Chapter 29 #2
I held my breath, waiting for the moment he told me that he’d shot two people while they slept.
I didn’t know how the knowledge would make me feel about him.
His reputation was why I’d been so afraid of this marriage in the first place.
To hear it confirmed now would break my heart in so many different ways I wouldn’t know what to do with what was left.
His voice was quiet. “I couldn’t pull the trigger.”
A cocktail of emotions flooded me like a tidal wave, and I didn’t know which one to grab onto first. Relief, maybe.
“If he’d been alone, I would have put a bullet in his head and walked away because he wasn’t innocent by any means, not just about the money or my father. But he had two kids, and his wife and children were innocent. I couldn’t shoot her. And I couldn’t leave those kids with no one.”
Those didn’t sound like the words of a killer to me, but I didn’t dare say that out loud because I didn’t want him to shut down again.
While his words were shaking the foundation of everything I thought I knew about him and my life in Seattle, they were words that needed to exist between us if we had any hope of a future that wasn’t tainted by our pasts.
“I woke her,” he said, voice still quiet. “Told her what I was there to do, and to get the hell out of the house.”
He looked at me again, devastation clear on his face.
“Do you know what she said to me?”
I shook my head, bracing for it.
“She told me that he beat her and the kids.” Boston shook his head, expression pinching with rage.
“I helped her pack her bags and clean out the safe. I changed the license plates out on the car so no one connected to her brutal husband would ever be able to find her. When they were gone, I went back inside and put a bullet in the guy’s skull while he slept. ”
Boston shifted to face me, his expression wary like he was ready for me to rage at everything he’d just revealed to me.
“Do you expect me to hate you?” I asked quietly. “Do you expect me to turn my back on you because you protected a mother and her children?”
He blinked back at me, as silent and unreadable as always.
I shifted, placing a hand on his thigh. I was done fighting the urge to be physically connected to him. He was showing me the worst parts of him, and I still wanted him.
His gaze dropped to my hand.
“I went to your house that night after I’d done it.
” His gaze lifted, something vulnerable shining back at me.
“I sat outside your window, staring up at it until your light went out. I think…” He hesitated.
“I think you became a safe space for me, without me even realizing it. It kept me sane knowing you were there, even if you didn’t know me yet. You were my peace, Dempsey.”
Biting my lip, I shifted closer, offering him a closeness I wasn’t sure he’d ever felt.
“I fell asleep in my car outside your house that night,” he went on. “I didn’t wake up until I heard shouting the next morning.”
My expression fell, my body going rigid at those words, and his gaze was on me in an instant.
His big hand came over the top of mine where it rested on his leg, a small show of comfort.
Or a warning at what his next words would be.
Words that would unlock the horrors of my past that I’d worked so hard to shut out.
“You came running out the front door, heading for your car, but your father came barrelling out after you.”
I recoiled, tugging my hand back as the memory of that moment slammed into me like I was there.
“Your father was angry, so fucking angry.” Boston’s fists clenched as he spoke.
“He came for you, grabbing you by the hair and yanking you backwards to the ground. You cried out, cowering on the ground, sobbing, while he stood over you telling you that you were nothing and that you belonged to him.” Boston all but growled at the memory.
“I was out of my car faster than I’ve ever moved. ”
My gaze locked with his in surprise. He’d been there, and he’d gone to intervene?
“I was halfway across that street, ready to murder your father with my bare fucking hands.” His eyes were coated with rage now.
“Then some big guy came out of the house and convinced your father to stop and go back inside. When he was gone, the guy scooped you up off the ground and said something to you that made you stop crying. Then he helped you back inside the house.”
Algor.
It’s why it had hurt me all those months ago when he’d helped my father abduct me.
While Algor worked for my father, he’d tried to protect me in whatever small ways he could.
Right up until he’d made his affection for me too obvious and my father had gotten it in his head that I was screwing Algor and tried to force me into a marriage with the man who was twice my age.
He threatened me with the idea for months, until he realized that marriage to Boston Ivers was even bigger threat.
Boston shifted, his finger hooking under my chin to lift my face to his.
“I spent almost every day outside your house after that. If I’d heard so much as a scream, I would have broken down that door to get to you, Dempsey.”
My eyes filled with tears, and I bit down on my tongue to stop them from falling.
“It never happened though,” Boston said, his tone a mix of relief and confusion.
I shook my head, biting the inside of my cheek at the physical and emotional damage that had been inflicted on me at the hands of my father.
“He got smart after that,” I said. “He never hit me or hurt me, didn’t so much as raise his voice to me in public because Algor convinced him it was bad for business. That didn’t stop him doing it behind closed doors though.”
Boston’s body practically vibrated with unchecked anger. “If I’d known…”
I shook my head. “You couldn’t have done anything to stop it. No one could help me; he wouldn’t allow it.”
Boston sighed so wearily that I wanted to reach for him, but I was paralyzed by the memory of my father’s rage.
“After that…” Boston swallowed, shifting on the bed like the words he was about to utter rattled him.
“I realized that I’d never be free of my own father.
Because he’d dragged you into this, and there was no way in hell I was going to leave you to fend for yourself like you’d had to that day.
I knew if I married you, I’d get you away from Antonio Falconer for good.
That I could protect you once you were my wife.
That’s why I’d agreed to this marriage. I wanted to save you from your life. ”
Emotion coated his expression when his eyes locked with mine.
“I couldn’t leave you, Dempsey.”
A tear slid down my cheek at his words.
My life in Seattle had been an especially heinous kind of torture.
My father hated me and actively hurt me, while my mother turned a blind eye.
The only friends I was ever allowed to spend time with outside of school were the daughters of my father’s criminal friends, but I could never really trust any of them because of their loyalty to him.
I’d been in a hopeless situation, totally alone.
But… Boston had been there.
All that time I’d been so afraid of becoming Boston Ivers’ wife. In reality it might have been the only safe place for me in that world.
He reached out to cup my jaw in his hand, catching a tear with his thumb and brushing it away.
“The next time I turned up at your house, your bedroom was dark. It was dark every night after that, and I had no goddamn clue what to do. I was going out of my mind thinking that he’d killed you and made you disappear.
Until my father told me that you and your mother had run from him. ”
He paused, lost in his own head again as he recounted the story.
“Something shifted inside me when I heard that. For weeks after, I existed on auto-pilot, committing the jobs my father sent me on, then getting up the next day and doing it all over again. Some days I was fine, but others… I couldn’t get you out of my head.
I knew your father was looking for you, and I knew he’d eventually find you if I didn’t do something.
Then I saw you on some news website because your mother had married Byron fucking Aston. ”
His jaw ticked at the memory of it.
“She’d been so stupid for endangering you like that. If she wasn’t so money-hungry and hadn’t married a famous fucking billionaire, your father never would have been able to find you. I’d made sure of it.”
I pulled my head back in surprise at his words, searching his face to make sure I’d heard him correctly. There was nothing but genuine honesty staring back at me.
“I’d hidden every trail that led to you so there was no way he was going to find you. He’d been livid when you’d left. Had paid some really shady players to hunt you down. I’d made sure every lead they stumbled upon somehow led them to a dead end, or a state on the other side of the country.”
“Boston…” I breathed, incredulous. What was he even saying?
Did he… was this what Sinclair, Presley, and Dacre had known about him? That he’d saved me from my father before I’d ever arrived here?
“I promised myself that I’d stay away from you.
I told myself that you’d escaped this shitty fucking life without me, and that was what mattered.
You were safe.” He shook his head, tipping it back to the ceiling.
“But then your father got to you. Despite the Astons’ money and security and connections, he’d still managed to snatch you off the fucking street to drag you back to our world.
” His hands balled into fists. “When I knew he’d taken you, I lost it.
I knew I couldn’t stay away anymore. But by the time I got here, you’d already escaped him because you’re a fighter, Dempsey. I can’t believe you don’t see that.”
Tears slid down my cheeks, and I shook my head.