Chapter 9
My body glided through the water easier than it ever had.
My time at CCU had perfected my stroke and improved my performance in the pool beyond anything I’d managed to achieve with my swimming up to this point, and I loved being in the water more than I ever had.
My fingers grazed the tiled pool wall and I pulled up, breathing hard.
“Excellent Dempsey, a personal best time,” Coach said, crouching above me on the pool deck. “Swim like that at the next meet and you’ll podium for sure.”
Pride flooded me as she stood tall, blowing her whistle to signal the end of practice. Girls pulled themselves from the water, heading for the locker room, but I stayed.
“Is it okay if I do a few more laps, Coach?” I called to her as she headed up the stairs to her office at the top.
She smiled. “Sure. I’ve got some paperwork to do before I leave today, so I’ll let you know when I’m heading out.”
I nodded gratefully, pulling my goggles down over my eyes and pushing off the wall.
The feel of the water rushing over my skin and the silence beneath the surface made everything else disappear. It wasn’t often these days that I was able to quiet my mind, but in the water I was free of it all.
I did twenty lengths of the pool before I had to stop at the deep end, hanging onto the bar of the diving block to catch my breath. My lungs burned, but it was in the best way.
I was arguing with myself internally to get back out there for at least another four laps before Coach decided to leave, when strong hands shoved me down.
My hands slipped from the bar and my shock sent me under.
What the fuck…?
The hands disappeared and I resurfaced, expecting to find Arena laughing or Trent hovering over me with a psychotic smirk on his face. Instead I was shoved under again before I could clear my eyes and get enough air in my lungs.
Thick fingers closed around my throat, tightening. I thrashed in the water, my vision blurry under the surface without my goggles.
I pushed against the wall with my feet, trying to propel myself away from the edge and the person holding me, but the hands held me in place, fingers squeezing tighter and tighter at my throat.
My air started to run out, and I kicked towards the surface, only to be thrust back down. I tried to scream underwater, but the sound was muted and used precious air I was quickly running out of.
Panic set in and I thrashed harder, but the hands on me never let up.
I’m going to die down here.
The thought flashed through my mind, my panic rising.
I used every ounce of strength I had to pull at the fingers at my throat, my thighs burning as I pushed at the wall again and again. Those hands didn’t falter and I could feel my consciousness fading.
I had to take a breath. I needed it desperately. But I knew it would only hurt me. Knew my lungs would fill with water and I’d sink from existence.
“Hey!” came a muffled voice from above the surface.
The hands disappeared and I sank lower in the water, my exhausted body like a weight. But my desperate need for air propelled me upwards and I kicked with what little strength I had left to push my head above the surface.
“Dempsey! Dempsey, are you okay?” Coach called, rushing to the side of the pool and hauling me up by my armpits. She dragged me over the edge, my desperate breaths wheezing through my damaged throat.
“Dempsey, what the hell was that? Can you breathe?”
“Just,” I croaked, still trying to get enough air into my lungs.
Coach stared at me wide-eyed. “What happened? Who was that?”
I shook my head wearily, too spent to think clearly.
Coach scrambled to her feet. “I’m calling an ambulance and then I’m calling the police.”
I reached for her, grasping her wrist.
“No,” I husked. “Call one of my stepbrothers.”
Four hours later, I sat on Sinclair’s bed in one of Presley’s hoodies, a mug of honey tea in my hands and Dacre’s arms around me.
I was tucked at his side, and he absently stroked my wet hair after my shower, both of us watching Presley pace the room and swear his head off. Sinclair sat in the chair to the left of the bed, his jaw tight, his body rigid.
I’d been to the hospital to get checked out, and the doctor had informed me that I would have some outward bruising to my neck, but no serious damage had been done to my airway.
“Who the fuck is doing this?” Presley demanded, his brown eyes alight with anger. “First her car, now someone was trying to drown her. Who the hell is trying to kill Dempsey?”
“Trent wouldn’t be dumb enough to put his hands on her a second time and think he’d get to keep them,” Dacre said, his voice more aggressive than I’d ever heard it.
He was so wound up that I didn’t want to argue, but I disagreed: Trent’s behavior had already proven that his butthurt ego would drive him to do unhinged things in an effort to get back at me for my rejection of him.
Still. “Attacking me on the pool deck a second time seems pretty brazen, even for Trent,” I thought aloud.
The guys murmured in various tones of agreement.
Dacre’s chest expanded beneath me as he sucked in a deep breath. “Your father is the obvious choice.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I was tempted to agree with him except…
“It doesn’t make sense,” Sinclair said from his chair. He leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. “His goal in abducting Dempsey was to take her back to Seattle to marry Ivers.”
And I was already married to him. Killing me now would be counter to his goal.
“The only other person is Ivers himself,” Presley said, a scowl twisting his features. “Presuming he’s as against this union as Dempsey is, getting rid of her would get him out of it without their family reneging on the deal.”
It was possible. Only it didn’t explain all the opportunities Boston had over the past few weeks to take me out, and yet he hadn’t. He’d merely watched me. Had he been biding his time and learning my schedule so he could do it in a less public place?
“I don’t think it’s Boston,” I said quietly, drawing the attention of all three of them.
I had to tell them why. And that meant revealing that Boston had been following me for weeks, and I’d kept it from them. I bit at my thumbnail, working up the courage to say the words that I knew would piss them off.
I blew out a breath and ripped off the Band-Aid. “Byron’s rally and Presley’s game weren’t the only times Boston has shown up.”
Sinclair’s eyes pinching at the corners was his only outward reaction. Presley’s eyebrows shot up his forehead.
“You been keeping secrets from us, Bambi?” Dacre asked quietly from beside me.
I bit my bottom lip. “Not intentionally.”
Although was that really true? I’d had ample opportunities to be honest with them. It was fear that had kept me quiet. My fear of Boston, and the fear that any confrontation with him would get them killed.
“He’s been showing up a lot. At the mall when I was with Arena. At CCU after swim practice.” I turned to Dacre. “Outside the gallery that day.”
His expression was a mask as good as Sinclair’s, which meant he was pissed.
“Un-fucking-believable,” Presley swore, resuming his pacing. “The balls on this guy.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sin asked, ignoring his brother’s outburst.
“I wanted to. I know I should have.” I stared down at the mug in my hands. “I didn’t want to be the one bringing another problem into our lives. A part of me hoped he’d get bored and go the hell away.”
Even now, that was only a partial truth.
Dacre’s arms tightened around me, and he pressed a kiss to my temple. “There’s no way in hell any guy lucky enough to be married to you would just quietly let you go.”
My gaze shot to his, his words so sweet it made my teeth ache. I pressed a small kiss to his lips, desperate for that moment of connection with him.
When I turned back, Sinclair’s hard gaze was trained on me.
“There’s more to it than that. So what is it?”
I stared back at him, determined not to break his gaze. When I’d first met Sin, I’d found his intensity unsettling. Now, it was one of the things I liked most about him. He was unapologetic about just about everything, and it made him exactly who he was.
I swallowed. “I knew you would all try to take him out. I didn’t want to be responsible for one of you getting hurt. Or worse.”
Sinclair sat back in his chair, while Presley sank down on the side of the bed, taking my feet and putting them in his lap.
“You don’t get to decide whether or not we get to protect you, Sass.”
I shook my head. “I do when I’m protecting you from one of the most brutal enforcers in Seattle.
Do you think he’s afraid of the police? His family have half the Seattle force in their pockets, I’m sure some of that influence extends here too.
” I sucked in a breath. “Someone like Boston Ivers doesn’t think twice about taking out anyone who stands in his way.
I don’t want any of you being that someone. ”
Silence hung over the room, a conversation I wasn’t privy to passing between the guys.
Dacre brushed my hair back from my shoulder. “We’re the ones who protect you, D. Not the other way around.”
I rounded on him. “Why can’t it be both? Why can’t we all protect each other? Then we might have a hope of making it out of this mess with the Ivers family.”
Presley squeezed my foot. “We hear you, Sass. Okay? But you need to hear us too… you’re the most important thing in our world, and we deserve the chance to protect you. So, no more secrets?”
I nodded, biting the inside of my cheek. “No more secrets.”
I glanced at Sinclair, the fact he’d been silent unnerved me.
“You’re getting full time security,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
But like hell I wasn’t going to argue with that.
“No. There are so few times that one of you isn’t already with me. I’m not a celebrity. I don’t want some guy following me around everywhere I go.” I blew out a breath. “Boston has that role covered already.”
“Which is exactly why you need security,” Sinclair pushed.
“No.”
We stared at each other, neither willing to back down.
“If it really is Boston trying to kill me, a security guard isn’t going to stop him. It’ll just be another body in his path to get to me, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”
Sinclair sighed, shaking his head. “Of course you care more about the safety of some unknown security guard than your own.”
I shrugged, sitting up a little straighter. “I am who I am.”
Presley grinned back at me, and Dacre’s arm tightened around me again.
“Fine,” Sinclair relented. “But you’re with one of us every moment possible.”
I shrugged. “Fine.”
Dacre squeezed my shoulder. “And no more secrets.”