43. Esperr #2
Yet, I can’t stop myself from watching his back rise and fall, and I look at the lines of him in the low light, and then the fact that I came down here was to find him and tell him everything he doesn’t know yet.
Suddenly he stops and steps back, one hand resting against the bag, head dropping forward slightly as he breathes hard, and I know this is my only chance.
“Hey,” I say quietly, and then bite my lip immediately when he turns around. The fucker has sweat dripping down his chest, and I have the strong urge to bite his nipple so he’d definitely call me a bad girl.
“Hey,” he says back, his voice low and rough.
And that does nothing to help my pussy, which is a fucking slip and slide for him currently.
Pushing off the wall, I slowly cross the room toward him, watching his gaze, that certain attention that makes everything go quiet, like I’m the only thing in the room worth looking at and he’s not trying to hide it anymore. Or maybe he never was, and now I’m finally listening.
He reaches up and starts unwrapping one hand and then the other, his eyes never leaving my face.
And I don’t know if it’s the kitchen with Raiden, or the creamer in the fridge, or the plate of food on the nightstand, or the fact that I’m standing in a gym at whatever hour this is in a house that has somehow started to feel like somewhere I belong.
It’s only been a few hours, but it just feels safe.
Zyran opens his mouth, and I shake my head, hands coming up to stop him. “Please…please don’t. I need to get this out, and if you start talking, I’m not sure. I don’t think I’d be able to say what I need to say.”
He clamps his mouth shut, raising a brow, and immediately my gaze drops to the floor.
I take a deep breath and then another, and then before I can talk myself out of it, I’m rambling.
“His name was Michael, and he was my family’s last job—we cleaned up after him, moved things around, made the problem disappear.
And well, somewhere in all of that he noticed me.
” I swallow. “I didn’t notice him noticing me. I mean, I should have, but I didn’t.”
My finger starts picking at the skin around my thumb.
“I rejected him, and he didn’t take it well.
” I’m almost afraid to look up, but I do.
“That’s the understatement of my life.” I mutter and then drag in a breath.
“He seemed to have backed off, but it was just a ploy; he came after my family. I uh, woke up in the middle of the night and—” I swallow, pressing my lips together.
“My mother was killed in our kitchen. I watched him stab her right before she told me to run, and shit, I was a damn coward and did. I mean, I should’ve tried to fight, right?
I should’ve tried to save her; it was just a stab wound, people heal from that.
But they taught me, they always told me because of what we did, that if I needed to run, to do it. And well, I almost made it.”
I watch his jaw tighten as I speak, and I’m almost thankful he doesn’t interrupt me, but at the same time I wish he’d stop me. Because talking about this brings up emotions that I wasn’t sure I still had inside me.
“I woke up in the basement, and my father… he was already there, and Michael. He told me that my father had been arranging a new identity for me. He had been working with someone to get me out.” I pause, my fingers ripping the skin from my thumb.
“I didn’t know. My father never told me because he didn’t want me to be scared, but he knew that Michael was obsessed and that he had no plan to let me go.
” I feel my throat tighten as I say the next words, “and Michael told me all this while he was nailing my father to the table. Started with his hands first…”
The gym has become unbelievably quiet; you can hear a pin drop.
“Michael tortured him, and it wasn’t for information, wasn’t for anything useful; it was just because he could.
Because I rejected him and… and this was how he made me understand what that cost.” Zyran becomes blurry as tears fill my eyes.
“The only reason I got out is because someone knocked at the door.” I chuckle, though there’s no real humor in me.
“A delivery, a neighbor—I mean, I don’t even know what time it was; down there it was like time was endless. And I took that small chance and ran.”
I stop, nearly smacking myself when I wipe the falling tears away, angry at myself for crying, angry because I left my dad there in his final moments.
“I ran until I couldn’t anymore, and that’s when I found Oliver… except he had already been looking for me. Come to find out, he was the one my father had been working with to get me out. He knew my father’s plan, knew something had gone wrong, and he’d been trying to find me since that night.”
Dropping my hands to my side, I finally look back at Zyran and blow out a breath. “And he’s been after me ever since. That’s what I’ve been running from for three years now, and that’s who found me.”
I stop talking, the gym goes completely silent, and I’m left standing there with the weight of everything I just said—three years of looking over my shoulder, three years of Oliver’s careful research on cities with new names and a pre-packed bag that stays under my floorboard.
And now it’s all out in the open, sitting between Zyran and me, and I’m not sure what to do with that
I don't know what to do with the fact that I just handed everything over to another person, and now I have to stand here, waiting and watching what he’s going to do with it.
Because if he shoves me out that door, I have nowhere to go—something is wrong with Oliver, and I’m not sure I would handle starting over again, not when I know Zyran.
He doesn’t move; I’m not even sure he’s breathing, all while he just stares at me.
And that’s when I feel it—that weird crawling discomfort of having said too much, of having handed someone something irreversible and standing there waiting to see how they handle the information.
My throat tightens, and I look away because I can’t watch his face right now, can’t watch whatever emotion is moving through it, and that’s when I feel the worst of the tears coming down.
And I hate it.
I hate them, hate them, HATE THEM.
I’ve been holding it together for so long, three years and four months, 3 days—1,220 days to be exact. And I’m left standing in a gym with tears streaming down my face.
Zyran walks across the room, his hand finding my chin and gently tilting it up until I have no choice but to look at him. His gaze bounces between my eyes as he takes in the tears and exhaustion beneath them, everything I just said, and the weight of what occurred.
“I’m sorry… I… I’ve been so scared,” I mumble, my voice breaking on the first word, and I don’t even bother trying to fix it.
“So freaking scared that once you knew the risk, you’d run.
That you’d look at me and everything that follows me and decide it wasn’t worth it.
” I feel a tear slide down, and his thumb catches it before it falls from my chin.
“That you’d think I wasn’t worth it. And I’m sorry.
I should’ve told you; I know that. But please understand—” I stop, pressing my lips together, needing to find the right words that are actually true.
“It wasn’t because I couldn’t trust you.
I know that I can. I think I’ve known that longer than I’ve been willing to admit.
Long before you even showed up at my apartment.
” I look at him, even though he’s blurry, but I need him to know that I mean every single word.
“But because I needed to learn to trust myself, to believe that I deserved someone knowing the truth about me and them—” hiccup “—staying anyway.”
Zyran’s thumb moves across my jaw, swiping away the tears that keep falling down my cheek.
“I needed to know,” I whisper, though it sounds more like I’m blabbering, “that I wasn’t too much. That my past wasn’t too heavy. That I could hand you the worst of it and you wouldn’t–”
“Esperr.”
The way he says my name stops me completely, and he waits until he’s sure that I’m listening.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he finally says, once more going back and forth between each eye, his thumb running along my jaw as he cups my chin.
“Not from the risk, not your past, and certainly not from you.” He bends down until he’s inches from my face.
“You could’ve told me on day one, and I’d still be standing exactly where I’m standing right now. ”
I close my eyes, trying to shake my head, but he stops me. “You don’t know that.”
“Oh, but I do. I knew before it was already too late, and that was before day one.”
Something breaks open in my chest, and it’s not quiet; it’s that sudden realization that I’m really no longer alone.
I press my face into his hand and just breathe, letting that calmness he brings wash over me. Then I feel him let go, and before I can question what he’s doing, he’s grabbing the back of my thighs and lifting me. I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck.
And for the first time, I don’t feel like I’m running.