But the weird thing was, I was more terrified now than I had been when I was on the run. I may not know what the future held, but I did know I would have to tell Hunter the rest of my story.
I heard the door open and close and I stilled.
If Van knew I was awake, he might take it as an invitation for conversation.
Footsteps moved up beside me and stopped. “You’re a shit actress.” Hunter’s voice was low and rough and slid over me like a silk sheet. “We need to talk.”
We did, but I didn’t want to, so I kept up my shit acting, and didn’t move a muscle.
I felt him move closer, and when he spoke again, he was right there. “I’m not going anywhere, Lulu.”
Shit.
“Look at me.”
I had no damn choice. It wasn’t like I could get up and walk away. I released the breath I was holding and rolled to my back. Then wished I hadn’t. The look aimed at me was not only intense and determined, it was kind of scary. Okay, a lot scary.
I blinked up at him, trying to find the right place to start, the right words, but he started talking before I could think of a single word to say.
“The night before the police came for me, I remember how you were. I knew there was something up with you, but I let it slide, thought you’d talk to me about whatever was bothering you when you were ready. You always did.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “That night, you climbed into my bed, and you fucking clung to me, and still I kept my mouth shut. I waited.” He didn’t try and touch me, he kept that short distance between us, body held so tense I thought he would erupt out of his skin any minute.
“Hunter . . .”
“I failed you, Lulu.”
Because of me, he’d gone to prison and now he was blaming himself? I thought this couldn’t get any harder, but then he started talking again.
“It happened that night. I know it did. I let you lead. Knew you needed it. Gave it to you. You had your eyes locked on me the whole time I was inside you. I would’ve had to have been blind not to see it. You loved me, more than anyone ever loved me in my entire life, and you hid none of it that night.” His jaw got hard and he hissed out a pained breath. “You were trying to tell me, and I failed you. I was your man. You needed me, and I wasn’t there. You were terrified, and you were fucking willing me to see.”
He was right. I remembered, too. I’d wanted him to question me, to force me to tell him, and at the same time terrified he would. “Stop,” I whispered.
“We made him that night. We made our son.”
A hot tear streaked down my face. “Please, stop,” I tried again.
“We made that beautiful little boy.”
I shook my head, trying to block it out. I couldn’t listen to this.
“Because of Pierce, I didn’t get to watch your belly grow round. Didn’t get to put my hand on you, feel him moving. I didn’t see him come into this world. Wasn’t there to help you, support you. That all changes now, you understand? That’s over. You and Josh, you’re mine. I take care of what’s mine.”
I was jerking my head from side to side in denial, blood thundering in my ears. “No . . . no.”
“This is happening, Lulu. I know we’ve got a lot of shit to sort out, but this is happening.”
“No . . .” Goddammit, why couldn’t I just say it?
“Jesus, we have a son, Lulu,” he said, something like awe in his voice.
Say it. Just say it. I opened my mouth, closed it, tried again. Nothing, nothing would come.
His expression changed, something flickering in his eyes. “Lulu?”
“I . . . I . . .” I don’t want to say it. Please, don’t make me say it.
He stared at me, expression shifting. “He is he mine. Isn’t he?” he rasped. “It’s not a hard question.”
I had to give it to him straight. Nothing, nothing would sugarcoat what I had to say. “I don’t . . .” My voice came out shaky as hell. “I don’t know.”
His eyes drifted closed and his fists clenched tight at his sides. When he opened them again, they were blue flames. “Your aunt gave me his birth date. I’m not dumb, I can do the math. You were mine when you got knocked up, right before I went down. Do I have that right?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Now not only my voice was shaking, my whole body had joined the party.
“You were fucking around?” He spun away, shoved his hands in his hair, and strode across the floor to the window then turned back. “Who?”
Oh God.
Memories I’d kept buried until yesterday—until I sat in that chair, in that shitty abandoned apartment and felt that bastard’s hands on me again—flooded my mind. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say it out loud. I never had. Not once. That made it easier somehow, keeping it locked up, pretending it wasn’t real, that it never happened.
“Tell me,” he barked, and strode back toward me.
“I can’t . . .”
“Fucking tell me.” He got in my face, and I jerked back.
“I . . .”
“Who?” he roared.
I slammed my eyes shut. I couldn’t look at him, not when I said it. Not when I said the truth out loud. “Pierce. It was . . . Pierce.”
The room went electric, then deathly silent, the temperature going subzero in less than a second. “What the fuck did you just say?”
His anger washed over me, through me, and to my surprise, my own came roaring to the surface. My eyes snapped open, firing just as much heat back at him. Hunter was still close, in my space, and I shoved at his chest. “You heard me. It was Pierce.”
He looked ready to tear the room apart. “That’s why I got sent down? The guy you were screwing behind my back, your fucking stepfather, got jealous and wanted me out of the way?”
“No.”
“No?” he growled. “That’s how it sure as fuck looks to me.”
“Look again, asshole.” I shoved at him again. He didn’t budge, not an inch. The anger pumping through me was good. It was better than the fear and disgust, the pain I’d felt that night, hovering just beneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed all over again. “You think I’d willingly sleep with my stepfather? My mother’s husband? That I’d let him put his filthy hands on me? A man who I’ve despised for almost as long as I’ve known him? A man who blackmailed me into betraying you?”
I thought he’d looked scary before. I was wrong. That’s when I saw it, when he started to work it out. “The way I found you at that park.” He released a shaky breath. “You’re saying that wasn’t the first time he tried to hurt you like that?”
I didn’t answer, just held his stare.
He jerked back like I’d slapped him, eyes drifting shut for a few seconds. “Baby, no.” He didn’t sound like himself, voice low, so damn raw.
I collapsed back on my pillows, staring at the ceiling, humiliation, disgust, shame all battling inside me. “It started when I was fifteen.”
Hunter moved back in close, but I kept my hands clenched tight together. I didn’t want comfort right then.
“I was looking for one of the maids. My mom needed her for something, so I went looking. I finally found her in one of the spare rooms. Pierce was on top of her and she was struggling. He turned and saw me, screamed at me to stay where I was. Catrina, the maid, scrambled off the bed crying. That’s when Pierce threatened her not to tell anyone. He backhanded her and she fell. Her head hit the edge of the dresser. She died instantly.” I noticed how my own voice had changed. With each word, I sounded more robotic, more detached. The more I talked, the more the emotion leached away until I felt almost numb. Numb was good. “Pierce was afraid I’d talk, so he started taking me everywhere he went. He kept me chained to his side, even convinced my mom I should be home schooled, that I could learn more from him than any classroom.”
I stared out the window. “Then one day, something changed. I don’t know why. He just started looking at me different. That was the first time it happened. I w
as so scared of him and my mom was sick, so I did what he said. I kept my mouth shut.”
I turned back to him and forced myself to keep on going. “It didn’t happen as much when I got older. I wasn’t as easily managed. I was smarter, knew to make sure we were never alone, where to hide if I knew we would be. Then I met you. One day you were just there and everything changed. When Pierce found out about us . . . he lost it. He knew he was already losing control of me. And he hated it. So he figured out a way to get rid of you.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t have any choice. I knew what he was capable of. He told me to report back to him after I’d talked to the police, after I’d lied and said I wasn’t with you that night, demanded I see him in person. My mother wasn’t home. After he made me sign over my trust fund to him, he demanded I tell him what I said to them, all of it. I did, but after he wouldn’t let me leave. Then he . . . he forced me to the floor . . . and he raped me.”
I slid my gaze back to Hunter, shocked that I’d said it, and though I shouldn’t be, shocked at how saying it out loud made it so much more real. I’d lived with it for a long time, but I’d had no one to talk to, no one to tell, and now it hit me, hard. There was no feeling of relief at getting it off my chest. Instead, it felt like someone had dumped something heavy on top of me, and now I was suffocating.
“No.” The word exploded from him. “No,” he said again, shaking his head, face twisted in pain. His breath was hissing in and out as he battled with his own emotions. He bent at the waist, hands resting on his knees, like he’d just had a hard run, or was about to throw up.
“Hunter . . .”
“Fuck,” he groaned. He moved suddenly, took my hand, and I noticed he was shaking, too. His whole body seemed to vibrate. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t process what I was feeling and take in what he was sending out. It filled the room, heavy and thick. I’d never felt anything like it. “Fuck,” he whispered again.
I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me go. He went to his knees, head dipped, and kissed my hand.
I moaned. “Please . . . I can’t . . .”
“He’s mine.”
“What?”
Hunter lifted his head, intense gaze locked on me. “Josh is mine. Don’t give a fuck about DNA or any of that bullshit. That boy is mine. You’re both mine. And that motherfucker will pay for what he did to you. I promise you that.”
All the emotion I was trying to keep on lockdown came back full force, knocking the wind from my lungs.
He kissed my hand again. “I’m gonna take care of you now, Lulu. No more running, baby. No more.”
I closed my eyes and bit my lip, trying to use the physical pain of it to pull it back together, because right then I wanted what he was offering, more than anything. I wanted to be looked after. I wanted someone to take care of Josh and me, even if it was just for a little while. It was wrong. He didn’t owe us anything, not now.
I knew Hunter would look out for Josh, make sure he had what he needed, but I didn’t know if he truly understood what he was saying. Right now emotions were high. He was talking about possibly raising the son of the man who set him up, who he just found out raped and blackmailed his woman.
At some point, that would get to him and would tear us apart again.
But for now, I’d let him take care of us. I’d been doing it so damn long, and right then, I didn’t have the energy to do it anymore. I didn’t have the strength to fight him, either. I just . . . didn’t.
Not only did I need to feel safe, to know Josh was safe, but I knew Hunter needed to be the one to do that for us. I got that.
So just for a little while, I’d let him.
Long enough to get back on my feet, but not long enough for my son,—or me, to get attached.
It was selfish, but I’d take this for myself.
Just for a little while.
CHAPTER NINE
Hunter
I stared down at my woman, her thick lashes resting against her swollen, bruised skin, her beautiful red hair spread out on the pillow. She looked so fucking fragile, I fought the urge to scoop her up in my arms and take her out of here, to take her home, with me, where she belonged, where she was safe.
I stood and shoved my fingers through my hair, pacing the small room. Her words kept echoing through my skull, every soul-destroying, heart-breaking fucking word.
Pierce Carson had blackmailed and repeatedly raped her. Abused a young defenseless girl, his own stepdaughter.
I sucked in a sharp breath. The motherfucker was a dead man.
Shit, I felt like I was suffocating. I needed goddamn air. I strode to the door and pushed it open. Neco, Jude, and Van were still there. I caught my brother’s eyes, tilting my head to Lulu’s room, silently asking him to watch her, and strode down the hall.
I walked out the main doors, out into the dark parking lot, and rested my hands against the brick wall, breathing heavily, sucking back oxygen in an effort to cool the hell down. But nothing could do that, not now that I knew what Lulu had been through, what Pierce had done to her.
A roar exploded past my lips and I plowed my fist into the wall, slamming into it over and over again.
I couldn’t hurt the man who deserved it, couldn’t smash his face until he was so fucked up he was bloody and unrecognizable. But I had to hit something, needed to release the rage pressing down on me from all sides.
Someone grabbed me from behind and tried to pull me back, but I was too far gone. I shoved them off and kept on throwing punches. I was jerked back suddenly, and Jude threw me on my back.
Neco got in my face. “Calm the fuck down before security comes. You want them to kick you out of the hospital?”
“I’m going to kill him,” I growled.
Neco didn’t need me to elaborate. They might not have known the details, all that Lulu had been through yet, but they knew who had put her in that hospital bed. My friend’s face was grim as he dipped his chin. “We’ll get him, brother.”
I wouldn’t be happy until I heard Pierce’s screams of pain ringing in my ears.
* * *
“The insurance payout Pierce got when he torched that building was substantial, but he chewed through it within a year.” Neco watched me carefully, trying to read me, no doubt worried I’d flip the fuck out again. He’d been doing that the last two days, since my meltdown outside the hospital.
I clenched my fist and pain shot through my hand, a twisted reminder of the hell I planned to rain down on Pierce. If Jude hadn’t thrown me down when he had my fist would be pulp. My rage was still as strong—shit, stronger.
Neco shook his head. “Hunt, man. I need you to focus.”
“I’m listening.”
The guy didn’t look convinced. I didn’t blame him.
We’d discovered that Pierce had pissed away the money that came to him when he married Lulu’s mom—both the inheritance and life insurance she’d gotten when her husband died, then what she’d gotten from her parents when they’d passed. One bad investment after the other and living beyond his means had chewed through the lot. He’d had nothing left. In desperation, he’d torched one of his own properties and framed me, as a scapegoat and way to get me out of Lulu’s life. Before she ran, he forced Lulu to sign her trust fund over to him as well.
He’d quickly grown a reputation for bad business practices, for underhand tactics, as someone that couldn’t be trusted. Doors had closed. He’d screwed himself.
Elizabeth’s family had been keeping them afloat, giving them a generous monthly allowance, which was the only reason Pierce had stuck around I was sure . . . that and his sick obsession with Lulu. But now Elizabeth was sick, and wasn’t going to get better, and Pierce was MIA, so the family had cut him off.
It seemed Pierce had nothing left and nowhere to go.
“Drugs, right?” I knew from my time working with Pierce that he’d dipped his toes in those murky waters, but it had still only been small-time. I also knew the guy had serious d
elusions of grandeur. He’d wanted to get into bed with the big boys, but the big boys hadn’t been in the mood to play the field. Until recently.
“Word is, Pierce made nice with the right people, found a supplier willing to work with him,” said Neco. “He took this to Mendoza, made a deal. But Pierce didn’t make the delivery. One of his men took off with the shipment and cashed in, fucked Pierce over in a big way. Mendoza wanted what he was owed, or his money back with interest. Pierce didn’t have either.”
“He paid Mendoza anything?”
Neco shook his head. “Understandably, Mendoza is not happy and has his army turning this city inside out searching for him.”
I didn’t need to ask how Neco knew the details of Pierce’s financial history, or how he had the inside scoop on one of the scariest motherfuckers in this city. There was no Internet security system that the guy couldn’t hack into, and Tomas Mendoza was from our neighborhood. He was a little older than Van, but Tomas had been one of us.
Where we were from, what we’d grown up around? A blatant disregard for the law just came with the territory.
There were ties between us that would always remain, whether we wanted them or not. I didn’t like the way the man made his living, dealing drugs and peddling flesh, but those ties could also be useful. Neco had worked for him for a time, and when Nec decided on a career change, the relationship had remained civil. At the end of the day, we came from the same shitty streets, and that meant something to a man like Mendoza.
“Now he needs the painting to save his ass,” I said. Lulu had told us how Pierce thought she had it, how bad he wanted it. We’d assumed Robert, Pierce’s brother, had it all this time. Lulu had no idea where it was, and we had no leads, no clue to what had happened to it. Which meant Pierce was getting desperate. He’d obviously planned on doubling his money, selling privately as well as getting a fat payment from Union City Insurance. Now the asshole was wanted by police, which meant he couldn’t get into his bank accounts when, and if, the payment came through. We already knew what the motherfucker was capable of, but backed into a corner like this, shit, who knew what he’d try next.
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