Protected: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella

by Lexi Blake

  “Go and get your things.” She wasn’t going to be taken care of. No one took care of her. They used her like her father had used her to make his life comfortable. He’d only given her a way out when it cost him nothing. Like Wade’s mother and brother had used her to secure their ranch. Like her mother-in-law had used her to keep her son in line. Like Wade had used her and walked away when she’d proven inconvenient.

  Years of humiliation and abuse built to something she couldn’t contain. She watched as her son walked away, exchanging a look with Wade that told her he wasn’t following her orders. Her son was deferring to the man in the room. The man who’d left them to fucking rot.

  “I hate you.”

  Wade’s eyes closed briefly and when he looked at her again, there was such sickening sympathy there. “You don’t. You’re pissed off and I’m a good target. Let it out, baby. I’m here and I can take it. Say every nasty thing in your soul and purge it out and know that I will still be standing here. I will still love you.”

  Love? He hadn’t loved her. She’d been young and willing to please him sexually. She’d been stupid. She’d had a full ride to college and she’d picked the boy. Such a fucking moron. “I don’t want your love. Your love means nothing.”

  “I understand why you think that, but I’m going to prove it means something this time.”

  Why wouldn’t he fucking fight with her? The need rode her hard, much harder than even the need she’d felt to make love with him. Volcanic rage bubbled inside. Even after she’d watched them take Brock to jail, she’d kept it all inside. Habit made her push it all down, shove every emotion into some dark place, lock it up. It was only seeing Wade again that had made the chains rattle. Pulling that gun on him had been the first impulsive thing she’d done in years and years.

  It had been the first time she’d allowed herself to feel anything for anyone beyond her son.

  She wasn’t allowed to be angry. Anger fed the beast. She couldn’t cry. He didn’t like it when she cried. He would give her something to cry about when she cried. He controlled everything, even her feelings. Don’t be too happy or he thinks you’ve done something you shouldn’t. He’ll take away the things that make you happy.

  “You can’t prove anything to me.” She pushed at him, her palms on his muscular chest. Wade had gotten a life. He’d gotten to have a career and to find friends and do normal things. Wade hadn’t spent the best years of his life simply trying to survive the day. Wade had promised her a life and then lived it without her.

  He stood there, his face flushed, but he didn’t move to stop her. “Go on, baby. Let it go. Take it out on me. I can handle it. I want it. I want every bit of that rage. I hurt you.”

  Her flat palms became fists; the world was a blurry mess. When had she started crying? “You can’t hurt me.”

  She wouldn’t let him hurt her again. She didn’t have feelings anymore.

  “But I did,” he said softly. “I hurt you. I’m so sorry I hurt you. I left you behind.”

  “You left me.” The words came out on a strangled cry, as if she was truly facing it for the first time. He’d left her. He’d abandoned her without a thought. She’d written a letter that had been totally out of character for her and he’d bought it hook, line, and sinker. He’d never loved her.

  She’d given him everything and he’d left her aching and alone. He’d left her with the monster.

  “I left you.” His voice was gravelly, as if he was fighting to even speak. “I left you. I knew deep down that something was wrong, but I was embarrassed. I was angry that you would even think about dumping me for that asshole. I was insecure and I bought it. Deep down I thought I wasn’t good enough for you.”

  What he thought didn’t matter. He hadn’t even called, hadn’t asked a single question. He’d been in another woman’s bed as soon as he could. “You left me in hell.”

  “I left you in hell and then I didn’t look back.”

  She wanted him to feel it. She hadn’t realized how angry she was. She thought she’d buried it all, but it was there. It had festered deep inside her, ruining every good moment, taking all her hope and tainting it. Nothing good could happen to her as long as this wound was open and bleeding.

  She hit him. It wasn’t right or good, but she hit him with everything she had. Even as she pounded against his chest she hated herself for doing it, but then hate was kind of the point. She hated Wade. Hated Brock.

  Most of all she hated herself because she’d taken it. She’d been weak. So fucking weak.

  “You’re not.” Wade’s voice cut through the screams inside her head. The screams outside. Had she been talking? “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. Even the strongest people need to let go. It’s all right. Let it all out.”

  “Don’t fucking tell me what to do.” And yet she was. It wouldn’t stop now that she’d busted down the door.

  Every humiliation came back. Her wedding night. God, her wedding night.

  Her knees hit the floor and she wondered who was crying so loudly. The sound was torn from her soul. She knew it was her but there was still distance, as if she’d done it for so long she couldn’t allow herself to feel it.

  She’d broken in two and the parts wouldn’t go back together. Like a broken leg that hadn’t set right. Sometimes the doctor had to break the leg again, reset it to enable it to heal properly this time.

  She’d broken and twisted, her soul never resetting. She’d fooled herself that she was over this because she’d never let herself feel it the first time. She’d gone to a place deep inside, pretending it wasn’t happening to her.

  But it had. It had happened.

  Wade was on the floor with her and she finally looked up at him.

  It was his tears that did it. His masculine face, so stoic, always calm, was twisted with emotion. She stared at him for a moment, trying to understand. He was crying. He hadn’t cried at his father’s funeral and he’d loved the old man.

  “Please, Genny. Please.”

  Please forgive him? Please don’t leave him?

  Please let it go. Please come back.

  She screamed, the girl she’d been finally reconciling with the woman she’d been forced to become. No more Super Mom. No more Brock’s fucking victim.

  She felt it all, felt the fear she’d known in those first moments when she realized she was trapped. Felt the hope that Wade would see through it all and come and save her. Felt the pain…the everyday pain of being someone’s punching bag.

  Wade’s arms went around her and she sobbed, finally able to reach for him. They’d been children playing adult games. She’d loved him. There was a part of her that still loved him. Still longed for what he could give her.

  The tears came fast and furious, as did the memories. They flashed through her, all the pain finally being felt and made real so it wasn’t some shadow waiting to pounce. She made it real so she could fight it, so they could fight it together.

  “Mom?”

  She looked up and her son was standing there, tears pouring from his eyes. Her baby. Her one good thing. She held a hand out and he hit his knees, coming into the small circle they formed. She half expected Wade to walk away, unwilling to let Ash see him like that, but he simply drew her son in, holding them both.

  Like they were his family.

  Like they had always been his family, merely separated for a while. Like they could mourn the years they’d lost, but they were together now and it was good and right to share their emotions.

  They sat together on the floor, their tears bonding them in a way nothing else could have.

  After the longest time a deep peace fell over her.

  She looked at her son. “We have to make a stand.”

  Her son nodded. “We make a stand here.”

  Wade reached out, taking their hands in each of his. They sat there, connected and finally healing.

  Chapter Eight

  He wasn’t going to sleep. He knew that. After Genny had fi
nally broken down, they’d had dinner and Ash and she had found a movie they loved. He’d sat with them as they watched Harry and Ron and Hermione, but he felt out of place.

  The pain she’d purged, he caught a lot of it, and he wasn’t sure she would ever be able to forgive him.

  “Can’t sleep? I think it’s going around.” Ash sat at the kitchen table, a half-eaten sandwich in front of him.

  He’d grown to love the kid. “Yeah, I’m restless. I thought I’d grab a beer. And no, you can’t have one. Your mother would have my hide.”

  “I don’t think that’s the part of you she wants.”

  He sent Ash what he hoped was a fatherly look. “Don’t get nasty.”

  Ash shook his head. “There isn’t anything nasty about it. She loves you. It’s okay when you’re in love. At least that’s what I’ve heard.”

  Yep, he definitely needed the beer. It was time he had a long talk with Ash and made sure he understood what was going on. “I don’t think your mother loves me anymore. I think I’m what she needs for now, but she won’t let herself love me again. After…well, you were there.”

  Ash had cried, holding onto his mom like she was a life raft. They’d been through hell together. While he’d been living his life, building a career, having fun with his friends, they’d gone through hell. He hadn’t been there, had actively scorned them. They were precious and he’d worried about his pride.

  “Did you know I’ve never seen her cry?” Ash stared at him, his gaze far steadier than a kid’s should be. “I don’t think she has in years. What do you think happened tonight, Wade?”

  “I think she finally felt everything and she won’t be able to forget it.”

  His lips curled up, but the expression was bittersweet. “I don’t think so. I think she finally broke through. I think she’s kept it all inside. Did you know my father would punish her if she smiled too much?”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “He would lock her in a room because he was paranoid. If she was smiling too much, then she’d obviously done something she shouldn’t have. I wasn’t supposed to see any of this, mind you. I got very good at snooping. I found all the places where I could hear them, but they couldn’t see me. I would listen because I thought someone should know what she was going through.”

  “Ash, I’m sorry.”

  He held up a hand, waving it off. “She never wanted me to know. The one time I tried to help, I ended up hurting her. I told my teacher. She was a nice woman on the edge of retirement. She went to church with my grandmother. You can imagine how that turned out. Mom told me she broke her arm because she was clumsy.”

  It made his blood boil. She’d been alone and the people who should have watched over her were the ones who hurt her. No one had been willing to go against the most powerful family in town. “He won’t touch her again.”

  “I know. You’ll protect her, and she believes that now. That’s why she’s not sending me away. But that’s not what really happened here tonight.” Ash leaned forward. “When I was little, I thought there were monsters under my bed. But I wouldn’t look. I would lie there and I would hear things, and in my mind those creaks and scratching sounds were the monsters getting ready to attack. My mom would come in and make a big show of looking under there and finding nothing, but I wouldn’t look because I knew I would see it. I knew it was there. Tonight Mom looked under the bed. She dragged it out and pulled it into the light, and it can’t hurt her anymore. That monster lives in shadows. It’s always waiting. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you can put the pain off, but it has to be dealt with. It has to be felt or it lingers like that monster under the bed. You think she can’t forget it now. She never forgot it. She simply wouldn’t look at it. She was like me, scared of what was there, unable to drag it into the light and face it.”

  “You can’t possibly be thirteen.” He was too smart, had figured out far too much about life to be some kid.

  “My father wants to kill me to collect five million dollars and I wasn’t even surprised. I grew up fast.” Ash pushed the plate away. “Why are you still sleeping in the office?”

  It was odd. The afternoon when they’d made love in the truck seemed like it had happened to a different man. Mere hours had passed but it felt like an eternity. “She hasn’t invited me to sleep with her.”

  “But you would?”

  “In a heartbeat.” He probably shouldn’t be talking about this with Ash, but it felt oddly normal. The house seemed fuller with Ash in it, more like this was the way it was supposed to be. As though something he couldn’t explain had slid into place and the world made sense again.

  “She doesn’t remember what it’s like to be in a good relationship,” Ash said. “I think she needs you to ask. I think she needs you to put this on a normal footing. People who love each other the way you do sleep together.”

  “Normal sons don’t try to get their mom’s boyfriend to sleep with their mom.”

  “As we’ve decided, I’m not normal.” Ash was quiet for a moment. “I wouldn’t have said anything if you weren’t the man I was talking to. I’ve spent a lot of time lately wondering what it would have been like if you were my dad. I know what Mom says. Mom thinks I’m this unique creature only formed in that one moment and never again or some shi…stuff. I don’t think so. I think she was always going to be my mom, and if she’d been with you, you would be my dad and I would have grown up this Army brat with a couple of siblings who got into trouble and gave my mom and dad hell because we could. Because we wouldn’t know how unsafe the world could be. We would live in that bubble of childhood most kids get.”

  “We can choose.” He was constantly floored by how smart Ash was, but this was something he’d learned. “Blood doesn’t make a family. I love my brothers, but I’m closer to the people I work with. I spend my holidays with them. I watch their kids grow. I depend on them more than I’ve ever depended on my blood family. We can choose, Ash. I love your mother. I don’t want to ever let her go. I want to be your dad. We don’t need an ounce of blood between us to make that true.”

  The kid smiled and this time it was a joyous thing. “I want to be your bratty kid. And she wants you. She looks at you like I’ve never seen her look at any man. Do the work. Ask her. Go knock on her door. Let her make the choice, but she should know what you want.”

  “You’re going to kill me, kid.” But he was standing up, knew what he would do next. “Don’t stay up too late. You have school in the morning.”

  “Spoken like a true dad,” Ash said with a smile.

  It was time to figure out if he had any chance of giving Ash little brothers and sisters to corrupt.

  * * * *

  The soft knock on the door brought Genny out of her trance-like state. It was like she had to shut down to process what had happened to her. Everything that had happened to her. She’d known it all on an intellectual level, even on a physical level she had the memories, but she wasn’t sure she’d accepted it in her soul. Ash was right. Deep down, she’d been waiting for that moment when she faced Brock and her pain ended one way or another. She’d been in that place for so long that she equated life with pain, but it didn’t have to be that way if she was willing to open herself up. She’d closed down in an attempt to not feel the pain, but it had taken the joy, too.

  She forced herself off the bed and hoped whatever Ash needed didn’t take too long because she had to talk to Wade. She had to tell him she didn’t want to pretend anymore. God, she didn’t want to sleep alone anymore.

  She opened the door and stopped because it wasn’t Ash standing there. Wade was there wearing pajama bottoms and a black tank top that showed off his ridiculously muscular arms and shoulders. It molded to his body, letting her see the sculpted planes of his chest against the thin material. It reminded her that she’d made love with him but not gotten his clothes off, and that seemed a shame.

  Of course, that also meant he hadn’t gotten her clothes off, had
n’t seen the C-section scar she sported or the way her breasts weren’t as perky as they’d been when she was eighteen. God, he hadn’t seen her body since it had been at the height of its perfection.

  “What’s going through that head of yours, baby?” Wade asked, his voice deep.

  His voice had a direct line to her pussy. It was like the damn thing had been waiting to hear him again in order to wake up and shout “pay attention to me, I have needs!” “I was thinking about how long it’s been since we were really together. It was silly.”

  Worrying about whether or not he would reject her was foolish, too. He either would or he wouldn’t. She couldn’t go into her shell and hide and not take the chance because her boobs might not be perky enough for Mr. Perfect.

  “I wanted to see if you’re all right,” he said, his eyes on the floor. “It was a rough night.”

  Beyond rough. But it had been necessary. She’d thought she was moving, but she’d been taking baby steps, and the minute Brock intruded, she’d sprinted back to her hidey-hole. “Will you sleep with me?”

  His eyes came up pretty damn fast. “I was going to ask that but I thought I should ease you into it. I…don’t hate me, but I asked Ash’s advice. Not like about how to seduce you but more like if he was okay with it. He was.”

  It was sweet to see him fumbling. She would bet he never did. And she could bet Ash approved. “You should know that he’s invested in this relationship. I think he wants you to be his stepdad, and you should consider that. I can’t play around, Wade.”

  “I’m not playing.”

  Ash was the wild card. Ash was the reason she shouldn’t do this. “I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to anything or anyone. There’s still a part of me that’s angry with you. There’s a part of me that might need to try this on my own once the situation with Brock is stable and it’s safe for us.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance,” he said, his voice steady. “Don’t use Ash as an excuse to keep us apart while you’re here. He’s a smart kid. He knows nothing is certain.”