Chapter Twenty-six
I ’m not sure if it’s shock, numbness, or plain stupidness, but there isn’t a single part of me that is afraid of Dean or his truths.
Maybe it’ll catch up to me later, in the middle of the night when I have nothing but my mind to haunt me and a past that is always one step behind.
But right now? Right now, I want to tell him.
I want someone else to know, to lighten the load.
“There were no signs. I always thought that there were signs, but I didn’t see any. I lived normally. I wasn’t afraid, I went to bed with my doors unlocked and my windows open, and I never thought about it.”
I avert my eyes from his deep, fathomless ones to Lily, “And it was too late. He came after I’d gone to bed. I was reading, and I heard something. Sometimes my door opened when it was windy, and it had been storming that night. I didn’t think.”
“Sloane,” Dean captures my attention again, “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I left the door unlocked, and he got in.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” He repeats, sterner.
“I tried to hide and called the cops, but they didn’t get there in time.
He told me he was going to kill me, that if he couldn’t have me, no one could.
He pinned me down, and he was going to stab me.
I managed to dislodge him enough so that when he went to stab me, it missed and got me in the hip instead. He cut me open.”
As if to remind me of the night, my scarring smarts, a sharp, stabbing flare that throbs against my hip.
“The police got there before he tried again.”
“They caught him?” Dean demands.
My eyes close as I picture that night again, as I remember how my life changed irrevocably. “No. He got away.”
“Who is it!?” Dean stands abruptly, “Where are they?”
“I don’t know, Dean. I don’t know who it was or where they are. They never found him.”
“What the fuck do you mean!?” Dean explodes, and I flinch at the sudden volume. Lily does too.
“I don’t know,” I grind out, “No one knows.”
“I’ll find them,” He declares, “I’ll find them, and I’ll kill them.”
“He left no tracks, no DNA, no clues,” I explain, “Even after he attacked me and sent flowers to the hospital, the investigators couldn’t trace him. He was invisible.”
I hold Dean’s stare, urging him to understand, “The police said the investigation was open and active, but I don’t think they really cared. So, I left. I got a fake ID, and I called Savannah.”
“Your name isn’t Sloane Reynolds.”
“My name is Sloane,” I place the bottle down, lifting Lily so I can tap her back, “Sloane Harding.”
“You’ve been hiding from him.”
“The best I can,” I nod. “The cops wouldn’t help me, so I did it myself.
I took all my money out of my account so my card couldn’t be traced, and found a lease with someone willing to take cash and no documents.
I closed all my social media accounts, my email, got rid of my cell and got a sim only. I didn’t want to exist anymore, Dean.”
A silence falls between us, my words hanging in the air.
“I left everything behind, my whole family, my job, and my friends. And I live in fear every single day. I see him everywhere, in everybody. I hear his voice. I don’t sleep, I don’t switch off.
Whenever I turn the light off, I feel like I’m being dragged under.
I am surviving, Dean, but I stopped living.
He did manage to kill me that night, in every way but physically. ”
He continues to stare at me, his eyes bouncing around my face, and my skin prickles with the intensity of it. I can no longer take the silence and stand.
“I’m going to take Lily to bed,” I stand from the couch, walking by him and head up the stairs, only for him to follow.
He watches me the entire time, while I change and ready Lily for bed, while I rock her until she’s almost asleep and then place her in her crib and after I step out the room and pull the door up, I move to head back downstairs, but his hand circles my wrist, stopping me.
I turn to him, a question on my lips, but he just gestures to the door beside Lily’s, silently requesting me to follow.
I do as asked, following him into his bedroom until we stop at the bed, and he turns, lowering himself to sit on the edge of the mattress, his hand falling to the curve of my hip.
His eyes stay on mine as his fingers dance at the hem of my top, and when I don’t stop him, he lifts it, slowly revealing the angry scarring at my hip.
It isn’t the first time he’s seen them, but this time feels different. There are no lies hiding them.
His finger runs the length of the one that severs my butterfly in half, his touch so gentle, it’s as soft as the whisper of a feather.
“It takes courage to continue when everything has been ripped away from you.” He rasps as he leans forward and touches his lips to the scar.
My skin pebbles and heat explodes in my lower abdomen, my heart starting to pound.
The scratch of his facial hair and the pillowy softness of his mouth are a juxtaposition that throws my body into the kind of meltdown I’m not sure I’ll recover from.
“Dean,” I whisper his name, for what? I don’t know. A plea for more, perhaps, or for him to stop? All I know is that I like his mouth on me. I like the way his hair scratches my skin, how his warmth rolls over me and heats me from within.
“Live, Sloane,” He moves his mouth to my hip bone, “Keep living, keep going.”
My knees begin to wobble as my nipples pebble, the warmth blooming between my legs. He runs his lips along one of the smaller scars and then stops at the broken butterfly, pressing his mouth to it.
“You survived, Sloane Harding,” He looks up, “So live.”
“I don’t know how anymore,” I whisper, my voice shaking.
“Then we start one day at a time.” He looks away quickly, “But there’s something else I need to tell you.”
He moves further back, allowing my top to fall back into place, which leaves me cold. I wrap my arms around myself, readying myself, knowing I’m not going to like what I am about to hear.
“The man I killed today,” He gently coaxes me to sit beside him as he speaks, “He works for a very dangerous man.”
“Like you?” I press.
“No,” He sighs, “We have rules, Sloane. We are not good, but there are lines we do not cross.”
I nod, swallowing, “Okay.”
“The man he works for, Richard Taylor, will do anything for money and power. He’s been trafficking women.”
My heart drops into my stomach.
“I was working on getting information about him, and he found out. That’s why we were shot at. He was trying to stop me.”
“So, what does that have to do with me?” There are razors in my throat, scratching at it with every word.
“He’s realized you’re important to me, and that makes you important to my organization. He has threatened to use you as leverage.”
My eyes squeeze closed. No. No, I can’t do this again. I can’t.
“You won’t.” Dean assures me, though I hadn’t realized I’d said it out loud. “It will not come to that, I won’t allow it, and I’m handling it, okay? Trust me when I tell you, you are safe with me.”
Hot tears burn in my eyes.
“But until I have handled the threat, I need you to live here with me, where I can keep you safe, where I know you’ll be safe.”
“Live here!?” I squeak.
“Yes, Sloane. And I’m sorry, but you have no other choice. I won’t risk your safety.”
I should be used to this by now, right? The threats, the way my life seems to be hanging on a balance that could tip either way at any minute. What’s one more threat?
Dean reaches for me again, and all of me wants to step into that touch, but he is as much of a threat as the faceless man who tried to take my life and the man who wants to do me harm now.
In different ways, but in the end, I’m the one who loses.
And I’m tired of losing.
His hand curls around my hip, his touch like electric as it slips back under the hem of the shirt, gently brushing over the scarring on my hip again. There’s a vulnerability in his eyes, one that I’ve never seen before.
“Dean,” His name is a whisper from my lips, and his fingers firm up, pressing into the base of my back as he gently coaxes me closer.
“Trust me,” He pleads, “Just trust me, Sloane.”
I don’t say the word out loud; I can’t. It makes me too vulnerable, so I nod instead, and then the next thing I know, his brow is resting against my stomach, and his arm is banding around me. He’s hugging me.
Tears prick at my eyes again as my hand goes to the back of his head, his thick hair threading between my fingers.
His thumb strokes soft circles on my skin as he rolls his forehead back and forth on my stomach, but it feels too good to be held.
I don’t remember the last time it happened. Not like this.
He pulls away, only to look up at me and notice the fresh tears tracking down my cheeks. Standing, he lifts his uninjured arm and cups my face, brushing away the tear that rolls down that side of my face, the roughness scratching against my skin.
My eyes bounce between his, heart notching up in speed as he inches closer. Heat unfurls low in my body, spreading and blooming until it feels like an ache in my bones. I feel his breath fan across my lips, the air pushing against me as he closes the space.
I lean in, and goosebumps break out across my skin with the brush of his lips.
A sudden cry rips through the room, startling me enough that I push away from him, accidentally hitting him in the shoulder.
He grunts and buckles, sucking in a breath as he lands back on the bed, and Lily continues to cry.
“I’m so sorry,” I panic and bolt from the room, leaving him to fend for himself as I go to tend to his daughter.