by KL Donn
“Noah,” I gasp when he pulls back to trail kisses along my jaw and down the column of my throat. “I missed you.” I whimper when he bites on the pulse at the base of my neck, sucking on the flesh until I’m confident he’s left a mark.
Wrapping his arms around me, he holds me tight to his body, breathing into my neck, inhaling long, sharp breaths. Almost like he’s afraid to let me go. “I’m so fucking sorry, Em. For everything. All I wanted to do was shield you from every shitty thing in the world, and I wound up hurting you with my silence, with my lack of communication.”
My chin wobbles at his confession. I never doubted his intentions, it was the way he went about it, and now, seeing him so emotional, nearly as nutty as me, I know he’s been hurting as deeply as I have.
“I forgive you, Noah,” I murmur against his ear, kissing the lobe as he shudders in my arms. Witnessing such a large, imposing man so vulnerable has me feeling all kinds of things. “Can we go forward now? Move past all this pain and be us?”
Decisively, he nods his head before capturing my lips in a devouring kiss, leaving me breathless and panting as he explores my mouth with his tongue and my body with his hands.
It doesn’t escape me that I’m withholding an even larger secret from him. One I have to come clean about.
In the morning.
Tonight is about us gaining the forgiveness we need to move forward with our lives together.
5
Ember
When Noah left this morning, I pretended to sleep because I was afraid that last night was all a dream. I didn’t want reality to come crashing down like so many other nights and experience crippling agony from not having him as my own.
But now, as I stand in front of my bathroom mirror, another message left behind, I know it wasn’t. This is real, and he’s here. Not just a figment of my imagination anymore.
We spent the night holding each other, sharing sweet kisses and tender touches in between sleeping. Neither of us pushed for more, and despite having made love multiple times before, it was the most intimacy we’ve ever shared. Sliding open the flap of the envelope, I pull the carefully crafted paper out and unfold it.
Like a fool, my silence left you shook.
The reminder of our separation is painful, but this time, I can breathe through it. I can accept that, despite the way he went about it, Noah was genuinely trying to protect me in the best way he knew how, and I can’t be angry about that.
Knowing that I don’t have classes until this afternoon, I rush through a shower then search for my wallet. I should have mentioned it to Noah, but we had much more important things to discuss.
After tearing my house apart and scavenging through my car again, I still can’t locate it and realize I will have to file a police report. Making a few quick phone calls to my bank and credit card company, I have replacements on the way, and they’ve frozen both cards. Luckily, there has been no activity on either since I left the doctor’s office, except my grocery run yesterday.
Noticing the time, I realize I have to leave to make it to my first class on time. Filing a police report will have to wait until this evening.
Noah
“So it worked then?” Kol questions as I drive to the next parking garage location.
“I suppose.” I doubt he wants to hear all the details of his sister’s love life. “I spent the night with her, and I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a woman for as long as we did.” I fail to mention that we weren’t intimate physically, but mentally, I’ve never felt so connected to another person before. It’s given me hope for our future. But I sense she’s still holding back from me.
We’ll work it out in time. Holding back on pushing for Ember to open up completely is hard because I want to know everything she’s thinking and feeling, but I can’t force it. Not yet.
Arriving at the downtown garage our last victim reported her run-in with the mystery man, I scan the area for anything out of the ordinary. “Lots of cameras around here,” I observe. It’s a more populated area than the last few, with shops, offices, and a medical building nearby.
“I’m going to visit a few stores, see if they’ve noticed anything unusual and if they’re willing to share their recordings with us,” Kol says, staring around for a few minutes before shaking his head.
“What?” I ask. He’s obviously contemplating something.
“I’m not sure. It feels familiar here,” he mumbles, rapping his knuckles on the roof of the car as he leans against the vehicle.
“We worked this district in uniform,” I point out. For nearly a year, we patrolled this area.
“Did we?” Kol chuckles. “I must be getting old than man. Too much time in the office.”
Shaking my head at the poor man, I tell him, “I’ll hit the garage, check out each level. Talk to anyone who might be frequent visitors, see if they have seen anything.”
Going our separate ways, I walk around the outside of the structure, taking note of all garage exits, entrances to buildings, and who has cameras monitoring the alleyways.
With four levels for our perp to choose his victims on, I start on the top level and look around. Peering over the edge, I can see the street below and Kol strolling from one store to another. This would be a bird’s eye view for our assailant to choose his next victim. Observing women leave the stores and enter the garage, all he would have to do is watch the elevator numbers to discover which level they’re parked on and then take the stairs and perform his accidental run-in.
I’m hating this fucker more and more with each passing second.
Waiting for a man to enter the garage—because I don’t want to scare the shit out of some woman—I head to the elevator and watch for which floor he stops on before rushing down the stairs to that level.
As soon as I exit the stairwell, I see the man walking down the middle of the platform, keys out, head down as he looks at his phone. Walking past him, I see how easy it would have been to bump into him and continue with our perpetrator’s ruse. Not only are my suspicions about how he’s choosing his victims possible, but they’re doable.
Leaving the building, I catch up to Kol across the street. “Anything?” I ask before he can.
“A few managers and owners are putting calls in to their security companies and sending videos over to the station now, but nobody has recalled anything out of the ordinary. Nobody suspicious.” He appears perplexed. “It’s like this guy doesn’t exist outside of the robberies.”
“I’ve got a theory about how he picks his victims.” Kol’s head pops up then, and he listens with interest as I explain my findings.
By the time I’ve shown him how the encounters happen, Kol is getting a call that some of the surveillance videos are on his desk, so we head back to the precinct. On the cusp of breaking the case, our adrenaline runs high as we arrive at the station.
Diving right into the videos, analyzing every minute, neither of us realizes the time until our captain has pizza delivered for us.
“Thea’s going to kill me,” Kol grumbles as he pulls out his phone to text her.
Gazing at the clock on the wall and seeing it’s after ten, I know I should have texted Ember too. As I’m about to start typing on my phone, her name flashes across the screen, and a smile spreads across my face.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I answer.
“Noah.” The fright in the single whispered word has me sitting up straighter.
“What’s going on, Em?” I ask her just as an officer comes into the conference room and hands Kol a piece of paper. When he turns to face me, the look of absolute terror has every instinct in my body screaming that something is horribly wrong.
“Someone’s in the house, Noah.” Ember’s words refocus my attention as Kol slides the paper to me and whispers something to the officer. “What do I do?”
“Where are you?” I don’t need to gaze down to see that Ember has filed a report that her wallet went missing. We asked earlier in the day to have any such ins
tances forwarded to us, hoping to prevent another home invasion.
“In my room. I can hear a person downstairs. I just got out of the shower.” I’ll kill this son of a bitch if he touches her.
“Can you leave your room quietly?” Mentally drawing a map of her upstairs in my mind, I recall a closet at the end of the hall they don’t use.
“Yes.”
“Go to the closet in the hall, be as quiet as possible. Kol and I will be there soon,” I say as we’re rushing from the building. “Officers are on their way now. There are no sirens, so you won’t hear them.”
“Noah,” her voice cracks. “I’m so scared.” I might just take him out for scaring her alone.
“I’m coming, baby. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Keeping the phone to my ear until we’re in the car and driving, I place it on speaker so Kol can hear too.
“You okay, Em?” he asks his sister, and she whimpers.
“He’s coming.” We can hear the creaking of the floorboards on the stairs in the background.
“Lock your phone, so he doesn’t see the light,” I tell her. Kol’s grip on the steering wheel tightens, and the leather groans.
We sit in tense silence, waiting for whatever happens next, and I’ve never felt so fucking helpless. I should be there protecting her, not here. I should have fucking checked in with her sooner.
“Noah.” The way she sob’s my name, begging me to rescue her, has my heart pounding so hard against my sternum it rattles my entire frame.
“Sshh, baby. We’re coming.”
When she inhales a trembling breath, I know the bastard's standing outside the closet door. Kol tenses further, and we’re both helpless against what’s about to happen.
“No, no, no, please don’t,” Ember whimpers as the door clicks open, and the son of a bitch chuckles at her fear.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Kol hisses as we hear Ember being dragged from the closet.
“Please don’t do this,” she begs as Kol flies through another red light amidst honking and screeching from cars trying to stop. “Please, my brother and boyfriend are cops. They won’t stop until they find you.” I can hear the tears in her voice, and my fury continues to climb.
“They haven’t found me yet,” the man taunts.
“NO!” Ember yells, and she must hit him with something because he begins to curse. “Stop it. No. Don’t touch me!”
“Noah!” She screams my name over and over, and it’s not until we come to a halt that I realize I've been pounding my fists on the dashboard. Blood slides down the interior and drips on the floor between my legs from my phone's glass screen cracking and digging into my palm.
We lose the connection to Ember.
Ember
I’m not sure how I knew something was wrong. I was so tired after classes and then filing the police report, and finally, coming home to eat a small bowl of soup for dinner. I was so intent on showering and then crawling into bed that I failed to notice someone was in my house until it was almost too late.
Or maybe it is too late.
The intruder's hands are on my throat, choking me until I blackout and then releasing me just long enough to gasp for air and renew my struggle to fend him off.
“Don’t do this to me,” I beg again. “I’m pregnant,” I finally confess, needing to keep fighting for my baby if nothing else. He or she is a piece of Noah and me. I don’t want to lose that. I should have told him he was going to be a father. I shouldn’t have pushed him away.
I have so many regrets.
“Killing the brat would only make this so much sweeter.” The man above me laughs. His eyes are terrifying. Black like his soul.
Angry, scared, enraged, I don’t know where the burst of energy and strength comes from, but I gather my fists and begin hitting him in the head as hard as I can. I don’t know when or where I dropped my phone, but I can’t focus on it as I thrash my aching body from side to side, doing everything I can to get him off of me so I can get up and run.
Hearing tires screeching to a halt outside the house, I think his rage has blocked him from registering the sounds around him because he continues with his assault.
Screaming at the top of my lungs, I make one last-ditch effort and claw at the mask covering his face. Breaking my nails, drawing his blood, I feel a chunk of his hair rip out when he finally realizes the police are here and attempts to flee. I hold him just long enough to hear pounding feet come up the weathered stairs in my house and see Noah seemingly fly across the hall and tackle the man to the ground.
Pounding the intruder's face with his own fists, Noah curses and threatens the man before Kol finally pulls him off. Noah doesn’t stop, though, until he hears me whimper.
The blaze of fire in his ordinarily calm blue gaze has tears springing forth and rolling down my cheeks. I can’t move, can barely feel the agony I know my body is in, but when Noah crawls over to me, lies on the floor next to me, and tenderly traces my tears, I know everything will be alright. I’m safe now.
“I’ve got you, baby.” He says the words against my head, and all I want to do is tell him my secret. Confess to him what, just minutes ago, I was wishing I’d told him before. Now, I’m rendered mute. I couldn’t get a word out if I tried. My entire body is frozen in terror, and I can’t do anything but think. My mind whirls in a thousand directions and feelings.
It’s overwhelming and terrifying.
“Em, kid, can you talk to me?” Kol leans over me, his eyes the saddest I ever remember seeing them. “I’m so sorry we didn’t catch this asshole sooner.” He lifts my bloody hand to his lips and lays a gentle kiss on my wrist. “Paramedics will be here any minute. Did he…” My brother chokes up on his words, and it’s not until I see his eyes wander down my body that I realize this guy tore my clothes off. “Did he rape you, Em?”
Tears crowd Kol’s eyes.
Noah begins cursing, and I can feel him tense as he holds me.
Panic takes hold of my chest because I'm not sure. He choked me out to the point of unconsciousness a couple times. Never mind the duration.
I can’t breathe.
The walls are closing in around me.
My body begins to shut down, and black dots my vision.
“Sshh, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you now.” The emotion in Noah’s assurance is comforting and lethal as I allow the dusky promise of oblivion to take me away.
6
Noah
“Gentlemen!” the nurse snaps again. “We cannot conduct an exam on this young lady if she has refused. Stop being alpha assholes and respect her space and wishes. She has agreed not to shower, we have given her clothing to forensics, and there is nothing more you can do. Forcing her will only make her relive the assault again, and I’m certain that’s not what any of you wish for her.” The woman levels Kol, Arsen, and me with a deadly glare I’m sure she’s practiced multiple times before.
“Christ,” Kol hisses as he drops into a chair outside Ember's door.
“How the fuck did this happen?” Arsen stands in the middle of the hall, staring up at the ceiling.
“I fucked up,” I confess. “I left Em alone. I should have been living in that fucking house with her by now, and she would have been guarded. This wouldn’t have fucking happened.” Banging my fist against the wall has the nurse glaring at me again from her station. She’s bandaged my hand up three times now because I keep hitting walls, and they all seem to be cement.
“This is nobody’s fault but that asshole's,” Arsen growls.
Logically, I know he’s right. If this guy was going to attack Ember, me being there wouldn’t have stopped him. I only wish we’d apprehended him sooner.
The door to Ember’s room opens and all three of us stand, spinning to face whoever is coming out. Marina exits quietly, and you can tell she’s been crying. Arsen opens his arms for his wife, and she sails into them.
Waiting for her to speak is killing me, but I know how close she is to Ember and how hard s
eeing her like this is.
It’s slowly destroying my soul, and the longer I spend away from her, the harder it is to continue to function.
“She doesn’t want to do it. She doesn’t want to know if that monster raped her.” Marina’s chin wobbles as she spits the last words out like a curse. “Noah.” She steps forward, reaching for my hand. “You have to be strong for her right now. Stronger than you ever have been, and when she talks, I need you to listen, truly listen to what she’s telling you because I’ve never seen Em so forlorn.”
I can only nod my head because now, I’m even more afraid of what he did to her and how she’s affected. Swallowing through the lump in my throat, I slip into her room. Thea is lying on the bed beside Ember playing with her hair and humming. When she sees me, she leans into Em’s back and whispers something in her ear before waving me over. Sliding off the bed, she encourages me to take her place.
Gingerly crawling in behind Ember, I’m not sure where to touch her because I still don’t know the extent of her injuries, and it fucking hurts that she's shut me out.
“Love her, Noah. Tell her how much and keep doing it,” Thea says at my back before taking her leave.
Leaning up on an elbow so I can stare down at my beautiful woman, I brush the hair away from her neck, and I have to force down the rage slithering through my veins when I see the fingerprints on her neck. He strangled her repeatedly. That I can surmise from the different bruises.
Dropping my head to the back of hers, I trace a finger up and down her arm before speaking. “Ember, my light, my stars. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry we didn’t catch him sooner. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”
Her head nods, so I know she hears me.
I’m lost at what to do here. Apologies aren’t what she needs, and no words I say will take away what happened.
