by K. M. Scott
I placed my palm on his cheek and directed his eyes to mine. “I swear to you he won’t get away with this. I just need you to trust me. Please, I know what I’m doing.”
“What are you doing? Why not just show him to be the fuck he is and let the cops take care of him?” he asked, exasperation filling each word.
“Because I won’t risk not getting my revenge like that. He took something from me today, from us. I won’t let him get away with that.”
Ryder stared down at me sadly. “You sound like your father. You know that?”
He wasn’t wrong. I did sound like my father now. I’d heard my father threaten to exact his revenge on people nearly every day of my life, and I’d sworn I would never become that person. Now that Oliver had taken something so precious from me, I couldn’t help myself. I needed revenge for that.
“Is it so bad to want revenge on someone who hurt you?” I asked, desperate to hear him say he didn’t hate the person I’d become as I lay in that hospital bed.
“No, but revenge is a tricky thing. It starts out feeling good, but in the end, you get consumed by it.”
Turning away from him, I looked out the window and tried to explain what I felt. “All my life, I’ve been at the mercy of my father and what he wanted. And when he decided it was time, he gave me away to a husband who doesn’t care about me. Somehow, they both thought I’d be okay with that.”
“I’m not saying you ever deserved that, Serena. I just don’t want to see you become like them.”
I looked back at him and saw the concern in his eyes. “Maybe I’ve been wrong all this time. Maybe if I’d been more like my father this would have never happened.”
Ryder shook his head as his frown deepened. “Don’t. Don’t take the blame for what that bastard did.”
I wasn’t. The days of me taking the blame for what the monsters in my life did to me were over.
Chapter Two
Ryder
Serena’s eyes filled with tears. “I need you to understand what I’m feeling now. This wasn’t just a fight that got out of hand, Ryder. He pushed me down those stairs after I told him I was pregnant. He wanted me and our baby dead. I don’t want to be a victim this time. Can you still love me if I’m not going to be just a victim for once?”
I smoothed her soft brown hair back off her face and looked into those sad, dark eyes so full of emotion. “I never loved you because you were a victim of what your father did or what Oliver did, Serena. I love you because of who you are. Because you’re gentle and kind in a world full of people like them.”
Squeezing my hand, she said, “I’m still that person, if only with you, but he took our baby from me and I can’t forgive that and I can’t let it go.”
“I just don’t want to lose you to this.”
She wiped away the tears from her cheeks and took a deep breath. “You’re not going to, Ryder, but I’m tired of living my life in fear.”
I stepped away from the bed, hating what I was hearing. The beautiful soul I’d fallen in love with was hardening over before my eyes. Her father and Oliver had succeeded in forcing her to be like them.
Callous and vengeful.
But what would happen to us when she became that person?
“Why did you walk away?” she asked as I stood at the window looking out toward the nearby mountains still dotted with the reds and golds of the fall season.
How much I wanted to take her in my arms and run away into those hills until we reached a place no one would find us. We could leave our pasts behind and start again. Now as I looked toward the horizon, I worried when we finally did get the chance to do that, we wouldn’t be the two people who’d first dreamed about running away together as we lay in each other’s arms in that bed in the guest room all that time ago.
“Why aren’t you angry like I am, Ryder? He killed our baby. I thought you’d be furious.”
Inside, rage bubbled up, touching every part of me. I spun around to face her, letting her see for the first time how what he’d done made me feel.
“I hate him, Serena. I hate him like I’ve never hated anyone before in my life. It wasn’t bad enough that he had you there in his bed, but then he took our baby away.”
“You want to kill him, don’t you?”
I wanted to kill Oliver with my bare hands and knew exactly how I’d do it. No pushing him under the water in a hot tub or a gunshot to the back of his head. No, I wanted to do to him what I’d done in The Pit because what he took from me made me feel like I used to when I fought.
Like an animal fighting for its very survival.
After what he’d done to Serena and the baby she carried, only one of us could remain in this world. Either he disappeared or I did, but I wouldn’t be able to continue living with him walking around like he’d gotten away with his crime.
Quietly, I admitted to her for the first time what we never talked about before. “I’ve killed other men for your father. He’ll be no different.”
I watched for horror to fill her eyes as she finally understood what kind of man I truly was, but it never came. Instead, she simply shook her head.
“I don’t want you to be the one who does this, Ryder.”
Walking back to the side of the bed, I searched her face for the answer to why. Why couldn’t I avenge the death of our child?
“What does it matter if it’s me who does it? You’ll be free and I would have protected you, finally.”
“Is that what this is about to you? You being some big protector for sad, pathetic Serena?”
My emotions spun out of control after everything that had happened that day. “I promised to protect you and I failed! How do you think that makes me feel?”
Exhausted from my failure once again to protect her from being hurt, I sank down in the chair next to the bed and hung my head. I understood that she didn’t want to be a victim anymore, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to protect her because she was the woman I loved.
She gently stroked her hand across my back as I sat there hating what was happening to us. “Ryder, I don’t need you to protect me. All I need from you is your love.”
Looking back toward her, I asked, “What if I want to protect you? What if that means something important to me?”
Her hand trailed down my arm and she weaved her fingers through mine, squeezing our hands together. “There was a time that all I thought I needed was someone to protect me, first from my father and then from Oliver. In fact, if you had asked me this afternoon if I needed you to protect me, I would have said yes. But something happened when he pushed me down those stairs and I lost the baby. I woke up in this bed and all I knew for sure was I never wanted to feel that weak again. I never wanted to feel like I had no power ever again in my life. I won’t.”
I looked down at where our hands met and brought her fingertips to my lips in a kiss. “What does that mean for us? What am I if I’m not the one person you trust to protect you?”
She smiled for one of the first times since I’d entered her hospital room. “Equals, like a man and woman should be.”
I didn’t mind the idea of Serena being my equal. From the first moment she appeared at my room right after I arrived at the house, I’d thought she was far superior to me, and not only because she came from money and I came from The Pit. Something inside her made her sweeter and kinder than anyone I’d ever met. I wanted to have someone with those qualities in my life.
“You’ve always been better than me,” I said quietly, slipping my hand from hers as I stood to walk to the window again.
“That’s not true, and you know it. I’m just some poor little rich girl with a powerful father. At least that’s all I’ve been, but now I want to be more. I want to be someone who has control over her life instead of being sold to the highest bidder and forced to live with other people’s decisions.”
As I gazed out at that place I imagined in the mountains where we could finally be free, I said, “You want to be like your father.
”
From behind me, she said, “Maybe I want to be like you.”
Her answer made me chuckle. Turning back to face her, I asked, “Like a junkyard dog? You’re not the biting type.”
“Not the biting type but the type of person who has the power to say no.”
Her newfound strength didn’t frighten me, but I worried what she might want to say no to. Or who.
“I would never say no to you, Ryder, if that’s what the look on your face means. You’re the only person I know cares for me.”
“So this is about having the power to get your revenge on Oliver? Because I meant what I said about revenge. I’ve seen what it does to people like you. It’ll eat you up from the inside, Serena.”
She placed her hands over her belly and nodded. “I want the chance to make him pay. I need to do this. I hope you can understand why.”
Part of me did. Although I’d come around to wanting a child after she told me, Serena had lived with the baby inside her, something I could never truly feel. Whatever Oliver had taken away from me, he’d taken more from her when he decided to kill her and our baby.
But another part of me didn’t want to think about how different things were for her and simply wanted to exact revenge on the man who had hurt the woman I loved and killed my child. That part didn’t want to stand aside and let her do just that. That part wanted to look him dead in the eyes as the life drained out of his body so he’d know who he’d crossed before he left this world.
Accepting for the moment that Serena needed me to support her in this, I asked, “So what do you plan to do? I can’t stand the idea that you’re going to have to go back to that apartment and live in the same house as him. I don’t trust that he won’t try to kill you again.”
“He won’t. He pushed me down the stairs because of the baby,” she answered as she fought back tears.
And for that one horrible act I’d someday get my revenge, even if it didn’t mean killing him.
“My father will be watching. I saw how suspicious he was when he was here listening to me tell my story. I want him to be suspicious so Oliver knows he’s being watched. One word from me and he’ll be under arrest, but I’d rather him live in terror that I’m going to finally tell the truth one day.”
“Why? Why not tell the truth and be done with him?”
I knew the answer before she said it. It would never be that easy.
“Because he might get some sleazy lawyer who finds a way for him to wriggle out of any charges the police bring. No, I’m not leaving my revenge to more men in expensive suits. I want him to leave me because he can’t take the threat of me telling the truth one of these days. Then my father won’t have anything to say about it and I’ll finally be free.”
“And then what, Serena?”
My question confused her. “What do you mean? Then I’m free to be with you.”
I shook my head at how simple that sounded and how impossible it would be. “Don’t fool yourself. He’s never going to let that happen. You know that. He married you to Oliver because it helped his bottom line, and if Oliver leaves you, he’ll make sure the divorce is quick and your second marriage happens even quicker.”
Serena seemed to think about what we both knew was the truth and then nodded her agreement. “Then knowing my father, I’m going to have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
As I began to ask how she’d do that, she reached for my hand and kissed it. “I’m tired now, Ryder. I think I need to rest. Promise me you won’t take this into your own hands and steal my revenge from me.”
Leaning down, I pressed a soft kiss onto her lips. “I promise. Now I want you to promise me something.”
She looked up at me and smiled. “Anything.”
“Promise me if your plan doesn’t work that you’ll accept the fact that I will kill him for what he’s done to you.”
Cradling my face, she pressed her forehead to mine. “To us.”
I left Serena lying there in that bed with her dreams of revenge and worried she was underestimating her father and Oliver. He’d tried to kill her once already. What would stop him from trying again?
By the time I reached Robert still standing outside the car, his look of fatherly concern had disappeared, replaced by a far flintier look. I braced myself for his interrogation since I’d been up there with Serena for a while, but the first words out of his mouth weren’t questions about me or what we’d talked about at all.
“I want to see those security tapes tonight. I already called Johnson about them while I was waiting for you. If an intruder could get onto the estate and into Serena’s home, I damn well want to know how.”
Knowing what he’d find on them, I nodded in agreement, as I had to. “Sounds like a good idea.”
We rode back to the estate in silence as I eagerly waited for him to see the proof of who had come and go from Serena’s apartment that day. The question was what would Robert do when he found out that the only person who could have done that to Serena was her husband.
He waved at me to follow him to where Johnson and the other real security guys spent their days on the first floor directly beneath the bedroom wing of the main house. He sat in a room full of monitors that showed the outside areas around Serena’s apartment, Robert’s townhouse at the far end of the estate, the front door to the main house, the side and front doors of the garage, and the main door leading to the apartments where I and the rest of his on-site employees stayed.
Johnson, a tall lanky guy with closely cropped jet black hair that looked startling compared to his silver beard, swiveled around to face us and began talking as soon as Robert entered the room. Pointing at his monitors like we knew what had gotten him so excited, he said quickly, “I’ve looked through every bit of footage you asked me to and there’s a problem.”
Those were exactly the words Robert hated to hear. His body tensed up until he looked as stiff as an ironing board next to me, and I took a step back toward the door, knowing what would likely happen next.
Too bad. Johnson was a decent guy, even if he tended to ramble on about fishing when he got you alone.
“You know what I think of when I hear someone say that, don’t you, Johnson? I think someone’s not taking care of business, which in my mind is the worst thing a person can do, especially when he’s been ordered not an hour before to take care of exactly that fucking business!”
Robert’s voice echoed off the walls and shook the equipment. Johnson’s eyes bugged open like being yelled at startled him, and he began explaining himself. “It’s nothing I or any of us did. I swear, sir. It’s just that whoever went into that apartment must have known exactly where the cameras were located because it’s like some kind of fog or something affected the view of the camera outside her apartment, and the front gate camera has been on the fritz for the past week, as Snyder told you when it first happened. Look for yourself.”
“Fog? What are you talking about? Fog doesn’t just drop itself in front of a goddamned camera while the rest of them work,” Robert bellowed, just slightly quieter this time.
Johnson nodded his head up and down so fast he looked like a bobble head doll. “I know. That’s just what I thought too, sir. But that’s exactly what happened. Take a look. You can see it as clear as day right there on the tape.”
Robert glared at him, and I winced at his poor choice of words. He spun around in his chair to point at the monitor that showed what the camera outside of Serena’s apartment recorded that evening. A few minutes before she said she was attacked, the camera shot became cloudy, obscuring the view for an hour’s time. Then he pointed to the monitor next to it and we saw the front gate camera going black for long periods of time as it had for the past week.
I stared over Robert’s shoulder knowing it had been Oliver who did it. Probably with something sprayed directly onto the lens. It wouldn’t have been difficult.
But did Robert suspect him?
I had no idea, and as he stood hunched ove
r Johnson staring at the monitor, he said nothing. Finally, when he stood up, he simply shook his head.
But there were other ways to make sure he suspected Oliver. Quickly, I suggested he look at the tapes from the other cameras around the estate. “Whoever did this didn’t just disappear into thin air. What about looking at the footage from the side door of the garage? That should show if anyone drove past anytime during the night.”
As if my idea made him happy, he nodded and patted me on the shoulder. “Good idea.” Then he turned to Johnson, who was already loading up the garage door footage. “Why didn’t you think of this? Does Ryder have to do everything here? He saved Serena, for God’s sake. I’d think someone else who works for me could pick up the ball here.”
Johnson didn’t have an answer for Robert’s questions, so he wisely kept his mouth shut until the footage was available. “Here it is, sir.”
The three of us watched, and I waited with my heart in my throat to see Oliver’s car pass by on his way out of the estate after attacking Serena. The angle wasn’t perfect, so there was no way the driver of any car going by could be seen, but at least if Robert could see proof that a car like Oliver’s had driven by during that time he might put the pieces together.
Minute after minute passed with no sign that anyone had gone near the garage door, but then a single car sped by, barely visible on the security tape. My heart sank. It wouldn’t be enough to point the finger at that fucker, even though I knew it was his car.
Robert and Johnson saw it too, and Robert yelled, “Wait! Back it up! I saw something pass by. Ryder, did you see that? There’s a car there.”
Johnson did as ordered and slowed the tape down to show that a car had gone by during the window of time Serena’s attacker would have fled the scene. The problem was between the angle and the darkness of the camera shot, the car may have been black or even a dark green or blue. It wasn’t definitive.
“What color is that car?” Robert asked the two of us. “We need to know the color of that car.”