by K. M. Scott
I thought back to those days when he was so hell-bent on marrying the two of us off. Part of that had been to benefit him, but I knew another part was his bid to control our lives through who we married.
“No. It just changed a little to forcing us to marry men we didn’t love but who could help him. Janelle seems to have found some way to live with it, but I couldn’t.”
My mother stood from her chair and leaned across the bed to hug me. “I’m sorry he did that. He had no right. I’m happy to hear your sister has been able to make her peace with it, though. I just wish she could do the same with me.”
I did too, but I didn’t trust Janelle to keep my secret. “I’m sorry I can’t let her know I’ve found you, Mom, but she’ll tell Daddy. I know she will. She believes all the lies he told us about you.”
The disappointment showed in her expression, and she looked away, frowning. “Maybe someday, right?”
Taking her hand in mine, I squeezed it gently. “I hope so. I hope someday the three of us can all get together and we don’t have to hide it from anyone.”
She turned back and smiled sweetly at me. “Promise me you’ll be careful, Serena. From what you’ve told me, nothing about your father has changed, and his need to control you and Ryder frightens me. I know you may not see it because it’s all you’ve ever known, but I can tell you it’s not normal, honey. Not at all.”
“I know. We want to get away. We had even planned on doing it sometime soon, but…”
I let my sentence trail off, not knowing how to explain what had happened with Ryder. But I didn’t want her to think I liked living the life my father had forced upon me.
Cradling my face in her hands, she nodded, even if she didn’t understand what I struggled to say. Her dark eyes filled with sympathy I knew came from living the life I had to endure now.
“I just want you to remember that you don’t need your father’s blessing to live the life you want. You or Ryder. You’re still young, so go out and make your own way in the world, okay?”
“We will. It won’t always be like this. I promise. Someday soon we’ll be free of him. All of us.”
“I hope so. I’ve gotten used to my life, but I don’t want you to be like me, a bird stuck in a gilded cage. I wanted more for you and your sister than that.”
Covering her hands with mine, I kissed her. “I promise you I won’t let that happen.”
She had no idea how long I’d told myself those exact words. I meant them from the first moment they came into my head long before Ryder came into my life, and until the day I escaped my father’s world with him, they’d be my mantra.
* * *
By the time I got back to the house, Ryder was waiting for me. He sat on the couch with a bottle of whisky on the coffee table in front of him, his near constant companion since returning to work for my father.
“You’re home early. I thought I’d get here before you,” I said as I sat down next to him.
“He had me doing my stand guard thing in his office all day, which amounted to doing nothing for nearly eight hours, and then he said he had somewhere to be and let me go,” Ryder said in a low voice.
I put my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. “You were tossing and turning all night last night. You must be exhausted. Why don’t you go lie down for a while?”
Picking the bottle up from the table, he lifted it to his lips and drank a mouthful. “I can’t sleep, even when I’m tired.”
I wished I knew what was troubling him. Ever since that night, he’d seemed lost in his own thoughts. Nothing I said helped, and more and more, I felt like he was sliding into something I recognized all too well.
I’d seen depression firsthand, and everything about Ryder now said whatever my father had done was killing him inside. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know what to do, and every minute he was back around my father only made things worse.
If only we could find a way to leave this place and everything that came with it.
Gently, I turned his face so he had to look at me. I searched his eyes for any sign of that wonderful intensity I’d seen in them so many times, but all I found was sadness.
“I’m worried about you. It feels like you’re slipping away ever since you went back to work for my father, and I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do, Ryder. Tell me, and I’ll do it.”
All he did was shake his head.
Taking his hand, I stood up and pulled him to his feet. He looked down at me with a look of complete confusion, but I had to try something. “Dance with me.”
“Serena, I…”
I placed his hand on the small of my back and held the other in my hand out to the side of us. “I remember the first time you held me like this. It felt like you hated even touching me,” I said with a smile.
He smiled for the first time that day and kissed me softly on the forehead as we began to sway back and forth. “I’ve never hated a moment I got to spend with you. Being with you is like a dream come true.”
Standing on my toes, I kissed his lips and felt the unbearable sadness in him. I wanted to make him see no matter what, we had each other and that was enough.
“I love you, Ryder. Tell me what you need and I will do whatever it takes to get it. I can’t stand seeing you like this.”
His eyes slowly closed, and he whispered, “I don’t know what to do. I fucked everything up, and now it’s just a matter of time.”
He stopped talking, but what he said made no sense. “What do you mean it’s just a matter of time? For what? Does he have you doing something, Ryder? What is it?”
Opening his eyes, he leaned down and kissed me tenderly, lingering against my lips as he said, “I love you, Serena. You have no idea how much it hurts to even think about living without you.”
We stopped dancing, and I stared up at him in horror, holding his face in my hands as panic shot through me. “What does that mean? Why would you have to live without me? Tell me! Did he say something like he was sending you away?”
Ryder shook his head and frowned. “No, but it feels like at any minute he’s going to order me to do something that will make you not love me anymore. You’ll see what I’ve become…and you’ll leave, like you should.”
Pressing my lips to his, I kissed him, desperate to make him understand how impossible it could be for me to not love him. I looked up into those green eyes so full of despair and hated that he couldn’t see how loved he was because of what my father had done to him.
“You are a good man, Ryder. You protect, and that’s never a bad thing.”
“The things I’ve done for him. I try to tell myself I had to so I could protect you, but…”
I couldn’t let him do this to himself. “Look at me. None of that was your fault. Oliver would have hurt me again if you didn’t do something to stop him. The others my father made you do. Don’t do this to yourself, Ryder.”
Hanging his head, he said quietly, “Do what? Accept who I am?”
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he reluctantly pulled it out to see who’d messaged. “He wants me down in his office.”
Grabbing his hand, I held it tightly. “Don’t go. Tell him you were asleep. Tell him you were drunk. Or I’ll tell him. Just don’t go. Stay here with me.”
He stood and shook his head. “I don’t have a choice.”
I held onto his hand, reaching so my fingertips still touched him, but he walked away toward the front door. “Hopefully, I won’t be long.”
As I sat there hating what my father was doing to Ryder and me, my mother called. I quickly answered and heard her voice full of fear.
“He was here, Serena. He knows. He warned me if I spoke to you again, he’d make me pay. Be careful, honey. He was furious.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, my heart racing in terror that he’d hurt her.
“I’ll be fine. I’m worried about you, though. You know how he is with anyone he thinks has deceived him.”
Suddenly, his mess
age to Ryder seemed ominous. If my father wanted to punish me, the surest way would be to hurt Ryder.
“I have to go, Mom. I’ll call you tomorrow to check up on you,” I said as I hurried to get down to my father’s office.
“Be careful, Serena. He’s dangerous when he thinks he’s been betrayed, and right now, that’s what he feels we’ve done.”
“I will. I promise. I love you, Mom. Be careful too.”
Tearing down the steps, I broke into a run down the main hallway to my father’s office and found him sitting behind his desk like nothing was wrong. I looked around, but Ryder was nowhere to be found.
“Where is he? Why did you tell him you needed him if he’s not here?”
My father looked up at me and said nothing for a long moment. “I sent him on an errand I needed him to do for me.”
“What does that mean? Did you need milk? Want a pack of cigarettes? Does your car need the oil changed? What errand did he have to do for you?”
Chuckling, he shook his head. “You sound frantic, Serena. Don’t you trust our Ryder?”
My blood boiled at the way he referred to him. “He’s not our Ryder. Why are you so obsessed with him? If you care that much about him, why can’t you let him be happy? Why do you have to make him miserable?”
“He gets from me what he’s given me. He understands there are consequences to his actions. Why haven’t you ever been able to understand that?”
“So that’s why you’re like this with him? You feel he’s done something to deserve you making him miserable? What? What did he ever do except fall in love with Robert Erickson’s daughter and treat her like a queen, like you always said I should be treated?”
I waited for him to answer me, but then a terrible thought entered my mind. “What did you make him do, Daddy?”
“Ryder understands sometimes choices have to be made.”
“Please, tell me you didn’t make him do what I think you did!” I screamed as tears streamed down my cheeks.
He simply smiled that crocodile smile I knew meant he’d done exactly as I’d feared. I didn’t give him a chance to answer me before I ran to the garage and grabbed the Jeep keys from the box.
My hands shook and my tears made seeing the road nearly impossible, but I pressed the gas pedal to the floor and drove as fast as I could to get to my mother’s before Ryder did something I knew neither one of us would be able to forgive.
The miles raced by as I convinced myself he wouldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t. He loved me too much to hurt her, even if my father ordered him to. He’d find a way to make sure I wasn’t hurt, and he’d protect my mother just like he protected me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ryder
The house felt eerily quiet, and as I walked through the front door, all I wanted was for this night to be over. If I could just lose myself in enough whisky to dull my senses and the feel of Serena next to me, I could make it to tomorrow.
That’s all I tried to do each night. Sometimes the demons that haunted me hid, chased away by alcohol and Serena’s arms around me so I fell asleep and didn’t have nightmares of Justin’s face as he lay there on the ground, beaten senseless by my hands.
Other times, the ugliness of that night refused to let me be, and I sat awake staring at the TV watching B movies and infomercials as I prayed to God to keep my hands off the gun never far from my side. All that kept me from blowing my head off lay in the bed next to me, that gentle creature who knew nothing of who the man beside her really was.
Sometimes I’d look over at her and think about all those dreams we had. Then I’d cup my hand over her pregnant belly and the regret I felt nearly overwhelmed me. All I’d wanted was to get Serena and the baby away from Robert and his world, but now all that was just what it had always been.
Dreams.
I’d thought fighting would get us to that place we dreamed of, but now that was gone too.
I stopped at the Robert’s office door and looked in to see him standing in front of me. His eyes stared out at me with a hollow look I knew meant nothing good.
“Did you take care of everything?” he asked in a tone that said he didn’t think I’d done exactly what he ordered me to.
“Yeah. Where is everyone? I saw Jesse leaving as I drove in,” I said as I looked around the office and found no one.
Robert grinned and turned to walk back to his chair behind his desk. “I sent him on an errand. I would have sent you to do it, but I didn’t think you were up to it. Come in and sit down. I want to talk to you.”
“Can this wait, Robert? I’m tired. I just want to go home and see Serena,” I said as I moved to leave.
“I want you to know I was happy to pay for that fighter’s hospital bills. He’ll be taken care of for the rest of his life. Not that he needs it. I mean, he’s back to fighting, for God’s sake. But that’s neither here nor there, I guess.”
As much as I didn’t want to talk about that horrible night, I knew my role at the moment. “Thanks. I appreciate it. I have to go see Serena.”
“She’s not here, Ryder. She left a little while ago.”
Serena would only leave for one person other than me. But if she left, that meant Alita called and…
“Why would she go out so late at night?” I asked as I walked toward him, stopping at the corner of his desk.
“She’s almost due, isn’t she? Just another few weeks and we’ll have a baby on the estate again,” he said almost wistfully, like he looked forward to his first grandchild’s arrival. “I was thinking that you and Serena will move back into the main house here when he or she comes. You can have Serena’s old room, and we’ll change Janelle’s room to a nursery.”
“Where is she, Robert? Did she say where she was going?”
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. Leveling his gaze on me, he turned to a different subject. “You know, as much as I am loathe to admit it, you passed every test.”
“What?” I asked, confused as his quick change from talking about the baby to whatever he referred to now. “I need to find Serena. She shouldn’t be out late at night.”
“I think when she says she loves you she actually means it. I never put much stock in love, but I think she loves you. I have no doubt you love her. I think a part of me knew the minute I brought you into this house that you’d fall in love with her.”
“And still you’ve done everything you could to try to make her not want to be with me. You don’t care that I make her happy. I don’t even think you want her to be happy. You sure as fuck don’t want me to be happy. I need to go find Serena.”
On my way out of his office, I heard him say something about the cost of love, but I didn’t stop to ask what he meant. I had a sick feeling I knew.
Serena’s cell phone went directly to voicemail for the third time in a row, and I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat in frustration before jamming the gas pedal to the floor. I needed to get to Alita’s before she did and ran into Jesse. I didn’t know what orders Robert had given him, but I couldn’t know making sure Serena remained unharmed was part of them.
Or if he hadn’t decided to kill two birds with one stone.
Mile after mile, I thought about the horrific possibility that Robert had told Jesse to take care of not only Alita but Serena herself. Would he follow through on that order? I wanted to believe the guy I knew would never knowingly hurt the woman I loved or her mother, but Jesse was entirely beholden to Robert.
And if tonight was the night he decided to punish Serena for finding her mother, Jesse’s job might just be to get rid of both women.
I couldn’t let him do that. I wouldn’t. He’d have to kill me first.
But that could only happen if I reached Alita’s house before he did. He had a good ten minute jump on me, but looking down at the speedometer, I saw my speed top one hundred miles an hour, and that wasn’t the only advantage I had.
I knew exactly where Alita’s house was aft
er driving out there to make sure Robert didn’t have it under surveillance before Serena went to meet her that first time. Jesse didn’t, and he had no idea that taking the route the GPS gave wasn’t the fastest way there.
Turning off the main road, I wound through a back road so dark I knew at any moment something might jump out and I wouldn’t have time to swerve out of the way. I reached over and grabbed my phone again to call Serena, but it went directly to voicemail.
Never before in my life had I felt so helpless to stop what I knew was about to happen. Serena could be on a collision course with Jesse and his orders, and even if she wasn’t a target, she might still get hurt.
Or worse.
I pushed that possibility out of my mind and focused on the road ahead of me. Just a few more miles until I reached the back of the estate and Alita’s carriage house. I had to get there before he did.
Jumping hard on the brakes, I skidded to a stop and ran up the path to the back door of the house as adrenaline once again pumped through me. A light in the kitchen gave off a warm feel that made me want to believe I’d beat Jesse there. I listened for any sound coming from the house, but I heard nothing.
My heart sank at the possibility that he’d been there already and done his job. I looked through the back door window and saw no one inside.
“Who are you?” a male voice asked behind me.
I turned around to see a man around my age with a shovel in his hand ready to bash my head in. Holding my hands up, I quickly tried to explain what I was doing there.
“I’m looking for Alita. Are you Michael?”
He lowered the shovel to the middle of his chest and nodded. “I am. How do you know my name?”
