50. Chapter 50
Chapter 50
VIVIAN
I set the system just like Axel had shown me. Every door and window is locked, but still I feel uneasy, afraid. But afraid of what? Am I afraid of being alone in the house? No, I know Axel has made sure it is safe. He is really good at it, and he took it all very seriously. He’d also assured me they have guys nearby to help if something is tripped and he or Slade or Declan aren’t here. So no, I’m not afraid at the house. I know I am safe here.
So where is the fear stemming from?
For as long as I can remember, I have always been afraid. It isn’t a new feeling for me; if anything, it is the one feeling I understand the best. And I have always been able to nail down where my fear is resulting from. But in the last few months, the things that had scared me, the things that had always been a worry for me, had eased up significantly. Place to live? Settled, and safe. Food to eat? Plenty. I am never hungry anymore. Providing for myself? The job thing is in limbo, but there is no pressure to get one like I’d always had to before. Bettering myself? Applications are out and the school thing is just a matter of time.
So where is the fear flowing from?
There’s a small voice I am desperate to quiet, but as I search for the source of my fear, it continues to spring up just loud enough. It says Declan.
And I hate that it is true, and that Declan is the source of my unease. Am I afraid he will hurt me? No. Never. Am I afraid he will leave me? No, what we have is something strong, something powerful, something different. He loves me, and I love him. I know that. I have no doubts or dread about that. I know he would do anything for me.
That’s what it is, I realize. Declan will do anything for me. He has done anything for me—took care of me when I was sick, fixed doors for me, brought me to and from work. He’d also rescued me not once but twice, in the alleyway and from the fire. Declan won’t shy away from dangerous things for anyone he cares about—not me, not his family. Even if they could kill him, even if he would never see any of us again. As long as he could protect the people he loves, Declan is willing to die for me, for all of us.
And would I survive that?
I don’t think I could. Losing him, I realize, is what I fear the most. I just found him, just brought him into my life, and I want a future with him. I’ve even allowed myself to fantasize of one where it is him and me, and forever.
But something is happening, and whatever it is, Declan doesn’t want me to know about it. The last thing he kept from me is the illegal side of his family’s affairs. But he has proven himself to me, explaining it, and then taking care of me, of my needs. But he’d promised no more secrets and he is definitely keeping something from me now.
I have shared everything with him; he knows things about me that no one else knows. Not even Bailey. He knows that I like being open and honest. I need transparency for us. Knowing what is going on keeps me at ease. We have been through it, we have discussed it, and he had promised. He promised he wouldn’t lie, and that he would keep me safe, and that we would be together.
“Please don’t be another promise breaker,” I whisper out loud as I stare at my phone, a picture of him with his rare smile on it. I touch the image, and smile a little back at him on the screen. “I love you, Declan,” I say to his frozen image, letting out a shaky breath, and tears leak from my eyes. “Come home safe to me.”
I check the time on my phone and see it’s after eleven. I feel such a physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion that I can’t fight the pull of sleep anymore. So I go to bed and use Declan’s pillow, inhaling his scent to bring me some peace.
“Vivian.”
The voice is stern and hard, and followed by a shake of my shoulders. I open my eyes and look into Declan’s. The room is dark but his eyes shine. “Declan?”
“We have to go,” Declan says to me, and then moves quickly to the closet.
“What?” I ask him, frozen in place for a moment, then gathering my wits and jumping out of bed after him.
“We have to go,” he says louder and sounding more aggravated now.
“I heard you,” I snap back, “but I don’t understand why or where.”
He comes out of the closet and he has my backpack in his hand. My eyes are immediately drawn to it. My stomach clenches and all I can do is gape at him, but he won’t meet my eyes. “I have to get you out of here,” he says, brushing past me again and opening my drawers and shoving my clothes in the bag.
“What are you talking about?” I ask him, at a complete loss at his behavior.
“It’s for the best,” he says, his tone trance-like as he grabs my toothbrush and my things from the shower. Suddenly I’m a little girl again, and I’m being rushed from my home, things thrown in my bag, an adult I’ve never met before telling me it’s all for the best. Declan goes to brush past me again and it breaks me from my trance, and I stand my ground.
“Declan!” I shout, shattering his crazed focus, his eyes finally connecting with mine. “What the fuck is going on?” I shout at him, unable to lower my tone now that I have gotten the words out.
He swallows and he takes in breaths quickly, and I study his face trying to get some answers from his behavior. He doesn’t speak, and finally I recognize the look on his face. Declan is afraid.
“What happened?” I ask him, my heart starting to race. I’ve been afraid—it’s an unfortunately comfortable feeling for me. But not Declan. He is never afraid. But maybe… “Is it your dad?”
He shakes his head. “No, my dad and Roman, they’re safe. Slade and Axel too.”
“Then what is all this?” I say, gesturing to his behavior.
He’s silent for a bit, and we have a stare down. I refuse to break; it’s time for him to tell me something, anything. “Someone wants to hurt me,” he finally says slowly, seeming to choose his words carefully.
“Who?” I ask, baffled. I honestly don’t know what to say.
He shakes his head. “I can’t tell you,” Declan replies. “All I can tell you is that they know who you are and how important you are to me. And I think they will try to hurt me by hurting you.”
“Declan, who is this person? Like a criminal, or—”
“It doesn’t matter who they are!” he roars, cutting me off in his frustration. He shakes his head, righting himself when he sees me lean back from him. “The less you know the better,” he tells me.
I’ve heard this before. I have been told shit like this my entire life. From my mother when I’d ask her what the needle was for, from social workers when I asked them why I couldn’t stay with my mom, or why I had to go back to my mom. People were always keeping things from me my entire life, thinking they were protecting me. Never giving me a choice, never taking my feelings into consideration. Hell, they never even had a discussion with me.
“No, Declan, that isn’t true,” I say as I choke up and force the words out.
He looks desperate, his mask of stone falling. “Vivian, I’m sorry, Baby, but please,” he begs me, his voice quivering. He sets my bag on the bed and comes over to me, dropping in front of me to his knees as he grasps my upper arms. “Please let me get you out of here. I can’t have anything happen to you,” he says.
I want answers, but I know he isn’t in the right headspace for that. And I’m also terrified. Someone has made Declan scared, and he is scared for me. He can’t take care of himself or be reasonable if he is stressed about me. “You need to talk to me, Declan,” I warn him, my voice still cracking and hoarse from the tears I am trying to keep back. “I’ll go, but I want answers.”
He nods hastily, and I grab my backpack from the bed, shoving the mail I’d left on the counter inside of it and following him out the door. The car outside is not his, and I shoot him a questioning look. “Rental,” he answers quickly.
I get in the car, and Declan starts driving in what feels like circles, but soon we are on the highway. I try to get something out of him. “Can we talk now?” I ask softly after about ten minutes, but he just grabs my hand and tells me he needs to drive.
I fall asleep at some point and wake when his car pulls to a stop in front of a cabin. I look around at the heavily wooded lot surrounding it.
“Where are we?” I ask, my voice thick with sleep, but Declan is already outside the car with a flashlight, looking all around the outside of the cabin. I look at the clock on my phone and see we’ve driven just over an hour.
I grab my backpack and get out of the car. When Declan finishes looking around outside, he motions for me to follow him and we enter the small structure. Declan flicks the light on as we head inside. The entire place is pinewood boards, shiny with a fresh lemon Pledge smell telling me it has just been cleaned.
Declan walks from the front room to the kitchen, and then pokes his head into a bathroom. He nods and then disappears into a back room where he checks it out. I hear him opening a door and I watch him look under the bed. He’s obviously making sure the place is safe, but it’s not what I want.
I was promised answers. I want answers.
I cross my arms across my chest, and wait for Declan to reappear.
He looks a thousand times calmer when he comes out of the bedroom, but he stiffens as soon as he sees my posture. He lifts his hands up to the top of the doorframe of the bedroom, his large frame filling the entire doorway. He leans forward. “What do you want to know?” he asks.
His form, and the way his muscles strain against his shirt, makes me temporarily stupid. “Uh,”—I shake my head— “where are we?”
“Not far,” he says, and then he watches as my eyes widen at the not answer he gave me. He sighs. “We are on Cape Cod,” he says. “Truro.”
I’d heard the name of that town before. “Okay, why are we here?”
He drops his head, taking the time to think before he speaks, and then looks back up to me. “Someone back home is looking for a way to hurt me.”
I wait but that is the extent of his answer. “So you think that they will do something to me to hurt you?” I ask, and Declan nods. The fact that I am having to pull the answer from him is making me extremely irritable. “Who is it, Declan?”
“I can’t tell you,” he answers quickly.
“What do you mean, you can’t? Why?” I demand.
He doesn’t answer, instead pushing off the door frame and shaking his head. “Tell me,” I plead. “Why are you keeping secrets from me?”
“To keep you safe,” he tells me. “I need to keep you safe.”
“No, Declan, you need to fucking be honest with me,” I screech at him, complete panic overtaking my voice.
A war of emotions crosses over his face. “Vivian, I love you. And I have never been happier than since you came into my life. I love having you in it; I want you in all of it. But not this. This is something that you cannot be a part of.”
I shake my head at him before I answer. “That’s not right, Declan,” I say, tears coming. “You shouldn’t have to keep things from me.”
“It’s to keep you safe—”
“No! Fuck that! You don’t get to treat me like a child and keep me out of whatever the fuck this is! I am supposed to be an equal to you! A partner—that’s what a relationship is, Declan! We are supposed to be a team!”
“We are!” he yells back.
“No! Not if you hide me away, we aren’t! I’m not a child for you to send off so you can go and ‘take care of things,’ Declan.”
Declan and I have a stare down. I watch the conflict of him thinking he has to protect me wrestle with my wanting us to be equals and to be a part of his life. “My dad lent some asshole money. He’s a big name, who is actually a con man, and he is refusing to pay us. We threatened him for the money back and he hasn’t taken the threats well. He’s already done some shit to try and make the Falco name look bad. The next step is to attack us directly to get us to back down.”
“So to hurt you? These people want to hurt you?”
“I think the first thing they would do is provoke me by hurting what’s most important to me,” he says, boring his eyes into mine, driving the point into me.
“Can’t you go to the police?” I ask, desperate. “I mean, this sounds like this guy broke the law, so that’s who you go to, right?” I know what he will say before he says it, but I have to say something to keep him from getting in harm’s way. Maybe he will see reason.
“No, Vivian,” he says softly, shaking his head in complete irritation with my suggestion. “That’s not the way this works. I wish it was that simple, damn it, but it’s not. This is big time; this is beyond the law kind of shit. It’s not a fucking stolen candy bar.”
“I don’t understand why you have to take care of this. Like, there has to be a way to go about it legally—”
“Because the law doesn’t fucking care, Vivian! Okay?” Declan explodes, his patience with me finally snapping. “They don’t fucking care what happens to us! But the guy, the one who stole all the money, they fucking care about him. You know why? Because he makes it all look good, he makes everything look like he walks on fucking water! The people who are supposed to keep the law, who are supposed to be keeping us safe, are some of the most crooked fucking people, Vivian. The politicians and lawmakers, the ones making the big decisions that even the little guy cops have to follow? Well, they are in his back pocket! We have challenged this guy, who stole millions not just from me and my family but from tons of small people and he wants us dead. And it would be fine—he could make it happen and just chalk it up to some thugs getting into a war for turf or some made-up shit because I’m not some guy in a suit with a trust fund and a retirement fucking plan! So I have to take action. Me and Axel and Slade have to stop him before he takes us out.”
I take it all in, and I hate that I can see the truth to what he is saying. I am not stupid enough to be unaware there are some people who are above the law, who pay the right people off and make things go away. Or that they take advantage of the little guy. I get it. I know it’s wrong. I just don’t want Declan to be the one to try and fix this and get killed in the process.
“But Declan, you going after him isn’t solving the problem. It’s just proving to him that you are the thug he has painted you to be,” I say desperately.
“I can’t worry about that now,” he tells me. “I have to protect my family, protect what my father has worked for.”
“But you said that he wanted so much more, that your dad has worked so hard to get you away from that life—”
“Yeah, well, I’m finding that is just how the world works.”
“Because you let it!” I shout. I just want to get through to him. He can be so much more; he will be so much more. He doesn’t have to go down this path.
He crosses the room to me and cups my face. “I am doing this for you, for us, for my brothers, for my dad. That’s what matters to me.”
“You aren’t doing this for me,” I tell him. “Don’t tell me that you going and trying to kill someone before they kill you is for me. I want you alive, and safe, not always running and scared.”
“I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. I love you, Vivian, and I will take out anyone I have to that threatens you. I would gladly die in the process to make sure you are safe.”
My heart starts to crack in my chest. “I don’t understand why you think this is the only way,” I plead. I love that he wants to take care of me and keep me safe, and his family too. But I don’t want to be the reason he does something awful, like take a life, no matter how horrible that person is. Or worse, lose his own life.
Without warning, Declan kisses me. I try to pull away from him, but he won’t let me. He keeps his mouth on mine and pushes against me. I push against his chest, but it’s like trying to move a brick wall. “Let me in, Vivian,” he murmurs against my lips. “Please, Baby, let me in.” But instead I try to turn away, and Declan cups my chin with his hand, holding me in place.
Declan pushes me back against a wall and bites my lip, making me gasp in surprise. Once I open my mouth a fraction, he slides his tongue inside in a powerful kiss. He shoves my skirt up and reaches into my soaked panties, because even though I am so furious with him, Declan has awakened such a passion within me that his touch sends me deep into arousal. He slides his finger over me, expertly, knowing exactly where to go and what to do to have me coming undone.
I push and try to keep my legs closed. I don’t want him to distract me from what we are talking about, from the importance of this conversation. It’s about so much more than this situation and he knows it. It will set the stage for our relationship, for our future. I have more questions. I need to know how far he is willing to go and what if it happens again.
But I’m afraid I already know the answers.
I continue to try to push away, but it’s futile as Declan’s touch just chips away at my walls. He’s whispering how much he loves me against my lips, and his fingers are bringing me to the edge of the ecstasy I know he can deliver. And suddenly, my body and need for him take over, and I can’t remember the fight. He uses his mouth to hold my head in place and brings his hands to my thighs and pulls them apart, settling his groin against my weeping core, then undoes his jeans and rips the middle out of my panties and brings his hard length against me, sliding himself against my core.
“Tell me you want me, Vivian,” he demands, letting my lips go briefly to speak against them only to reattach himself to me.
I don’t answer, but my traitorous hips do as they move against his cock. Declan reaches between us and rubs the head of his hard shaft over my wet folds.
“I’m all yours, Vivian,” he promises me with his deep voice, its rumbling baritone vibrating through my body. “But you gotta tell me you want me,” he says, sliding and then stopping his head at my entrance before moving away again.
“Declan,” I whimper when he doesn’t slam into me.
“Say you want me,” he demands, slowing the movement of his cock. “I want so bad to be inside you, but not until you say yes.”
“Yes, Declan, please, yes,” I say desperately, because my vagina is a demanding bitch and she is obsessed with Declan’s cock.
He slides the head one more time over my entire core and then he slides into me, slowly. My head rolls back at the relief of having him inside me. Then we are moving, as Declan carries me to the bed, laying me down, never disconnecting us.
I look into Declan’s face as he holds himself over me, and I can see all the emotion he feels for me in his eyes. If I had ever doubted how much he cares about me, it’s all bare for me now as he looks at me and moves slowly within me. He drops soft kisses on my lips and cheeks and eyes. He drags his lips down my neck. I feel the pleasure building in me and wrap my legs around him, angling myself so he hits the spot deep inside me that lights off more and more fireworks.
“I love you, Declan,” I say as my orgasm hits me, sending waves of pleasure shooting warmly from my core all down my legs.
Declan follows after me. “I love you,” he calls out as he fills me with his own climax. He gathers me to him and I close my eyes, feeling completely warm and completely at home. I relax and fall asleep in his arms.