Chapter 23
MAEVE
Maeve’s room was a palace and a prison.
Silk sheets, carved wardrobe, and a vanity with gold filigree curling like vines. Dresses shimmered like water hung in the closet, tags still on them. A chandelier threw prisms across the walls when the breeze slipped through the balcony doors.
And yet, the windows were barred. The door had two guards posted outside. Every polished surface reflected not her beauty, but her captivity.
Maeve shoved a jewelry box off the vanity.
It clattered, spilling pearls across the floor like marbles.
She stomped across them barefoot, uncaring.
She wanted them to hurt. She wanted something real.
Most of all she wanted to know if Wolf was okay.
She laid her hand on her stomach and closed her eyes.
Please let him be okay.
Eyes fluttering open, she glared at the room and her chest burned with rage. Not just at Carlos, though he deserved every bullet the world could offer, but at Dean…Mercurio…whatever his name really was.
He’d been in the office when they dragged her in. His face had seemed shocked, but then he’d stood there mostly silent, letting Carlos gloat, letting her be paraded. At dinner, he’d moved like a soldier, protecting them when the bullets started flying. And it didn’t match, none of it matched.
How could the boy who once saved her also be the man who let those men chase her down and drag her back? How could he let them hurt Wolf?
She pressed her forehead to the cool barred window and whispered, “Wolf, where are you?”
The door clicked.
She spun, fists ready, throat tight with the scream she’d been holding back, the gun Dean had given her a solid weight hidden against her back.
Dean slipped inside, closing the door with a soft click behind him.
He turned and it was as though his shoulders filled the room, like an intrusion and a shield all at once.
She didn’t remember him like this. All she had were memories of a tall, skinny boy.
But the boy had become a man, and his intelligent gaze cut into her.
The guards hadn’t stopped him. That alone made her wary.
“Get out,” she snapped, pulling out the gun he’d given her.
“I can’t,” he said, voice calm. “Not yet, and I didn’t give you that to use against me. It’s to protect you from my father if he comes in here. Put it away in case someone sees.”
She slowly did as Dean said and then paced away from him, running her hands through her hair, tugging hard enough to sting.
“You shouldn’t even be here, or did your father send you to placet me into handing my body over for him to use?”
He screwed up his face like he just ate something sour. “Please don’t compare me to that fucking asshole. I’m not here for him,” Dean cut in.
That made her smirk, but she wasn’t going to let him know that that. She turned, eyes blazing. “Then who the hell are you here for? Because you abandoned me years ago and suddenly, I’m kidnapped and here you are like fucking deja vu.”
He flinched, just barely, but enough that she saw it.
“I never stopped watching,” he informed. “Never stopped protecting, even when it looked like I was gone.”
“Bullshit.” She laughed, pacing toward the vanity, opening and slamming a drawer shut just to hear something crack.
“You left me. You left me in that firehouse like garbage on a doorstep. Do you know what happened after? Do you know what it’s like to be passed around from one rotten foster home to another?
To be used, raped, broken, told you’re nothing over and over until you start to believe it? ”
Her voice shook, but she needed him to hear this. The tears burned hot and wild, and she let them fall.
Dean didn’t move closer. He stayed where he was, letting her fury batter him.
“I drowned myself in anything I could and anyone who promised to make the pain stop and the voice in my head go away, even if it was only for five fucking minutes,” she spat.
“And where were you, huh? Watching? From a distance? ‘Always watching.’ Is that what you’re telling me?
Like some goddamn ghost who couldn’t be bothered to step out of the shadows? ”
His chest rose and fell once, slow. “Yes. But I lost track of you while I as in the army. I was deployed multiple times, and was gone for six months to a year at a time. When home, I’d look for you, but I had no idea that anything like that was happening.”
“Yeah, well it did.” She crossed her arms. “So, what happened? You get out of the army and come back here to daddy?”
His face shifted and the calm was ripped away, showing off the rage and pain under his mask. “No.”
Maeve took a deep breath to try and steady herself and walked over to the bed to sit down. She leaned back on her arms. “Tell me then. What happened?”
“First, I need you to understand that we were being hunted, that’s why I left you, not because I wanted to.
We weren’t safe and I couldn’t stay anywhere long enough to get a job.
I couldn’t take care of you and keep you safe.
Every time his men got close, I had to make a choice.
Expose myself and lead them straight to you, or for us to run.
I chose distance. I chose survival for you.
The firehouse was the best I could think of at the time.
Do I regret it? Yes, in many ways I do. If leaving you ended up with you getting hurt, then I regret that. ”
Maeve looked down at her lap, she hadn’t known about the men following them, but it made sense. Carlos wasn’t just going to let them leave without sending people.
“I didn’t know if he knew where I’d gone once I enlisted, but I knew that if he did, he’d be monitoring me. If I was near you, Carlos would’ve found you.”
She shook her head violently as she warred with all the hurt emotions and his logic. “You don’t get to wrap it up and call it love.”
“It wasn’t love,” Dean said, voice gravel. “It was survival. For both of us. Living free from being turned into him or you into a child bride was my only goal.”
Her breath caught. For a moment, she couldn’t look at him, because if she did, she would see the boy who had held her hand and whispered she would be safe. The woman she had become could understand his words through a different lens, but the abused child inside her still clung to the pain.
Still, she looked, because she was a fool, and she saw the guilt etched in every line of his face.
Dean took a deep breath. “What happened to Wolf?”
“What about Wolf?” She demanded, seizing the anger again before her heart betrayed her. “I don’t even know if he is alive, do you?”
“I don’t. I had been trying to help keep them off your tail, but every bit of contact was risky. I didn’t even know they’d caught you,” he admitted, a heaviness was visible in his eyes.
Dean shook his head and stepped away from the door and walked over to the window to stare outside, the moon shining on his face. Maeve could see the worry and dark circles under his eyes.
“I sent Morry to you.” He glanced at her.
“When I got out of the army and found out where you’d landed, when I saw how bad it was getting, I couldn’t come myself.
But I sent her. I told her to keep you close, to protect you, to keep you clean.
And she did. She had no idea who you were or why you were important to me. ”
Maeve blinked.
Morry. The biker.
The one who had dragged her out of hell and refused to let go.
“You—” She faltered. “You did that?”
“Yes, and Trev, and Wolf…” His voice caught, then steadied.
“I sent help to set you free. When my father found your trail again, I tried to help by having Wolf sent after you. He is the best tracker I know. He’s stubborn, and completely relentless, but honest. The kind of man who’d follow you through fire.
I prayed he’d find you and take you to Trev or Morry, but you stayed in one spot too long and they found you again. ” He shook his head. “Fuck.”
“Are you blaming us?”
His head whipped in her direction. “No. Just wishing…wishing for something that didn’t happen. I will see what I can do to find out Wolf’s status for you.”
Her throat tightened, rage wobbling into something else she didn’t want. “I love him,” she admitted. “I…I’ve never known real love until him. He must be okay.”
Dean stepped toward her, each step slow and measured, like he was approaching a wounded animal. He stopped when he was just close enough that she could smell the soap on his skin, see the faint scar under his jaw. He squatted in front of her but didn’t attempt to touch her.
“You’re right, Maeve, I wasn’t there. And I’ll never forgive myself for that. But I’m here now. And I swear to you, I will find out about Wolf…I won’t let my father touch you.”
The room went silent, save for the pounding of her heart.
She looked away from Dean, no longer wanting to see her tears. “Why are you here? I don’t understand why you’re even here.”
Dean’s face twisted, pained. “I’m as much of a prisoner as you are.
He came to mine and Yasmine’s house with guns and men, my kids were right in the middle.
I couldn’t take the chance on one of them getting hurt.
We were forced to come back here to this hell.
Once I arrived and realized that he was using the Righteous as a weapon, my plans changed.
I couldn’t just kill him and run. The man controlling them needs to die as well.
I also need to know who took you so I can figure out how many of them are happily working on the wrong side of what is right.
” Dean ran his hand through his hair, the stress evident now that she was calmer.
“Until then, I’m playing a role, but I’m not the reason you were brought back.
I’m just waiting for the right moment to tear it all down. ”
She stared at him, chest heaving, torn between wanting to claw at him and collapse into his arms.
“Why should I believe you?” she whispered.
Dean’s eyes locked on hers. “Because I’ve already betrayed him for you. And because the only reason you’re still alive to hate me is because I never stopped fighting for you. Even when it meant staying in the dark. I have never stopped caring about you, Maeve.”
Her lips parted, words stuck in her throat. “Mauve.” It was the only word she managed to get out.
Dean’s lip pulled up. “Yeah, I remember.”
“So, are you Dean or Mercurio?”
He slowly stood. “While I’m inside these walls I’m both.
” Dean wandered toward the door and hesitated, like he wanted to stay and talk, but Maeve wasn’t ready for that.
She was barely holding herself together, trying not to show how being back here after all this time affected her. Caught in the spider’s web once more.
“Just so you know. I’ve also been in contact with your father. They thought you were dead, but they’re ready to help me bring down my father and be reunited with you.” His eyes held so much sadness. “I really am sorry for everything.”
With that he slipped out as quietly as he’d come in and was gone.
Maeve grabbed a chair from the desk, jammed it underneath the door to keep out any more unexpected guests, hid the gun, and got ready for sleep. Dean said he was playing a part, she wanted to believe him, but moreover she knew she had to do the same.
Being beaten or starved wouldn’t help her, and it certainly wouldn’t help the child she might be carrying. If she was pregnant and Wolf didn’t make it…
No don’t think like that.
She rubbed her stomach.
I will get out of here and back to Wolf, that’s all there is to it.