CHAPTER 11
ASHER
“Is she still shaking?” I asked Eli quietly as I looked in the rearview mirror once again. I had barely had my eyes on the road since we set off from the house, too worried about Addy not to keep checking on her. She had been distraught, shaking, and crying, her words making little sense as she forced them out.
It had been a culmination, I was sure, of all of the stress and upset Addy had been dealing with and hiding from all of us since the kidnapping. Kane and Adam weren’t helping her either with the way they had both been behaving. I was most pissed with Adam, since he seemed to have cut all of us off in favor of internalizing his unfounded guilt and raging anger about what had happened the day Eli and Addy were taken. He refused to speak to any of us when we tried to engage him past polite conversation and he seemed to have been completely avoiding Addy as much as humanly possible.
Jordan was terrified his brother was using drugs again, and while I’d reassured him that couldn’t possibly be the case, I wasn’t completely convinced I was right. Adam had been leaving the house more and more often this last week, and he came back late at night, storming off up to his room before I could even try to speak with him. I hoped to fuck I was wrong, but I had to admit I was beginning to worry myself, and that worry was overriding my belief that Adam would never break his sobriety and go back to drugs.
“No, but it’s less now, and she finally relaxed against me, so I think she’s calmer,” Eli replied.
“Do you know what happened? Why did she want to get away before Kane got back?”
“I don’t know. She said something about him suffocating her and her needing to breathe. She was hardly making sense to be honest,” Eli sighed. “I don’t know what Kane did, but he definitely upset her.”
“He and Adam are both being complete dicks with her lately. It’s really starting to piss me off. She’s dealing with so much, she doesn’t need the two of them throwing their own issues at her,” I growled.
“She’s not handling what happened well, Ash. We need to do something to help her. Kane and Adam are so far up their own asses, I don’t even think they realize how much she’s struggling, and Jordan is trying, but he’s so busy with the center. We need to step in and at least get her to open up to us.”
“I know. I’ve been thinking the same thing for the last week at least. Longer if I’m honest. I’m just wary of pushing her too hard though. I feel like she’s barely holding on and I don’t want to be the one who pushes her to give up.”
“I know. I get it, brother, but we have to do something. We can’t all just keep sitting back and allow her to suffer like this.”
Silence descended once again as I took in what Eli had said. He was right. We had allowed Addy to hide the truth from us for too long, knowing that with each false smile or feigned moment of happiness she gave us, she was suffering inside. I had hoped the guys – the men who professed to love her – would do something to help her, but instead it seemed they had only made things worse until Addy had just crumbled earlier that day. Eli was right. We couldn’t wait and hope any longer. We needed to do something because it was hurting both of us to see her trying to hide her fear and pain.
A couple of very thought filled hours later, we were about halfway to the cabin that we had visited often as young boys. Our mother, who had inherited the place from her father, used to drive us out there for the day in rare times that she would be having a ‘good’ day. They didn’t happen often, our mother often drowned by her own depression and unable to even leave her bed most days, but when they did, they were the only time Eli and I ever just got to be kids for a little while.
After our mother died we never visited the cabin again. Our father would never allow it, and until the old bastard died I had assumed he had sold the property and the prime lakeside land off. It was only after his death and the reading of his will, that we realized we were the ones who owned out childhood sanctuary, which our mom had left to us in her will. I had considered heading out there a few times since, but the opportunity had never arisen. Now it felt good to be driving there, even if I was pretty sure we’d find the cabin crumbling down around us when we arrived.
My cell started to ring over the hand’s free in the car, and when I looked to the screen on the dash board, I saw Kane’s name there.
“Don’t tell him where we’re headed, Ash. She needs time,” Eli sighed.
“I know,” I nodded as I pulled the car over to the side of the road and grabbed my phone from the cup holder. “I’ll take it outside so I don’t wake her,” I explained as I took off my seat belt and jumped out.
“Ash!” Kane barked the second I picked up the call. “Please tell me Addy is with you?”
“Jesus Kane, dial it back a bit,” I hissed. He was yelling down the phone at me. “She’s with me. She’s fine.”
“Where the fuck are you and why isn’t she answering her phone?” he snapped. “Jesus! I’m head of your fucking security, Asher! I need to know where the hell you’re going when you leave the house, especially with my girl in your damn car! She was supposed to stay home! What was she even thinking?” Kane ranted, barely taking in breath between his ire.
“Kane!” I barked. “Calm the hell down. You’re my head of security, not my damned keeper! And Addy is an adult. She’s allowed to leave the house without asking your permission. You think I’m going to let you treat my sister like she can’t make her own decisions, you’re very fucking mistaken, you controlling asshole!”
“I’m trying to protect her, or did you forget she was kidnapped just a few weeks ago?”
“Kline has been caught! The FBI took down the whole trafficking ring, including that asshole Bull. No one is looking for Addy, and even if they were, Eli and I are both with her.” I tried to calm my tone that time, but I was seriously enraged at the way Kane seemed to think he got to control Addy in any way. I agreed she needed to be cautious. With our family wealth there would always be a risk of kidnap for ransom, but Kane was being insane, not to mention a complete asshole. No wonder Addy had needed to get away from him.
“Just tell me where you are, Ash!”
“No. Addy made me promise not to tell any of you where we are. She needed to get away from you. I don’t know what you did to her, but she doesn’t want to see you.”
“I don’t care what she wants. She’s mine and I want her fucking safe. Tell me where the fuck you are, right now!” Kane raged.
“She is not yours,” I retuned coldly. “She doesn’t belong to anyone, and the fact you don’t care what she wants has me wanting to come home and kick your fucking ass,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “Don’t call again. You come after us and I will not hesitate to stop you from getting near Addy. We’re not coming back until Addy is ready. You fucked up – you and Adam both. Maybe you should take some time to think about and fix that.” With that I ended the call and shut off my cell.
I wouldn’t put it past Kane to track our phones, but I meant what I had said. If Kane came after us I would do whatever it took to keep him from Addy if that was what she needed. Kane was my friend and I had, in the past, trusted him with my life, but Addy came first, and she always would.
Addy was still asleep when I hopped back into my car, for which I was grateful. She desperately needed some sound sleep and she seemed to be getting it snuggled with Eli as she was.
“What did he say?” Eli asked quietly.
“He’s being a complete ass. I know he’s worried about Addy, but he needs to get himself together. He’s talking about her like he owns her and I don’t like it one bit,” I replied. “Shut off your cell if you have it. I think he’ll try to track us down if he can, and I now completely understand why Addy doesn’t want that.”
“I left it at home,” Eli said, then his eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “You don’t think he hurt her, do you?”
“Not physically. I know Kane well enough to know he’d never hurt a woman, but emotionally? Yeah, I think he and Adam are hurting Addy a lot that way right now,” I sighed.
“What do we do, Ash? I feel like we’re failing her when she needs us most.”
“It’s my fault. I knew she was struggling, but I stepped back. I thought it was up to Adam, Kane, and Jordan to take care if her – for them to prove they really are what she needs, but they haven’t stepped up and now I’ve let it go on for too long.”’
“That’s on me too, Ash. I did exactly the same.”
“I want to allow her to have the space she needs, and it’s time for us to be there for her. No more stepping back until she’s stronger. I hope the guys will pull their heads out of their ass’s and step up, but whether they do or not, we’re gonna be here for her as long as she needs us, and long after that.”
“So what? We take a vacation? Stay away from the house?” Eli questioned.
“Yes, if that’s what she wants. We can go where ever she wants to go, and I can buy us anything we need. I’ll have to arrange to get her meds, but it shouldn’t be a problem. I think she needs a change of scenery and we can give her that,” I explained.
“I think we might all need that,” Eli agreed, and he wasn’t wrong. It had been a hell of a couple of months, and it had taken everything I had. I didn’t even know how Eli and Addy were still going after what they had been through. Yeah, a break would be good for all of us, but especially for Addy.
“And I grabbed all of her meds when I got the car keys. That’s what I threw in the back.” Eli added. I breathed out a sigh of relief.
“What the hell would I do without you?” I questioned with a smile. “You always think of everything important.”