by Gemma James
“The shackle in the bedroom is my backup. If she flips out that’ll keep her out of trouble.”
My breath hitched, and I planted a hand on the railing to steady me.
“I don’t know,” Jax said. “Better to take the offensive, if you ask me.” Footsteps landed on the floor inside the cabin, indicating movement. “You guys can hide out here indefinitely, but a wedding, even on the down-low, will attract attention for sure.”
“By attention, you mean her father.”
“And her brother.”
A pause, during which my heart pounded too hard.
“Shit always goes south. I think you should tell her, man.”
Rafe sighed. “I hear you, but until we have some fucking concrete answers, she doesn’t need to know her father is out.”
Hell no.
I catapulted the steps and flung the screen door open, my sudden movement startling Angel, and stormed into the living room. “My dad is out of prison?”
Rafe took one look at me and cursed under his breath. He rose from where he sat with his elbows on his knees, and I backed up, too angry with his high-handedness to be near him right now. He knew what this meant to me. I’d wanted to visit my dad in prison, but Rafe had said no, claiming that coming out of hiding wasn’t a good idea. But now Rafe and I were about to return to the land of civilization and get married. Now I could confront my dad with the burning question I couldn’t get out of my soul.
What really happened to my mom?
Rafe reached for me, but I held up a hand. If he tried touching me, I might throw something at his head again.
“Tell me the truth. Is he out?”
“Yes, but this doesn’t mean you need to worry.”
“I don’t need to worry?” I raised my brows, same as my tone. “We’re talking about the man who killed my mom.”
“According to Zach.”
“Yes, according to Zach, who will no doubt be back now that Dad is free. How can you tell me not to worry?”
Rafe exchanged a look with Jax as if to say this is why I didn’t want her to know.
“Don’t you dare exclude me from this! I’m not a fucking child. You said it yourself—I’m unbreakable. Remember? Well put your money where your mouth is.” I prodded his chest with a finger. “You punish the fuck out of me for hiding the smallest stuff, but you do it all the damn time. I’m sick of it!”
The instant a twitch went off in his jaw, I knew I’d gone too far. He circled my wrist in the vise of his fingers. “Excuse us,” he said, throwing a glance in Jax’s direction as he dragged me toward the hallway. “Time for the backup plan.”
13. NOT A DEMOCRACY
Rafe
“Don’t touch me!” She pulled free of my grasp as the door slammed behind us, and I stalked her retreating form. She had nowhere to go, but that fact didn’t stop her from trying. She bumped into the bed and held up her palms. “I mean it, Rafe. Don’t fucking come near me.”
“You can’t stop me from touching you.”
“So you’re just going to chain me up like a dog every time you don’t get your way?”
“I don’t know,” I said, grabbing her by the chin. “Are you going to be a reckless brat every time you don’t get yours?”
“You’re not being fair,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Babe, this relationship hasn’t been fair from the beginning. I fucking kidnapped you. What makes you think I’m a fair man?”
“I know your heart.”
“Then you know how fucking dark it can get.” I let go of her chin and tangled my fingers in her hair, angling her head back so I could look down into her face. “You want to marry me? Then trust me. I know you want answers, but going to your father for them is too dangerous.”
“He’s the only one who can tell me the truth.”
“He’s not going to tell you shit, babe.”
“I have to try.”
“It’s too damn risky.”
“It’s my only option.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have options, sweetheart. This house isn’t a democracy. Not when it comes to your safety.”
“Then go with me.”
“You’re not going near him.”
She fell silent, but the way she smoothed out her expression gave her away. She was going to fight me on this, possibly even do something stupid.
Goddamn it.
I loosened my hold of her hair, allowing the strands to slip through my fingers. Way I saw it, I had two options; chain her up and make her obey me, or try to reach a fucking compromise. I wanted the first option. I wanted her locked away in this room where no one except me could touch her.
But she’d only rebel.
I couldn’t keep her locked up forever, just as we couldn’t hide forever. Jax was right about that.
“Wait until after the wedding, then I’ll take you to see your father.”
“Really?” Her tone held a note of skepticism in it.
“Yes.” At that point, she’d be my wife, and Abbott De Luca would hold nothing over us. No more threats of having her committed, and he’d have a hard time building a case against me if I were already married to his daughter.
Alex couldn’t be subpoenaed to testify against me…if it went that far.
One of us had to be practical. No way in hell would her father admit to murdering her mother, and I had no doubt the man had covered his tracks in terms of evidence. I was afraid Alex might never get the closure she was looking for.
But she needed to hope. It was the one thing that kept her going. Kept her strong.
She seemed to mull it over in her head. “After the wedding?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re really going to marry me.” She sounded stunned, as if it were only now hitting her, and that pissed me off.
“Why wouldn’t I marry you? Did you honestly think my saying no had anything to do with our relationship? It was my baggage, Alex.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I thought maybe…”
“Spit it out. You know how I feel about you hiding shit.”
A dark cloud passed over her features, part doom and part gloom. “That’s the problem. You hide things from me, especially your nightmares, and that makes me feel…”
I took her hand in mine. “What, baby?”
“Like it’s my fault.”
I bit back a growl. “I don’t tell you about that shit because it doesn’t involve you.”
“How can you say that? You have nightmares all the time about…when they…” she faltered, unable to finish, but I heard it anyway.
Raped you.
“Babe, don’t go there.” A pleading note crept into my tone, and I despised it. I’d fought for months to put my time in prison out of my mind, and for the most part, it had worked.
Except for the occasional nightmare that still busted through my defenses.
“But I put you there, so how can you say it doesn’t involve me?”
“No, Zach and your father put me there. You were fifteen, Alex. Fucking fifteen-years-old. Scared and alone with no one on your side.” I brought my hands to her cheeks and cradled her face. “It’s not your fault. It never was. That’s why I don’t talk to you about those eight years. It’s not because I don’t want to share everything with you. It’s because I refuse to give you more ammunition to hate yourself.”
“That’s…that’s not what—”
“Bullshit. You wear your guilt like armor. You won’t forgive yourself, but you forgive everyone around you. Me, Jax, even Zach.”
“I will never forgive him.”
I clenched my jaw, knowing exactly which him she was talking about. “Don’t lie to me. You forgave him the instant you let him go.”
“I showed him mercy, for your sake. I haven’t forgiven him, Rafe.”
“It’s just who you are. I don’t like it, but I get it.” With a pause, I lowered my hands. “It’s time to forgive yourself. You made a mistake, but you didn
’t set out to hurt anyone. You were scared and ashamed, and you let that shame drive you for years.” As I dropped my gaze to the faint marks on her skin—still visible from the night I found her standing next to the lake at camp—part of me died. “You need to stop punishing yourself. That’s my job now.”
“According to you.”
“Yes, according to me.” We stared at each other for several heated seconds, both raw and frayed around the edges, and my instincts told me she wasn’t about to back down. “I’m not kidding, Alex. The self-flagellation ends now.”
“Or what?” she asked, bristling at my authoritative tone, confirming my suspicion.
“Or you’ll find yourself in a situation you don’t want to be in. I know every one of your weaknesses.” I leveled her with a look of warning. “Every single fear, and you know I’m not above using them to keep you in line.”
14. OH FATHER
Alex
Keeping me in line meant giving me a reminder of his my-word-is-law attitude by chaining my ankle to the bed again. Only this time, he slept at my side. After a couple of days of eating my meals in our bedroom, I got a bad case of cabin fever and pleaded for my freedom, promising him that I’d behave.
He finally relented and let me free on the fourth morning.
I chased off boredom by spending the day cleaning the place, starting with those dead plants on the kitchen windowsill. And after Angel scrubbed the bathroom floors with a toothbrush—by choice—she worked alongside me ridding the cabin of dust and grime, but we exchanged minimal conversation. The long stretches of silence didn’t bother me. I found her quiet nature comforting, companionable even.
While we kept busy inside, the guys disappeared outside to work on a few upkeep projects, including putting up a temporary fix for the window I’d broken.
I expected Rafe to lock that shackle around my ankle again, staying true to his “backup plan,” but he didn’t. After a dinner of steak and potatoes, he dragged me to bed and had me on my back, legs spread as he slid between them.
The way he loved me—with a rare tenderness that was so out of tune with his character—nearly made me cry. It couldn’t be classified as fucking. This was so much more, and my heart overflowed with too many vying emotions that I didn’t know what to do with them.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“Nothing. I just love you.”
As he nibbled on my lower lip, I wondered if he would say it back. I knew he loved me, but he didn’t voice it as much as I’d like. He spoke the language of love in so many other ways—some normal and healthy, others sick and wrong.
“Telling you I love you isn’t enough, Alex.” He trailed his lips along my jawline. “It’ll never be enough. There aren’t enough words in the fucking dictionary to describe how I feel about you.”
“Try.”
“Hmm,” he murmured, his teeth nipping at my earlobe. “Consumed. Territorial. Protective.” He inched back, and his green eyes twinkled at me. “Twitterpated.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Keep going.”
“Whipped, a piece of twine wrapped around your little pinky.”
“You’re being oddly gentle tonight.”
“I’m obsessed. Out of all the words in the English language that one says it best.” He claimed my mouth, effectively shutting me up as he increased his pace, hurtling us both to the finish line.
Later, Rafe lay sleeping at my side, and that’s when my demons came knocking, and the absence of that shackle around my ankle blared in my mind, refusing to be silenced by my will alone.
Sleep was fruitless.
And that was the thing about obsession; it was a prison, an inspirer of madness. It was the bind that tied Rafe and me together, the urgency that festered in my soul. An ember that never stopped burning, no matter how long Rafe and I had been on the run. I knew all about being focused on something to the exclusion of all other things.
Rafe was by far my biggest obsession, followed by the seed of doubt that Zach had planted in my brain the night I let him escape that damn fight. For the past few months, putting my mother’s death out of my mind hadn’t been easy, but with my dad locked away, out of reach, it had been doable.
Necessary, even.
But Dad wasn’t out of reach anymore. He was free, and probably without conscience as he went about his life, unimpeded by what he’d done. Maybe it was dangerous, but I couldn’t ignore the part of me that needed to look him in the eye and ask if he murdered my mom.
Deep down, I didn’t expect him to admit it. He hadn’t become so successful over the years by giving away his secrets. He was shrewd and lethal.
But his eyes. They’d give him away. If you knew what to look for, the eyes rarely lied.
And I needed to know.
Rafe wanted me to wait, to move forward first, but what he didn’t understand was that I couldn’t marry him and be happy until I confronted my past.
My dad’s release from prison had tripped a wire in me, had awakened something I thought was dormant. Something urgent.
As I slipped from bed and tiptoed across the room to where I’d left a pair of shorts and a tee stacked on top of my duffle, I prayed for the continued sounds of Rafe’s deep, even breaths. Grabbing a hoodie to ward off the wee hour chill, I slipped my feet into my flip flops, then I headed for the bedroom door, careful not to let the soles of the shoes slap against my heels.
He would be so angry. Fucking furious. He’d left me unchained on good faith that I wouldn’t do anything stupid. But this wasn’t Rafe’s decision to make. Other than Zach, my dad was the only one I could go to about Mom.
Moving through the cabin as if I were an intruder, I grabbed my purse, along with Rafe’s key to the Jeep. He’d left it on an end table by the door. I reached for the knob, but Jax stirred on the couch, his light snores pausing for several heart-pounding moments. He turned over on the sofa, and a few seconds later, his snoring resumed.
I snuck out of the house with a light click of the front door as it closed behind me, and the soft pads of my feet hit the porch stairs. The sight of Jax’s truck brought me up short. If they didn’t awake until morning, I’d be in the clear.
But what if they did?
It would be too easy for Rafe to come after me if the truck were operational. He’d drag me back to the cabin, and my ankle would become best friends with that fucking shackle.
No.
Rafe didn’t understand why I needed to do this. No amount of pleading with him would change his mind. I had to do this, regardless of the risks. I entered the cabin and grabbed a knife from the kitchen before returning outside again.
As I stabbed all four of Jax’s tires, I almost expected to get caught. Fuck, my nerves were fried, but no one tore out the front door. No one’s feet stomped down the stairs. The birds weren’t even awake yet.
It was now or never.
I slid into the driver’s side of the Jeep, entered my dad’s Portland address into the GPS, then slowly backed out of the dirt driveway, the path dark without the aid of headlights, since I didn’t flip them on until I drove far enough away from the cabin. Over an hour later, I turned onto the main highway but had to stop for gas halfway to Portland.
I pulled out some of the money Rafe had given me from his last fight and paid for a strong coffee, a day-old pastry, and a fill-up. The irony didn’t escape me. He’d been generous with everything that came his way, and here I was, using it to betray him.
A twinge of guilt hit me as I returned to the highway, one hand wrapped around the steaming cup of coffee, the other on the leather-covered steering wheel. The pastry sat like lead in my gut the rest of the way to Portland. By the time I turned onto the street where I grew up, the sun had risen, and I was downright nauseous.
My dad’s large, circular driveway sat empty. Hitting the brake, I dug into my purse and found my keys. I hadn’t salvaged much of my previous life after we’d fled Shelton’s the night of the barn fire, other than a few changes of clot
hing, my birth certificate and identification card. And my keys; one of which was silver with a spot of red nail polish on it.
The key to my childhood home. The key to my past.
Appropriately smudged in the color of blood.
Some nasally sounding pop singer droned through the Jeep’s speakers as I stared at the front door. I could wait in the car until Dad returned, assuming he came back before I lost my nerve. Or I could swallow the lump of fear in my throat and try the key.
Decision made, I killed the ignition before pushing the driver’s side door open. The sun’s warm rays hit my skin, and it made me think of Rafe, sending me back in time to camp and how we’d gotten tangled up in each other under the sun.
I missed him already, though I wasn’t looking forward to facing him after running away in the middle of the night. Crossing the driveway to the covered porch of the De Luca estate, I glanced at my phone and winced at the number of missed calls and texts, all from Rafe.
Not wanting him to worry, I sent off a text that I was okay and would be back before dark, then I shut off my phone, stuck the key into the lock, and turned. My heart thumped out of tune as the lock clicked over, and the door swooshed open.
Over a year had passed since I’d set foot in this house. The memories rushed me all at once, like a flood of sorrow I couldn’t block. In the silent, dim foyer, I sank to the floor, depleted of strength, and drew my knees to my chest. As I envisioned Mom coming down the main staircase, her dark hair pulled back in an up-do that some would call regal, I ignored the pain leaking from my eyes as the past confronted me.
I was wrong.
I thought I’d been in control, the one in the driver’s seat as I careened down the road to my past. A girl on the offensive, armed with determination and enough ferocity to confront the ghosts that still haunted me in this place.
But the past beat me to the battlefield. The fucking past had set off the first bomb, and now I found myself hunched down in the destruction. My chest squeezed, and despite going through several rounds of breathing exercises, I still couldn’t pull in a full breath.