Chapter Eleven Annabel
Naked after his last attack, I lay on my side with him pressed against me. As his fingers skimmed over my back, I prayed that even though it was early in the evening, he would fall asleep.
He had been gone most of the day. Business meetings of some sort. He had returned, finely dressed in one of his thousand dollar suits, and reeking of alcohol.
“Go put on my dress shirt,” he commanded.
Since I always did just as he asked, I slipped out of bed. My feet padded silently across the cool marble floor as I went over to the chair where he had tossed his shirt. Quickly, I slid it on and buttoned it up. Because of his height, it reached my knees.
With a flick of his wrist, he beckoned me to him. “Come here.”
I drew in a breath of trepidation, but immediately, I went back over to the bed.
Mendoza stared up at me, drinking in my appearance from head to toe. “Mmm, you look sexy in my clothes.” He shoved his hands into my hair and jerked my head closer to his. Within seconds, his lips were moving frantically against mine.
In another time and place, far from here, I might have considered his dark, chiseled features handsome.
But because of the monster I knew him to be, I never looked at him without thinly veiled repulsion.
His ego was so enlarged that he expected me to enjoy his rapes.
At first, I had wept inconsolably during it, and in turn, I got beaten.
I had learned very quickly to use my imagination.
Instead of Mendoza, I pretended it was Brad Pitt or Henry Cavill in the bed with me—anything to endure it.
He pulled me down onto the bed beside him. After rolling on top of me, he shoved up the dress shirt. “Roja,” he murmured against my lips.
I disconnected the moment he slammed into me.
Instead of Mendoza, with his black soulless eyes looming over me, it was the gentle, caring eyes of Dr. Josh Jenkins.
What I imagined with him wasn’t even sexual.
It was more about the kindness he had shown, the dimples that appeared when he smiled, his caring bedside manner with his four-legged patients.
Because I missed him, the animals at the clinic, and most of all my former life, I found myself murmuring, “Oh Josh.”
Mendoza’s pounding in and out of me immediately ceased. When I finally dared to open my eyes, his menacing gaze made me shudder, even though I knew better than to show any reaction to him. “What did you say, bitch?”
“Nothing,” I whispered, as I cowered away from him.
His fingers came to curl around my neck. “I’ll kill you for letting another man’s name come off your lips.”
When his other fist blasted into my cheek, I began to scream.
***
My eyelids fluttered as I tiptoed the line between consciousness and unconsciousness. Someone was shouting my name. “Roja!” “Annabel!”
I focused all my strength on the one who called my real name. When I dared to open my eyes, I found myself staring into the kind, concerned face of Rev. I exhaled a breath of relief. It had been a dream. Just a dream. I wasn’t back at Mendoza’s.
“Are you okay?”
Since I couldn’t speak, I merely nodded. My body shivered and shook like a newborn colt taking its first steps. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to stop the tremors.
Without saying a word, Rev’s strong arms reached out to draw me against him. “Shh, it’s all right. You’re safe,” he murmured against my ear.
My trembling arms came up to wrap around him.
I burrowed deeper into his chest, into his warmth.
Closing my eyes, I pressed my face against his pectoral, searching out the sound of his beating heart.
I marveled at the thought that a relative stranger could provide the comfort I so desperately needed.
“You want to talk about it?” Rev asked.
Only with him would I allow myself to go there. I swallowed hard. “It was about that last night with Mendoza…how he wanted to kill me.” The tremors ricocheted through me again like I was being shaken by someone.
Placing his hands on each side of my face, Rev pushed my head back so I could look into his eyes. “Believe me when I say that you never have to worry about Mendoza hurting you ever again.”
“How can you be so sure?” I whispered.
A menacing cruelty replaced the compassion on Rev’s face. “Because I will put a bullet between his eyes before he ever has the chance.”
My heartbeat skipped erratically like it was playing a manic game of hopscotch. For a moment, my instinct was to recoil away from him, disgusted by what he had just suggested. I couldn’t fathom how the compassionate and caring Rev could also be a cold-hearted killer.
Rev stared down at his hands. “I’m sorry if I disappoint you, but that’s who I am. I will protect what’s important to me. You need to understand that.” I knew he spoke the absolute truth from the look of determination that was etched across his handsome features.
I shook my head. “Regardless of what you say you are, I could never let you do that. If you got caught, you would go to jail because of me.”
“It would be worth it to end the life of such an odious and despicable creature. Mendoza doesn’t deserve to live.”
Although I wanted Mendoza dead even more than Rev, it was still hard hearing him say the words. Anxiety ricocheted through me, and before I could stop myself, I blurted, “But if you went to jail, then I wouldn’t get to be with you anymore!”
Rev’s smile once again sent my heart skipping, and it amazed me how quickly he could shift from intimidating to sweet and tender. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But if you—”
“I won’t get caught.”
“How can you possibly believe that?”
“Just trust me.”
“Rev—”
“Because I’ve done it before.”
My brows furrowed in confusion.
He shook his head slowly back and forth as if he were trying to get me to see the light. “I’ve killed before, and I’ll kill again.”
A tremble ran through me at his words. My savior couldn’t be so soulless. He saved lives, rather than taking them. He dried my tears and comforted me, which wasn’t part of a killer’s profile.
With my stomach rolling in revulsion, I argued, “No…no, you’re not like that.”
“But I am.” He exhaled a tormented breath. “Right now it’s easy in your frame of mind to think of me as only a knight in shining armor. But that’s just make believe. When my club, my brothers, have been threatened or in danger, I have fought with them. And I have killed with them.”
I sat in a dumbfounded stupor as the veil of my ignorance concerning Rev and his brothers was stripped away.
Besides my time with Mendoza, I had never been in the presence of a murderer before.
When I was a little girl, I had seen the faces of Death Row inmates on signs when groups of protestors were petitioning my grandfather for clemency.
They had scared me as a child, and they scared the old Annabel of a few months ago.
But if I was truly honest with myself, the new Annabel was only slightly alarmed.
Maybe it was because I had been through enough to see things weren’t completely black and white in the world.
There was a gray area which many unsuspecting people were pushed into against their will.
Maybe they were defending themselves against violence and it got out of hand or they could have been avenging those they loved. Who was I to pass judgment?
Rev must’ve misread my silence because now he was the one putting distance between us as he rose off the bed. “I’m sorry if I’ve scared you. I don’t want you to think badly of me. But I want you to be able to say I was always honest with you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I’m not so sure you do right now, but I think you’ll come to appreciate it in the next few days. I think it will make it easier to get on a plane to Virginia once we get back to Georgia.”
“I’m not going back to Virginia.”
His brows shot so far up his forehead they disappeared into his hairline. “Did you not just hear what I said?”
“Every word.”
“Then what is your problem?” he demanded.
A borderline hysterical laugh burst from my lips. “My problem? I’m pretty sure I have more than just one problem, and at the moment, your past is the least of them.”
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Have you ever just walked up to someone and shot them for the hell of it?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Of course I haven’t. Who the fuck do you think I am?”
“So if you’ve reached that point of violence, basically you’ve only killed when you had to—when you or your brothers were threatened or because an innocent girl was being held against her will?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Then I’m thinking perfectly clearly when I tell you nothing you have said would induce me to want to leave.”
Rev stared wide-eyed at me. “How can you of all people condone what I have done? Maybe you think it’s okay, but if you knew all the things I’ve done, if you really stopped and thought about it, I’m not sure you would feel the same way.”
“It’s not for me to judge you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“Anyone with a moral compass has the right to judge me.”
I rose off the bed and crossed the room to stand closer to him. “Do you regret what you’ve done in the past?”
Rev stopped his manic pacing. After running his hand over his beard, he replied, “Yes. Yes, of course I do.” His eyes, which were somewhat cloudy, met mine. “Regardless of what type of person they were, I took their life. I took away someone’s son, someone’s father, someone’s husband.”
“But you regret it,” I said softly.
He closed his eyes. “Yeah, I do.”
I placed a tentative hand on his arm. “But don’t you see? By showing true repentance for what you have done, then you can find redemption. All one has to do is ask for forgiveness to whatever higher power or being you believe in.”
Rev shook his head.“As long as I keep doing it, then I’m not truly repentant, am I?”
More than anything I wanted to make him feel better, but at the same time, I knew I had to be honest with him. “No, I suppose not.”
Jerking a hand through his tangled hair, Rev sighed.
“Maybe that’s why coming to Mexico was so important to me.
It was vital I do everything within my power to help Sarah.
That somehow there would be redemption. That it all came together because of what I’d been through and because of what Breakneck had done for me. ”
At that point I felt my heart might burst with the magnitude of respect and admiration I felt for him. Maybe even some form of love. I realized then I could go the rest of my life, and I would never meet another man like Rev.
I scooted down the bed to be closer to him. “Rev Malloy, I think someone would have to try very, very hard to find a man with as pure a heart and kind a soul as yours.”
His expression clouded over. “You’re wrong.”
“No. You just keep trying find those bits of redemption, and all the pieces will fall together.”
“I really want to believe that.”
As I surveyed his face, I realized something. “You know, I don’t think I know your real name.”
He winced. “It’s Nathaniel.”
“That’s a beautiful name.”
“I’m glad you think so. The only person who gets away with calling me that, though, is my mother.”
“It makes sense it’s a biblical name since your father was a minister.”
“You think I look like a Nathaniel?”
Tilting my head at him, I replied, “I think you look like a Rev to me.”
Rev laughed. “I’m glad to hear it.” He glanced at the clock on the desk. “Think you can sleep now?”
The prospect of being in the dark, alone, and facing my nightmare again caused my stomach to churn. “Would you lie down with me?”
K
“Just until I go to sleep.”
As he appeared to be fighting his emotions.
I pulled back the covers so we could both get inside. Rev turned out the light on the nightstand. Once we had laid down, I scooted as close to Rev as I could. Although I was probably making him uncomfortable, I was more than happy to be selfish in the moment and only think of myself.
As we lay in the dark, a thought came to my mind. “The other day when you recited Annabel Lee was that all you knew?”
He groaned. “Why do I get the feeling that if I say I know more I’m going to end up being forced to perform?”
“I’d love to hear it all.”
“I’ve got to learn to tell you no,” he muttered.
Then after drawing in a deep breath, he began to recite the poem.
I closed my eyes and burrowed against him.
The deep, rich timbre of his voice relaxed me.
And although the poem’s content was rather depressing, I focused more on a man whose love for his Annabel Lee could not even be stopped by death.