Chapter 40
“Babe.”
I pressed my face into the pillow. “Hmm.”
“Babe, wake up.”
My eyes flipped open. Savage was sitting on the edge of the bed and his hand was on my hip.
“What time is it?” I asked, stifling a yawn.
“A little before eleven,” he said. “You conked out for a bit. You want to get out of here?”
I swallowed. “That depends.”
“On?”
“Are we okay?” I asked, my voice stilted.
He paused for a moment. “No. We’re not okay. We’re not even close to being okay. Which is why we need to get out of here so we can have some damn privacy to discuss shit.”
I nibbled my lip. “What happened in Church?”
“The brothers have been brought up to speed. That’s all I’m gonna say about it.”
“Are they—do they hate me? Does Duke hate me now?”
His gaze softened. “No. They don’t hate you. And Duke doesn’t either. Not even a little bit. If anything, they’re more protective of you now than before. Knowing your history changes things. I mean, some of them guessed it was bad, but no one had any idea . . .”
Part of my tension eased, but until Savage and I had fought it out, I wouldn’t be all right.
“Yeah. We should go,” I said. I slowly sat up, feeling groggy.
“You hungry?”
I shook my head.
“You threw up.”
“I remember.”
“So you must be hungry.”
“Must I?” I demanded with a hint of snark. “Or maybe I just have too much on my mind to think about food.”
He sighed. “Fine. Let’s get home. I’ll follow you on my bike.”
I was worried about seeing the Old Ladies in the living room on my way out. The last thing I wanted to do was put on a brave face and pretend like everything was fine when it wasn’t. But thankfully, the living room was clear of people. The kitchen was tidy. There was no evidence whatsoever of friends and family sharing a meal together the night before.
My pulse drummed in my ears the entire drive home. I didn’t even remember my journey; I was functioning on autopilot, and even though Savage claimed there was nothing I could ever do that would force him to turn away from me, I didn’t believe it.
I’d lied to him. And I’d been prepared never to share the darkest part of my soul with him.
How did you come back from that?
I parked in the back of the bakery and Savage glided his bike next to me. I cut the engine of the car, grabbed my purse, and climbed out as Savage got off his motorcycle.
Savage took my hand and led me to the bakery. Thankfully, Brielle and Jazz weren’t working so I didn’t have to fake a smile.
I waved to the girl rolling out dough and then went up the stairs, Savage trailing behind me.
After we went into the apartment, I put my purse onto the kitchen counter and then moved to the farthest corner of the room.
“What are you doing?” Savage asked me bluntly.
“Giving you space.”
He paused. “You think I’m going to hurt you.”
“No.”
“No? Then why are you all the way over there?”
“Habit,” I admitted.
His expression softened. “Can we sit? On the couch?”
“Okay.” I gingerly walked to the couch and perched on the end. Savage took the spot in the middle and just stared at me.
“I’m gonna try and put into words what’s going through my mind,” he began. “Normally, I’d get on my bike or go to The Ring. But if I left you now, you’d think . . . Hell, you’d think I was abandoning you but I’m not.” His jaw clenched. “I’m mad at you for not trusting me. But I’m mad at myself, too. When we met, I knew you were hiding things from me, but I didn’t suspect this .”
I swallowed.
“You were working under the table and living in a motel. I thought you were fleeing a domestic abuse situation. And even after you told me he’d died . . . I didn’t even consider that you’d killed your husband.”
I flinched at the ugliness of the truth. “Did you tell Colt? About how you really met me?”
“No. I left that out. Because that would implicate me in shit I shouldn’t have been involved in.” He cocked his head to the side. “You left that out too—of your story.”
“I’m good at keeping secrets, I guess.” I rubbed my third eye. “So, what do we do now?”
“Come here.”
I scooted closer to him. He reached out and gently cupped the back of my neck and stared into my eyes. “You can’t keep shit from me when it’s really important, Evie. Never again.”
“I promise.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Was it rape? Is that how you got pregnant?”
Rape. Such an ugly word.
“No,” I whispered. “It wasn’t rape.”
“Then how did you get pregnant? If he didn’t force you?”
“If I had any chance of escape, I couldn’t let him know that I’d overheard him and his father talking. So I . . . played the role of his beloved wife. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I had to survive.”
“While plotting to kill him.”
I recoiled.
“No babe, I didn’t mean—I told you what I did to my foster father. It wasn’t a judgement. It was understanding.”
“Oh.”
“Fuck, I can’t believe I just . . .”
“What?”
“I said I wanted a big family. You probably think I’m just like your husband.”
“No!” I emphatically shook my head. “You’re nothing like him, Savage. You love me. You protect me. You’d do anything to make me happy. When you said you wanted a big family, how were you supposed to know about my past?”
“I was supposed to know because you were supposed to trust me with this.” His jaw clenched. “Do you have any regrets? About what you did?”
“Regrets? No.” I shook my head. “It was me or him, you know? But I don’t think I’ve dealt with it, Savage. It feels like someone else did it.”
He dropped his hand from my neck so he could pull me into his arms. “I wish I could say that’s the end of it, but it won’t be. It’ll come for you in the moments you don’t expect. A flash in the middle of happiness, a feeling of anxiety. You’ll remember what you’ve done, and you’ll have to process it each time.”
I placed my hand on his heart.
“And each time, I’ll tell you that you made the right choice. We’re going to be okay, Evie. We’re going to get through this.”
My lips quivered. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
I reached for him in the middle of the night. Savage’s side of the bed was cold, and I wondered how long he’d been up and if the energy in his body had been too much and he’d had no choice but to go for a ride on his motorcycle.
But I heard the soft close of a cabinet and exhaled.
I got up and padded out into the living room. It was completely dark except for the oven hood light.
Savage stood at the counter, his back facing me. The glow illuminated his sculpted shoulders and beautiful ink.
“Did I wake you?” he asked, turning around.
I shook my head. “You couldn’t sleep.”
“No. I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “And then I got a text.”
“A text? From who?”
He didn’t say anything for a moment and then he finally replied. “The owner of the illegal fighting ring.”
“He’s asking you to come back,” I guessed.
“No. He’s telling me to. The bookies lost a fuck load of money on the fight with Toro and they need to make it back.”
“Toro,” I repeated as I went to Savage. “You’ve already beat him once, so?—”
“It’s not Toro this time. They know he can’t beat me. There’s someone else—except they won’t tell me who I’ll be fighting until the night of the fight.”
“Don’t do it. You walked away once. Now stay away.”
I put my hand to his heart, and he covered my fingers with his palm. “I wish I could, babe. But there’s a problem. I’ve cost them a lot of money by quitting on short notice after I beat Toro. There’s bad blood between us now, and the owner of the fighting ring is threatening to tell the club if I don’t fight one last time. If I want this wrapped up for good, then I’ve got to get in the ring again.”
Fear coasted down my spine.
I wanted to beg him not to do it. We’d just come out the other side of something so horrible . . . We were already struggling to survive the truth of my past.
But I kept my mouth shut.
“I need you there,” he said softly. “Ringside. And after I win, we’ll walk out of there hand in hand, and never look back.”
I swallowed. “Of course I’ll be there, Savage.”