Chapter Two #2
The large man who had followed Riley must have seen the panic on her face because he stopped several feet away rather than coming any closer. He held one hand slightly away from his body, his posture deliberately nonthreatening.
“Easy,” he said calmly. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you.”
Willow wanted to believe him. She really did, but the truth was she had heard those kinds of promises before, and none of them had ever meant what they were supposed to.
Lily lifted her head from Willow’s shoulder and peeked toward the strangers with huge brown eyes.
The big man looked at her, and Willow immediately turned slightly, shielding her daughter with her body.
Lily buried her face against Willow again. “Momma,” she whimpered shakily. “Bad man.”
Willow flinched, her heart breaking a little more each time Lily whispered those words. Bad man. That was what she had come to call Chen.
Willow rubbed her daughter’s back, trying to calm the tremor in her own hands as she whispered, “He’s not here, baby,” though she could only pray it was true. “You’re okay, Lily,” she added softly, pressing a kiss to Lily’s hair.
Riley had stopped only a few feet away, but the shock that had been written all over her face a moment ago had already shifted into something deeper—something that looked dangerously close to heartbreak.
“Willow...”
Hearing her name again nearly undid her.
For three weeks, Willow had been moving because stopping wasn’t an option. She had been a mother first and everything else second, because Lily needed food, shelter, clean clothes, safety, and reassurance that Mommy knew exactly what she was doing, even when Mommy didn’t have a damn clue.
She hadn’t allowed herself to cry or think too far ahead, and she certainly hadn’t let herself admit just how terrified she really was—but Riley knew.
Riley was the first person Willow had seen in three years who truly understood where she had come from, what she had survived, and exactly who she was still running from.
Tears welled in Willow’s eyes before she could stop them, and no matter how hard she blinked, she couldn’t hold them back as they slipped down her cheeks.
Riley took one careful step closer, and Willow didn’t back away this time.
“It’s really you,” Riley whispered.
Willow tried to answer, but her throat closed.
Riley’s gaze moved over her, taking in the backpack, the duffle bag, the worn clothes, Lily clinging to her neck, and probably the exhaustion Willow knew was written all over her face.
“You got out.”
Willow nodded. “I did.”
Riley covered her mouth for a second, her own eyes filling with tears.
Behind her, the others stayed where they were, not a single one moving closer, and Willow found herself quietly grateful for that in a way she couldn’t have properly explained even if she tried.
She glanced toward the big man again, half-expecting him to have shifted closer or changed his stance, but he hadn’t moved at all.
Something about that made her pause. He could have come closer, could have taken control of the situation, but instead he seemed to understand she was scared and stayed back, giving her the space she needed.
Willow looked back at Riley. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“You came to the right place,” Riley told her.
Willow desperately wanted that to be true.
She shifted Lily higher against her aching arm and looked again at the people gathered behind Riley. Several men were among them, but none looked threatening.
But the man she couldn’t take her eyes off of was the one beside Riley. He was unlike several of the others. He wasn’t openly staring at her or trying to move closer. His attention seemed to take in everything at once. He watched the street, the people around them, and the cars passing nearby.
Then his gaze briefly met hers, and Willow immediately looked away. Her gaze dropped as a reflex she couldn’t seem to break. She wasn’t ready for any man to look at her too closely.
“Willow,” Riley said gently.
Willow forced herself to focus on her. “I escaped,” she whispered, her voice so hoarse she barely recognized it.
Riley nodded as tears slipped down her cheeks.
Willow’s arms tightened around Lily. She’d gotten Lily here, and that alone felt like a miracle she was still afraid to question.
That was what mattered most—keeping her safe, keeping her breathing, keeping her out of Chen’s reach.
But even as relief flickered through her, Willow knew the truth settling heavy in her chest. She couldn’t do the rest alone.
Willow looked desperately at Riley as the last of her strength finally began to give out.
“But I need help,” she said as the edges of her vision started to blur, and the voices around her faded as the sidewalk seemed to drop away beneath her. Then everything went black.
Jay Bird wasn’t entirely sure how the hell he had gone from standing inside Nova’s new kickboxing gym celebrating her grand opening to sitting on the pavement with an unconscious woman cradled against him and a terrified little girl named Lily clinging to the front of his shirt like a damn koala.
Things had gone sideways pretty damn fast.
One minute, Snow had been walking around looking ridiculously proud of his woman while the rest of them ate free food, gave Nova shit about voluntarily opening a place where people paid her to kick their asses, and generally enjoyed a rare evening when nobody was shooting at them.
Next, Riley had bolted toward the front doors after spotting someone outside.
Jay Bird had moved on instinct when the woman, Willow, as Riley had called her, had collapsed. He had lunged forward and caught her before her head could hit the pavement, one arm wrapping securely around her while his other hand steadied the little girl she had been holding.
He couldn’t believe this was the woman who had helped Riley escape Chen Pham.
That knowledge had hit him cold and immediate—but it hadn’t changed the fact that she was unconscious in his arms and a child was clinging to him like he was the only solid thing left in her world.
He had braced himself for the child to scream, to flinch away from him like most kids did when a stranger got too close, but instead she surprised him when she grabbed him.
Her tiny hands fisted into his shirt as if she’d already decided he was the only solid thing in a world that had just fallen apart.
That alone had thrown him. Kids didn’t usually gravitate toward Jay Bird. Hell, most adults didn’t.
He wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. He didn’t smile unless something was genuinely funny. He had no interest in small talk, and generally preferred silence over listening to people fill empty space simply because they couldn’t tolerate it.
The guys constantly gave him shit about it, but he didn’t care.
But this kid apparently hadn’t gotten the memo that Jay Bird wasn’t supposed to be approachable.
She couldn’t have been more than two, with light brown hair falling messily around her tear-streaked face and huge brown eyes that looked far too frightened for someone so damn small.
She had taken one look at him, clutched his shirt even tighter, and whispered words he suspected were going to stay with him for a long fucking time.
Bad man hurt momma.
Something unsettling shifted inside him, and he didn’t have a name for it.
Jay Bird had spent years perfecting the art of not letting shit get to him. He compartmentalized better than almost anyone on Bravo Team, and for good reason. Feelings complicated things.
His teammates figured he was just wired differently, and Jay Bird never bothered correcting them. He let them believe it because it was easier that way.
Yet now he looked down at the unconscious woman in his arms, then at the child practically burrowing into his chest, and the ice he had carefully built around certain parts of himself developed a crack he wasn’t prepared to examine.
Willow looked like exhaustion had finally won.
Up close, he noticed things he hadn’t caught when she’d first appeared outside the gym.
She was too thin, like she hadn’t been properly fed in a long time, and there were deep shadows under her eyes that went far beyond a few bad nights of sleep.
Most of the bruises on her face were fading, but not enough to hide the truth, telling him someone had hurt her recently.
“Ambulance is coming,” Riley said from several feet away, her phone pressed to her ear.
Duke, Bravo team’s corpsman, crouched beside Willow while Stitch, Alpha team’s corpsman, moved around to her other side.
“Jay, keep her exactly where she is,” Duke instructed.
“I’m not moving,” said in a tone that made Duke give him a quick look before returning his attention to Willow.
Stitch reached carefully for her wrist, checking her pulse while Duke assessed her breathing and responsiveness. Neither seemed overly alarmed, which helped keep the knot in Jay Bird’s chest from tightening any further.
“Pulse is slightly elevated,” Stitch said.
“She looks fucking exhausted,” Duke replied. “Maybe dehydration, lack of food.”
“She said she escaped. She’s probably been running for God knows how long,” Riley added as she finished giving the dispatcher their location.
Jay Bird’s jaw tightened as he looked down again, as Willow’s head rested against the crook of his arm, her face turned slightly toward his chest. There was something about seeing her like this that pissed him off on a level he couldn’t explain.
He didn't know this woman. He didn’t know anything about her beyond her name and the obvious fact that Riley knew her.
Yet his instincts had already made a decision his brain hadn’t been consulted about—she was under his protection, and so was the kid. He would figure out the why later.
A sharp gasp came from somewhere behind them.
Jay Bird looked up and saw Mia standing several feet away with both hands covering her mouth.
Stitch noticed his wife’s reaction at almost the same time and immediately stood, moving toward her.
“Mia? What’s wrong?”