In a few long strides, I’m back up at the entrance to the house, gripping its frame as I get Brandon’s attention. “Hey, I need to head out for the day. Something came up.”
Brandon gives me a knowing look but nods his agreement anyway. “No worries. See you tomorrow?”
I nod quickly and dig my keys out of my pocket as I turn and run toward my car. Once I’m inside and on the road, it takes every bit of willpower I have not to double the speed limit to get to the tavern.
By the time I pull into the parking lot and see Lily’s car in the far corner, my nerves are shot. I have no idea what to expect. Other than our brief exchange earlier, we haven’t spoken since the night she threw me out. I have no idea what state of mind she’s in now or why I’m here.
The nerves all quickly melt away, though, because within moments of parking the car in front of the building, Lily emerges from the front door, her wild brown hair shorter than it was the last time I saw her but still hovering around her shoulders. She surveys the parking lot before narrowing her gaze on me with a glowing smile on her face.
I’m up out of the car in record time, anxiously awaiting her next move. Will she kiss me? Will she apologize? Will she explain what the hell happened a month ago and why she called me out of the blue today?
She doesn’t do any of these things, though. Instead she grabs my hand and yanks me along to follow her down the length of the tavern and around the corner. We continue along the building until we’re entering the woods behind it, taking rushed steps through the heavy brush. She doesn’t stop until we reach a small area of grass with plenty of distance between us and the tavern.
“It’s not as good of a spot as your place in the woods,” she says softly as she pulls me directly in front of her, “but it’ll do.”
She crashes her lips to mine, her tongue immediately invading my mouth as she devours me as if I’m the only thing that can sustain her at this moment. I meet each movement of her mouth against mine but let her lead the way, enjoying the feeling of her hands in my hair and on my neck. Her fingers continue to roam down my chest as we kiss until they find the button of my jeans.
When she flicks it open and yanks on the zipper, I reluctantly pull my lips from hers. “What are you doing?”
Without a word, Lily encourages us both down to the cold grass and presses my shoulders back so that I’m lying beneath her. She returns to standing just long enough to slip off her shoes and pull off her jeans and panties before falling to her knees straddling my waist. She lowers my jeans and boxers enough to free my erection before she slams herself onto it, taking me into her warmth as deep as I can go as we both gasp at the pleasure of it. She takes me in and out, slowly at first but gradually increasing in speed. If she keeps this up, I know exactly what’s going to happen next, and my mind responds before my body lets her go any further.
“I don’t have any condoms,” I warn with concern as I grasp Lily’s hips to try to slow her pace.
She grabs my hands and forcefully pushes them away as she continues to ride me. “Don’t worry about it, Dante. Just enjoy it.”
I am enjoying it, but alarm bells are going off like crazy inside my head. “I have to worry. I can’t… as much as I want to, I can’t come inside you.”
Lily’s eyes meet mine with a reassuring smile on her face. “I’m on the pill. Don’t worry about it.”
I love that Lily’s looking at me.
I love that she’s making love to me.
But she just lied to my face.
Somehow finding it within me to deny myself this moment, I firmly grasp Lily’s waist and lift her off me. “What’s going on, Lily?”
She freezes as shock consumes her entire expression. “What do you mean?”
“Something’s off.” I look Lily up and down as if her appearance might give me any clue what the hell is causing her to act like this. “You weren’t on the pill when we were together. Why would you be on it now?”
Lily continues to stare at me, her expression becoming unreadable. “Why does it matter? All you should care about is that I’m on it.”
“You’re lying.” I say it straight to her face, unafraid to confront her on this. “What’s going on?”
When Lily doesn’t respond, I reach for her hand to try to communicate a different way with her, but she withdraws it and rolls away from me completely. Within a second she’s up to standing and pulling on her panties and jeans.
“Just forget about it,” she says with disappointment as she slips into her shoes and starts walking back toward the tavern. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I tuck myself away and zip and button my jeans as I stand up to follow her. When she sees my pursuit, she stops and holds her hand in front of her. “No. Don’t follow me.” She turns and quickens her pace to move away from me.
“Please, Lily,” I call out after her. “Talk to me about this. Help me understand.”
“I’ll call you,” she yells without turning back toward me.
As I stand here in the middle of the woods watching Lily run from me, I’m even more confused than before. When she disappears from my view, I panic at the thought that I may never see her again. I ruined whatever revival of our relationship this was between us just now, and I don’t know that she’ll give me a second chance after that.
I’m so fucking confused.
After five minutes of unsuccessfully trying to process Lily’s latest strange behavior, I slowly make my way back through the brush to the tavern parking lot. When I turn the corner around the front of the building, I immediately notice Lily’s car is gone.
I lost her again.
Before my mind even has a chance to catch up and realize what I’m doing, I find myself stepping through the entrance of the tavern to the familiar smell of cigarette smoke and beer. It’s unhealthy for me to be in this building that holds such strong memories of me and Lily being together, but I’m not quite ready to let go of those memories just yet. I’ll hold on to them for as long as I can. Lily may have walked away from me, but she can’t take my memories with her.
My usual table in the corner of the room is taken already, which is just as well as I’m not sure I could emotionally handle sitting there at this moment. I opt to sit at the mostly empty bar instead.
Jodi hands a round of beers to the patrons at the other end of the bar before turning around and noticing me. Her face lights up in a smile. “Dante, my favorite Italian. You’re back.”
It’s impossible not to smile at Jodi’s greeting, though I’m not in the right state of mind to come up with a clever response. “Good to see you, Jodi.”
“I was hoping this day would come. Please tell me you’re here to whisk Lily off her feet again.”
My expression falters. “I’d love to, but I’m not sure if that’s in the cards for us.”
“Damn it.” Jodi sighs heavily. “That girl needs to smile more. She’s not happy where she’s at. She needs you back in her life.”
I’m about to bombard Jodi with questions about what she said, but someone yells her name from the back kitchen.
Jodi glances in that direction before returning her gaze to mine with an apologetic look. “Give me a few and I’ll get your drink.”
As I watch Jodi disappear behind the kitchen doors that I’ve seen Lily walk through hundreds of times before, I realize that I’m not ready to let Lily walk away from me this time. I gave her space a month ago when she threw me out of her house. I waited for her to come around even though it absolutely destroyed me, and after her call and this strange meeting with her today, I refuse to believe that there’s nothing left between us.
The decision is made.
I’m up off the bar stool and out of the tavern before I can even get my keys out of my pocket. Once I’m in the car, it takes only minutes to make the short drive to Lily’s house. I pull up behind her car in the driveway and barely get the engine turned off before I’m out of the vehicle and approaching the front door.
<
br /> My heart’s racing. My palms are sweaty. I’m going into this completely blind with no idea what I’m going to say to her, fueled only by the intense feelings I have for her that never went away. I lift my hand to knock on the door but find the breath knocked out of me instead.
Through the small crack in the window curtain next to the door, I see blood.
Drips of blood. Handprints of blood.
A lifeless body.
I grab the door handle and twist and pull and yank, but it’s locked. I slam my shoulder against the wooden surface, using every muscle and whatever force I have and all my being to break down the door, but it doesn’t budge. I slam my fists against it, willing the fucking door to open and let me in while simultaneously never wanting to step foot in there to see what’s happened because I know it will destroy me.
And the door opens.
Lily stands before me, her entire body shaking, her hair a mess, her shirt ripped at the neckline. Crimson blood covers both of her hands, one brandishing a knife.
Not just any knife.
The switchblade I gave her.
“What happened?” I grasp her hands in mine and look them over for the wound, but I see no openings in her skin.
“Dante,” she whispers. “He’s dead.”
Lily backs away unsteadily, revealing the truth of what happened in the lifeless body on the floor.
Derek’s lifeless body.
I rush over to him, crashing to my knees at his side before leaning my ear down close to his mouth to listen for any sound of breath.
Nothing.
I press two fingers to his neck, hopelessly readjusting their position to find a pulse anywhere.
But there is nothing.
I compress the center of his chest with one hand on top of the other repeatedly as I helplessly watch the volcano of blood erupting from the hole near his heart.
“Lily, I need you!” I yell frantically. “Call an ambulance. Put pressure on the wound.” After a few more chest compressions, I seal his nose and push two big breaths into his mouth and repeat the process all over again.
Lily doesn’t come to me. She doesn’t make a sound. Taking only a moment to glance back at her, I see her standing by the closed door with the switchblade still held tightly in her hand. I check for a pulse and any sign of breathing again before doing another round of rescue breathing and chest compressions.
“He’s gone, Dante.” Lily’s tiny voice drifts into the air around us, pulling me out of my state of denial and somehow sealing Derek’s fate. My movements begin to slow, and then I stop completely, checking for a pulse one more time even though I know it’s not there.
I get off my knees and sit back onto the floor, feeling surrounded by blood and coldness and something I’ve never had to experience before.
Death.
My gaze find’s Lily’s whitened face, and only then do I notice the gash just above her left eyebrow. My eyes linger further down her skin to find deep purple bruises forming on her neck.
“Oh my God.” I suck in a breath and immediately scramble up and rush to her, the switchblade falling from Lily’s grasp to the floor just as I reach her. “Did he do this to you?”
When I reach out to brush Lily’s hair to the side so I can see her better, she quickly turns away from me and nods her head. I can see her fighting to hold back her emotions, but within seconds she bursts into uncontrollable tears.
Pulling her gently to my chest, I hold her and wish I could absorb her pain as easily as my shirt absorbs her tears. I do what I can to comfort her, rubbing her back in soft circles and kissing the top of her hair. It takes a few minutes, but Lily’s sobs begin to lessen. She eventually pulls back from me and wipes the wetness from her cheeks with a trembling hand.
With my hand on the small of her back, I encourage her toward the dining room table before pulling out a chair for her sit in. She lowers herself unsteadily to it as I pull up a seat directly in front of her, grasping both of her hands in mine. I have to resist the urge to pull her to the kitchen and scrub the dried, sticky blood from her hands. It would do no good, though. Splotches of blood cover her arms and clothes. Between her appearance and crimson red that paints the floor, it feels like blood is everywhere.
“What the hell happened, Lily?” I prod gently while squeezing her hands tighter in mine.
“He was going to kill me,” she whispers. “I thought he was going to choke the life right out of me. I tried to stop him, but he was too strong for me. I went for the knife in my back pocket…” As she trails off, she shuts her eyes and seems to relive the painful moment right in front of me. “I just wanted his hands off my neck. I never meant to kill him.”
“Why would he hurt you?” I can’t fathom Derek hurting the woman he’s pined after since they were in college.
“He saw our cars in the tavern parking lot,” she replies with an almost palpable fear in her voice. “He was waiting for me when I got home, and he was furious.”
“His car isn’t here,” I point out.
“It’s in the garage.”
“Why the hell would his car be in your garage?”
A fresh set of tears erupt from Lily’s eyes. “Because Derek’s practically been living here lately. We were together… as a couple.”
The reluctance with which she says these words is the only thing keeping me sane at this moment, otherwise I’d lose it completely. “I don’t understand.”
“He knew,” she says almost inaudibly, and with those two words, my eyes go wide. “He knew your identity was fake. He even knew about the connection to your grandfather.” She takes a deep, calming breath. “When I quit my job at the paper, Derek was pissed. He knew it was the end of any shot he had at being with me, and he knew it had everything to do with you. He became obsessed, using all his resources to find anything he could use against you, and he found something that didn’t add up in your records. He knew you had to be hiding something, so he expanded his search until he heard about a Dante visiting a Robert Whitford at the hospital, and he put two and two together.”
The further Lily gets into her explanation, the more fearful I become of what she’s going to say next, not for my own sake, but for Lily’s.
“He demanded I break up with you and become his girlfriend or he’d report you to the police,” she continues before wincing at her own words. “I hated that night I let you go. I said some really awful things, but I had to. I knew the only way to force you out of my life was to make you hate me.”
“I could never hate you.” My response is immediate and automatic. No matter how deeply Lily’s words cut me that night we broke up, I never stopped loving her.
Lily smiles through her tears, but the expression quickly fades as she looks away from me. “After that, the demands kept coming. Derek wanted to move in, so I let him. Even when he started asking for sex, I gave him what he wanted.” Her eyes reluctantly meet mine, her expression swimming in pain as my features flare with the fury building inside me. “When he demanded a baby, though, I couldn’t do it anymore. Not completely.”
The flames within me extinguish. My heart drops. My dreams evaporate. “A baby?”
She nods slowly. “It was his insurance that I wouldn’t leave him, that we’d be tied together forever.” Her eyes divert away again, unable to hold my gaze. “I ultimately let him do what he wanted, but I took the morning-after pill the next day. I stopped it once, but I knew I couldn’t stop it forever.” She covers her mouth with her hand and holds in a sob for a moment before she can speak again. “I remembered your parents’ story. I remembered you, and that’s why I called you today. The most beautiful human being I know was created out of love to keep a monster from planting his own seed, and I thought it could work for me, too. I could have a piece of you with me forever and keep you safe at the same time.”
I lean forward and pull Lily into my embrace, my throat constricting painfully at the thought of how far she was willing to go to protect me. “You didn’t ha
ve to do that for me. I wouldn’t have wanted you to do any of this for me.”
“I know,” she responds over my shoulder. “That’s why I couldn’t tell you. I knew you’d turn yourself in before letting me do any of this for you, and I couldn’t let that happen. You deserve a happy and full life after everything you’ve been through. That’s all I wanted for you.”
My own tears begin to fall as I realize she may have given up too much of her own life trying to protect mine. “You didn’t deserve this, though.” I pull back from her and glance at Derek’s lifeless body on the floor. “I don’t know what this means, Lily. I fear what they’ll think when we call the police.”
Lily’s eyes cut to mine. “I’m not letting you be anywhere near here when I call the police. They might think you’re involved.”
“I’m not running from this. I won’t leave you here to face this on your own after all you’ve done for me.”
“Dante, I–”
“I’m tired of hiding,” I declare firmly. “Let me be here to support you. Let me help you through this.” I take Lily’s hand in mine. “If they can see the truth in what happened, we have nothing to worry about.”
“And what if they find out about you?”
“They won’t,” I reassure her with a smile even though I have no idea what they’ll do with me. “Let’s make the call. They’ll be more suspicious the longer we wait.”
Lily nods slowly before rising up from the chair and grabbing her cell phone from the table. Her hand is shaking so violently she can barely hit the right numbers. I wrap my arm around her back to give her comfort and support.
It takes just a moment for someone to answer before Lily says the four simple words that will inevitably change the course of our lives. “My boyfriend is dead.”
28
I’m trying to focus on the person right in front of me, but my ears are keenly trained on the conversation happening across the room.
“Has he hurt you before?” the officer asks Lily as if it’s a completely normal question. She nods as the EMT tips her chin up so that the officer can take a picture of her bruised neck. “How long has this been going on?”
Beyond Resistance (The Ransom Series) Page 21
