “What do you mean what Dooley did to her? What about what she did to Gage? Huh?”

  My eyes bugged. I was relieved that Susannah had kept her silence about what happened with Dooley like she promised, but…What I did to Gage?

  “Calm down Zip. Remember, you only know one side of the story,” Susannah told him. Her eyes shot over to me and instantly filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Pi. I had to tell. I couldn’t let Dooley hurt you again.”

  “For shit’s sake!” Joss shouted. “Would someone tell me what is happening here?”

  Dillon squeezed my hand and whispered, “It’s time to talk, Piper.”

  Zippo stood and pointed his finger at me. “I’ll tell you what happened. She broke my brother’s heart, that’s what! He wanted to marry her and she left him cold. No note, no explanation, no nothing. Who the fuck does that?”

  I was tired of carrying it all on my shoulders and feeling alone, but no way was I going to get blamed for something I did not do. “Tell me Zippo,” I shot back, “who in the hell pretends to fall in love with someone?” I leaned forward “And perpetuates that lie for over three months…and does it all for money? Who the fuck does that? Your brother. That’s who.” I tried to keep my voice from cracking but failed. The hurt that I held deep inside was clawing to get out. Ellie and Joss both gasped and Dillon pulled my chair closer and protectively wrapped his arms around me.

  Max held up his hand before Zippo could counter. “I want it all, Piper. By that I mean all. Start from the first second you set eyes on Gage, and this time don’t leave anything out.”

  The thought of telling them the whole story scared the shit out of me, but I was tired of the deception and holding back from my friends. I swallowed the pain and began instead with the first time I set eyes on Dooley Shane. When I got to the part about Dooley beating me senseless, Ellie excused herself and said she had to use the restroom. I wasn’t sure if she was more upset by what Dooley had done or by the fact that I had kept it from her. When she returned a few minutes later I could tell that she had been crying. You could cut the tension in the room with a knife. None of this was easy to tell, but it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.

  Zippo managed to keep his mouth shut until I hit the part about Gage taking Selina to Arkansas.

  “That didn’t happen,” he said.

  “Uh, yes it did,” I challenged.

  We stared each other down, neither of us willing to give an inch.

  Finally, he broke. “Dooley actually said that Gage and Selina had a relationship on the side?”

  “He said that Gage was with her the first night I met him and that every so-called “trip” was an excuse to get away from me to sleep with other women.

  “Oh my god!” the girls shouted.

  Zippo shook his head. “That makes no sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense to me,” Tut said in a voice that dripped with sarcasm.

  Twon nodded his head in agreement. “Me too.”

  “It would make perfect sense if Gage was that kind of guy, but you all know him,” Zippo responded. “Does this sound like the Gage you know?” His eyes hit everyone in the room. “That trip to Arkansas was all kinds of messed up. Dooley was supposed to meet with the CEO of the company. At the last minute he said he couldn’t go. That he wanted Zeke to take the meeting and Gage and I to tag along. He wanted Selina there, as always, to entertain the CEO’s wife.”

  My stomach flip-flopped when he said this. What the hell?

  I opened my mouth to ask what he meant by that, but Max cut me off. “You’re getting off track Zip. Let Piper finish. You’re doing well, Piper. Don’t get caught up in the details right now. There will be plenty of time for that later.”

  My eyes shot to Zippo. For some reason, I needed for him to understand that I didn’t walk out on Gage. Gage walked out on me. “I called Dooley a liar. I didn’t believe Gage would do that to me. I knew Selina wanted Gage, but Gage told me they were just friends. After lunch, Dooley took me to his office. He unlocked his file cabinet and pulled out my phone. Then he handed it to me and told me to call Gage. He said that I needed to know the truth. I accused him of setting me up and he told me I could use any phone in the house. I called from my phone and Selina answered.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Dillon spat out.

  “I could hear Gage laughing in the background.” I closed my eyes and relived that horrible moment. “It was obvious that I interrupted something. He called her Sel and she moaned for him and talked about his wicked tongue and how she wanted more… she was moaning for him.”

  A pained expression flitted across Zip’s face. He dropped his head into his hands and exhaled an explosive “Fuuuuuuuck.”

  “What?” I warily asked. I was not sure if I really wanted him to answer.

  His eyes lifted to mine and it was like everyone else in the room disappeared. “This is so jacked, Piper. I was there. We had just returned from the grocery store and were waiting on Zeke to get back from the big meeting. Selina had bought a pint of ice cream and we were passing it around when Gage’s phone rang. Selina answered because she was the closest to it. That’s all it was. I swear. She and Gage were not together. I know this because he and I shared a room. We w
ere just eating ice cream. Plus, all he talked about the whole time was how in love he was with you.”

  My breath caught. No!

  “Stay with us, Piper,” Max commanded. “Tell us how you got yourself out of there.”

  I ran my hands nervously through my hair and anxiously gazed at Ellie.

  As if reading my mind, her eyes softened. Ellie always had a way of centering me. She knew I was about to lose it and needed to get this festering poison out. “Start with what happened after the phone call,” she instructed.

  Taking a deep breath, I told them about how I spent the next three days. When I reached the part about Dooley making me “show him the goods,” the room exploded in a surge of anger. Tut looked like he was going to snap.

  “I knew that if I didn’t get out of that house, I was going to become Dooley Shane’s whore. I would rather die than let that happen. So, I came up with a plan. I had seen a full bar in Dooley’s office and I knew that I needed access to it. I made sure to be extra good for Lester so that he would let me eat in the dining room that night. After dinner, I asked him if I could have a whisky.” My eyes shot to Max. “He didn’t even hesitate. The next thing I knew we were in the office and Lester was playing host. He poured the whiskey…from the crystal decanter…and we sat and drank, like old friends. It was very surreal.”

  “Keep your enemies closer,” he said.

  “Exactly. When we finished our drinks I asked if he wanted another and he held up his glass as if he wanted me to serve him.” I shook my head. “It’s funny. Out of everything that happened this angered me the most.”

  “You were at the end of your rope,” Benny said. “It’s amazing what meaningless shit can tip you over the ledge when you are at that point.”

  “No shit,” Max agreed. “Keep going, Piper.”

  Nodding, I started back. “I took both glasses over to the bar and pretended that the decanter was too heavy to lift. Lester puffed up like a peacock and strutted over to assist. As he stepped in front of me, I reared back and smacked him in the head with the decanter. I remember thinking that this type of thing always seemed to work in the movies.”

  Kurt chuckled. “I’m guessing it didn’t go down like in the movies?”

  “Let’s just say that Lester has a very hard head because the next thing I knew he was on top of me and I was, once again a personal punching bag.” Ellie gasped and Benny and Max cursed. I threw Ellie an amused glance. “Trust me, he only got one or two good shots in before my temper took over. In taking me down he also took down half of the bar. I was able to grab a loose bottle from the floor and gave Lester another whack across his fat head. The second one did the trick because he dropped like a lead brick.”

  “After that what did you do?” Max asked.

  This is where it got tough. I felt Dillon’s hand wrap around the back of my neck. He pulled me close, dipped his head, and spoke into my ear. “Tell it all, baby doll.” Then he kissed the side of my head and released me. Our eyes met and he nodded his head in encouragement.

  I cleared my throat and told the rest of the story. “We were close enough to the door that anyone who passed by would see Lester lying on the floor. I managed to drag him to the back of the room. Then I hobbled to the cabinet where Dooley had my cell phone and purse. Using Dooley’s letter opener, I pried open the drawer.” My eyes flew to Max. “There were files and a lot of them. They were labeled in alphabetical order. Gage’s name was first. I found Zippo’s next and last was mine. There were others but I didn’t recognize them.” The room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

  “What was in the files?” Garrett asked.

  “All I found in mine was a pen drive. I found the same in Zippo and Gage’s files as well. Then I checked a random file just to make sure. All of them contained similar pen drives.”

  Joss looked confused. “What’s a pen drive?”

  “The same as a USB drive. It stores information and such,” Kurt answered.

  “Did you take the drives, Piper?” Max asked.

  I nodded my head yes.

  “What did you do next?” Kurt asked.

  I tore my eyes from Max to answer Kurt. “I put them all in different pockets. I thought that if I got caught and they were in three different places, I had a better chance of getting out with at least one. My cell and keys were in the bottom of the drawer, but my purse was still missing. I grabbed them, shut the cabinet drawer back and limped to the front door. By that time, my left eye was so swollen that I could barely see out of it and I was pretty sure that one or two of my ribs were cracked. I was having trouble breathing, but somehow none of that mattered. The fear that someone was going to stop me kept me going.” Dillon’s hand on the back of my neck tightened. “When I got outside and my car wasn’t there, I almost lost it. That’s when I spotted what I assumed was Lester’s car.” I could feel tears running down my face and for once, they weren’t tears of shame. “The thought of having to go back inside that house to find those keys was almost more than I could take.” My eyes drifted over to Max and Ellie and then to Joss and Kurt. “Have you ever been so afraid that it paralyzed you?”

  “No, Babe, I haven’t,” Max answered. At the same time Ellie nodded, “Yes.”

  He tilted his head in her direction. “When?”

  The sadness in her eyes made my chest hurt. I knew what she was going say. “When I realized that you were truly gone,” she softly replied.

  Dillon’s hand on my neck twitched. I glanced over at him and could see his eyes were riveted on Ellie. I wondered if his troubled expression was for what might have been with Ellie if Max had not returned or for something else. Poor Dillon.

  Max placed his hand on Ellie’s stomach and whispered something in her ear. She nodded her head and gave him a sweet kiss. I wasn’t there for Ellie when she lost Max. She had forgiven me, but I wasn’t sure I would ever forgive myself. Her eyes lifted from Max back to me and she smiled. “You are the strongest person I know, Piper. Regardless of your fear, you went back in, didn’t you?”

  Not sure whether I was brave or crazy stupid, I smiled back at her. I’m guessing it was probably a little of both. Closing my eyes, I thought back to that moment and how terrifying it was. “I snuck back through the front door and could see Lester’s leg starting to move. I didn’t want to go back in there. I was so freaking scared and I kept thinking that maybe I could run to Gage’s house where I could call for help. Then I remembered that Gage was a lying, cheating shit.” Just thinking about it made me want to crawl out of my skin.

  “You got out. That’s all that matters,” Joss encouraged.

  “You can’t stop the story there,” Twon said. “That would be like watching a scary movie and turning it off right before everyone gets killed.”

  “Or a sex tape and turning it off before the action,” Susannah added.

  Dillon handed me his beer and I took a big swallow. “Lester was moving but wasn’t yet conscious. I patted his pockets for keys and kept expecting him to grab my arm or something. I found them in his back pocket, grabbed them and headed for the car. My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely get the keys in the ignition. That’s when my teeth started chattering. You would have thought I was in the middle of a blizzard instead of Texas in August.”

  “Shock,” Benny said. “You don’t notice it while the adrenaline is pumping but once it stops, it can leave you in a bad way.”

  “Well it did,” I agreed. “My mind was all over the place. The guy that I was planning on spending my forever with didn’t exist. Nothing was real and I had no clue about who I could trust. I made it to my apartment in one piece, but knew that it was only a matter of time before Lester roused and called for help. The first place they would look would be my apartment.” I turned to Susannah. “I was so thankful you and Reyn weren’t there. I was so hurt and…angry. Who knows what would have come out of my mouth. I was in such horrible pain and knew that Reyn always kept something in her dresser drawer. I gr
abbed the pills, my laptop, packed a small suitcase and was out the door in fifteen minutes flat. After two hours the pain was so unbearable I had to stop for the night. I rented a motel room under a false name, got settled in and took a pain pill. When I powered up my phone I had twenty missed calls and twelve voicemails, every last one of them from Gage. I remember thinking no more lies. The pain pill was starting to kick in and I knew that I didn’t have much time before it knocked me on my ass. I needed to talk to Ellie.”

  “That’s when you called me and told me you wanted to come home?” she asked. She looked stricken. “You drove two hours in shock and pain all by yourself?” Max pulled her in and kissed the side of her head.

  “What choice did I have? I couldn’t go home to my parents looking like that. Plus, I was already planning on coming a week before the wedding. This just sped things up a bit.”

  “It was a dangerous move,” Kurt said. “You were driving a stolen car. What made you think they wouldn’t send the cops after you?”

  “Nothing,” I shrugged. “I fully expected the police to break down the door, but I was hurt and tired and couldn’t have cared less at that point. When I woke up ten hours later I decided that my best plan was to take it one step at a time. The first thing I did was shower and put on clean clothes. Then I turned on my computer and plugged in the pen drive.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Can we back up a minute, please?” Zippo asked. His kind tone surprised me.

  “Looks like someone’s coming around,” Joss muttered in a voice laced with sarcasm.

  Zip shot her an eat shit look and continued. “Let me get this straight. Dooley sent me¸ Gage, Zeke, and Selina to Arkansas on trumped up business and kept us there for a week so he could lure you to his house, beat you unconscious and kidnap you. I knew the guy was a little off but that’s extremely messed up.”

  “Don’t forget his plans to rape her,” Ellie added.

  He glanced over at her and then back to me. “He honestly told you that Gage was in on it from the beginning?”