43. Piper #2
Disquiet stirred in my belly. Sickness at him suffering this sorrow, yet knowing I wanted to stand with him in the middle of it.
“But then I met this girl. Scarlett.” Theo’s eyes squeezed closed with his grief, and his words turned jagged. “She tried to act tough, but she was sweet and innocent. Came to LA to find her dream and she found me instead. I dragged her into my world, and I left her there.”
It sounded of judgement.
His greatest sin.
Uncertainty whipped through my insides, and I curled my fingers into his shoulder as I urged quietly, “What happened?”
His head shook, and I could almost feel his throat close off. His shame snapping down around him. “I found her after she’d been beaten and left for dead. I knew she was my responsibility. That she’d been placed in my path for a reason.”
He inhaled a shaky breath. “She fell in love with me, and I…I couldn’t feel it back. It just wasn’t there. I wasn’t capable of feeling what I was supposed to feel. Fuck, I tried, Piper. I tried.”
His chest shuddered. “I tried to send her home. Tried to get her to go back to where it was safe, but it was too late. I’d already exposed her to my world, and she got wrapped up in this asshole who was a part of the MC.
I knew he was going to destroy her, and he did.
And there was nothing I could do because she knew I didn’t love her. Not the way she wanted me to.”
His arms suddenly cinched tight around me. Bands of severity that could never be broken. “I won’t do that to you, Piper. Promise, I won’t do that to you. I’m going to be enough for you.”
Fear burned on his flesh, like maybe he was terrified that he wasn’t.
That he couldn’t be everything that I needed.
That he couldn’t…
My mind raced back to earlier when he confessed how he felt. The professions that bled from his mouth.
He gave me all of him, yet he’d left out that single word.
Love.
Didn’t he know everything he confessed was the culmination of those things?
But I understood trauma. How the neglect of his mother would have scarred him, and whatever had happened with this girl had made him believe his mother’s disgusting accusations could be true.
“You are enough for me. More than enough. More than I ever knew I needed.”
He buried his nose in my hair, and he gripped me tight. “I will protect you with everything I have.”
His heart thrummed manic beneath me.
And I got it. Recognized his grief.
The complete loss that he’d carried as guilt and shame.
Whoever she was had died.
No question as a result of their lifestyle. When they were members of that MC. When they’d…
Horror trembled through me, unable to imagine Theo living that way.
Brutal and cruel.
So different than he’d been last night.
Because that…that was his sacrifice.
His giving.
Pure selflessness.
Putting himself in harm’s way.
In danger, both from the beasts they fought and the law.
I wanted to turn and press my mouth to his thundering heart and beg him to believe that he could love.
Convince him he was capable of it.
That he was worthy of it.
But I wasn’t sure he was ready to hear it.
“I know you will,” I murmured at his hot flesh instead.
His big hand spread out over the middle of my back. “Need you to tell me who you’ve been running from, Piper. Need to understand your situation so I can protect you from it.”
Old fear lashed through my spirit. Visions screamed through my mind.
Part of me wanted to hold it in, but I found myself whispering, “I was young. So na?ve and ignorant.”
Theo just waited, holding me until I was ready to talk.
My fingers traced the grim forest tattooed on his chest, the glow of the flames reflecting against his skin. “You wanted to love, Theo, and I just wanted to have some fun.”
He flinched.
“Except I got caught up in it. Swept away by this guy. His name was Justin.”
I’d already told Theo that I’d been running from someone, but I’d given him so few details. So little of my life when it felt like he’d become intrinsic to that life.
“I knew he was trouble,” I continued, “but I had no idea what that really meant. Nelly knew. She tried to warn me, and I just laughed it off.”
“Think she can see right through all of us,” he murmured in low encouragement.
“Yeah, she always has been able to. Like she has a sixth sense about people. I wish I would have listened.”
Theo’s fingers traipsed up and down my back. Soothing. A promise that he could hold whatever I told him.
But how could I admit this?
The secrets that I’d held for so long bellowed from inside me, but they felt too big to expel.
“I was nineteen. He…got me involved in some criminal activity. I was na?ve and had no idea what he was actually up to.”
How in the world did I admit this? Give it all to him? I didn’t even know if I could force the words from my mouth if I tried.
“When I realized how dangerous he truly was, Nelly and I left. Just ran like we could leave it all behind. Except I had something Justin wanted.”
I left out the rest of the horrible details.
Theo flinched below me.
“We traveled for years. Just the two of us. Then I met this guy named Jay in a small town in Kansas, and I decided I wanted to stay. Decided that enough time had passed that Justin would have forgotten all about me.”
I could barely swallow around the lump in my throat.
“Nelly and I were at the grocery store, and on our way back, I came up on the small house where we were living with Jay, and I just knew. I knew Justin was there. I could feel him. We kept driving and didn’t stop until we were halfway across the country.
The next day, I saw on the news that Jay’s body had been found. ”
Guilt and grief curled through me, and Theo’s muscles bunched with the information. I knew he was taking it inside. Making it his own. A piece of the vengeance that always prowled beneath his flesh.
“I didn’t know I was pregnant when we left.”
Theo’s jaw clenched. “And you’ve been running ever since.”
“Running. Hiding. Pretending.” I gulped. “I told you I didn’t want to put you in this danger.”
His head shook, and he fiddled with a lock of my hair. “And I told you I’m the exact kind of trouble you need. I will take care of you, Piper. Fight for you. Stand for you.”
Gratitude pulsed.
His mother had been so sickeningly wrong. This man was impossible not to love.
“Whittman isn’t your real last name, is it?”
I shook my head and held tighter to him.
“I’m going to need all of his information.”
I heard the pledge that was carved into that demand.
He was going to hunt him down and do the same thing to him that he’d done to Alicia’s husband.
Fear clamored through my being.
Is that what I wanted him to do? Put himself in the ultimate line of fire for me?
For my son and my grandmother?
My thoughts moved to the sheriff who’d shown up last night. Could he help? Guilt urged me to just come clean, but what would happen to Finn?
“I will give this to you, Theo. I promise. But I need to figure out a couple of things first. This is all so new, and I’ve been carrying it for so long.”
Violence tightened Theo’s face in brutality. “I’ll end him, Piper. Put him in the ground for hurting you.”
“I know.” I paused, contemplating before I continued, “The first several days after we got here, I had the sense that maybe I was being watched…that someone was out there. That same sense when I realized Justin found us in Kansas. But I realize now it was related to Alicia. I think someone had been watching her.”
“Yeah…that black SUV, plus there were a couple times I felt someone lurking on the grounds, too. Guessing he sent his guard here first to scout around to make sure she was here.”
“I feel safe, Theo. Safe here with you.”
“That’s because it’s you and me now. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“And Finn?” I needed to hear him say it again.
For him to claim this.
Us.
Old wounds flashed through his expression, ones I couldn’t quite place, and he swallowed hard. “Think that kid broke me wide open the first time I looked at him.”
My nod was tremorous. “I do need your help with something,” I told him.
“Anything.”
“Your uncle…Dr. Reynolds?”
Theo gave me a guilty smirk. “Not really my uncle.”
A soft puff of laughter rolled out of me. “I know. Emery told me about the day she found out about Kane after he’d been shot, and Dr. Reynolds took care of him.”
“He’s a good man. Risks his practice, license, and likely his freedom to help the women and children we protect.”
“Would he see Finn?”
Worry ripped through Theo. “Is something wrong with him?”
I shook my head. “No. He’s just…the only medical care he’s ever received is from different urgent cares where I paid cash. He’s never had someone really take care of him.”
Nelly had helped deliver him in a motel room. He didn’t have a birth certificate or a social security number. No real record of his existence except for the things I made up when I’d gone into different urgent cares.
God, it was all such a mess, and I didn’t know how I’d ever truly dig us out of it.
Theo cupped my jaw with his palm, his thumb stroking the apple of my cheek as he stared at me. The reflection of the flames lapped in his moonlit eyes. “This is his home now, Piper. Your home. Nelly’s home. And I’m going to see to it that you’re taken care of. In every single way.”
“How did I find this place, Theo? In all the places we’ve gone through the years? How did I end up here with you?” The awe flooded out of me as I traced my fingers over his plush lips.
He wrapped his hand around my wrist, and he swept the gentlest kisses over the tips of my fingers. “Because it’s where you belong. With me. You don’t have to be afraid. Not anymore. Not ever again. Because I’m always going to be with you.”
He brought my hand to the thunder of his heart. “You’re safe now.”