Rook (Endgame Book 2)

by Riley Ashby

  Sophie and Ellery’s daughter was six months old, and Sophie’s new engagement ring glittered in the bright summer sunlight. I had been the only one surprised by the engagement, as Castel and Ellery had conspired on the ring purchase some time ago. And Sophie seemed to know everything her new fiancé was thinking.

  I stole inside the house to take a brief shower before dinner and rinse off the chlorine. Castel’s parents had moved from their large but empty house into a condo some months ago, leaving the six-bedroom home to Castel. He asked me to move there with him the next day, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

  We had come a long way in the year or so since I had to defend myself against murder in front of a grand jury. I began seeing a therapist as my friends had been urging me to for months. Having already told so many people about the secret that had been tearing me apart for months, it was suddenly much easier to spill the rest of the details to the therapist. Most of the time, she just listened, but when I needed help working through the lingering shame of what had been done to me, she was always ready with a kind word or a coping strategy. Every day, I grew less afraid of an accidental touch. Nights passed without a night terror. And Castel and I grew closer than ever before.

  We decided together not to go back to Virginia for him to continue with the FBI. With Sophie’s pregnancy, neither of us wanted to go so far away. After he resigned, he became head of security for Ellery’s firm, directing not only the physical security guards who protected the building but also the cybersecurity analysts who safeguarded the entire company from hackers and viruses. I got a job providing support to victims of rape and sexual assault who were brought into emergency rooms across the county. No matter the time of day, I was out of bed and on the road whenever I got a call. Not only could I provide the necessary examinations with compassion, but the women also often felt more reassured when they learned that I was a survivor myself. In a way, deciding to become a nurse all those years ago had been preparing me for this exact line of work the entire time. There was no other job I would rather have, and nowhere else I’d rather do it.

  A smile stole across my face as the door to the bathroom opened, and his solid chest pressed against my back. I turned in his arms, ready to speak, but my words were cut off by his lips on mine.

  “Seeing you with that baby does some strange things to my insides,” he whispered, and I had to smile wider. Being around Rhiannon had been so odd at first as I contemplated the child I almost had. But there was no regret there, no remorse at having made the right choice for me. I knew that Castel wanted children in the future. We had talked about it often, but up until now, we had always spoken of it in abstract terms, a vague future we had yet to discuss.

  “You’d be a good daddy,” I whispered back, and he moaned as his cock ground against my center. I spread my legs wider as he slipped between my thighs, then wrapped my legs around his waist as he lifted me against him. In a moment, my back was flat against the shower wall, and he was inside me. His lips landed on my breasts, tongue teasing my hard nipples. My head fell back against the wall in ecstasy.

  “I might want to put a baby in you sooner rather than later,” he murmured as he ground into me. My own stomach caught at his words.

  “I think we need more practice,” I whispered. I dug my fingers into his shoulder, and he sucked my nipple harder.

  “We should be able to make that happen.”

  Having him fully with no mental barrier between us was more freeing than any therapy or antidepressant. The night I had first let him touch me everywhere had been a far greater turning point in our relationship than our first kiss or the first time we slept together. He had waited for me for so long, including until I could let him touch me without flashbacks. He had never held any resentment for the time I threw him out or the way I fought against his affections when all he was trying to do was help me.

  I sought to pay him back every day with each kiss and orgasm and the personal touches I put in his childhood home to make it truly ours. To be a place where we could raise our children. To be the home where we would grow old together in the way we had wanted to for so long.

  He shifted position slightly to hit my G-spot, and I melted into his arms. Between that and him grinding against my clit, I was nearly at the edge already.

  “Cas…” I whimpered, and then I collapsed entirely.

  “That’s it, love.” He held me aloft between his chest and the wall as he pumped harder, the water sliding around us but unable to reach between our bodies where he held me so tightly. I trembled harder as he spurted inside me. I relished in the way I could feel him move, the acknowledgment that I brought him just as much carnal pleasure as he gave to me every time he entered my body.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as he set me back on my shaky feet.

  He laughed. “That good?”

  I kissed him. “Thank you for everything. For existing. For sticking around. For always making room for me.”

  He held me gently now with one hand at the back of my head. He didn’t give me tremors anymore when he did that. Hardly anything did. “I made you a promise.”

  “And you always kept it.”

  “I’ll keep a thousand more.”

  We washed each other in peace, hands roaming over familiar scars and freckles as we cleansed ourselves of the dirt of the day. We ate dinner with my family, Tori, and Jamie, laughing over both old jokes and new. When everyone retired for the night, Cas and I sat on the balcony of our master bedroom. This had actually been his childhood bedroom, and as such, it was slightly smaller than the true master, but that balcony was enough to sway me. Looking over the city at night made me feel like a goddess, like I was untouchable. Untouchable by anyone but him.

  Still, I was surprised when he disentangled himself from my arms and dropped to one knee before me.

  “Vail, I have loved you since you were fifteen years old. I’m sorry that it took us so long to get together. I never intend to be parted from you from this day forward. Will do you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak through the tears. I didn’t see the ring as he slipped it onto my finger, waiting only until it was secure to throw my arms around his neck and join him on the ground.

  “We’ll never be apart again,” I promised him.

  We kissed until daylight.

  Thank you for reading!

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  Endgame Series Book 3 Coming 2019

  About the Author

  Riley Ashby lives in the American Midwest. She eats entirely too much tofu and owns just the right number of cats. She is a reader and writer of all things romance, from suspense to rom coms.

  ‘I Knew You When’ — Marianas Trench

  ‘Hoodie’ — Hey Violet

  ‘Where Did You Go?’ — Valencia

  ‘Stay’ — Taylor Swift

  ‘Try’ — P!nk

  ‘Drive’ — Halsey

  ‘Sloppy Seconds’ — Watsky

  ‘Out of the Woods’ — Taylor Swift

  ‘Back to You’ — Selena Gomez

  ‘100 Letters’ — Halsey

  ‘Rock Bottom’ — Hailee Steinfeld/DNCE

  Archer

  I probably should have been angrier that I was assigned to bedside duty for a suicide risk, but in reality, I was glad I was getting paid for something. It had been less than a week since I had been abruptly placed on leave from the FBI, and my pride was still smarting. I tried to be grateful I wasn’t being charged with anything criminal—a small miracle—but it still hurt. I had poured my entire life into being the perfect agent, and now it was gone. I had no backup plan and no savings I could fall ba
ck on.

  Thankfully, I had still been able to arrange everything to make Vail King more comfortable at her grand jury hearing, but it was even more embarrassing that I hadn't been able to hide my new employment status from Castel. The small blessing was that he had been so eager to take off with his girl, he didn't have time to grill me properly on what had brought about my suspension in the first place.

  It was Vail's idea for me to hang around with the injured girl, and I couldn't argue when I heard how much her brother was willing to pay me. I needed a paycheck.

  Josie was one of Chase Reilly’s slaves that he’d kept on his property in LA, much as Vail had been part of his property out East. Josie had been brought to New York to help us prepare the case against Chase, and had been very helpful up until the point she tried to shoot herself on the steps of the New York courthouse in front of the man who had kidnapped and abused her for months. The gun misfired and nearly took her hand with it. She would be able to use her hand again, with practice, but the hearing in her right ear was nearly gone, and probably for good.

  She didn’t know any of this, however. She had been in and out of consciousness for several days. When she was rushed the hospital she was barely coherent, and the doctors gave her the necessary narcotics to keep her sedated through surgery and the worst of the pain from having her hand nearly blown off and two fingers reattached. But when they finally brought her out of it a few days later, effects no one had anticipated came to light.

  “What did you give me?” she demanded, tugging at the tubes leading from various IVs to the veins in her arms and hands. I thought back to the notes in her file, what I knew about the other girls, and cursed myself mentally. I was an idiot for not remembering it sooner—she was an addict. Not her own fault; Vail had told us about the forced drug consumption while she was captive. Josie was clearly already feeling the effects of having been thrown back on the drugs. The shockingly incompetent nurse moved to dose her with morphine once more as she became agitated, and I ran across the room to pinch off the line.

  “You’ll make her withdrawal worse if you dose her again,” I growled. Josie was already shaking and slightly green with limp brown hair plastered to the sides of her face and the back of her head from so many hours lying down. She didn’t even seem to notice her hand wrapped in a cloud of cotton gauze. She looked so fragile, so frail, and all I wanted to do was keep her from getting hurt any more.

  The nurse frowned. “There was nothing about drug restrictions on her chart.”

  “Because she’s been in protective custody.” Had no one told the hospital the truth of her situation? “Look at her. She’s already in withdrawal. We need to get this out of her system.”

  The nurse finally took a chance to really look at Josie, then nodded once as she unhooked the morphine drip. “I’ll have a counselor come talk to you.”

  “Thank you,” Josie breathed as the nurse ran out of the room.

  Glaring at the nurse’s back as she left the room, I took my place in the corner. Had no one been looking out for this girl besides me? I hadn’t even met her before.

  “Thank you,” she whispered again.

  “The nurse is gone.”

  “I was talking to you.”

  I crossed one ankle over my knee and pulled out my phone. I had beat my last Sudoku in five minutes, down from seven earlier this week. I was going for three now. “I know an addict when I see one.”

  It was a cruel thing to say, but if my words stung, she didn’t show it. She took stock of her injured hand for the first time.

  “What happened?”

  “You tried to kill yourself in front of the courthouse, but the gun misfired. It ended up in pieces and you almost lost two fingers. It’s kind of impressive, really. You were lucky they were able to reattach them.”

  She gave a caustic laugh that matched her pained expression. “Lucky. Yeah.”

  I frowned. Ungrateful…

  Patience, Bryce. She’s been through a lot.

  I gentled my tone. “A lot of people put a lot of time and money into making sure you’ll get your hand back.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Bryce Archer. You can call me Archer. I’m here to protect you.”

  She snorted. “I’m not going to do anything to myself in here. There’s too much of a chance they’d resuscitate me.”

  “Well, Ellery King is paying me to sit here, so that’s what I’ll be doing until he tells me otherwise.”

  She moved her head back and forth a tiny bit. “I don’t want any charity.”

  I laughed under my breath. I’d said something very similar when Castel said he wanted to hire me to stay in New York with this girl. But I couldn’t turn down that paycheck being financed by Vail’s brother. I was going to make as much in a few months here as I did in a year with the FBI.

  “Well, you don’t need to worry about me bothering you. I’ll keep an eye on you until you’re healthy enough to leave, and then you never have to see me again.”

  She breathed deep, held it, then released it in a loud gust of air. “I didn’t say I didn’t want you here.”

  I looked up and met her eyes across the space that looked more like a hotel suite than a hospital room. Ellery had shelled out the big bucks to make sure she was comfortable. She could barely hold eye contact with me, choosing to look down and away.

  Ah. One of those.

  “You’re not uncomfortable with me here? Sometimes women in your … situation don’t like having men around.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. I sensed she was struggling to speak to me, to overcome the block in her head that told her she shouldn’t speak to anyone, much less a man, without permission. If I hadn’t been so desperate for money, I would have told Castel it was a horrible idea for me to be the one alone in a room with this girl. She didn’t need a gruff, tattooed, bearded ex-Army officer who couldn’t show emotions to save his life. She needed someone who actually possessed compassion, who wasn’t jaded and depressed and looking for something to fill the gap until his real job took him back.

  But that person wasn’t available, so there I was.

  She released a shuddering breath. “It makes me feel safe. No one’s going to come try to get me with you around.” When she opened her eyes again, I could see the tears on her lashes even from across the room. “It’s been weeks since I’ve been able to go anywhere on my own. Every time I’m out all I can see is him, around every fucking corner, waiting to snatch me up again. If I had managed to kill myself I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”

  The numbers on the screen next to her bed jumped; it wasn’t good for her to get all worked up while she was in so much pain. I stood and walked to her bedside.

  “He’s gone, Josie.” She snapped her eyes to mine as the tears finally spilled over down her cheeks. “He’s not leaving jail any time soon. I’ll keep you safe.”

  She shut her eyes again and swallowed. “Thanks for being here. It’s nice to not be alone.” The words came out in a rush, as if she were trying to force them out before she thought better of speaking. Her heart rate dipped a little as her breathing returned to normal, but it was still a little high. Whatever painkillers were left in her system were wearing off quick. She was uncomfortable, and she would be for a long time. The least I could do was not make it worse. I placed one hand lightly on her shoulder, expecting her to jump, but she gave a little whimper and relaxed under my touch. Her skin was warm through the hospital gown.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  *

  She bore the pain like a champ. She never asked for more drugs or rolled around moaning for attention. Thank God, she never asked me to spoon-feed her Jell-O or help her to the bathroom. But her breathing was labored even during the rare moments she was able to sleep.

  “Talk to me,” she begged. “Take my mind off of it.”

  I heard that voice in my dreams.

  “We had a soccer league in Afghanistan,” I said without thinki
ng, not realizing she had commanded me to speak and I obeyed without a second though. “Some of the kids, they can be good friends if you treat them right. We saw them kicking around this old-ass ball. One of my mates gave them his, a ball he’d gotten in a care package. They’d clearly never seen anything so new.”

  She smiled across the room, though her eyes were closed, and my lips mirrored hers.

  “We’d sit on rocks on the side of the field and watched them play. When we got some scrap wood, we built goals and spread tarps over the back for nets. Painted lines on the ground with spray paint. Some of them cried when they saw it. A space of their own.”

  “Did you ever play?”

  I pulled my chair a little closer to her bed. “Me? Hell no. I’m not coordinated enough to dribble. A few of the other men did. We had to be careful, since their parents were always suspicious of us. But it was always fun to watch them.”

  “I bet they still play.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her what came next, the influx of insurgents set on destroying people friendly to the U.S. troops. We got most of the people out and into refugee camps, but the field was obliterated. We found the ball a few days later in the aftermath, burnt and flattened.

  Then I looked at her hand, still wrapped in layers of gauze and bandage, the IV drip in her arm delivering antibiotics to make sure she didn’t lose the whole arm.

  I could skip that part of the story.

  “My mom always sent balls whenever she made me a care package after that.” No matter how many times I told her there weren’t kids around to play with them, not anymore. “I think it made her feel like they were her kids, too.”

  “Your mom sounds nice.” She opened her eyes and looked at me, expecting me to continue. Everyone likes to talk about their mom, right?

  I leaned back in my chair and pulled out my phone again, ending the conversation. “You should try to sleep. You have therapy starting tomorrow.”