Chapter 32
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
LUKE
I told her the only truth I had. “That wasn’t ’cause of you, baby. That much I do know.”
“I can’t escape him.” She tensed with a tearstained face. “The first time I ran away was after…”
She didn’t have to say the words. I knew what she meant.
“He found me in less than two hours, and from then on out, I had guards on me at all hours of the day and night. They never left my side. The only refuge I had was my music. Once he learned of my skills, he exploited that, too. In the past sixteen years, I’ve tried to escape him several times, but he always finds me, and when he does, he makes me pay. No scars, of course—it wouldn’t be good to damage the merchandise—but trust me, he’s found ways to make me suffer. Bruises heal, Jameson.” She paused for a second, struggling to get the words out. “His favorite kind of torture was never physical pain. No… he loved to fuck with my mind and emotions. That’s what he got off on.”
“The cages,” I remembered from what he threatened her with earlier.
“Yeah…” she breathed out, reliving it through her gaze in mine.
I could see it clear as day as if I were the one it was happening to.
“His favorite game has always been to leave me in a cage for days at a time with the other slaves. I get to hear them cry. To beg for their lives over and over again. How hard they get whipped or burn or whatever the fuck else they do to them for their own sick pleasure. He reminds me every time that it could be me at the snap of his fingers.”
My heart hammered against my chest while my stomach churned.
“I’ve tried to fight him before, but I never get far. He’s broken my ribs, my arm, my wrist, and several fingers. One time, he fractured my jaw. I’ve had so many black eyes I don’t know how I can still see straight. There is no beating him. I’ve tried. We’ve all tried. Now, he has an arsenal of guards around him at all times, and he’s never not strapped. It’s just the way it is.”
“Sloan—”
“I can’t hide from him, Luke. He’s going to find me, and when he does, he’ll make you pay. You have no idea what you started by taking me. He’s not going to stop whether you kill me or not. I promise you, he’s going to murder your family in front of you while you beg for their lives and watch. I’ve seen him do that too.”
“What about your brothers?”
“Navarro and Xaviar hate him as much as I do.”
“They’ve never?—”
“Of course, they have.”
At least she had someone trying to protect her.
“He’s put them on their deathbeds because of it. They can’t do anything. They’ve tried, and he’s untouchable. The only thing they can do is play his game like I have to. I don’t know what else to say about it. I don’t begrudge them because it’s been harder on me. They know. They’ve apologized many times for how much they failed me. How disappointed our mother would be. I love my brothers, and I know they’d die for me if they had to. We were all dealt shitty cards, and this is just the way it is.”
“Are they?—”
“Yes. They run certain territories. My father wouldn’t expect anything less than them following in his footsteps.”
My mind was chaos. I needed to think, and I had no time to do it.
Something in the way she was looking at me let me know she’d never shared this with anyone before.
As if reading my mind, she confessed, “I tried to push you away, Luke. You know I did. It wasn’t an act. I didn’t want to work you over, but I had no choice. When I wasn’t getting any information out of you quick enough for him, he left me a reminder on my face of why I had to… Everything I felt, everything I told you, it was all true. It was how I felt, it was how you made me feel. I thought… I just thought you’d be like the rest of them. I thought it’d be easy, but you weren’t. I’ve been around men like you all my life, and all I wanted was for you to be the last man I’d have to fuck over. That’s what he promised me. He swore I’d be free after you, but I should have known better. It was just another one of his bullshit schemes to get me to play by his rules like he always does.”
I could see the trepidation in her eyes.
Our stares never wavered from each other as she slowly started to move her hand toward my chest, softly placing it over my heart.
With an unwavering gaze, she revealed, “I was never after you.”
Her pure devastation was so thick, so suffocating, I could almost choke on it.
“Don’t you see? It was one of the reasons I tried to keep you away from me. I never wanted to involve myself in anything. A huge part of me wanted to tell you the truth Sunday night after the shoot-out, but I couldn’t.” She slowly shook her head, trying to make me understand.
There was so much sincerity in her tone.
I wanted to believe her… God, I want to believe her.
She scanned my eyes, searching for the man she knew or for the man she wanted, needed me to be for her. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know where that man was.
I felt lost.
“What does he know about me?”
“Nothing. I lied to him. I covered for you. I told him you wouldn’t tell me anything. It’s why I had to leave without saying goodbye to you.”
Still confused, I asked, “How did you think I wouldn’t come for you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, Jameson… I’m just a broken girl, and I told you; you can’t fix me. I don’t want to be fixed. This is who I am. I’m his property. He sells me, or I’m his spy. However, the older I became, the more he used me for his cons. Those are the only two things I’m good for in his eyes. Nobody knows who I am to him. I don’t think anybody knows I even exist, which is a very lonely life. I’m defined by my identity, yet I hide from the world.”
I inhaled a deep breath, feeling the unbearable weight of her truths.
In a high-pitched tone, she mocked, “And to punish me for not being able to get any information out of you, there was a five-man party just waiting for me and only me. Once my next set was over, I was going to be passed around five men like a fucking rag doll. It’s why I learned how to fight to begin with. I needed to defend myself when I had nobody else to do it for me in a room full of killers who think they can do anything and get away with it.”
I winced. I couldn’t help it. This was all too much to take.
Too much to process.
Too much to stomach.
I’d never personally experienced evil quite like this, and it shocked me to my core.
What kind of father does this to their own flesh and blood?
Our connection never strayed from one another while I took in everything she confessed. Never in a million years did I expect it to turn out this way, and I’d be lying if I told you I knew how to process any of it.
“I can’t believe you thought I wouldn’t find you.”
“It’s not that I didn’t think you wouldn’t find me, Luke. It’s that I thought you wouldn’t bother to look.”
I tried to understand her reasoning, but I battled with it. I wanted to believe she knew how much she meant to me.
“You took a bullet for me. A bullet that my father had aimed toward me. A bullet that would have hit me had you not moved me out of the way… he’s never used me like that before. Never risked my life like that to get to an enemy.”
Unable to hold back, I argued, “He risks your life every time he leaves you alone with one of them.”
I didn’t know what else to say or where to even begin.
This wasn’t how I thought things would turn out. Maybe that was my first mistake. I’d been involved with this world for over two decades—to expect the unexpected was part of the thrill.
But at that moment, I didn’t feel anything but the inevitable consequences of my devious actions.
I hated myself for the man I turned into.
For the monster I became.
All my life, I thought I was supposed to be this way… that I was a Jameson. That it was in my blood to be a criminal. It wasn’t a blessing.
It was a curse.
I failed.
I lost.
I was done.
At the end of all this, all I could do was make it right…
Even if it might cost me my life.
When she exclaimed, “You’re not the first man to fall for me, Luke,” I grimaced again. Her words felt like fire against my already burning skin until she unexpectedly added…“You’re just the first man to make me fall for you, too.