“Please tell me that you’ll try and find the other women he rambled about?” I ask when the questioning is over.
She nods, then reaches out and wraps her hand around my own. “I’m going to personally check on that,” she says. Nodding, I swallow hard and press my lips together. “Promise me that you’ll talk to someone,” she says with a small smile.
My lips twitch and I know it for the lie that it is when I make the promise. She knows that it is a lie as well, I can tell by the sad look in her eyes as they search my face. She gives me a nod, then slips me a card.
“If you ever need to talk, Tulip. I’m here.”
Without another word, she gives me a small smile, then turns and walks over to her police cruiser. I grip her card in my hand and shove it in my front pocket. I don’t foresee ever needing it, but maybe I will one day. You never know when you’ll need someone, or when they’ll need you.
Louis’ palm slides against my back and I let out a small sigh as his lips touch the side of my head. “You ready to go home, baby?” he mutters.
Turning around, I look at the once chaotic scene. There is yellow police tape around the front door of the cabin but the coroner is gone, the cruisers have all left, except for Deputy Hernandez and the woman that I just finished talking to.
Pressing my lips together, I shift my gaze up to meet Louis’. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
I don’t mean that I’m ready to just go home, but I’m ready for what’s to come, whatever that may be.
LOUIS
The almost two-hour drive back to our house feels like it lasts a lifetime, that is until Tulip falls asleep against my shoulder. Shawn and Aaron stay quiet for about twenty minutes, probably to ensure that she’s really asleep before they start asking me questions.
“She gonna be okay?” Shawn asks.
Aaron snorts. “Girl is made of steel, but nobody would be okay after that fucking disaster.”
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, I want to deny what Aaron is saying, but I know that he’s right. Tulip may not have pulled the trigger, but I know my girl and once the shock settles, she’s going to feel guilty about this. I have a little experience in the feeling guilt department, but since I still feel guilty as fuck, I don’t think that I’ll be much help to her.
“Nope,” I agree.
“Fuck,” Shawn hisses.
Nodding, I clear my throat. “All we can do is be there for her as much as we can.”
“You’re still fuckin’ training,” Aaron’s gravelly voice announces.
“I know and I don’t plan on stopping either.”
“Good,” he snaps.
Lifting my gaze to meet his in the rearview mirror, my annoyance at his words disappears. He looks concerned, and his eyes are focused on the back of Tulip’s head. He’s worried about her, we all are.
Pulling into the driveway, Aaron and Shawn exit the truck, but not before Aaron reminds us that we only have two hours before we need to be in the gym. Shaking my head, I wonder why we can’t have one fucking day off, considering the night we’ve had, but I don’t question him.
Honestly, I think that I’m going to need the gym to work all of this shit out. Because I have a feeling everything inside of me is going to explode unless I fight it out of my system.
I don’t bother waking Tulip up. I jump out of the truck, then climb up on the step before I reach inside. Cradling her sleeping body against my own, I climb back down onto the ground.
I have no doubt that she’s going to want a shower tonight, but I want her to get as much sleep as possible. She probably won’t be able to close her eyes again once she’s showered and visions of what she endured start to play on repeat in her head.
The house is silent and once we’re inside of our bedroom, I lock the door behind me, not wanting anyone or anything interrupting us. Her clothes are dirty from sitting on the ground at that cabin, as are mine. Taking her into the bathroom, I slowly set her down on the counter next to the sink.
She moans as her eyelids flutter open. I can tell that her memories haven’t assaulted her yet, because I see it the moment that they do.
“Louis,” she breathes.
“We’re home, baby. Locked up tight inside. Nothin’s gonna bother you, not ever again,” I promise.
She shakes her head, her bloodshot and swollen eyes filling with more tears. Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman cry as many tears as Tulip has since I found her at that shithole.
Gathering her in my arms, I lift my hand and press my palm to the back of her head, allowing her to bury her face against my chest.
“Nothin’s gonna hurt you, baby. Not ever again. I’m here. Always.”
She sobs against my shirt, completely soaking it. I hold her, allowing her to get all her shit out, all of it. She needs to cry, needs to get everything out and this is one way that she can.
The other way, I’ll be here to help her with, too. I’ll fuck her until she’s exhausted and when that doesn’t work, when the anger sets in, I’ll wear her body out in the gym.
I am here for her.
Here to take care of her, here to fucking love her.
“Let’s get cleaned up,” I murmur when her tears stop flowing.
She nods her head. Leaving her on the counter, I step to the side and turn the water on, giving it a minute to heat up and fill the bathroom with soothing steam.
Returning back to her, I hesitantly begin to strip her clothes off. I don’t know what happened, yet. I don’t know if he assaulted her in any way, so each move that I make, I do it slowly in case she needs me to stop.
Tulip reaches for me, her hand wrapping around my forearm as I reach behind her to unhook her bra. Lifting her eyes to meet mine, she hesitates as I wait for her to speak, my fingers frozen against the hooks of her bra.
“He didn’t hurt me like that. He had plans, but he didn’t touch me,” she whispers.
Licking my lips, I nod once. “Okay, Tullie,” I whisper.
She scoots a little closer to the edge of the counter, her lips millimeters from my own. “Will you touch me, Louie? Will you take it all away?”
Shaking my head once, I sink my teeth into my bottom lip. “Nothing will take it away, baby. I’ll touch you, fuck, I’ll worship you, but you need to know that it won’t take any of it away,” I rasp.
She nods once. “I know.”
Without another word, I strip her bare, then myself. Walking her into the shower, I worship my sweet girl.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
LOUIS
The days pass, they turn into weeks and Tulip is completely detached every single moment. A couple days after her abduction, I called the guys and had them load up her personal things from her apartment. Hutton thankfully knew who her landlord was and explained everything before she turned in the keys for her.
Tulip hasn’t done much. She gets up every afternoon, takes a shower, dresses in a t-shirt of mine and a pair of my sweats, camps in front of the television on the sofa, eats dinner with me, then we go to bed and make love until she falls asleep.
I haven’t been sleeping much myself. Usually, I wait until she’s passed out, then I sit in the chair in the corner and try to catch a few minutes. I’m too fucking scared that I’m going to go into another dream episode and hurt her again.
Too fucking much has happened in just a short period of time. Neither one of us is really processing any of it. We’re going through the motions and trying to make it day by day.
I have to leave in a couple days to start all the hype, the commercial filming, the interviews, and the final days of my training before the fight. But I know that I can’t leave her like this. She missed the meeting with the school she’d been so excited to go to. When I mentioned it, she only shrugged, as if she didn’t give a fuck about it.
She’s depressed.
She watched her ex die right in front of her, after she’d been kidnapped, I don’t blame her for being depressed at all.
The kno
ck on the door causes her to practically jump out of her skin. Clearing my throat, I stand and jog over to glance through the peephole, even though I know who is on the other side because I called them.
“Hey,” I murmur, tugging the door open to a very pregnant Channing and Rylan. “Where’s Reese?” I ask when I don’t see the toddler.
Rylan snorts. “Dropped him off at Wyatt’s. He bitched me out the other day because he hasn’t spent enough one-on-one time with Reese lately. I don’t even know what that shit means, we have dinner, the five of us, at least twice a fuckin’ week,” Rylan mumbles.
“Just let him be an uncle,” Channing sighs as she places her hand on her belly.
Dipping my chin, I step to the side to allow them in. “When is she due?” I ask.
Channing’s lips tip up into a small smile. “Two weeks. I’m sorry we won’t be able to go to your fight. We’re having a big viewing party at Wyatt’s though,” she says softly.
Shaking my head, I reach out and pull her in for a small side hug. “Just knowing you’ll be watching is enough. Want you to take care of my new niece.” I chuckle, touching my mouth to the top of her head.
“You want to head outside, have some water, maybe throw some horseshoes?” Rylan asks, his gaze focused beyond me and Channing and I know what he’s focused on. I know exactly what has his brows furrowed in the middle.
Nodding my head, I agree as I release Channing. I don’t say anything to Tulip as I pass by her. She knows what’s going on by now, and I’m sure she’s going to be pissed at me, but I have to try. She isn’t drowning herself in booze or drugs. She’s just fucking drowning.
TULIP
I could kill Louis. Kill him. Channing waddles toward me, and if I wasn’t so fucking mad at Louis, I would think she’s downright adorable, because she is.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I realize that I’m not wearing a bra, in fact, I can’t remember the last time that I even attempted to put one on.
“Hey,” Channing says as she slowly sinks down next to me on the sofa.
Pressing my lips together, I stare at her. It’s rude, I know that I’m being rude, but I can’t help myself.
“You know that I was kidnapped too, right?”
I shrug a shoulder. I’d heard about the incident, but she wasn’t thrown in a trunk, punched in the face, forced to eat cold canned chili, told that she’d been watched and jacked off to since she was a teenager, and threatened with being some weird sexual servant. So, I honestly don’t know how she’s going to help me.
“You need to talk,” she gently urges. “Louis is really worried about you.”
Releasing my lips, I inhale a deep breath and shift my gaze to the wood floor. She probably thinks that I’m not going to say anything, and I surprise myself a little when I start to speak.
“Louis doesn’t deserve someone like me. The sooner he realizes that, the better. Nothing but blackness follows me around. First my parents, then Joey and his father. I’m disgusting.”
Channing reaches for me, but my hand flinches and I shift it to my lap. “It’s okay, Tulip. It’s okay to feel that way, to think that way, but you have to know that it’s simply just not true. He loves you. He sees the good in you, even when you can’t see it in yourself.”
“I’m worthless,” I whisper.
Lifting my gaze to hers, I watch as her eyes round and she shakes her head. “You’re not, but I can’t tell you that. You have to believe it for yourself. Joey and his father broke something inside of you, just like James broke something inside of me, too. Rylan couldn’t fix it though. He helped, but I had to realize that I was worthy of more, of him.”
Closing my eyes, I try not to cry. It’s all I do when people aren’t around. “How could I have been so stupid. Why didn’t I tell someone about the dumb notes? Why did I just allow myself to be a victim?” I ask as my body trembles.
Channing moves closer to my side and slides her arm around my shoulder, pulling me close to her side, resting my head on her shoulder, I cry. “You’re going to be okay,” she coos.
“I hope so. Louis deserves—”
Holding up her palm, she stops me and I press my lips together, widening my eyes in surprise. “You don’t get to dictate what Louis deserves. He wants you. He loves you. He needs you. Don’t you think since you’re the one he wants, that you should strive to be the best version of yourself that you can be?”
Her words are like a bucket of cold water being dropped on my body. I jerk in surprise. She’s right. I need to be the best version of myself for him and God knows that I haven’t been, not even close.
I’ve been a hollow shell unless we’re having sex. Channing’s lips turn up into a small smile. “I knew you’d get it,” she whispers. “It’s hard though, right? They’re so amazing and it’s just like… why did they pick us?”
“You’re amazing and sweet and the nicest person I’ve ever met,” I blurt out, looking at her.
Channing shakes her head. “I don’t see myself that way, I never have, but he sees me like that. To me, he’s the most selfless man I’ve ever met. I know about his past and he knows about mine. What he has gone through doesn’t make me love him less, in fact, it makes me love him more because I see the man that he’s become because of that past.
“He loves me wholly because of what he’s done, what he’s seen. Do you think that you can love Louis wholly because of that ugly past that you have? He’s going to give you a beautiful life, he can’t wait to do it and, in a way, he’s already doing it.”
Frowning, I look over my shoulder at Louis and Rylan who are talking amongst themselves. I watch as Louis’ lips turn up into a grin and he shakes his head like Rylan has said something funny and a little unbelievable.
“I love him so much. Louis deserves someone healthy. Someone perfectly matched to him,” I whisper.
Channing shakes me slightly. “That person is you, Tulip. He sees it, we all see it, why don’t you see it in yourself?”
“I spent my entire life with a loser. I enabled him, I stripped to make ends meet. I’m not perfectly suited to a man like Louis Kingston.”
Channing snorts. “I had an affair with my teacher that lasted way longer than it should have. Hell, it shouldn’t have ever happened. I was pregnant with his baby, alone, and yet Rylan came in and wanted me, loved me, and still does. Exeter has her own issues, so does Hutton. Are we not deserving, are we not perfectly matched to our men?”
“Why do you have to make sense?” I ask as my bottom lip trembles.
She giggles and squeezes me again. “Because I’m smart like that. Now, inhale a cleansing breath and tell me what you need from your friends.”
“My friends?”
She nods. “Yeah, me, Exeter, Hutton, and Laurie. Even though I think Laurie is a bit out of commission at the moment, she’s here to help at any time.”
“Where is she?” I ask, my brows knitting together.
Channing grins. “She left this morning to go and demand Jesse love her or something. I guess they got into a huge fight and he left. She knew she fucked up when he didn’t come back to sweet talk her.”
“Now she’s going to him?” I ask, kind of in shock. Laurie just doesn’t seem like the type that would beg a man, or anyone, for anything.
Channing nods her head. “Oh yeah, she’s full-on panicking. Hutton showed her a picture of Jesse and some mystery woman in a tabloid. They looked cozy and Laurie is freaked the hell out, she thinks that she could have pushed him a bit too far.”
Smirking, I shake my head a couple of times. “She’s crazy,” I point out, feeling very hypocritical.
“She is, but I think she’s finally getting herself together, what about you?”
Shifting my gaze back over my shoulder I turn to look at Louis. He turns his head as if he feels my eyes on him and he gives me a small, sad smile. I match it and try to make mine a little brighter, but I’m sure that I fail.
“I think I might try and get myself togethe
r. For him.”
“No,” Channing snaps. Twisting my head back, I look at her with a frown. “Do it for yourself, Tulip. Ultimately, it will benefit him. But do it for you so that you can be a better version of yourself. So that you can smile again, with your whole face, not just your lips. So that you can be happy, because that’s what you deserve too.”
“God, how are you this sweet and right all at the same time?” I ask.
Her lips tip up. “I have a good life, a good man, and two beautiful babies. How can I not share my advice with my friend?”
We hug and I thank her again for the help. She’s right. I knew it before she said it, but hearing it from her I know that its time. It’s time for me to get my shit together.
It’s not going to be quick and it’s not going to be easy, but the first thing I’m going to do after I talk to Louis is schedule that meeting with the cosmetology school.
First things first though, I need to talk to Louis about why he isn’t sleeping next to me at night and is instead choosing to sit in the chair across from the bed. He thinks that I don’t know, but I can feel him move away from me every night and into that damn chair.
If we’re going to work on me, we’re damn well going to work on him too. We’re both fucked up from the inside out.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
LOUIS
I don’t let Rylan and Channing leave without having dinner with us. Since they came here to help me, the least I can do is feed them. The rest of the evening is much less strenuous than the first part.
Tulip seems to be much more relaxed. Her face is no longer set in a hard look, the lines have disappeared from between her eyebrows, she smiles and even laughs a few times.
KILLER: An Unfit Hero Novel Page 21
