Prologue
PROLOGUE
ZOE DANIELS, A WOMAN WHO SHOULD HAVE JUST STAYED HOME
Game day with my sister is always fun. No. That’s a lie. Game day with my sister when my face doesn’t look like it’s been through a meat grinder is fun. When it does, everything sucks. I cake on the makeup, wear the longer sleeves that cover up the marks on my arms, and put on my best smile. If it weren’t for my love of baseball, I wouldn’t leave the house. It’s the one time I don’t get any shit at home. Can’t have the family that’s married to a big baseballer finding out he’s an abusive jerk, can we?
Why do I stay? I’d love to give you some big story, but the truth? I’m terrified to leave. He’s threatened my family. My friends. Last time I tried to leave, he promised to post videos of me that I didn’t know he had. I found the cameras after that. Facing the bed, over the shower, in our closet where I change. I can’t let that happen. I run a daycare center in town. Could you imagine the exodus of my kiddos and the parental rage if those were released? I swear, if it were just me, I wouldn’t care. But I have staff to think about. People who would suffer if we couldn’t pay the bills. I can’t let that happen. So I’ll continue to do what I’ve always done. Hide the truth. Get through it. Do what I can to keep him happy—and keep my secrets safe.
“Zoe!” Amberly yells, waving her arms at me as I enter the seating for the WAGS—wives and girlfriends—of the players.
“Amberly!” I yell back, pulling on all my strength to act excited.
“Aren’t you burning up?” she asks, pointing at my sleeves.
“No. There’s a cool breeze today.”
She looks at me like she knows I’m lying.
The game is close at the bottom of the sixth. The Diamond Cove Sails are only two games out from clenching their division, and other teams are trying to keep them out. I’m on the edge of my seat as my brother-in-law, catcher Eddie Randolph, runs out to the mound where Carter Bailey is wiping the sweat from his brow.
“I swear, if I wasn’t a happily married woman…” My sister smirks, fanning her face. “That Carter is just…lick-able.”
“And also very married,” I remind her.
“Ehh, that bitch can jump off the freeway for all I care.”
“Amberly!”
“What? She’s a horrible person. Have you seen how she treats her daughter? And Carter? Fuck her.”
I don’t reply, never having the nerve to say anything out loud about another man. I’m surprised I’m even allowed to attend because of all the men around.
“Let’s just watch the game?” I ask my sister.
“Fine, but I can still look at his ass.” She grins, turning back to the action on the field.
He does have a fine ass. I’ll give him that. If you look up baseball-butt in the dictionary, there would be a picture of that man’s ass in his baseball pants for all the women to drool over.
We enjoy the rest of the game, the Sails winning by three, and I follow her down into the tunnels leading to the locker room. We’ll meet her husband and grab some food before the calls will start, demanding I come home, where he’ll probably accuse me of cheating on him and I’ll go to my happy place until he passes out for the night.
While waiting for the team to come out, I lean against the opposite wall, trying to keep out of the way, stay small, and never get caught on the camera where others might see.
“Hey, what’s on your face?” Amberly asks while we wait, reaching up to touch me before I can stop her. “What the…” She fades out as she brushes her thumb under my eye.
I instinctively reach up, trying to move her hand, but in doing so, my sleeve moves, and the bruises I have on my arm are at eye level.
“Zoe.” She grips my hand gently, pushing up my sleeve. “Please tell me this didn’t happen how I think it did.”
I close my eyes, wishing for the wall behind me to open up somehow, but that never happens. “I can’t,” I whisper.
“Fuck him!” she seethes. “You aren’t going home.”
“I have to, Amberly. You don’t understand. I have to.”
“Fuck that. No. You do not.”
“I have to.”
“Give me one good reason why,” she demands.
“Because he’s going to ruin me if I don’t.”
“The hell he will. You stay right here. Don’t move.”
I open my eyes to see her march across the hall and bang on the door.
“Eddie! You need to get your ass out here right now!” she screams.
I sink down, my back against the wall, hugging my knees. Make yourself small. Maybe he won’t see you. Won’t pay attention to you. Won’t hit you. Or scream at you. Make yourself small and live to see another day.
The door swings open, Eddie standing there half dressed, a look of worry on his face. Half the team is behind him, Carter Bailey standing at his side.
“What’s going on, Amb?” he asks, looking up and down the area.
“You need to get your gun. We’ve got a prick to kill and then we’ll have a body to bury.”
“Probably shouldn’t say that with the cameras around, babe.”
“Fuck the cameras. Let them know I’m coming. Fuck with my sister, I fuck with you.”
“What’s wrong with Zoe?” he asks, looking around again, finally landing on me.
“He hurt her,” she grits out.
“Who?”
“Her sorry excuse for a husband, that’s who. And I’m going to end his life.”
I lower my head, not wanting to watch the show anyway, squeezing my eyes closed. When I feel someone standing over me, I look up and into the steel-blue eyes of one Carter Bailey.
“Can I sit here with you?” He nods at the wall.
“It’s a free country,” I tell him.
He slides down next to me, his feet sticking out so far they almost touch the opposite wall.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
He grins, his dimple popping. “Is there a reason you stay?”
I roll my head to the side, taking in the man sitting close to me. Too close. I can smell his just showered, fresh scent. I can see the flecks of silver in his eyes. The way the light shines off his still damp curls. But he looks like he cares. Like maybe he knows something about something. And I go for it.
“He’s got videos of me. In compromising positions. And he’s threatened to release them if I leave.”
“That’s gotta suck.” No talk about how stupid I am, or what a loser I am.
I nod. “Pretty much.”
“You know, blackmail is a pretty big deal. What would you say if I told you I might know someone who could help you with that little problem?”
“How?”
“I might know a hacker. Or two. And maybe I know of a company who helps people like you get out and start over.”
“People like me? You mean cowards and losers?”
“No. I mean people who just need the right help. Because while your sister is great, and I’m fully on board with the bullet through the brain like she wants, that’s not really what you need, is it?”
I shake my head, biting my lip. His eyes widen just a fraction before he looks away.
“All it would take is a phone call,” he says to the wall across from us.
“And you think you could really get me out? Without ruining my business or life?”
“You’ll never know if you don’t ask.”
“I can’t ask. Don’t you see? He tracks my phone. He tracks who I talk to and text with. If he knew I was sitting here with you?” I’m shaking my head before I finish talking. “He’d kill me.”
“If you don’t ask, he’s going to eventually do that, anyway.”
Amberly slides down the wall on my other side, taking my hand, pushing the sleeve on this arm up, too. “Zoe,” she breathes, “what happened that made him do this?”
I look at my arms, trying to see them from someone else’s point of view. I could say we were playing around and he gave me a twist burn. But these are welts and bruises that look like perfect finger marks. His finger marks. My eyes finally fill with tears, and I purse my lips, trying to hold them in.
“Let us help you,” Eddie says, crouching down in front of me, the three of them forming some kind of human shield around me. “We can help.”
“Can you, really?” I look at my brother-in-law. “Can you keep him from releasing what he has and killing my business? Keep me from becoming blacklisted?”
“Yes,” Carter says from my side, and I believe him. “Trust me. Please.”
I look at these people, two of them my family, and one mostly a stranger. Why would he help me?
“If you can promise me that my life isn’t ruined, I will try to trust you,” I finally tell him, releasing a gust of air from my chest.
“Let me make a call.”