Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIX
CHAOS
She’s not breathing right.
Vanessa scrambles sideways, sliding off the counter, her foot collecting me in the throat in her haste. “I’m sorry,” she wheezes, hand clutched to her chest. “I…” Her lips move, yet words fail to come out.
“Hey.” I hastily wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and push to my feet to go after her. “Baby, stop. Just sit down.”
She takes a sidestep, legs weak like a fawn, and collapses to the floorboards. Panicked eyes gaze up at me. She’s so beautiful when she’s vulnerable like this. No. Not now.
“Look at me.” I drop to my haunches before her. “Focus on me. You’re here. With me. Safe.”
Her chest rises, yet it’s a staggered, hyperventilated breath. Vanessa swallows, over and over, to dislodge the lump in her throat.
“Fuck.” I glance around me, frown when I don’t see what I need, and launch toward the hallway. “I’m not leaving you.” The affirmation falls naturally from my lips. Habit, thanks to Selena.
Murphy stretches when he sees me enter her room.
“Where the fuck are you when she needs you?” I mumble to the asshole before ripping the bedspread from beneath him. “Selfish fucker.”
Vanessa’s right where I left her when I re-enter the living room: legs bent—one beneath her and one poking out beside her—hands clasped to her breastbone.
I throw the heavy blanket over her, dropping myself to the floor and bundling the fabric around her stomach.
“Five things you can see.”
She stares at me wide-eyed. Surely she’s come across this exercise before with her history of therapy?
“What can you see, Vanessa?” I growl the order, fixing the way the blanket cradles her face.
Her mouth moves, and she wets her dry lips. “You.”
“Good.” I reposition myself so that my legs envelop her, thighs cinched around her knees. “Four more.”
“The chair.” Her gaze shifts over my right shoulder, voice raspy. “Window. Lamp. Rug.”
“Five things you can hear.” I carefully pull her hands away from her chest, enclosing them in mine.
“The clock.” She frowns as though fighting a smile. “You breathing. My heartbeat.” She pauses, head turning slightly. “The blanket when I move. I don’t know what else.”
I draw a deep breath. Already better. Relief has my grip tightening over hers. “Five things you can feel.” I barely get the words out, too focused on my senses absorbing her proximity.
“The heat of my skin,” she states. “The floorboards. My twisted T-shirt neck. Hair tickling my shoulder.” Her eyes lift. “And you.”
“A guy could get a big ego from featuring in each one of those lists.”
She smiles, ducking her head. “You’re everywhere.”
“As I should be.” I scoot closer, coaxing her half onto my lap. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I want to make sure I never do it again. I want to make sure there’s no chance I could hurt her.
I want to hurt the reason she shut down on me.
Vanessa swallows, curling her back to rest her forehead against my chest. It’s perfect—except for her racing heart and trembling legs. “What did you manage to piece together after reading my journal?”
“About what, specifically?” The blanket slides down to her shoulders, and I lift my hand to stroke her hair.
“About my past.” She draws a deep breath.
I knit my fingers into the hair at her nape and massage her scalp with my fingertips. “Your stepfather was an abusive and controlling asshole. You escaped him, but it cost you your mother and brother. You left everything behind to survive and feel immeasurable guilt about that.”
She remains silent, and I wonder if I pushed her too far, too soon, by bringing it all up.
“What else?” Her whispered words melt into my chest.
“He limited the information you got.” I drop a heavy sigh. “You mention that you didn’t know much about how banks worked, insurance, or taxes until you left his control.”
“He didn’t let the women have cellphones,” she states in dead monotones. “Or computers. We couldn’t read the news. He allowed us to go to school, but we had minders on the staff who ensured we only socialized with approved students. We would have been schooled on the compound if it were up to him.”
I stiffen. “What do you mean, compound?” That one word can be applied in so many ways. Was he a drug smuggler? A religious nut?
Was she part of a fucking cult?
Why do I not know this already?
“To everybody else, it was Providence Oaks,” Vanessa says with a sigh. She leans back, head down, as she fidgets with her hands between us. “If you look up the name, you’ll find an old webpage they created to sell the lots in the subdivision. But it was all a front. Nobody bought there without an invite.”
“An invite?” I rear back a little to see her face.
She lifts her chin, gaze hooded, and stares at me with dead eyes. “From him. My stepfather.” Vanessa sighs, twisting away to support her weight as she gets to her feet.
I resist the urge to snag her hand and pull her back to me. She moves away to isolate herself, probably because she feels like a burden sharing this shit. I get it. I do the same thing.
But she doesn’t need to stand alone anymore.
“What happened there?” I get an inkling I already know. Deep down, I’ve already read her vague intonations in her journal, seen the pain in her eyes, how she shields herself from the world, and I’ve done the math.
The rage heats my skin before she utters a single word.
“He sold us.”
“The fuck you mean he sold you?” Is this cunt a sex trafficker? Have I pegged this situation all wrong?
“Exactly that, Chaos.” She sweeps through to the kitchen, and I’m forced to follow to hear her words. “He sold my life away one hour at a time.”
“Like a pimp?”
She shrugs one shoulder, and it’s that fucking blasé attitude she has toward the things this man did to her that makes me want to hunt him down and rip his goddamn face off. She shouldn’t be so accustomed to the pain that it doesn’t enrage her anymore. Doesn’t matter.
“Sort of,” Ness answers, reaching for a coffee cup. “Do you want a drink?”
“Nope.” I need a gun. About five feet of rope and maybe a shovel. “Was she part of it?”
“Who?” Vanessa frowns.
“The woman who was here yesterday.”
Her eyes widen. I’ve said too much.
“How did you know about her?” Her concern morphs into frustration. “Did that guy Circus tell you?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I jerk her cutlery drawer open and pass her a spoon.
She raises an eyebrow, seemingly curious about how I know my way around her kitchen.
What can I say? There are cameras. I watched the old footage before turning in last night.
“No.” Her raven hair shields her face as she busies herself with the coffee maker. “She wasn’t part of it but knew about it.”
“And she did nothing?” I lean my hip against the counter and fold my arms.
“She couldn’t.” Vanessa sighs out her nose as she dumps a spoonful of sugar in the mug. “It’s complicated, Chaos. He has connections everywhere. It’s hard to know who you can trust when they hide their true faces so well.”
“Who does? His followers?”
She snorts a little laugh. “It’s not a cult.”
“You’re sure making it sound like one.”
“It’s a conglomerate,” she explains. “A bunch of wealthy men who agreed to help one another stay atop their respective ladders, no matter the cost.”
I wet my lips and draw a deep breath through my nose. “I still don’t see how that means he sold you off by the hour.”
“Because men get to those places by trading favors.” She peers at me cautiously from the side of her eye. “And most men in positions of power get off on that feeling of control. Of unchecked dominance over another human being.” She hesitates, looking at the spoon in her hand. “They want to feel like gods.”
Does she see me that way? My heart thuds against my ribs.
“What made you say the word, Ness?”
She drags the back of the spoon back and forth on the counter while the coffee machine sputters its final drops.
“I can’t avoid doing it again if I don’t know what I did.”
Her brow furrows. The spoon stills. “Maybe it’d be easier if you picked someone else to obsess over.”
“I’m not obsess—“ The word dies on my tongue. Fuck. Yes, I am. “Nobody else makes me want to.”
She jerks a silent laugh, lips curling at the corner as she retrieves the mug.
“I’m fucking serious, Vanessa.” I reach out and coax her to face me, my palm against her cheek. “I’ve never put anything before the club until now.”
“You shouldn’t do that.” She moves out of my reach, crossing to the living area. “It’s against your code, or charter, or some shit, isn’t it?”
She isn’t wrong.
Your loyalty stays with your patch.
Brotherhood above all.
“Let me worry about that.”
Each chapter sets its own damn rules.
“Can you answer the damn question?”
Back to me, she settles on one of the two armchairs. “Not tonight.”
A bolt of anger shoots through me, forcing my muscles tight as I rein the urge to smash a fist into something. She doesn’t need that. And besides, it’s not directed at her. She has every goddamn right to choose not to talk about her trauma when it hurts her like this.
But damn, I want to take that pain away.
And not knowing how has me feeling all kinds of useless.
“Do you want me to leave?” My breath thickens in my throat as I wait for her answer.
She takes her time, fingers slowly moving around the mug in her hold. “Do you?”
“If I wanted to go, would I ask if you wanted me to stay?”
“That’s not what you said.”
For fuck’s sake. “Does it matter how I worded the question?”
“Yeah.” She turns her head side on. “It does. Because if you asked me if I wanted you to stay, you’d want to make sure I feel the same way. But you didn’t. You asked if you should go, which means you’re seeking a reason—permission—to leave.” She presses her lips tight. “So leave, Chaos. Get the fuck out while you can.”
It’s too late for that. I could walk out that door and never return, yet it’d do nothing to get her out of my head—my life. “I don’t want to leave.”
She sighs. “What do you want then?”
I open my mouth, yet she cuts me short.
“And don’t say me because any man in his right mind wouldn’t want this hot mess.”
“Good thing I’m not in my right mind, then.” I approach her chair, settling my hands on the back.
She refuses to turn around and look at me. “I’m not some project you can fuck around with for fun, Chaos.” Her tone is soft. Sad. “If you try to fix me and fuck it up, there’s real consequences at play.”
“I know.”
“I’ve had men use me to fulfill their savior complex before. It never ends well. Especially for me.”
“I don’t want to save you.” I want her to save me.
To remind me that even the things people perceive as wicked or evil are entitled to love.
To a soulmate.
My fucking phone rings, hacking into the moment like a dull blade. I wince when I dash away to retrieve the goddamn thing from her bedroom, returning to her side as I answer the call. “Yeah?”
“There’s been a development at the loading dock.” Jinx delivers the news in a lifeless monotone. “You planning to be here any time soon?”
Fucker’s sass is getting on my last nerve. “Be there in fifteen.”
Vanessa shifts her gaze, watching me from her hunched seat, cradling the redundant coffee.
“Darko is taking Selena to school today. You know, in case you care to know.”
My teeth ache under pressure. “Fine.” I disconnect before the asshole can fuck with my headspace any further and run a hand over my head, messing up my hair.
Ness tracks the movement, sipping on her drink.
“I ain’t leaving because you told me to.”
She smirks. “But it’s convenient, right?”
I shunt the phone into my back pocket, snatch the mug from her hands, set it aside, and then pull the woman to her feet. “Quit this shit.”
“What shit?” The spark in her eyes tells me she enjoys the banter.
“Degrading yourself. Acting as though I don’t want this.” I palm her ass, squeezing hard. “Or this.” Move my hands to cradle her head. “I read your words, Ness. I read them, judged you, and found you fucking worthy. So quit it, okay?”
She rolls her lips, looking away. “I’ll try.”
I smack her butt. “You won’t try—you will.” She gasps when I tug her face around and steal a kiss. “Gotta go, babe. Do me a favor and try out the camera on your new phone.”
She frowns as I back away toward her room to retrieve the rest of my clothes. “Why? So you can hack into that to watch me, too?”
“Nope.” Although, that’s not a bad idea. I duck out of sight, snatch up my T-shirt and cut, then continue once I’m back in the living room. “Because I’ve got a feeling the only thing that’s gonna get through this day is if you send me a titty pic.”
My girl laughs. Her beautiful eyes crinkle at the outer corners, lips curling up with her throaty chuckle. She snatches my shirt out of my hand, using it to whip me playfully.
And this girl thinks I can’t save her. Maybe not, but I can sure as fuck help her heal.
“You’d be so lucky.”
I thread my arms through my cut and nod toward my T-shirt as I head for the door. “Keep it.”
“Are you sure?” She follows, intent on handing it back.
“Positive. You look better in it anyway.”