Chapter Eighteen
My frustrated footsteps echo in the hallway as I make my way to the bedroom. I don’t want to bombard Sara when she’s upset. That being said, she has to understand how things work around here. She can’t demand answers from me in front of others. I don’t care if she does it when we’re alone—or even in front of the house staff.
But not in front of my business employees.
I don’t need anyone thinking they might be able to get the jump on me. It would be bad for everyone involved—Sara included. I get to the bedroom door and pause just outside, listening. There’s nothing but silence, and while it leaves me unnerved, it’s better than hearing her sobbing.
I take a deep breath and knock. It’s time for her to know the truth. And I’ll make sure I don’t have any interruptions this time around.
“Sara,” I say softly. “We need to talk about what happened.” I hear a shuffle on the other side of the door, and I wait, wondering if she’s actually going to answer. Much to my relief, the door swings open, and Sara steps aside, letting me in.
I take in the sight of her arms folded across her chest and her eyes puffy from crying. I hate what I see. I wanted this entire experience to be a good thing—not whatever this is.
“Well?” she asks, her tone sharp and callous.
“I think you need to understand how things work around here,” I begin, clearing my throat. “When I say go, you must go. When I say to shut up and leave it, I mean it—”
“Wow, okay. So you’re not a controlling—”
“Let me finish what I’m trying to say,” I assert firmly, bristling at the interruption. “I run a lucrative business, and if I’m weak to anyone that comes around, it could get both of us hurt or killed. You have to fucking listen to me.”
“A lucrative business, huh?” Sara scoffs, shaking her head. “I don’t even know who you are, anymore.”
“Then take a seat, and I’ll tell you everything.” I gesture to the bed, and Sara reluctantly makes her way to the edge, before taking a seat. Her blue eyes stay locked on me, her entire body tense.
“Do you want me to start from the beginning? Or do you want to ask questions?” I try to give her the option to have some control over the conversation, hoping that it might make things easier for her.
“Why did you disappear?”
“Ben Grenado,” I answer flatly. “He took me for a debt Will owed him and made me work it off. I had to protect you by staying away.” It’s the truth and the only one I have to offer her. “It took me a long time.”
“Years.”
“Yeah, years,” I echo her. “I know it sounds like bullshit, but after a while, I went from being his punching bag to something more. And he gave me a portion of the territory to run and operate. That’s how I built this for us.”
She makes a face at me, her nose scrunching. “Us?”
I swallow hard, my stomach doing flips. “Yes, us, Sara. That’s all I fucking thought about. I just wanted us. That’s why I went through hell for you. I got clean without—” I stop myself. She doesn’t need to know about the sick deeds of her stepfather. “I worked hard to give you this life, so the least you can do is listen when I’m around my employees.”
“You’re a drug dealer.” Her jaw drops in understanding.
“Um, yeah.” No point in lying to her. “I also own an ecommerce business if that makes you feel better. It’s grown a lot in the last couple of years. I could probably get out of the drug business and just do that.”
Except I don’t want to.
Her top teeth chew into her bottom lip. “So you were kidnapped by some guy and held for like, what, seven years? And not once, could you reach out to me?”
Shit. She’s making it sound almost unbelievable.But she doesn’t understand the lengths I’d go—and have gone—to keep her safe. The threats were there, and at the time, there was nothing I could have done to stop something horrible from happening to her.
“It’s a complicated world, Sara,” I say softly, dropping to my knees in front of her. She winces as I place a hand on either of her knees. “But I would’ve come back sooner if I’d known that Ron was back on his feet. I just wanted to have something to give you.”
Her eyes hold mine, glistening under the warm lights.
“All I wanted was you.” Her words hit like a ton of bricks to my chest, and I tighten my grip on her knees.
“I wasn’t good enough for you then. I was… I was in some deep shit, dealing with everything that had happened to me. I had to do what was best for us.”
“And that was to disappear?” Sara pushes at my hands, but I don’t budge.
“I told you I didn’t have a choice,” I growl back at her. “And pushing me away isn’t going to change anything, Sara. You’re here to stay. I’ve made good on my word.”
She glares at me. “You’re keeping me like a prisoner. I don’t want to be your prisoner. I don’t love you anymore.”
Anger, frustration, guilt, and pure hurt ravage my chest. I get to my feet, seeing red as I do.
“I gave everything for you. I put up with that fucking asshole of a stepdad you had. You never protected me from him, did you? Did I blame you? No, but here you are, trying to hold something over my head that I can’t control. Do you know whose fault it really is? His.” My blood boils at the thought of Will. I hate him more than I hate Ron.
But I’d never tell Sara that. She has no idea of the scars that asshole left on me, and now, I’m not sure she could handle the truth.
“You’re always pointing fingers at everyone else, but yourself,” she fires back, shoving at my chest. “That’s your problem. You don’t take responsibility. All Will ever did was hit you—”
I come at her, wrapping my fingers around her neck and stopping her words. “You don’t know what I went through for you. You think Ron was bad? Maybe you should’ve taken a closer look at dear daddy. He liked to beat your mom, but he liked hurting me more.”
Sara’s eyes are alight with anger as she tugs at my grip around her throat. I’m not holding her tight enough to cut off her air supply, but it’s enough to make her uncomfortable.
“What did he do to you?” she asks bluntly.
I try to shove off the thoughts that are threatening to flood my mind. “He wanted to humiliate me. He wanted to end me for what I did to his brother. He wanted to make sure I’d never be good enough for you.” In truth, Will had done just that. And he’d succeeded in ridding Sara’s life of me. For seven years.
“You always said that, but you were so messed up on pills or whatever you could get your hands on. I didn’t even know what to think, Aiden. You were supposed to be my knight in shining armor, and instead you were just like my mother.” Her eyes fill with tears as she gazes up at me, and I struggle to breathe, my heart tearing apart at the comparison.
For a long time, I was hooked on the pills Will introduced me to. I had to shove that shit down my throat to escape the pain of what he was doing to me. But it only created more pain. Will ruined my fucking life and took his pleasure in completely destroying me.
I take a sharp breath, trying to work through the trauma that she doesn’t need to know. “Okay,” is all I say, dropping my grip on her and letting her plop down on the bed. “You can hate me, if that’s what it takes.” I pause, meeting her gaze with a darkness I never wanted her to see.
“But you’re not fucking leaving. If you want to be a prisoner here, then that’s what you’ll be.” I recognize the venom in my voice, seeping out with every word.
She glares up at me. “Fuck you, Aiden. Fuck. You.”
“It was good while it lasted.” I chuckle dryly, ignoring the confused look on her face. “And for the record, Ron isn’t the only man with a weird fetish for abusing others, Sara. He’s just the only one who was open about it.”
Her face twists, but I don’t stay to watch her process it—if she even does. No, I turn my back on her, angry and hurt. I came up here hoping to work out a minor issue and then move forward. Instead, she got the truth, which wasn’t even good enough for her. And now, she has the audacity to point the finger at me for leaving. But I know for sure the pervert never touched her. No one has touched her but me.
It”s just too fucking bad it doesn’t go both ways.
I slam the bedroom door behind me and head downstairs. I slip through the kitchen and head to the study, where Carlos is flipping through the video footage.
“Well?” He looks up at me, amusement flashing across his face. It’s brief and probably because he sees I’m not happy. “Take it the wife doesn’t like authority?”
“More like doesn’t like me,” I mutter, plopping down in a desk chair beside him. Honestly, the entire interaction makes me feel sick. If Sara’s not smart enough to read between the lines of what I told her, then I’m not sure what I’ll do with her.
Maybe she belongs in the house with the others.
Maybe she truly hates me.
I take a deep breath and reach for the top left desk drawer to pull out a cigar box. I grab one up and light it, taking a long draw.
“Oh shit, must be bad, boss.” Carlos’s eyes widen at me. “You sure she’s the right one? You know there’s plenty of women who’d lay down at your feet…probably offer to suck your dick twice a day.”
I curl my lip in disgust. “I don’t want anyone but her. She is who I will have.”
Something flashes briefly across his face, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he shifts the security film to show a man coming in from the woods, busting the lock on the gate, entering the courtyard, and then freezing in his tracks.
My heart jumps to my throat. “Show me the angle of what he’s looking at.”
Carlos nods. He flips the angle around, and sure enough, there’s Sara. The guy is frozen in his place, staring at what’s mine. Savage jealousy pumps through my veins.
This guy has to fucking die.
“We need to figure out who this is,” I seethe. “Sooner rather than later.”
“That would be great,” Carlos huffs. “If I could figure it out. The guy avoids the cameras as if he knows they’re there. I don’t know who would want to sneak into this place anyway. Everyone knows better.”
“Unless they think they can beat me.” I hate competition, and I hate arrogant competition the most.
“No one can beat you. You have the Grenados in your pocket.”
“We have to look into this, and I need more security, clearly.” I hate the idea of having more men hanging around the house, but I hate the idea more of something happening to Sara. She’s been seen now, and it could put her in danger. Someone could take her to get to me—and I don’t like that.
She might go willingly, too. Just to get away.
I have to get through to her. I have to get her to see me as the Aiden that she fell for all those years ago. I don’t know if I can even find that man, but I’ll damned sure try if that’s what it takes.