by K. M. Scott
Extending his left arm, he offered me a seat next to Ryder. “Come. Sit down.”
I did as he said, and Ryder took my hand in his, bringing it to his lips in a kiss before lowering it onto the armrest of his chair. Surprised he’d do that in front of my father, I looked down at where our hands joined and then up at Ryder to see something strange in his eyes.
What was it? Fear? Dread? Why? What happened?
I wanted to ask him, but instead I smiled and waited for him to smile in return, but when he didn’t, I turned to face my father. “What’s going on?”
“Ryder won’t be fighting anymore for me. He’s coming back to work as security,” my father said matter-of-factly, his face expressionless.
“Okay. Did something happen? Did he lose?” I asked before turning to look at Ryder. He didn’t look like he’d been beaten.
“No. He’ll tell you later, I’m sure. I just wanted you to know that his time as a fighter has ended. He won’t be returning to that again.”
His words sounded so final, but I couldn’t see any evidence on Ryder why he wouldn’t fight again. No bruises, no broken bones. Nothing that would mean he couldn’t fight anymore.
I turned my attention back to my father. “What’s going on here? You were the one who wanted him to fight again, and I see nothing to explain why suddenly he can’t now. What happened?”
My father merely arched one eyebrow and shot Ryder a nasty glance, so I swiveled in my chair and asked him the same question. “What’s going on? Did you get hurt?”
Ryder just shook his head but didn’t say a thing. Back and forth, I looked at him and then my father for some answer as to what was going on, but neither of them said a word.
Finally, I stopped and stared at Ryder. “Say something! What’s happened?”
He hung his head and quietly mumbled, “I…there was a fight and I…”
Whatever it was, he couldn’t get the words out, no matter how hard he tried. His face twisted into a look of agony, as if even trying to say what happened hurt him. He squeezed my hand tightly but couldn’t even face me. What had he done?
“Ryder, what happened? Are you hurt?”
He shook his head sadly but still refused to look up at me. “No. I’m fine.”
The way he said those words told me he wasn’t fine at all, but sitting there in front of my father wasn’t where we needed to have this discussion. For now, I held his hand as he clung to mine and hoped he knew whatever had happened, I was there for him.
“I hear congratulations are in order, Serena,” my father said, tearing me out of my sadness for Ryder.
Unsure what he referred to, I turned my head to look at him. “For what?”
His gaze drifted down my body and stopped just above my waist. “We’re going to have a baby in the house, I hear.”
Shock washed over me. He knew I was pregnant. But how? Who told him?
My father smiled and looked over at Ryder to answer the question that must have been written all over my face. Why would Ryder ever tell him about the baby? We agreed to keep the pregnancy a secret, especially from my father, so why would he tell him? What had suddenly changed so much that he was back to working for him as one of his men and he felt he should share our secret with the one person I wanted not to know?
Did he know about our plan to leave too?
Then suddenly, fear tore through me. Had Ryder told him about me finding my mother? Had he betrayed everything we were for some unknown reason to work for my father again?
“Well, I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day, so you two go. I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.”
My mouth hung open in shock, and I watched Ryder stand to leave, still holding my hand. I stood and followed him out, unsure what to say. I had no idea what had gone on between them, but now everything felt different.
He didn’t say a word all the way back to the apartment. All he did was walk and hold my hand tightly, like he feared if he let go I’d run away and he’d never find me again.
But I didn’t want leave him. I wanted answers to why all we’d planned suddenly seemed to have changed in a matter of hours. He’d left to train with Floyd, and he’d come back a different person, and I wanted to know why.
I closed the door behind us, and as he walked toward the kitchen, I asked, “Now that we’re alone, would you mind explaining to me why my father knows the one thing we didn’t want him to know, Ryder?”
He didn’t answer me, so I followed him and found him finishing off a glass of whisky and pouring himself a second one. Whatever happened, he looked shaken by it, and my heart went out to him.
Touching him on the sleeve, I said, “Tell me what’s wrong. Please. Don’t keep it all inside, whatever it is.”
Ryder tilted the glass back and swallowed the last of the whisky in it before he poured another glass of it. Placing the bottle on the counter, he sighed and turned his head to look at me, his eyes full of that same sadness they’d had back in my father’s office.
He reached for the glass and his hand shook so violently he had to put it back down. I slid my fingers through his and squeezed them, but he continued to shake uncontrollably.
“Ryder, what’s going on? What happened? Why does my father know about the baby?”
Opening his mouth, he tried to say something, but nothing came out. He hung his head and pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around me tightly. “I fucked everything up, Serena. I didn’t have a choice. If I didn’t do it, you and the baby would have been left alone, and I couldn’t let that happen. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
The anguish in his voice tore at my heart. Ryder was the one person I turned to for strength, and there he stood broken and devastated leaning on me.
Holding him to me, I whispered, “Whatever you did, we’ll get through this. Just tell me what happened.”
He leaned back away from me and frowned. “I’ve been fighting behind your father’s back. Floyd would get me fights, and I’d go to earn more money so we could leave. Tonight’s win would have gotten me enough to finally get you away from here.”
The words got caught in his throat, and he stopped for a moment before he said, “But something went wrong. I don’t know what happened, Serena. One minute it was like any other fight, and the next minute…”
Ryder backed up across the kitchen until he hit the wall. Shaking his head, he lifted his hands up in front of him and stared at them like he was sickened by them being a part of him.
I tried to take him into my arms, but he pushed me away like my touch hurt him. I reached out and gently put my hand on his shoulder. He looked at me like he didn’t even know who I was.
“Honey, it’s me. It’s Serena. You don’t have to hide anything from me. It’s okay.”
He shook his head and winced in pain. “It’s not okay. It’s not okay.”
“Whatever happened, we’ll be okay. We will,” I said as his face twisted in agony.
“Like when I killed Oliver or his brother or any of the other people your father had me take care of?”
“What are you talking about? Tell me.”
He pushed past me, mumbling, “I can’t do this with you right now. I can’t.”
I’d never seen Ryder like this. His rage frightened me, but I couldn’t stand by and let him torture himself over whatever had happened. I followed him into the bedroom and watched him sit down on the edge of the bed and hold his head in his hands. He looked broken.
Standing beside him, I quietly said, “Please don’t shut me out. I know you’re a good person. You’ve protected me from the moment we met. Whatever you did, I still love you. We’ll be okay. I promise, Ryder.”
He didn’t look up at me, so I took his hand and placed it on my belly. “You were fighting for us. If my father found out and that’s why he won’t fight you anymore, that’s okay. He didn’t look that angry, to be honest. I think we’ll be okay.”
For a long moment, he stayed hunched over holding his h
ead in his hands, but then he looked up and wrapped his arms around my waist, pressing his cheek to my belly. “I’m sorry, Serena. I just wanted to be able to take you away from here before our baby was born, and now I’ve ruined everything.”
I gently stroked his soft hair as I closed my eyes and came to terms with the reality that whatever he’d done meant we wouldn’t get to leave this place before the baby came. Tears of disappointment welled in my eyes at how cruel fate could be. We’d been so close, and now that chance had been taken away from us again.
He looked up at me with such sadness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice. I fucked up. I fucked everything up. I just couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”
“I don’t know what happened, but you’ll never lose me, Ryder. Just tell me, what did he make you promise to do?” I asked, dreading what his answer would be.
I knew my father. He’d get his pound of flesh for whatever he’d caught Ryder at tonight.
“I have to work for him. That’s it.”
Neither of us believed that, but it didn’t matter. Fate had given my father what he wanted, and he took it.
“We’re not getting out of here, are we?” I asked, looking away because I couldn’t face him when he said the words that would mean everything we’d dreamed of was gone.
“Not now,” he said quietly, his voice sadder than I could bear.
I couldn’t stop the tears from coming, and they rolled down my cheeks as everything began to overwhelm me. All our plans over.
“Can you forgive me?” he asked in that same tortured voice that made me feel like he had his hand around my heart and was squeezing it.
I sat down on the bed next to him and kissed him, my lips wet from tears. He slid his thumbs over my cheeks to dry them and again asked, “Can you forgive me, Serena?”
The answer to that question was the simplest thing in the world. Ryder had shown me love I’d never known before. Forgiving him came as naturally as breathing.
“There’s no need. I don’t need to know what you did that you think you should ask for forgiveness. Whatever it was, I know you wanted to protect me and the baby. How could I blame you for that?”
He pressed his forehead to mine and whispered, “I’m not giving up, Serena. I’m going to find a way so we can escape this world of your father’s. I promise.”
“I love you, Ryder. It doesn’t matter where we are. That won’t change. I just need to know one thing. Does he know about me finding my mother?”
Shaking his head, he said the words that made me hope not all was lost. “No. He didn’t say anything that made me think he knew.”
“Then we can get through this like we’ve gotten through everything else. In a few months, we’ll have a baby and no matter what he tries to do, I promise I won’t marry another man, no matter what he does.”
Ryder took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He swore he wouldn’t do that. I won’t let him if he tries. I swear to God, Serena, I’ll find a way to stop him if he does.”
“He won’t. He has what he wants. I don’t know if it’s you under his control or me, but he’s got both of us, so he’s happy.”
With a look of hopefulness I loved seeing in his eyes, Ryder shook his head. “He won’t always control us. Someday, we’re going to leave here and we’ll be the ones in control.”
I didn’t know if he believed that or just said it to make me happy, but I hadn’t given up on finding some way to have everything we’d dreamed of. So it would have to wait a little while. I’d waited my entire life for it. I could wait a little longer.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Serena
My mother and I met three days a week at a tiny, out-of-the-way inn a few miles away from her house so no one would know I’d found her. I reserved the room for four weeks, hoping she’d stay there and finally leave that house my father had consigned her to, but every time she insisted on returning in the belief that if she didn’t, he’d take it out on me.
I didn’t know if he would or not. I just wanted her to be free of him.
The Two Cross Inn sat off the road a ways and never seemed to have many guests staying there, so it had an abandoned feel to it. The peeling dark green paint around all the windows only accentuated that. We made sure to hide our cars behind the building every time we met. The room we met in, Room 9, was dark and old, with heavy forest green draperies covering the windows and ensuring our privacy.
My mother settled in to a brown upholstered chair next to the old TV on a metal stand as I crossed my legs and got comfortable on the bed. “This place has cheating spouse written all over it, don’t you think?” she asked with a chuckle.
I looked around at the deep beige walls and strange geometric brown and green patterned bedspread beneath me and cringed. “Maybe in a horror movie. I’d hate to be the woman whose guy can only spring for this place for our rendezvous. Talk about killing the mood.”
She laughed louder at my comment, and I watched as she became more beautiful with each time she smiled. Warm and inviting, it lit up her face.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t get to see you all those years. I think about how many times I would have felt so much better just seeing your smile.”
A blush made her cheeks pink, and she sighed. “I wish we had gotten to have all those times together, Serena. I try not to think about it, though, because it makes me sad.”
“Well, don’t be sad. That’s in the past, and now, we can make up for lost time,” I said in my cheeriest voice to cheer her up.
She smiled, but it didn’t go all the way up to her eyes this time.
“Is something wrong, Mom?”
Shaking her head, she said, “I’m just worried he’s going to find out what you’ve been up to. I don’t want to see you get hurt, honey.”
“He has what he wants now, so I hope he wouldn’t even care.”
Her eyebrows drew in with concern, and she leaned forward toward me. “What do you mean has what he wants now?”
I took a deep breath and searched for the words to explain what had happened with Ryder a few nights earlier. Unable to find the right way to say it, I simply said, “He has Ryder back working for him, so I think he’ll be happy for at least a little while.”
“Why is he so obsessed with him, Serena?” she asked, her expression even more worried now.
Shaking my head, I answered truthfully, “I don’t know. He found Ryder when he was fighting in his underground fights and brought him home one night. He used to even refer to him as his adopted son, showing him off at parties like he used to with me and Janelle. When he caught us together a few months after he brought him to the house, he sent me away and made sure Ryder was beaten in his next fight so badly that he ended up in the hospital. Then he offered him a job as one of his men when he got out, and Ryder took it, but just recently, he decided he wanted him to fight for him again. Now, as of a few days ago, he says he can’t fight ever again and he has to work for him as security again. I don’t know why, and I’ve never understood his obsession with Ryder.”
“I want you to be careful, honey. Your father’s obsessions never end well for anyone but him.”
“Has he ever done this before with anyone else?” I asked, curious to know my father through her eyes.
Frowning, she nodded. “I remember a man named Anderson Jarrett. This was before you were born and when Janelle was only just walking, so she wouldn’t have been even a year old. Your father became fixated on him. It was almost as if he fell in love with him. He was barely into his twenties and had come into a company that worked with your father’s mining business when his own father died. I don’t remember what the company did, but I don’t think it was that important. But your father talked day and night about this Anderson person and his company. Serena, if it had been a woman, I would have been sure he was cheating with her.”
I’d never heard the name Anderson Jarrett before, not from my father or from anyone associated with him.
&nb
sp; “What happened with this person?”
“Nothing good for him,” she said with a sigh. “Your father practically courted him like a mistress for over a year, and then one day Jarrett disappeared from our lives. He used to have him at the house a few times a week for dinner and drinks, and then never again. I even asked your father what happened to him, and he waved the mere mention of him away like it meant nothing to him. But he was obsessed with him. I found out later that Anderson Jarrett lost his company to your father and swore until the day he died a few years later that your father stole it from him.”
“Died?” I asked, sitting up straighter at the mention of his death. “I thought you said he was only in his twenties.”
“He was. One night he was found floating in the pond behind his house. It was ruled an accidental drowning, but in the weeks leading up to his death, he began making a lot of noise about how he believed your father had no right to his company because he stole it from him.”
As much as I hated to believe it, this story sounded very much like what I’d heard about my father’s business from Ryder. I didn’t want my mother to know that the man I loved and the father of my child and her grandchild could be involved in something like that, though. Ryder was more than just one of my father’s men.
“So you see, that’s why I don’t like to hear your father is so preoccupied with your boyfriend, Serena.”
I slid my palm over my pregnant belly, wishing more than she could ever know that Ryder and I could escape my father’s obsession. “He knows we’re together and doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. I was hoping that meant his interest in him had started to wane.”
“Unfortunately, that would probably leave you as his main obsession again, wouldn’t it?” my mother asked in a sad voice. “He always did have an unhealthy need to control everything you did, Serena.”
“Why is that?” I wondered aloud.
Shaking her head, she shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s who he is, I guess. He became obsessed with me the minute he met me, and he pursued me like a demon. Then when Janelle was born, he seemed to lose interest in me and become fixated on her. But when you were born, it actually scared me a little to see how obsessed he was with everything about you. I had hoped it would diminish over time, but it never seemed to. What about when Ryder came to the house? Did he become less interested in you and your sister then?”
