Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
Raven
With no money and no phone, I have no choice but to stop when I’m running low on gas, sitting on a park bench opposite a bank, waiting for it to open.
It’s not an ideal way to spend the small hours of the morning, but at least I’m out by myself, free from being drugged, away from my suffocating mother, not being chased by Chinese enforcers or a pissed-off Declan.
My life has become surreal of late.
And there’s nothing to do but sit and think.
Declan fucking Hale. That has to be his real middle name.
He told me he loved me. I’m certain I didn’t imagine it.
Who kidnaps someone they love? Then subjects them to torture and interrogation and more orgasms than I can count? How does he do that? What the hell am I supposed to think?
Four of the most intense weeks of my life.
Yet another man that proves my total inability to make good judgments.
I thought he was different, I genuinely did. I’ve never been more wrong about anyone.
Shit, I almost fell in love with him. Thank God I didn’t.
Yeah, because that’s true.
I have to close my eyes against the pain. The ache in my chest, like something’s been ripped out.
What is that feeling? It’s never been like this before.
It hurt when Brandon left with Vera, but I was more angry at her than at him. She knew better than to hook up with a man who would do that to her friend.
It hurt when Chad left, but that was misguided infatuation, and I knew it even back then. Besides, he was an asshole. It was easy to say good riddance to him.
Declan is different. I’ve walked out on him, and that makes it worse.
Why would that be worse? Isn’t it easier to leave than be left?
I wipe tears from my cheeks, grateful there’s no one to see me cry.
Is this… guilt I’m feeling?
Damn it. Why am I feeling guilty? He fucking drugged me, kidnapped me, tied me up and used me like a sex toy.
Then he carried me upstairs, ran a bath, and washed me gently.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
No, I won’t accept that. The two things do not balance each other out.
What about all the lies on top?
That house in San Fran. The woman in Thousand Oaks. The way he can’t answer any question without a moment of stillness first.
Maybe it took me a little while to see that, but I can’t miss it now. And it’s every damn time I ask him something about himself.
And what about his interest in Kurt’s wallet? The diamonds that were entrusted to me?
He’s betrayed us all… but me most of all. He used me to get close to the crew.
And I goddamn fell for it.
Arrgh! I hate him!
No, Declan is not a man I want in my life. He’s toxic.
Good decision, Raven. Hold on to that.
Damn right I will.
Then why does it hurt so much?
My tears have dried by the time the sun rises, replaced with anger and cold resolve. I still have two more hours to wait, but twenty minutes after the bank opens, I have enough cash in hand to get gas for my bike.
Four hours from LA.
I open the throttle and do it in a little over three.
When I walk in to Kurt’s unit, Tasha’s sitting at her laptop like she never left, and Dario’s making a mess in the kitchen.
“Raven!” He comes over with a grin and a sandwich, giving me a one-armed hug while I twist to avoid getting mayonnaise on my jacket. “All good?”
So fucking far from it I don’t even know where to start. “Yeah. You?”
“Great.” He pauses, turning serious. “Cole’s pretty bad, but he’ll recover. We left him in San Fran and came back to see you. Cammy and Kurt stayed with him.” He looks past me toward the door. “Where’s Declan?”
Just hearing his name has my stomach clenching. Anxiety that he’ll find me, guilt for leaving him, and more than a hint of arousal that I could really do without.
“Long story,” I mutter.
Tasha’s got up from behind her laptop, waiting her turn for a hug, and she gives me a searching look. I step into her arms, finding some much needed comfort there, then meet her gaze. I can’t find anything to say, but she seems to know.
“Sit down,” she says. “Dario, get Raven a coffee, please.”
“Sure.”
“And Dario? Take your time.”
“Uh…” He shoots a glance between us. “…sure.”
Tasha steers me to the sofa like I can’t be trusted to get there myself, then sits next to me. “Spill it.”
“So… uh.”
Admitting I’ve let myself be manipulated by a man who has betrayed us all? Easy enough to rehearse on the road, but now I can’t bring myself to say it.
“I went home,” I begin. “To Salt Lake City. Broke my phone during the escape. Couldn’t reach you guys.”
“Why didn’t you get another?”
Her question throws me. Like that’s the important thing right now. “Don’t know your numbers.”
She stares. “What?”
I cut a hand through the air. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I’ve been your friend for six years and you don’t know my number?”
Okay, it does matter. “Yeah? What’s mine?”
She reels it off without hesitating, and I narrow my eyes at her. “Dario?” I call toward the kitchen. “What’s my phone number?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Just answer.”
“It’s on my phone. One minute.”
“Never mind.” I give Tasha a pointed look. “You’re a numbers freak. I’m not. I don’t know any of you guys’ phone numbers.” Except Declan’s.
Dario mutters something insulting by the tone of it, and returns to making coffee.
“Okay, so you’re chronically innumerate.” Tasha gives a nod like this is normal. “Carry on.”
I jab a finger into her side hard enough to make her wince, and have to blink back tears. I’m just so damn pleased to see her, listening to her make jokes even when she knows this is serious.
It takes me a moment to pick the thread back up. “So yeah. Home. Stayed there a couple of days, then got kidnapped by Declan.”
She blinks twice. “You mean that in the hot, romantic, whisked-off-your-feet kind of way, right?”
“No to romantic.” Yes to hot. “Yes to whisked off my feet… in the drugged and shoved into his pickup kind of way.”
“What?”
“Woke up at a house in San Fran.”
“What?”
“You guys all right?” Dario asks.
“Make coffee, Dario,” Tasha snaps back.
He turns away and mutters some more.
“Yeah, so that was yesterday,” I continue. “I escaped last night when he was sleeping.”
She gives me a look that says she knows there’s a whole heap I’m skipping over. “He kidnapped you then let you go?”
“Kidnapped?” Dario echoes in alarm.
“For fuck’s sake.” Tasha turns on him. “If you can’t make coffee in silence and without eavesdropping, go for a goddamn walk!”
“Jesus.” He holds his hands up. “Making coffee, making coffee.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “He let me go.” Kinda.
“So… you…” She shakes her head in confusion. “Did you escape or did he let you go?”
I may have just contradicted myself. “A bit of both?”
“Girl, did you bang your head?”
“No.” I take a breath and let it out. “He got lazy, okay? I escaped because he thought I wouldn’t, I guess.” He trusted me to stay. Now I feel even more guilty.
He’s the toxic one. He’s the betrayer.
The thought gives me strength, and I lock my jaw, meeting Tasha’s gaze.
“So he let you go.” She says it like that’s the answer.
And just like that, my confidence fades.
Did he let me go?
He didn’t try that hard to keep me. A man with more ropes than most people have opinions, and I walked straight out.
“I guess,” I admit.
Now I’m forced to wonder why. Did he intend for me to leave? Or did he genuinely believe I wouldn’t?
My bike, parked right there. Keys still in my jacket.
Shit. Is that trust, or arrogance? How am I supposed to know?
“I didn’t know he had a house in San Fran,” she says thoughtfully.
“Neither did I,” I say with significance, proof that Declan is a dodgy bastard.
“Then again,” she adds, “I don’t really know him.”
“Neither do I.” Thought I did; I don’t. And it’s all on me. He’s got half our diamonds and Kurt’s box, and it’s on me.
“Thought you did,” she says, echoing my own thoughts. “You, of all people.” Her head tilts. “Didn’t you two spend like a week living together after he got shot?”
That just rubs salt in the wound. “…Yeah…”
“You didn’t talk?”
“We talked,” I say defensively. I asked questions; he evaded them. “It’s complicated, okay?”
“So… you broke your phone, went home, he kidnapped you—which I’m still struggling to get my head around, by the way—then you left and came here. And the diamonds? Kurt’s box?”
I wince. “Declan has them both.”
Her eyes widen. “You gave them to him?”
“What? No! He took them, Tasha. While I was drugged in his goddamn pickup.” Or probably when I was tied up half-naked in his basement.
“Huh.” She leans back, looking concerned. “Maybe he’s not who we thought he was, after all.”
Finally. “No shit.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to…” Hours on a park bench, three more on the road, and I still don’t have an answer to that.
“Find out who he is,” Dario suggests, leaning against the doorjamb of the kitchen, sipping from the coffee he was supposed to be making for me, then taking a bite of his sandwich.
He gestures with it, dropping a glob of mayo on the floor in the process.
“You know him better than anyone else. There must be somewhere you can start...”
I lean back against the sofa, mind racing.
“…Some clue you can dig into?” he adds.
“Dario, shut up.” Tasha’s watching me.
“You’re an annoying bitch sometimes,” he says sharply.
“Just be quiet. She’s thinking.”
Actually, I’m done thinking. It’s time to act. “I need a gun. Either of you got a gun?”
Tasha’s lips press thin, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Sure.” Dario takes a bite of his sandwich and speaks around it. “You want one with a silencer?”
Thousand Oaks is an hour away. It takes me fifty minutes, but only because I have to stop for gas again.
Tasha gave me money and a spare phone, entering her number into it with patient resignation. In case I wanted to call her and ‘discuss this impulsive plan.’
Impulsive, huh? Like drugging someone and kidnapping them?
I ride unerringly to the house I followed Declan to, pulling up in the same spot as last time, watching it for a minute.