Chapter 17 Saint
Saint
The truck doesn’t turn the way I expect.
I don’t know where we are. The couple of times I’ve been out of the cabin, Calder’s never let me drive, never let me see the route out of the immediate area.
But I know we’re not going back there. The road feels different, smoother.
And we’re heading deeper into the valley instead of up into the mountains.
“Where are we going?” My voice comes out smaller than I intend, hoarse from crying.
Levi glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Your house.”
“What house?”
“Your house. Yours and Calder’s.” His eyes flick to Calder slumped in the passenger seat, then back to the road. “On the main property. Been waiting for you since the wedding. Well, since Calder was eighteen, but he prefers the cabin.”
My stomach drops. The main property. Where Roman lives. Where his eyes can watch us, where his reach extends to every corner, where there’s no escape.
The cabin was isolated, hidden. This will be the opposite. Exposed. Monitored.
“I want to go back to the cabin,” I say.
“Not happening.” Levi’s voice is gentle but firm. “You’re a Bishop now. Bishops live on Bishop land.”
I press myself against the door, wishing I could disappear.
Not pointing out that Calder is a Bishop and the cabin is still on Bishop land.
My cheek still throbs where Roman hit me.
In the dim light from the dashboard, I catch Calder’s reflection in the side mirror.
His face is a mess of bruises and cuts, one eye already swollen shut.
He took that beating because of me. Because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Because I had to react when Roman degraded us.
The memory of Roman’s hand connecting with my face makes me flinch. The sound of it. The shock. The pain that exploded across my skull.
And then Calder, rising from his chair with murder in his eyes.
We turn off the main road onto a smaller drive. In the headlights, I can see a house emerging from the darkness, smaller than the main house but still substantial. Log and stone construction, wide porch, windows reflecting the truck’s lights back at us like watchful eyes.
This is supposed to be home.
It looks like another cage.
Levi parks near the front steps. Sawyer pulls up behind us in his SUV, engine still running. The brothers move with coordinated efficiency, helping Calder out of the passenger seat. He can barely walk, leaning heavily on Levi as they guide him up the porch steps.
I follow because there’s nowhere else to go.
The front door is unlocked. Inside, the house smells like fresh paint and pine. Someone’s been here recently, preparing it. Furniture arranged in the living room. Kitchen stocked. A home ready for the newlyweds.
It makes me want to scream.
“Bedroom’s upstairs,” Sawyer says, helping Levi maneuver Calder toward the staircase. “First door on the right.”
I hang back in the entryway, watching them half-carry Calder up the stairs. His boots scrape against the wood with each step. The sound echoes through the empty house.
I should help. Should do something other than stand here frozen. But my body won’t cooperate, shock settling into my bones like frost.
Roman’s going to brand me. Burn his mark into my skin like I’m livestock. Like I’m property.
The thought makes my stomach heave.
I stumble toward what I hope is a bathroom and find one tucked under the stairs. Make it to the toilet just in time to empty what’s left in my stomach, which isn’t much. Not after I already puked in the bushes.
When there’s nothing left, I sink to the floor, press my hot cheek against the cool tile, and try to remember how to breathe.
A knock on the door. “Saint?” Levi’s voice, gentle. “You okay in there?”
“Fine,” I lie.
“I’m leaving a glass of water outside the door. And some ibuprofen. For your face.”
My face. Right. The handprint that’s probably already turning into a spectacular bruise I’m sure.
“Thank you,” I manage.
His footsteps retreat. Murmuring voices filter from upstairs, then the sound of the front door opening and closing. Truck engines starting. Driving away.
And then silence.
I don’t know how long I sit there on the bathroom floor. Long enough for my legs to go numb. Long enough for the tears to stop. Long enough for the shock to fade into something harder, something that feels almost like anger.
Finally, I push myself up. Splash cold water on my face. Avoid looking at my reflection in the mirror because I don’t want to see what I’ve become.
The glass of water Levi left is sitting outside the door, along with two white pills. I swallow them dry, chase them with water, and make my way upstairs.
The bedroom door is open. Calder’s sitting on the edge of a large bed, shirt off, revealing the damage Roman inflicted. Bruises are already blooming across his ribs. One particularly nasty one is over his stomach, where Roman’s boot connected.
He looks up when I enter. His good eye focuses on me; the other is swollen nearly shut.
“You should get some rest,” he says, voice rough.
“So should you.”
“Can’t. Hurts too much to lie down.”
I hover in the doorway, uncertain. This is supposed to be our bedroom. Our bed. The place where we’ll... what? Play house? Pretend to be a normal married couple?
The absurdity of it would be funny if it weren’t so insane.
“There’s another bedroom down the hall,” I say. “I’ll sleep there.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Calder shifts slightly and winces at the movement. “We’re married now, so we will share a bedroom. That’s how this works.”
“How this works?” Anger flares hot in my chest, burning away the numbness.
“Your thoughts on marriage are very messed up. None of this works how your family thinks it does, Calder. Your father just beat you half to death and promised to burn his mark into my skin. There is no version of reality where any of this works.”
“That might be true, but this is our reality, sweetheart.” He meets my gaze steadily with his one good eye.
“We aren’t playing by society’s rules anymore.
You’re a Bishop now, bound by Bishop rules and laws.
You want to survive the next week? You play the part.
All of it. Including sharing a bed with your husband. ”
“I’d rather sleep on the floor.” It’s a lie, and I know I’m being stubborn, but I’m tired of being ordered around and told what to do.
“If you want to sleep on the floor, then sleep on the floor, but you’ll do it in this room with me here.”
The fury building since Roman’s hand connected with my face finally breaks free from my chest. “I’ve done everything you asked me to do.
I lied to my father. I married you. I went to the rodeo.
I’ve played the perfect wife, and even let your father smack me around.
Is that not good enough?” I gesture at my face, at his battered body.
I’ve never been hit by another person in my life.
Never had to fear being abused, and now I wonder if that’s a fate I will have to learn to accept.
“You aren’t the only one sacrificing things, Saint. You aren’t the only one suffering.”
“Your father hit me, Calder. He hit me, and you let him.” I shake my head. “I’ve never been hit by another person a single day in my life, and now I wonder if that’s something I’ll have to learn to endure.”
His gaze sharpens, and the predatory look he gives me might have a reaction if I weren’t already afraid for my life. “I let him?” A disbelieving laugh escapes him. “I didn’t let him do anything. Any bigger of a reaction on my part and he would’ve hurt you more.”
“You brought me there knowing what he’d do—”
“No, I brought you there to keep you alive!” He half shouts the words startling me, then his voice drops to something cold and lethal. “Do you really think so little of me that I took joy in watching him put his hands on you?”
“I don’t know.” I can feel the tears burning at the back of my lids.
“This isn’t how I would’ve done it, Saint. If I made the choice to make you mine, if there wasn’t an urgency to save your life and keep you safe. I would’ve done it the right way. I didn’t want any of this to happen.”
All the emotions and pain I’ve been trying to bury rupture at once, too sharp, too loud to contain.
“That might be true—” The words splinter apart, my breath hitching.
“But that’s not what happened.” I try to swallow it down, but it’s useless.
A broken, wounded sound claws its way out of me.
“You don’t understand—” My chest caves inward, and a sob punches out of me so hard it folds me at the waist. “Why didn’t you just do it?
” I choke out. “Why didn’t you kill me? It would’ve been kinder than this… than what I’m being put through.”
The silence stretches between us, taut and terrible.
This isn’t about sleeping arrangements. It never was. This is about something far worse.
Finally, Calder speaks. “What do you want me to say? That I wish I would’ve killed you?
Because I never will. I’ll never want you dead in place of being here beside me.
I’m sure that makes me a selfish prick, especially with all you’ve gone through, but it’s the truth.
The thought of losing you made me feel out of control.
I couldn’t do it. I don’t lose control. I don’t make irrational decisions.
I don’t second-guess anything. Except with you. ”
I’m not sure how I should feel right now. His confession hangs in the space between us, and it sounds deeper than survival and protection. It sounds like… I don’t dare say the word inside my head or out loud. I cut the thought off like cutting the head off a venomous snake.
I can’t wrap my head around the fact that the man who kidnapped me and subjected me to all these terrible things is the same man who just said he couldn’t bear the thought of me dead.