Here, with my woman in my arms, I feel life seeping back into my soul. Escaping the blackness at long last.
Jake Cooper is born again in a cabin in the woods.
“Hey,” I say sheepishly as I enter the rustic bedroom after leaving the hall bathroom.
“Hey,” Jake replies, setting down a book on the pine bedside table.
He’s leaning against the log framed headboard…shirtless. It’s hard to think with him shirtless. It’s hard to think in general when he’s around, but when he’s without clothes, it’s damn near impossible.
I drop my eyes to the floor and push the door almost closed. We left Riley’s door open halfway. She’s in yet another new space, and I don’t want her to wake up scared. Jake assured me she’ll be fine because she’s used to moving around, but I still insisted.
I tug Jake’s hoodie over my head and slide under the red and gold plaid comforter.
“Cold?” Jake asks as I pull the covers up to my chin.
I’m not cold. I’m nervous.
I lie with a nod.
Jake slides down and scoops me onto his chest. He’s practically on fire compared to me. Maybe I am cold.
“You’re nervous,” he states plainly.
“A lot has happened in a few days.”
He makes an agreeing tone in his throat as one hand soothingly slides up and down my spine.
“Mitch and I were on an op in Bulgaria about three years ago. He decided to eat some local dish the night before we took out our target. It was the middle of the summer and hot as hell. We waited for half the day before our guy stuck his head out long enough for me to take my shot. Apparently, me hitting my target made Mitch relax because he shit his pants,” Jake finishes in a deep chuckle.
I follow along, laughing hard.
When I collect myself, I realize he’s trying to set me at ease. It’s working.
“Your brothers were a pain in the ass when I started high school,” I explain, tipping my head up so I can look into his loving brown eyes. “I was still really awkward then. I think I’d grown three inches over the summer. I was like a newborn deer on shaky legs.”
He gets a giant grin on his face at the image.
“There was a guy I thought was cute. He was the typical teenage jock, but he seemed nice too. I decided I was gonna talk to him one day without your brothers towering around me like a fortress. They were distracted by the volleyball team walking down the hall so I sprinted in the direction the guy had walked a couple minutes earlier. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the Cooper patrol wasn’t after me and when I spun back around, I slammed face first into Mister Detrick’s door.”
He chuckles along with me for a while before asking, “What happened after that?”
“Well, your brothers found me and condemned my behavior so loudly, the rest of the school started a rumor that I had some sort of disability. Everyone stayed away from me for a few months after that. And the cute guy spoke to me very slowly and with big hand gestures when he saw me. It was awful.”
Now he’s howling with laughter while I watch him. Jake’s face looks good no matter how you see it, but this—filled with hilarity, tipped back as he chortles—is very near the best he’s ever looked.
“Man, I missed those guys. I’m sorry you ran into a door though. That must’ve hurt.”
“It was fine,” I say dismissively, not telling him about the two black eyes that followed that incident.
“My favorite time of day is near midnight. There’s always something perfect around then. The world settles down and I can breathe a little easier. I used to try to get outside at that time when I first went into the field. Even if it was just for a few seconds, I needed fresh air while I looked at a darkened sky.
“Mitch and I were in the Congo. I didn’t pay much attention to the place we were staying because we got there after dark. Once Mitch was asleep, I climbed out our window. It looked like there was a small ledge below my feet that I could balance on for a few minutes.
“I ended up falling through a thatched roof where I landed on a couple in bed. A very naked, sweaty couple in the middle of goin’ at it.”
Jake studies me this time as I laugh. I can feel his gaze sweeping around my face as I close my eyes and picture him falling on top of those people.
“What did they do?” I gasp out.
“They kept fuckin’ and I spent a few uncomfortable seconds searching for a way out of their house,” he says with a snort. “I’m more careful with my midnight expeditions now.”
“I bet you are,” I breathe out through a snicker.
While we’ve talked and laughed, I’ve rolled half of my body onto Jake’s so I can look at him. I’m completely relaxed. His plan worked. With my chin resting on my folded arms, I ask, “Was it hard to stay away from home?”
“Yes and no,” he answers honestly. “I knew I was doin’ the right thing in the beginning. Not just for you guys, but for myself too. I was a mess back then. I real fuckin’ mess. If I’d been home during that time, I can’t imagine where I’d be now. Then I got Riley and shit changed. At first, it was the smart move. Not knowing where she was from and what danger she may pose. I couldn’t expose anyone to that. We spent most of that first year overseas. Once I realized Smith wasn’t comin’ for her, I relaxed a little and came back to work the States again.
“After that, I don’t know how to explain it. I had a rhythm in life. I had my work and Riley. I couldn’t see a way to change our lives. I wanted to. Fuck, I really wanted to. But I didn’t know how.”
We’re both quiet for a minute while I absorb all of that. I can’t imagine what his life was like all these years. I know he was worried about all of us being safe. Then he ended up with a little girl he took responsibility for. He was so young and doing so much. I’m not surprised he didn’t know how to come home. It hurts less hearing him explain it.
“But you’re home now,” I say softly, stroking his recently shaved face.
“For good,” he assures me, twisting his neck to place a kiss on my palm.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Anything.”
“What have you been runnin’ from?”
I know that’s a loaded question, but I want the answer. Even though I know it will be dark.
“Jake Rivers,” he answers gruffly.
“I don’t understand.”
“The first eighteen years of my life were lived by someone else. That’s how it feels anyway,” he tries to explain.
This I truly understand.
“I know how that feels,” I promise.
“I know you do,” he replies with a hint of sadness in his voice and on his face. “The piece of shit who raised me was a monster. There’s no other way to describe him. My life was never my own. He ran it. I was his to do with what he pleased. And what pleased him was fucked up shit no child should have to go through.”
“You don’t have to talk about it, Jake,” I soothe, placing a kiss over his heart that’s now pounding.
“I’ll tell you if you wanna know, Cara. It’s not pretty. There’s nothing pretty about Jake Rivers or his life. The reason I’ve been running is because there’s still a lot of him within me. I don’t know if he should be allowed to be around my family. I don’t trust that part of me.”
“You would never hurt us,” I growl. “Never, Jake. I know that down to the fiber of my being. I don’t care what or who you come from. You’re a good man and you couldn’t hurt us.”
He lets out a long sigh, closing his eyes as he does. I don’t know what Jake believes about himself. But what he believes and the truth are two different things.
“You know I was trapped in a burning building the night I got in the middle of Roman’s op, right?” I ask quietly.
“Yeah,” he grunts, opening his eyes.
“There was a moment where we thought we weren’t gonna make it. I was huddled against my brother, waiting for the flames to overtake us. You know what I tho
ught in that moment?”
He shakes his head.
“I thought, if Jake was here, he’d have us outta this in no time. I was on the brink of death and I was confident you had the power to save me. That’s who you are, Jake Cooper. You’re a savior. You’re a lot of other stuff too. And Jake Rivers is a part of that. But at the base of everything that makes you the man you are, is a savior,” I finish strongly, never looking away from his gaze.
“I’m a killer, Cara. Don’t fool yourself into believing anything but that,” he replies in a resigned tone.
Fuck that shit!
I sit up on my knees, placing both hands on either side of his head before growling, “Have you ever, of your own will, killed an innocent person?”
“No, but—”
“Have you ever watched an innocent person die and felt good about it?” I cut him off.
“No.”
“Would you ever kill an innocent person?”
“No.”
“You’re not a killer!”
“Hey.” He tries to calm me by reaching a hand toward my face.
I’m too mad to allow it. I push away from him and pace the side of the bed with my hands in fists.
“I spent two years bein’ tortured in that dungeon. Two fucking years. It took me days to build up the courage to try to break out. I was weak and broken back then. There’s no reason I should be as stable as I am right now. None. I’ve done the work. I’ve taken care of myself the best I can and I have an amazing support system around me. But at the end of the day, I was tortured in some way for most of my life.
“Those people were monsters. The people who held me, sold me, tortured me. Those motherfuckers are monsters and killers. You’re nothing like them. If you can’t see that, you’re the stupidest smart person I know.”
I take a breath and finally meet his eyes as he hovers on the edge of the bed.
“I’m stable in my life because the day I found the courage to break free, a kid gave me a hoodie and called me sweetheart. He showed me that nothing before that moment mattered and everything after that did. He showed me that my life was worth something. He saved me. You saved me.”
I stifle a scream as Jake sweeps me off my feet in the most brutal hug I’ve ever received. As his arms constrict around my ribs, I hear his stuttered breath. He’s fighting tears.
I hold him as best I can until my vision gets blurry from lack of oxygen.
“Jake,” I wheeze.
“Shit.” He relaxes a little on his grip. “Sorry.”
He continues to hold me for a while, simply keeping me near his body. I don’t make a move to speak or push him to either. I just remain in the moment with him. A moment where I hope he sees himself with new eyes.
Jake moves us into the bed without a word spoken. Once he has me arranged against his chest, he reaches up and flicks the bedside lamp off. We lay there in the dark, surrounded in silence. I allow the deep thrum of his heart to pull me toward sleep. And just as I’m dozing off he whispers, “Thank you.”
I don’t respond because he got that part wrong. I was thanking him. Because the night I stood in a bathroom of a DCA safe house after I escaped the dungeon, pressing a straight razor to my wrist, it was catching a glimpse of his hoodie hanging on the back of the bathroom door that stopped my suicide.
He saved me again that night without even trying.
He always saves me.
The cabin doesn’t have a security system. It’s a safe house, meaning it should be unassuming and normal to anyone who happens to come upon it. I’m used to this, yet I find myself on high alert at all times because I’m the source of protection in this space.
So I’m not enjoying Riley and Cara spinning around the tree as they pepper it with globs of tinsel and laugh with their heads tipped back. I’m watching them and absorbing the moment, but I’m not enjoying it. This feels tainted and wrong.
We should be at home…with family; not hiding in the woods. I’m so sick of hiding. It’s not fair to Riley, Cara or Mitch. Smith is still controlling the people I love and that’s pissing me off the longer we’re here.
“Come on, cranky,” Mitch goads, pushing my shoulder as he climbs to his feet. “Let’s go play and act like kids for a few minutes.”
I shake my head and leave my scowl in place. I am cranky. And horny as hell.
Holding Cara in my arms every night soothes me and drives me insane with want. She’s made no move to do anything other than kiss me and when we’re in bed, she only curls into me after a quick peck on the lips.
There’s still distance between us.
After our talk two nights ago, I shut down a little. She rocked my world in a way I wasn’t expecting. She made me think about myself and my life differently. I’ve always had myself in this box. The box of a killer. Cara ripped the top off that box and shook it until it was empty.
That’s how I feel right now.
Empty.
If I’m not the killer I’ve always believed I am, what am I?
I guess I’ll have to figure that out. But for right now, I’m avoiding the deep stuff with Cara. She seems to be okay with it, understanding even. We’ve continued to share stories before we fall asleep at night, catching up on what we’ve missed. Nothing important, yet it is. We tell each other the small stuff. The time I had to hide Mitch in a closet because the woman he slept with was a nun and her sisters from the convent were at the door. Cara’s second year of college when my brothers convinced her to help them set lab rats free. Only to find out my brothers are afraid of rats and abandoned her, locking her in the lab with hundreds of confused rodents. The first time I broke the record for world’s longest shot and all the times I’ve bested that distance. The one time Cara was able to take down Shannon, though she thinks her sister let her. Shannon probably did, but the story still made Cara glow with pride when she told me.
We’re starting over.
I’m starting over.
“Daddy,” Riley calls out to me breathless from her frolicking, dimpled smile in place.
“Yeah, Princess?” I melt every time. I’m in a bad mood and now it’s gone. One look and her calling me Daddy puts all the negativity outside my mind.
“Lift me up,” she demands with her hands stretching toward the top of the tree.
She wants to put the star up.
I climb to my feet with a grin on my lips. This can still be a good moment. I’m ruining this with my shitty attitude. I do that. It’s time to stop doing that. We’re safe. We’re happy. We’re making a memory that will stay with us for life. I need to enjoy it.
I scoop Riley into my arms and nuzzle her neck, making her squeal with delight. Once I’m done tickling her, I hoist her up in the air as Cara passes her the sparkly red star. Riley struggles to get it in place, Mitch helping her a little. But once it’s on and Cara plugs in the lights, my girl gasps in awe.
She’s having her first Christmas.
I’m a shitty father. We haven’t been able to give Riley the normalcy of a tree at Christmas. We move around so much there’s never been the opportunity. With the holidays being a prime time to catch targets off guard, Riley’s spent plenty of years without celebrating the way she should.
Gage was her daily companion. I miss that guy so much, but my girl misses him more. I can see the pain in her eyes when she’s lost in a memory of him. Smith stole so much from our lives and I won’t let him have this moment too.
“Wow,” she whispers, her little fingers fisting my shirt.
“That’s the prettiest tree I’ve ever seen,” Mitch says decidedly.
He’s full of shit. It’s lopsided and most of the multi-colored ornaments are at the bottom where Riley could reach. The lights are off kilter and the tinsel is in huge piles all over instead of being sprinkled around.
It’s maybe the strangest tree I’ve ever seen.
I fucking love it.
“Will Santa know I’m here?” she asks quietly, not taking her eyes off her creati
on.
“He knows,” I assure her, kissing her braided hair.
We had to wait to decorate the tree because Riley came down with a cold right when we got here. She’s on the mend now, but she’s still exhausted and a little sniffly.
The house phone—our secure line— rings, breaking the sweet moment.
“Let’s get a snack,” Cara suggests, taking Riley from me.
I brush my lips across my woman’s as she disappears into the kitchen. Mitch and I head into his bedroom where I answer the phone sitting on his bedside table.
“Cooper,” I grunt.
“Shane sent a team to bring Cash in,” Roman’s gruff voice fills the room.
“Good,” Mitch replies. “He has to know where Riley comes from.”
“That’s the hope,” Roman huffs. “I’ve got nothin’ to give you guys other than this. We can’t find shit. I’ve had our team on this around the clock. There’s nothing about her out there. Not a fucking thing.”
“Who’s working Cash once he’s brought in?” I ask.
“Me,” Roman replies with a sinister tone.
“Don’t kill him,” I instruct, knowing Roman has a penchant for violence much like I do.
“He’s dirty. He deserves to die…slowly.”
“I get that, but he’s the key to this. We need him alive until I know Riley’s safe. Then you can carve him up like a turkey.”
“I’ll give you the kill if you need it,” Roman states plainly.
If Cash hurt my daughter, he’ll die at my hands whether Roman wants that or not. He doesn’t dictate who I kill. No one does.
“When’s the team movin’ in on Cash?” Mitch asks, sensing my fury starting to boil.
“This afternoon, but it could take some time to locate him and take him down.”
“Keep us in the loop.”
“Cooper, can you give Mitchell and me a moment alone?” Roman questions respectfully.
I lock confused eyes with Mitch, his returning the same lack of understanding.
“Sure,” I grunt, climbing to my feet.
Escaping the Blackness (A Cooper Brothers Novel Book 1) Page 23