Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
August 17 th
8:54 A.M.
Pain throbbed through his body, but it was the soft, sweeping fingers stroking his forehead that registered first.
While his mind was stuck in the haze that consumed him, Connor knew that touch.
Becca.
Something in him relaxed for the first time in twelve years.
That feeling turned out to be fleeting as his memories clicked back into place and the haze retreated. The village where Becca lived had been attacked and the two of them had been cornered. He remembered wanting to fire on the approaching vehicle full of men, but there was not a chance in hell that Becca would have survived. As soon as he started shooting, they would have shot back, and at least one of those bullets would have hit his moonlight.
Still, he’d killed the man who dared to strike her, and a rush of smug satisfaction had him lifting his hand to cover Becca’s.
She sucked in a small breath when he moved and her hand stilled but didn't pull away. Knowing that he was on thinner-than-thin ice with her, he soaked up this moment when he clasped her hand between his palm and his head.
“You're awake,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” he groaned, doing his best to compartmentalize the pain still pulsing through his system. He had no idea what had happened while he’d been unconscious, but he had to figure it out because he needed to devise a plan sooner rather than later.
“I was scared,” Becca whispered, and he could hear the strain in her tone. She was holding it together because she knew she had to, but he hated that she was once again in a position where her life was on the line.
Connor couldn’t help but feel this was his fault.
So far, he had no evidence that the strike at her village had anything to do with him. His family suspected the people involved in his mom’s rape, and her and his stepdad’s arrests and deaths were powerful. They had to be to have enough intel to have a Delta Force team ambushed and then pull strings and have two people set up as traitors.
Did they have enough power to pull off an attack on a village in Cambodia?
For the moment, it didn't really matter. Whether this was because of him or a random assault, the end result was the same. He had to get Becca out of there before she got hurt. Well, hurt worse than she had already been.
Unsure if she had been scared for him or just in general, Connor reluctantly released his hold on her hand and shifted so he was sitting. Doing a visual once over of Becca before he did anything else, he noted the small trickle of blood running down one side of her face from a small gash about an inch long on her left temple. A bruise was forming around it, but her dark blue eyes were clear, so he didn't think she had a head injury he needed to be worried about.
The way she sat, slightly hunched, one arm braced around her stomach did concern him. She’d been hit in the ribs as well and the last thing they needed was for the blow to have cracked or broken them. That was an injury that could impede her ability to escape, and worst-case scenario, lead to a punctured lung and death.
“Are you all right?” he asked, maybe a little harsher than he had intended but fear for her made it hard to think.
“I’m okay,” she said, and while they both knew it was a lie, she met his gaze squarely and gave a small nod. His girl had been through a lot and suffered more pain than he could ever imagine, and he knew she was telling him that she was hurting, but she could manage it.
“Did they put their hands on you again?” Anyone who touched her was going to die just like the man whose neck he’d snapped. If he could manage it, he’d make their deaths as slow and painful as possible, but getting Becca out of there alive was his number one priority, not revenge.
“No. Well, not really. They just put us both in the back of the jeep and drove us here.”
Waving her hands around she indicated to what appeared to be a tent. It was about ten feet by ten feet, there looked like metal posts were in the corners making a frame. The floor was dirt, and he noticed a metal ring cemented in the middle of the ground, with two chains running from the ring to where he and Becca were sitting.
Looking down his body, he saw that his shoes had been removed, and a cuff had been placed around his ankle attached to the chain. A glance down Becca’s body showed she was similarly bound.
“They didn't hurt you?” he asked again because he needed the reassurance of knowing that his need to kill the man who had hurt her, leading to him being beaten and passing out, hadn't wound up causing her pain.
“They didn't hurt me, Connor,” she assured him. “They dragged me to the jeep and threw me in, then dragged me back out and into this tent. They took off my shoes and yours, then shackled us both to the ring in the middle of the floor. Then they just left us here. You were still unconscious, and I was worried about you, so I pulled your head into my lap and …” she trailed off and her cheeks tinted pink.
She didn't need to finish her sentence.
He knew this woman inside and out.
When he was sick, she used to sit in the bed beside him, his head on her lap, and sing to him. Her sweet voice was like an angel’s, and it always washed over him in a soothing wave, cocooning him in a blanket of warmth and security.
Today she’d been scared and even though she was angry with him, had every reason to hate him, she’d still sung to him like she used to.
While Connor would love to believe that meant something, indicating he still had the teeniest, tiniest chance of winning back her love and trust, he couldn’t allow himself to believe that. Not yet. Maybe after they spent some time together, maybe when they weren't in danger, maybe then they could talk a little.
Still, he couldn’t let her comment pass without responding to it. He needed to make her understand how deeply he regretted his freak out that day twelve years ago. Connor was perfectly prepared to apologize for his mistakes every day for the rest of his life, but in the end, whatever happened next was up to Becca.
She held all the power.
“You sang for me,” he finished aloud what she hadn't been able to say.
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Becca muttered, shifting her gaze so it was fixed on her lap. Right where his head had been when he’d regained consciousness.
On the contrary, Connor thought it meant a lot.
Becca still loved him. At least part of her did. But she didn't trust him, which gutted him even as he knew he had no one else to blame for that but himself.
“I made a huge mistake that day, Becca,” he told her. “I let the stress of the previous months and all my pent-up emotions burst out in the worst way possible. I will regret that for the rest of my life.”
She sighed. A deep, weary sound, that spoke of pain and suffering. “Don’t you think I would have liked to bail on my life back then, Connor? But unlike you, I didn't get that luxury. Unlike you, I didn't get to decide this latest trauma was too much and just walk away. You promised me you would always be there. That nothing could ever make you leave me. You lied. You left me.”
Tears burned his eyes. “I know, baby. I’m so sorry. Sorrier than I can ever express.”
“He was yours,” she whispered, her voice a mere hint of sound.
But her words were powerful.
After he’d left that night and returned to their apartment to find her gone, no one had allowed him to contact her. Becca had blocked his number and blocked him on all social media, her family had shut him out, backing up their daughter and sister, as had their shared friends. He’d never known what happened to her pregnancy, if she’d had the baby or if she’d given it up for adoption, he just knew she wasn't raising a child now.
“H-he? It was a boy?” he asked.
“A boy. I lost him a month after you left. I needed to know …” Finally, her gaze lifted to meet his and he saw the tears swimming in her midnight blue depths. “I needed to know if it had been my rapist’s baby or if I'd lost you over nothing. My parents thought it was a bad idea and there was no good outcome either way. But they were wrong. When the DNA tests said he was yours, there was relief. I didn't want to be carrying that man’s child inside me. But there was also pain. Because you left me over something that didn't even exist. You left me because I was pregnant with your son.”
Those words pierced his heart, causing wounds that would never heal.
He’d lost the woman he loved and the life he’d wanted over nothing.
The baby had been his and he’d walked away not only from Becca but his own child.
There was no way she could ever forgive him for that.
And he didn't deserve to be forgiven.
August 18 th
2:16 A.M.
Things were awkward.
Becca hadn't meant to blurt out that her baby had been Connor’s and that he’d wound up leaving her for nothing.
It wasn't something she’d ever envisioned telling him.
What would be the point?
He’d already left, knowing that they weren't aware of the baby’s paternity and that she’d had sex with him a whole lot more times than she’d had it with the man who raped her. He’d already proven to her that he wasn't someone that she could trust through anything. And she’d already cut him out of her life.
Telling him would only dredge everything back up.
And the baby was already gone so it wasn't like she was keeping him from his child or anything.
If her son had lived, she would have swallowed down her pride, shoved aside her feelings, and done the right thing. She would have offered Connor joint custody and done her absolute best to co-parent the way her baby would have deserved.
But since she lost her son there hadn't seemed any point in saying anything. Felt like it would have just been rubbing in his face that he left her over a child that turned out to be his anyway.
So, she’d kept it to herself and asked her family to do the same.
There was never a time she would have anticipated coming face-to-face with Connor again. They were out of each other’s lives, which was for the best, so the conversation would never happen.
Only now, she’d blurted it out in fear and anger and that revelation rested heavily between them.
They’d barely spoken in what had to be close to twenty-four hours. They’d been left alone in the little tent for the most part, but someone had thrown in a couple of bottles of water and some scraps of food.
Even though Becca had insisted she wasn't hungry, Connor had made her eat something, telling her she needed to keep her strength up so they could take any chance that presented itself to escape.
But she didn't believe that chance was coming.
Despite the early hour, neither she nor Connor were asleep. Becca knew she should be exhausted, but she was way too wired to close her eyes and allow herself the respite of slumber. Throughout the hours, he’d stayed glued to her side, close but not touching, and even though she was still angry with him, she couldn’t deny if he offered her his touch, she’d soak it right up.
A couple of times, his hands had clenched into fists, and she could have sworn he was going to reach for her, but he never did. Every one of those times, her own hands ached to reach out to him, entwine their fingers, allow his presence and his touch to comfort her like it had in the days following her assault.
They could never go back to those days though.
She no longer trusted Connor.
One bad decision on his part, even though intellectually she understood it, had ruined all the years they’d shared, and nothing could ever be the same again.
A shuffling sound outside their tent had them tensing, and this time Connor didn't hesitate to touch her, shifting her so she was partly hidden behind his body. While it was still early morning, the men in camp remained out there drinking. Their rowdy shenanigans echoed through the tent.
Now one of them was there.
What did he want?
The flap shifted, and the light from outside illuminated a large, shadowy figure.
Scared, Becca pressed closer to Connor’s back, her fingers curling into his T-shirt as she clung to him. One of his hands moved behind him to sweep across her bent knee, even as she could tell his focus was on the approaching figure.
“Thought we’d have a little fun,” the man sneered as he bent down and unlocked the chain binding one of them to the ring in the middle of the floor.
She wasn't sure which of them had been unlocked, but Becca knew what men like this thought was a fun way to pass away the time and she had a ball of terrified anxiety sitting like a rock in her stomach.
Were they going to rape her?
Could she survive that again?
There was part of her that would love to believe she could handle anything, survive anything. If she’d been raped once and managed to work through it and come out the other side, building a life for herself, then surely, she could do it again.
The bigger part knew there was every chance it would destroy her.
Especially if Connor had to watch.
But it turned out she wasn't what they wanted.
When the man tugged on the chain it was Connor’s leg that jerked. And when two more men filled the doorway to the tent it was Connor that their gazes went to.
Another tug on his chain, and Connor went to stand, but Becca tightened her grip on his T-shirt. She couldn’t let him go. What if they hurt him? What if they killed him? Just because she hadn't asked him to come to Cambodia didn't mean he wasn't there because of her. And if he died in this camp in the middle of nowhere, she would blame herself. Being angry with Connor and no longer trusting him did not equate to wanting him dead. She just didn't want him in her life.
“It’s okay, moonlight,” he whispered, softly enough for only her to hear. “I’m glad it’s me they want and not you.”
Reluctantly, she uncurled her fingers only because she was worried if she didn't, and she delayed Connor from doing what the men wanted him to do, it would only make them angrier with him, and he’d be punished.
So she twisted her hands into fists and pressed them into her lap as she watched Connor stroll out of the tent like he wasn't a prisoner and well outnumbered. She wished she could bottle his confidence and drink a little of it. She so badly needed some.
Only when the tent flap fell closed, enclosing her in the dark, loneliness overwhelmed her.
She wanted to beg Connor to come back, to offer to stand beside him and endure whatever horrible thing it was those men were going to do to him. Anything so long as she wasn't alone.
People might think, given she’d been raped, that touch might be her biggest fear. It was something she feared, something that still had the power to make her skin crawl and her insides clench.
But it wasn't her biggest fear.
Her biggest fear was being alone.
Just like she’d been that night.
Just like she’d been when Connor walked away.
This time, it might not be his fault. She knew he’d walked out of the tent without a fuss only so that their captors’ attentions were focused on him and not her, but he’d still walked away. It was still the same result. She was still alone, and she still wished he was there.
No matter what he did, what changed between them, her soul still craved his.
After her assault, they'd had what she was sure everyone else would think was a weird way of him comforting her. But it had worked for them. It was a way for Connor to return her control over herself and what happened to her, a way for her to seek his comfort in the way she needed it.
What she wouldn't give to have that comfort right now.
To have his steady, warm, strong presence beside her.
But you didn't always get what you wanted.
That was something she knew all too well.
A shift at the door of her tent had her straightening. Were they done with Connor already? Was he coming back?
If he was, she was going to have the conversation with him that they both needed. They both needed to feel free to move forward with their lives without the chains of the past binding them to it. She’d tried and assumed Connor had, too, but now looking back, she knew that she’d only been pretending. Trying to convince the world—and even herself—that she could conquer her trauma and still have a life.
It wasn't Connor who slipped through the flap.
It was one of their captors.
Obviously, he knew he wasn't supposed to be in there because he snuck in, reminding her of a slithering snake.
As soon as the tent flap closed behind him, plunging her into darkness, her panic ramped up. Memories of the past blended with her terror in the present, overwhelming her and rendering her powerless.
There was no escape.
Her ankle was still bound to the ring in the floor.
The presence in the room grew stronger.
Closer.
Then it was there.
Above her.
A hand clamped around her neck and another fumbled at her pants.
In this second, Becca knew that this time she wouldn't be able to rebuild her life, this time, she would be left in tatters. A broken soul. Beyond repair. Ruined.