I have to look away.
Mom grasps my shoulders, facing me to her. “You okay, sweetie?” she asks softly.
I nod, afraid to speak for fear that releasing my voice might unleash a new avalanche of tears.
She doesn’t seem convinced by my answer, but she lets go of me to turn on the shower anyway. I start to pull at the bottom of my T-shirt, but Mom’s hands take over instead. “Let me help you with this.”
She lifts the shirt up over my head and carefully removes it, then inches my sweatpants and underwear down my legs. Before I was taken I would have been more self-conscious about standing naked in front of anyone, even my mom, but after everything I’ve been through, it seems ridiculous to have that kind of worry now. I’ve had it so much worse than baring myself physically to others.
I look down and take in the bump clearly visible in my belly. My bandaged hand instinctively moves to touch it, my fingers raking over the skin that hides and protects what I hope to be the piece of love that Leo and I share growing inside me. When my gaze returns to meet Mom’s eyes, I see that she has silent tears running down her cheeks, and my throat instantly tightens.
“I’m not ready,” I whisper. My control is quickly vanishing. Panic consumes me. “How am I supposed to be a mother when I’m this broken? How can I get over this? I don’t know what to do.”
Mom envelops me in her comforting arms, holding me tightly as we both cry against each other. Between her touch and the warmth of the steam filling the room from the shower, my worry starts to dissipate and I regain some amount of control.
She holds me there until I’m finally ready to let go and pull back. With her hand on my shoulder, she encourages me to look at her. “I’ll be here for you every step of the way. Dad and Leo will be, too. Even Jack.” She wipes away a stray tear and smiles at me. “We’re all here for you. You’re not alone in this. You’ll make a wonderful mother. I just know you will.”
I take a deep breath and try to find comfort in her words. It’s hard to remember that I’m actually free, that my family is here with me and I don’t have to be trapped and tortured in a strange place anymore. Though I’ll have a constant reminder of what happened to me inside my belly, I have the opportunity to move forward now. I can find normalcy again. I can embrace life and love and leave as much of the pain and heartache behind as my mind will let me.
Mom checks the water temperature and helps me step into the shower while holding on to my bandaged hands lightly. “Don’t get these wet. I’ll wash you. I’ll scrub it all away.”
I nod at her appreciatively and keep my hands above me as the warm stream of water rains over the rest of my body. Mom steps over to the counter to get something before returning with soap lathered in a washcloth.
I recognize the lavender scent and smile. “You brought my favorite soap?”
“I wanted you to have some familiar things, some pieces of home.”
My smile only widens at this as Mom takes the washcloth against me, rubbing gently but with the subtle force that I know will be needed to erase any hint of Mark from my skin.
When I’m completely scrubbed down and rinsed, it’s time to wash my hair. I get it wet and lean my head back as Mom massages my familiar clean-scented shampoo and conditioner into my hair and helps me rinse it all out.
By the time she turns off the shower and helps me towel dry, I feel infinitely better, like I’ve just washed the last seven months off me with the memories of Mark down the drain. I’m more than ready for this clean start to my life.
Mom wraps the towel around me tightly. “I have more of your clothes in the room. Let me get you something clean to wear.”
In the moment it takes her to open the door and sneak out, I catch sight of Leo sitting on the bed. He looks at me, and when our eyes connect, he flashes the largest grin. I see in him a glimpse of the happy and carefree Leo I shared dinner with the night before we were ripped apart from each other. It’s a relief to know that part of him still remains. I can only hope to find that same person within me again.
18
Her Understanding
∞
There is so much to say,
feelings to share,
love to reemerge.
Happiness.
Yet the darkness remains,
cold and endless.
Terrifying.
Secrets hidden that must be told.
Exposed and enlightened.
The world will know.
She will understand,
but can I ever be forgiven?
∞
I watch the slight movement of Morgan’s chest with each steady breath she takes as she sleeps soundly on her side. My hands and arms crave to hold her, my body wanting nothing more than to lie down next to her and conform itself to the shape of her, but it will have to wait.
Robert sits in a chair in the corner of the room watching his daughter with the same amount of admiration and disbelief as I am. We’re both quiet. We’ve been sitting like this watching her for what seems like hours even though it’s only been minutes since Cindy and Jack left to pick up food from a nearby diner, and I could stay here like this for the rest of my life. To see Morgan safe and peaceful within an arm’s reach of me is the most amazing thing. It makes me feel complete. It makes me never want to leave her side again.
The sound of Robert clearing his throat startles me. “I have to ask you something, Leo.”
His words instantly trigger anxiety within me. Whatever he’s going to ask, it’s nothing good.
When I reluctantly meet his gaze, he continues with his question. “What did Mark mean back at the cabin?”
“What are you talking about?”
Robert shifts his eyes around the room uneasily before locking them back on mine. “Just before we left. He said you killed his family.”
My entire body stiffens, but my face somehow manages to remains even. I look away from Robert and back to the person who brings me absolute happiness and love, to the woman who saved me and gave me life. I try to take comfort from her presence before I reply.
I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. My mind draws a blank for a moment before the memories start to scramble in my brain at rapid speed. Everything that happened with Morgan and Stella all seems to come back to me at once, and I’m helpless to stop the subsequent shattering of my heart when the memories remind me of the painful truth of what I’ve done.
I caused all of this.
With a glance back up to Robert, I remain breathless a moment before I finally let myself say it out loud. “I’m responsible for their deaths. What happened to Stella and Elise was all my fault.” I’m shocked at my own words, my overdue admission of guilt. “And their deaths led to all of this, to Mark taking out his revenge on you, and on her.” I look down at Morgan and run my fingers through her hair. I desperately wish she could take me up in her arms and give me comfort even though she’s the one who needs support right now.
“How are you responsible for their deaths?” Robert asks doubtingly. “The truck that hit Stella was driven by one of Mark’s rivals. Elise’s death was suicide. You can’t hold yourself responsible for any of that.”
I wince at his words. I’d give anything for his statement of my innocence to be true. “Elise killed herself because she was at the kitchen window just in time to watch her daughter die before she could call her in from the driveway. Stella died because I wasn’t there to protect her. I was supposed to be there to pick her up when she was waiting outside the house. She knew better than to sneak away from her mom and the guards to wait outside alone, but she did it because I was always on time and there for her. I never let her down until that day.”
“You cared about her,” Robert says, completing my thought for me.
“I loved her.” As the words blurt out of me, I feel like I’ve let the gates of my emotions open too much and now I’m letting honesty flood out of me uncontrollably. “I loved her so damn much, but I knew I co
uld never be with her. When Mark went to prison, the temptation to give in and act on my feelings was too great. I needed to keep her as far away from Mark as possible, so I stayed close to Mark and his operation while he was in prison and tried to push her out of my mind. The morning I was supposed to pick her up at the house, I was running late from a one-night stand. While I was off trying to forget about her, I wasn’t there to protect her like I should have been, and she was killed as a result. It was directly my fault.”
“Leo.”
I look down toward the source of the sound. Morgan’s bruised face is tilted up toward me, her eyes glassy with tears. She turns her body slightly and reaches a hand up to my cheek. Even through the bandaging I feel the warmth of her touch. It gives me the comfort I need to not break down completely at admitting my guilt out loud for the first time.
I take Morgan’s hand from my face and hold it carefully in my palm, kissing her exposed fingers with the light touch of my lips before bringing her hand to my chest. “I should have told you sooner.”
Morgan shakes her head. “You weren’t ready. I understand, and I’m not upset. I’m just so sorry you lost her.”
I can’t stop myself as I sneak my hands behind her back and pull her into my arms and up against my chest. I embrace her tightly, closing my eyes and relishing in the love she gives back to me with her touch, and I whisper, “I had to lose her to find you.”
My own words crush me as I realize I don’t know what I would have changed. All I ever wanted was to protect Stella from her father, to give her a chance at a good life that I knew I’d never have after my parents were killed. For years I took the brunt of Mark’s beatings and rage to protect her, and in the end, the act of me distancing myself and Mark from her got her killed.
If she hadn’t died, though, Mark may not have sought out the revenge he did against Robert and his family. He may never have brought me and Morgan together as part of his grand scheme that didn’t end the way he hoped. Morgan and I may never have met had Stella not been taken from the world that day.
I thought I couldn’t imagine life without Stella, but I’ve lived it. Now I can’t imagine life without Morgan, and soon I won’t be able to imagine life without her and our baby.
“You’ll always have me. You’ll have us,” she whispers before pulling back from me. As she creates more distance between us, my hands move from her back to her sides. She nudges both of my arms with hers to encourage my hands toward her belly.
The white tank top she wears clings to her skin so I can easily see the round bump in her belly underneath it. I splay my hands out over it and am overcome by the warmth that swells within me at knowing that a piece of me is possibly growing inside her.
For years I’ve told myself I couldn’t start a family, no matter how much I wanted one. I could never have a child of my own, because Mark would find a way to take it from me, to feed my bloodline back into his organization the way I was made to follow in my dad’s footsteps as a key part of Mark’s crew. I couldn’t let Mark’s destruction of my family become an endless cycle.
As my hands rest within inches of my potential progeny, it becomes clear to me that I can finally let go of that fear. I have a family to love and protect now. We can be together. We can grow and thrive in a world where Mark can’t hurt us anymore.
I don’t have to be afraid. The cycle is broken.
The sound of the door opening from the other side of the room startles me. I withdraw my hands from Morgan’s belly as Cindy and Jack walk in with plastic bags in hand. Cindy’s eyes find mine, and her face fills with concern.
“Is everything okay?” she asks as she looks between me and Morgan.
“We’re fine,” I reassure her, though she still doesn’t seem convinced.
She quickly sets down the bags on the other bed and walks over to her daughter, cupping the sides of Morgan’s face and leaning in to give her a kiss on her forehead. She turns to me and pulls me in for a hug. I still can’t help the strange shock I feel at being shown this kind of motherly affection.
For a moment it reminds me of how Elise used to hold me, how she would grasp on to me and whisper her thanks in my ear for protecting her daughter, but the moment passes and I’m gratefully brought back to the present.
Cindy lets go of me and smiles briefly before she starts digging in the bags she brought in, her hands moving with speed and purpose. “We have lots to choose from: eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes. What sounds good?”
She glances back at Morgan, and I can tell by the uneasy look on Morgan’s face that she’s feeling a little overwhelmed by something that should be a simple question.
I place my hand on Morgan’s arm, reminding her that I’m here for her. “Are you up for eating?”
She looks between me and Cindy. “I don’t know. I don’t have much of an appetite after… everything.”
“Toast,” Jack suggests. “Her morning sickness is better than it was, but let’s still start out with something simple.”
Cindy nods and takes a piece of buttered toast out from one of the to-go boxes and hands it on a paper plate to Morgan. After Morgan hesitantly accepts it, Cindy looks to me. “What would you like?”
I’m hungry and know I need to eat something, but I can’t stop watching Morgan approach her piece of toast like it’s going to jump up from the plate and bite her. “You guys go ahead and eat. I need to focus on something else for right now.”
With a knowing smile, Cindy turns her attention toward Robert and Jack. While everyone else is distracted by Cindy and the food she’s starting to plate, I take advantage of the opportunity to scoot closer to Morgan on the bed and wrap my arm around her shoulder. I can feel the sigh she releases when I embrace her. The tension seems to slowly work itself out of her body.
She finally starts to relax and brings the toast to her mouth to take a small bite. We both remain quiet as she nibbles away at the toast and I gently rub her back. I love just being here for her, doing nothing but providing her comfort with my presence and my touch. I always want to be with her in this way.
By the time she finishes the slice of toast, Cindy is all over me about eating something. “When was the last time you ate anything, Leo? Don’t forget you’re injured. You need sustenance, too.”
She practically forces a paper plate of eggs, bacon, and two pancakes on me, and I finally give in and accept it. The first thing I do is offer a piece of bacon to Morgan, who gives it a disgusted look as if I’m offering her a slug to eat.
“It’s bacon. What pregnant woman doesn’t like bacon?” I say, trying to lighten the mood.
A tiny smile curves up her lips at my joke. She knows I’m right. I can see it in her eyes even before she takes the piece of bacon from me.
I grab my own piece and knock it against hers as if making a toast before devouring it. She takes a lot more time in eating her piece, but she does eventually finish it. She won’t try the eggs, but she steals a piece of pancake from my fork and ends up finishing the rest of it for me.
Some of the spark is back in her eyes by the time we’ve both cleaned the plate, and though she initially rejected the orange juice that Cindy tried to give her, she’s sucking it down now. I sip slowly on the cup of coffee that Cindy made for the rest of us with the in-room coffee maker.
With my focus so centered on making sure Morgan got something in her stomach, I’ve only just now caught on to Mark and Jack’s quiet conversation on the other side of the room.
“Colorado? I don’t know how she’d react to being back in the mountains,” Robert says, looking to the floor in front of him and rubbing his temple like he’s deep in thought.
“You need somewhere remote, at least anywhere in the Southwest you will. Her face is too recognizable from all the past news coverage.” Jack spins his cup of coffee around within his grasp. He looks up at me, catching me staring at him. “What is it, Leo?”
“You’re figuring out where we’ll go?” I ask with surprise. My sole focus the
se past few months has been on getting Morgan back in my arms. I haven’t even thought about what we’d do after that.
Morgan looks at me with worried eyes, so I resume my position with my arm wrapped around her shoulder.
“We can’t take her home,” Robert answers. “Too many neighbors. Too many eyes on the house. We can’t risk it.”
I look to Jack, to the man who is the only person we can trust to keep an eye on Morgan’s health, the man who is still the best candidate to deliver the baby. “Where will you go? I hate to say it, but we’re going to need you.”
Jack smiles at me reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve been forced into actual retirement by all this, and you already know I don’t have anyone else. I’ll follow you wherever you need me to go.” He looks at Morgan and his smile only widens. “I need to see this through. I owe it to you both.”
“We need you,” I quickly interject, “but not because you owe us anything. You’ve already done enough just by being there for her, Jack.”
“Well, I want to do more.” He turns to Robert. “I have a rainy day fund that can finally have a purpose. I want to use the money to find a safe place for these two to start their lives together.”
Robert shakes his head. “You don’t have to do that. We can find–”
“I insist.” Jack’s face is serious. The old man isn’t backing down.
I readjust to gauge Morgan’s face, and the beaming reaction I see there makes me want to take her up in my arms and swing her around and give her everything in the damn world. Her grin is absolutely heartwarming. There’s a look of excitement behind the happy tears that roll down her cheeks. Her eyes are alive as they find mine, and she immediately throws her arms around my neck.
Beyond Revenge (The Ransom Series) Page 13