by Jess Bryant
Home. She’d gone home. She’d run home to Old Settlers because she’d been scared and hurt and looking for somewhere safe. She’d run home to Cash… she just hadn’t known it at the time. But that’s what he was, what he could be, what they could be together.
“Time to head home for good.” She mumbled to herself as she zipped up the last suitcase.
“And here I thought you were already home.”
She spun towards the doorway with a gasp. She had to blink twice, certain that she was seeing ghosts. When the figure in the doorway only smirked, she knew that she wasn’t dreaming. This wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.
Hoyt was here.
She stepped back, trying to put more space between them instinctively, “What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to greet your fiancé after a month apart?” His smirk rose and sent a cold shiver down her spine.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. He’d said that he wouldn’t be here. That was the only reason she had come.
That lead ball that had been rolling around in her stomach all day doubled in size as she stared at him, knowing that he had lied. How had she not realized this was another of his tricks? He’d known the only way she would come back was if she thought he was far, far away so that was what he’d told her. In reality, he’d always planned to be here no matter when she came back for her things.
A fleeting part of her wondered where he’d been hiding when she’d arrived. Had he been upstairs in the penthouse waiting for word she was here? Had he been biding his time while she packed? Or had he simply waited until Cash had left her alone?
Cash! Where was he? He hadn’t come back though he’d had plenty of time to take the elevator down and make it back by now. He would be back any minute, at least she hoped so.
She forced a shaky breath and tried to be civil, “I’m not your fiancé anymore.”
“That so? I don’t recall you giving me my ring back.” Hoyt’s eyes narrowed.
She would have laughed if he weren’t so damn unstable. Unstable yet predictable. Everything came back to money and possessions with Hoyt. She’d known better than to pawn that ring once she calmed down and looked at things rationally. She hadn’t needed the money badly enough to take it off something that belonged to this man.
Pulling it from her pocket she deliberately placed it on the dresser instead of holding it out to him, “It’s yours and you can have it back. I’m sorry it came to this but I think we both know we’ll be better off apart.”
He raised a hand to the back of his head as if remembering where she’d knocked him out with that lamp, “Yes, I believe you’re right. I took the girl out of the country but I couldn’t take the country out of the girl.”
She goggled at him, her own temper flaring despite her brain telling her to cool it, “Are you kidding me? You think any of this has to do with where I’m from? Are city girls just supposed to let their boyfriends beat the crap out of them and try to rape them in silence?”
He hissed a breath out between his teeth, “I did not try to rape you.”
“The hell you didn’t! I said no and you held me down! You forced yourself on me!”
His eyes flashed with fire but his words were calm, “You were my fiancé and I was trying to make love to you, to show you that I loved you and that I was sorry about the fight we’d had.”
“That’s how you wanted to apologize for slapping me? For punching me? For trying to drag me to the ground when I ran away? You gave me a black eye and busted my lip and when I said no you held me down and ripped my clothes off like a maniac.”
His chest heaved as he took a deep breath, “Look, I am sorry for that. I was drinking and things got out of hand. You never understood the pressure I’m under and when you back-talked and undermined me… I lost it.”
“So you’re going to blame me for it? If I hadn’t questioned you, then it wouldn’t have happened?”
Jemma stared at him, knowing full well that she needed to be quiet, that she didn’t want to antagonize him anymore. She needed to be nice and kind and say her goodbyes. She needed to figure out a way to get past him and get out of the apartment. But no matter what the reasonable, rational part of her brain told her, she couldn’t just walk away and leave him thinking that what he had done was okay, knowing that whoever came after her would only suffer the same treatment.
“Jemma, you’re overreacting as usual.”
She lost it, “Don’t tell me what I’m feeling! Don’t you dare! You are a piece of shit, Hoyt.”
“Excuse me?”
“I might be poor and I might even be what you consider white trash but I would never, ever think that it was okay to hit a woman just because she disagreed with me. For years you told me that I wasn’t good enough, but you know what I realized after I left? I’m better than you will ever be because I’m a decent human being and you’re just a spoiled asshole that thinks he can get away with anything because Daddy and his money will save you.”
By the time she was done letting loose, her voice was shrill and high-pitched. She was panting. And she knew that it was wrong, that she should have kept her mouth shut, but she’d needed to say her peace. And she knew even before she met his eyes, that they were full of dangerous rage that would only get her hurt again.
“You think you can talk to me like that and get away with it you little bitch?” Hoyt took a step towards her and she shrank back.
“You touch me again and I’ll call the cops this time.” She warned.
“Not if you can’t pick up a phone you won’t.”
And with that threat hanging in the air, Jemma realized that her outburst, just might cost her life this time.
Chapter Eleven
Cash cursed as the elevator rose slowly and steadily back towards hell. Funny he felt that way going up maybe but he’d always known hell wasn’t a place just beneath his feet. He’d lived it and breathed it when he was growing up. He still did every time he went to check on his mother or the phone rang with a call from the Sheriff about his father. Never, not once in all of his years had he equated Jemma with hell… not until today.
He’d walked into that apartment upstairs and he’d felt the blood in his veins boil, felt every dark thought he’d ever buried rise up to taunt him, and he’d known that he was in hell.
Because how could he possibly expect Jemma to choose him when faced with all she had become accustomed to? He’d told her to leave him years ago. He’d all but sent her away. He’d wanted the best for her and despite that asshole she’d been seeing she’d gotten it for herself.
She’d told him bits and pieces over the last few weeks. She’d had a good job before he made her quit. She’d had people that she thought were her friends, though nobody close to her. She’d put some money in the bank through selling her jewelry. He’d thought he understood the kind of life she was leaving behind by choosing to stay in Old Settlers but he hadn’t, not until he’d seen it for himself.
He couldn’t give her anything in comparison to what she was leaving behind. He worked as a mechanic and he lived in a shit-hole apartment that he shared with his brother. He didn’t even have his own vehicle other than the tow truck he used for his job. He was a beer and nachos guy and she’d become a champagne and oysters type of girl.
He wasn’t good enough for her. The little voice inside his head that he’d been steadily ignoring for weeks had piped up loud and clear when he stepped into that apartment. And the longer he’d been in it, the louder it had gotten, until that was all he could hear. It was Decker’s voice telling him that he was stupid to ever believe Jemma would want a man like him, a bastard Bomar.
Fuck he hated that voice. Hated the things it made him do. Hated the things it made him say.
He hadn’t intended to insult Jemma when he found her in the bedroom packing but he understood why she had taken it that way. He’d only meant that it must have been hard for her to leave behind everything she’d worked for. But it had come out wron
g.
It had come out as an insult because he was feeling weak and defensive. And he was lucky that she had let him explain. Lucky that she had believed him when he told her how he felt. She understood him, his faults and his issues, better than anyone except maybe Colt, and she’d looked at him and told him he was enough.
That was a high he could ride forever. She wanted him. She was coming home with him. She was going to be his again and he didn’t want anything to come between them this time. Not secrets or lies or their own issues. They’d work all of it out together because that was the way it was supposed to be. The two of them, together.
The sooner he got her out of that apartment and then out of this city and even this state, the better he would feel about their chances.
He’d told her for weeks that she had to put her old life behind her to start over. This was that last step. She was packing her things and moving on. He wanted to do that with her, wanted her to move on with him, move in with him, just be with him. So once he got her home, he was going to drop to his knees and tell her everything, the truth this time, and beg her to forgive him for being such a bastard.
Since he was in such a rush to find her, he almost missed the fact that the door to the apartment was shut. He went through it and then paused in the entry. He was certain he’d left it open behind him earlier. He glanced around, thinking maybe he’d missed Jemma on a trip down but he knew that couldn’t be right. She’d told him there was only one elevator that went to the top floors so they would have had to pass if she’d left the apartment.
A cold chill crept up his back and his fists clenched. Something was wrong. He could feel it in his gut like a snake uncurling and readying to strike.
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t call out. He just stormed through the massive apartment towards the last place he’d seen her. Before he even got to the door he heard her voice, a hissing, angry voice that trembled with fear, and when he burst into the bedroom, one look at the situation made his head explode.
Jemma was pressed against the wall by another man. That alone would have been enough to spark his anger, but the fact that there was a red mark stinging her cheek sent him over the edge. The bastard had her pinned in place and he’d struck her.
He was going to die.
Cash lunged for him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered everything as it happened. His brain catalogued the details for him but it wasn’t making the decisions. His body was in control when he grasped the back of the guy’s collar and jerked him off of Jemma, wheeling him around and planting his fist firmly in his gut all in one smooth move.
He doubled over, all of the air expelling from his lungs, but that wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. Cash jerked him upright, slamming his back against the opposite wall. His brain processed a moment of startling confusion as he got a good look at the guy that had earned a place in Jemma’s life and then forfeited it with his abuse and cruelty. His fist was already barreling forward, the crunch of the bastard’s nose breaking a reassuring sound of the destruction he deserved to suffer for what he’d done.
Cash punched again, and again, and again. A torrent of anger he’d held back for years spewed out of him and he took it all out on this sorry excuse for a man that liked to hit women. He beat him for Jemma, that’s what his brain told him, but that little voice, Decker’s voice, laughed with glee at the screams of agony he wrought.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he heard Jemma scream his name. He felt her eyes on him, watching him do this godawful thing, beating a man senseless, but he couldn’t stop. He heard her beg him to stop but he couldn’t give her what she asked for.
He wasn’t in control.
His fists flew and the bastard got in a couple of lucky shots. He knocked him in the jaw once but it was a measly scratch compared to the pain he was delivering. It felt good. Made him feel alive. He was defending the woman he loved or showing her why she should never let him near her, he couldn’t be sure, maybe it was both.
“Cash! Stop! Please!”
A small body hit him, knocking him off balance and he whirled, dropping the bastard to the ground, preparing to take on his next assailant, only the fear on Jemma’s face stopped him in his tracks. Reality came barreling back in like a freight train and he was the brick wall it smacked into. He sagged back, stumbling away from her, blinking and trying to figure out why she looked scared of him.
Fuck, what had he done? His mind clearing, he tried to process the last few minutes. Coming in the door, knowing Jemma was in trouble, seeing her red cheek while that fucker pinned her to the wall to do God only knew what else to her. And then nothing… a red haze of anger and darkness the likes of which he’d hadn’t suffered in years, not since that one day with Decker and Jemma when he’d realized he couldn’t let her be part of his destructive life.
“Oh God…” Jemma whimpered now, her eyes wide and full of tears, “What did you do? Cash, what did you do?”
A strangled voice in the doorway had him spinning again to see his twin pause as he quickly took in the scene, “What the fuck?”
“Colt!”
Cash stumbled, feeling half-drunk and woozy, crashing after the rush of adrenaline. He blinked, watching in confusion as Jemma raced into his brother’s arms. Wrong, it was all wrong. Jemma crying into Colt’s chest and being scared of him was all wrong and he had no idea how to come back from this, how to fix it, because this was exactly why he’d needed her to stay away from him.
He stumbled into the wall, slumped down to the floor and dropped his head into his bloody hands. Vaguely, he heard Colt saying something to Jemma about getting her stuff and getting downstairs while he cleaned up the mess. He watched as if from a distance as his brother flipped the bastard on the floor over and then picked him up and dropped him to the bed. He thought he heard Colt threatening that if any of this was reported that they would come back and finish the job, kill him and dump the body where nobody would ever find it but he couldn’t be sure if that was the voice in the back of his head or reality anymore.
He had gotten his eyes to refocus by the time Colt knelt in front of him with a wet towel and cleaned off his hands, talking all the while in a low voice, a gentle soothing voice. In the back of his mind, he knew this was wrong too. Colt was covering for him, again, taking care of him, again. Just like last time when he’d needed Colt to help him convince Jemma to leave him because he was no good for her.
“I fucked up.” He muttered under his breath.
Colt paused, met his gaze with a serious frown and nodded, “Yeah, you fucked up brother but I’ll clean up what I can.”
“Jemma?”
“Is scared and panicking, I sent her downstairs. That part I can’t help you with. What the hell happened up here?”
“He hit her again.” Cash blinked, seeing the room more clearly as his head stopped swimming, “I told her I’d kill him if he touched her again.”
“Fuck, I can’t even fault you for it. I would’ve done the same damn thing.” Colt grumbled, “Can you walk? We gotta get out of here.”
He wasn’t entirely sure but he nodded, “Yeah.”
Colt helped him to his feet and as his sanity returned he realized just how badly he’d fucked up. It wasn’t that the bastard could come after him for this. He knew he wouldn’t. He was a loser that got off on hitting women. Now that he’d dealt with a man he would be too scared to try anything else. Colt’s threat to finish the job only helped on that front.
But Jemma was scared of him now and he knew there was no coming back from that. She’d been abused by that bastard and she knew the kind of damage a man could do with his fists. And now she’d seen him use his to maim and destroy another man.
She would be smart to stay clear of him and Jemma had always been a smart girl.
He’d seen the fear in her eyes when she looked at him. She’d recoiled from him. She’d run to Colt for protection, from him. She’d finally seen him, the real him, and he would never be able to hi
de it from her again. The monster had come out of the closet, he had gone full Bomar, and it had cost him everything just as he’d always known that it would.
Colt pressed the button to call the elevator and they stood there, side by side in front of the reflective doors waiting for it. For the first time in a long time, he admitted just how alike they really were. Despite the tattoos and haircuts, they were mirror images.
He wasn’t any less damaged or any more in control. He was just better at hiding his demons. Colt had never bothered to hide his, proudly wore them for the world to see, and at that moment he envied his brother that honesty. His twin had accepted what he was a long time ago and Cash was still fighting it.
He was so damn tired of fighting. Fighting with his parents to break free of their curse. Fighting with the world to give him a fucking chance. Fighting with his true nature, with himself.
“Colt?”
“Yeah?”
They entered the elevator and the doors swished shut behind them. He noticed the blood on his brother’s shirt from helping him and frowned at the mess he’d made. He waited until the doors shut behind them and they were descending before he spoke again.
“I lost it in there but I need to know if I imagined it or not…” He blew out a harsh breath, “He looked like me?”
Colt groaned and shifted uncomfortably “I don’t know, man. He was pretty messed up by the time I got there.”
It was deflection and there was only one reason his brother wouldn’t have just answered him straight, “He looks like me… us.”
This time Colt sighed, “Kind of, yeah, I guess there was some resemblance.”
The bastard that Jemma had tied herself to after leaving him looked like him. He hadn’t imagined it. She’d chosen a man that looked like him and then let him get away with hitting her. What the fuck was that about?