Chapter 12
Aspen
I jerk my head back, pushing all my weight into the back of the armchair I'm sitting in when he rushes across the room and leans down into my face.
The man I knew from years ago wouldn't frighten me, but the warning in my head is assuring me this man was no longer the one I once thought I knew.
"You manipulative fucking bitch," he growls, his scarred cheek twitching with rage and irritation as he glares down at me. "We're going to help the fucking kid despite you. But there's no fucking point in lying about him."
I swallow again, the lump that formed before I told my biggest secret refusing to clear. I look up at him. This is the only damn truth I have.
"I'm not lying."
I don't flinch when he moves in so close I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face. Even thinking he was dead, I've imagined telling him he's Eli's father a million times, but rage and barely withheld violence was never what I pictured when he learned the news.
His lip twitches as if he still doesn't believe me.
"I found out I was pregnant a week after Damien dragged you from the room." I pull my head back farther so I can dash away the tears leaking down my cheeks without coming into contact with him. "I knew he'd kill our child and probably me if he found out, so I lied. I had the wedding moved up, and when I went into labor, I had the help of a nurse to lie for me."
His eyes dart between mine, his beautiful green irises still trying to figure out if I'm lying to him.
"Can you imagine what I've been through?" I growl when he doesn't seem to believe me but also refuses to back down and give me some space.
"What you've been through?" he snaps, standing to his full height and pointing at the scar on his face. "Look at my fucking face, Peach!"
I hate that we have an audience. This isn't something that we should have to go through with witnesses. If he wasn't yelling at me, and if there weren't two other men in the room, making him think he has to act a certain way, I'd tell him how incredibly handsome he was even with the scar on his face. But I can't whisper those words to him. He has to prove how much of a man he is right now, and that means there's no way for me to win this argument.
"How in the world would he ever believe Eli was his?" he argues.
"Because I had to consummate our fucking marriage!" I scream, hating that he stayed in the shadows while I suffered under Damien all these years. "He wanted children very early. He wanted to cement his place in the family in case Dad ever tried to take away what he was promised. He never missed a fucking night trying to make sure I was pregnant as quickly as possible."
"Jesus fuck," Samuel whispers, but his reaction to what I've had to endure doesn't deserve recognition.
I watch Luke's face turn from rage to disgust as he begins to fully understand what I've told him.
"You may never be able to forgive me for what I didn't do that day, but our son is innocent. You need to let me go so I can ensure that he's safe."
He scoffs as if my words mean nothing. "We'll make sure you and the boy have a new identity, and you can live out the rest of your days without having to worry about Damien Gaines."
I shake my head. He can't guarantee anything. He doesn't have any clue just how willing Damien is to hurt everyone around him until he gets the information he wants. He'll leave a trail of bodies behind him in his quest to find us, and I can't have that on my conscience.
"Jericho?"
I snap my eyes at the other man, the one who patted me down outside to check me for weapons. He's been mostly silent since we came inside. I don't have to be an expert on watching people to know that Luke, or should I say Jericho, is the one calling the shots right now.
The man I once knew looks at the other guy, and my heart kicks up several notches when he takes the phone from him. I didn't hear the thing ring, but it's very possible I was either yelling too loudly or it was on silent.
Jericho keeps his eyes on me as he listens to whoever is on the other line, and I see the change in him within seconds.
Whatever he's hearing is bad news, and despite the years between us, I know him enough to know when he's trying to hide something from me.
"What?" I snap, feeling a little hysterical when he keeps his eyes locked on me but doesn't answer my question.
"Let me know what you find out," he growls before shoving the phone back in the other man's direction.
"What happened?" I yell again, but he turns his back to me.
I'm out of the chair in the next breath and across the room until I'm pulling at his shirt. I'll be damned if something happened to my son and he isn't telling me about it.
Instead of facing me and telling me the truth, he grabs me by the wrists and drags me across the room, shoving open the door on the far wall and pushing me inside.
"Is it our kids?" I hear Samuel scream. "What fucking happened to our kids?"
He closes us into the room together, fully ignoring Samuel's screams.
"Wh-what happened? Is Eli—"
"He wasn't where we thought he was," he tells me in a calming tone, but I can hear an edge of fire in his voice as he speaks. "We'll find him, Peach. I promise."
I pound on his chest. He's the whole reason we're in danger. But if he had never existed, I wouldn't have Eli, so I can't exactly wish I had never met him because our son is the greatest gift I've ever been given. Although, I don't deserve to be his mother for the danger he was born into. There's no going back. I can't change those decisions now, and living with regret gets me nowhere.
He pulls me to his chest, and although I try to resist him, needing more answers, needing to know what the plan is to get Eli to safety, I melt into him, attempting to let his warmth comfort me. But even this hug feels like a lie.
He isn't touching me because he cares. He's comforting a crazed woman in order to get her to calm down because unhinged people are dangerous to everyone involved.
I push back against him because, more than anything, I want to tell him how much I've missed him, how much I wished things were different.
I can't let myself get lost in him. That's what set all this shit into motion in the first place. I let myself get lost in the escape his green eyes and warm arms provided. I put myself in danger. I put him in danger and, in turn, now Eli is in danger. This man and I may deserve everything we have coming, but Eli is a hundred percent innocent in all of this.
He stares down at me, and for the briefest of moments, less time than it takes to fully inflate my lungs, we just exist. For a fraction of time, I can forget all the pain I've felt over the last several years. I can shove away the guilt that always coated me when thinking about him dying for loving me.
All of it is gone.
"I've missed you so much," I whisper, feeling safe in his gaze, but as quickly as he lets the wall drop, it goes right back up.
I can't let this moment pass us by, no matter how much he seems to want to push me away. I stayed silent at the very most important time in my life, and I swore I would never make that mistake again.
"I should've left the first time you asked me to. The life we could've had." I choke back tears as I step closer to him, my hand covering his heart. "I would do so many things differently."
He takes a step back, physically grabbing my hand and pulling it from his chest. "We'll do everything in our power to keep you safe and make sure that Eli isn't left at the hands of an evil father, but this isn't me trying to get you back."
I'm left in what I discover is a small bedroom when he walks out of the room.
I eye the window to the right, wondering how far I'd get if I climbed out of it, but they'll either catch me before my feet hit the ground or I'll die of hypothermia before I can flag someone down and beg them for a ride back home.
Damien would expect me to fight with every ounce of life left in me to get back to him, and he wouldn't take anything less as an excuse. Fear can't come into play because I don't think the man fears anything. He sees himself as invincible, the leader of the world. He expects the same from everyone else around him.
For some reason, I have faith that Jericho will do exactly what he has promised, and that's the only thing that keeps me in this room. I may have to consider taking an alternative approach if things shift in a different direction.