Chapter 20
Nash
I hate the silence in the room as she walks a couple of steps closer. I feel like a fucking science experiment with the way everyone is watching us.
She stops right in front of me, within arm’s reach, but not touching. Her throat works on a swallow. I want to pull her to my chest but touching her without her permission ever again just can’t happen.
Knowing that doesn’t stop me from brushing hair from her face and wanting to kill which ever bastard gave her the black eye.
It’s been days since I’ve seen her, possibly longer, but it wasn’t there last time.
She flinches away before I can touch her, and I feel the pain of it to my core.
I can’t blame her for it. I’d never see it that way, not after what’s happened.
“Did Pirro do this?”
She shakes her head, her bottom lip quivering, tears clinging to her lashes as if she’s too stubborn to let them fall.
“One of these motherfuckers here?” I snap.
“No,” she whispers. “It happened by accident.”
My eyes narrow, making her take a step back, and I fucking hate that she seems fearful of me, despite giving her every reason to fucking hate me to my core.
“I hit my face on something when they came into the room. I thought I was going to die.”
“You were never in any danger,” Kincaid says. I guess I can count myself lucky that he doesn’t rip my arm off when I hold my hand up to silence him.
The man may not know it, or he’s just ignorant because from Angel’s point of view, but he was seconds away from killing her in vengeance of what he perceived she was doing to me.
“I had to make sure you were alright,” I say, knowing the word is subjective to a million different perceptions.
Mistakenly, I reach for her again when she dips her chin to her chest. Three of those burly Cerberus motherfuckers step forward in her defense, and it proves what Angel was saying, that no harm will come her way.
They won’t even allow an ounce of it from me.
It won’t stop them from prosecuting her, which is another thing he warned of.
I can only imagine what it looked like when they stormed the compound.
I know I wouldn’t be here to explain if the tables were turned, and they’d stormed in only a couple of days before and saw what Pirro was forcing me to do.
I’m certain her gender, the fact that women are supposed to be the nurturing sex and not the one to do harm, is the only thing that gave her a chance where these men are concerned.
It wasn’t going to prevent Angel from putting an end to her, so I have to be grateful for them.
She doesn’t tell me that she’s okay, and honestly, I’m thankful not to be lied to. But standing here silently, while everyone in the room gawks at us, isn’t exactly the most comfortable position to be in.
“I hope you’re able to heal from all of this,” I say before turning to leave.
I’m at the door, wishing things could be different, when she calls out my name.
With a racing heart, I turn back to look at her, the tears she was fighting staining her pretty face.
I told her my name before getting sick after I was forced to hurt her.
I wanted her to be able to kill me in her mind.
Monsters without names will forever haunt a person.
I know from experience how important it is to know who it is that caused so much damage in a person’s life.
I feel everyone’s eyes darting between the two of us, like we’re the afternoon matinee and they’re too enthralled by the fucking show we’re putting on to go refill their fucking popcorn buckets.
There’s judgment in every pair of eyes, and I fight the urge to look around the room to determine which of them are judging her at all.
I deserve the blame, but I was also the one found strapped to the fucking bed and drugged out of my fucking head, with my cock standing straight up in the fucking air.
Maybe it’s pity I’m reading from the vibes they’re sending off, and that pisses me off even more. I didn’t ask for it and I sure as hell don’t want it.
She doesn’t say another word to me before turning around and going back into the room she was in when I arrived.
The woman who tried to block her path earlier follows her and I can see them having a conversation. But the distance between us is just too great in this huge-ass overpriced hotel suite that I can’t decipher the conversation.
The female Cerberus member comes out first, and my chest pounds when my blond-haired woman disappears further into the room. Was that her goodbye? Was calling out my name all I’ll get?
It will have to be enough, I suppose.
Before I can turn back to the door, she darkens the doorway.
An uncontrollable growl rumbles out of my chest when that big motherfucker Kincaid blocks her path.
I stand still, barely able to keep from crossing the room as I watch, but he hasn’t attempted to put his hands on her.
She’s frozen in her tracks just by his sheer size.
“You don’t have to leave,” he says. I can tell he’s trying to make the conversation as private as possible, but the baritone of his voice carries across the room.
“Am I free to go?”
“You were never a prisoner,” he assures her.
“The fact that you wouldn’t let me leave and didn’t provide me with a phone to call my sister proves otherwise.”
I may end up killing the fucking lot of them.
I look around the room, committing every fucking face to memory.
I meet the challenge in several of the men’s eyes, as if they’ll be waiting for me to show up.
My blood starts to boil. Although I didn’t plan on dying today, it’s starting to seem like as good a day as any other.
“Can I go with you?”
I snap my eyes to her, watching as she pulls a zippered hoodie tighter around her middle.
God, I need to tell her no, but how? How do I not give her everything she’d ever ask of me, considering the things I took from her?
I nod, my mouth refusing to work in the moment.
She follows right behind me, and I don’t know if I’m the lucky one in avoiding a fight or if the assholes we leave behind are lucky that they didn’t push me harder.
No one says a word as we walk toward the elevator, but Kincaid is staring at the both of us when we turn to face the front of the car.
He looks disappointed, which I consider to be a fucking egotistical reach as far as his connection to either of us are concerned.
I press my back into one corner of the elevator, watching her do the same. We watch each other but neither of us speak. What could we possibly have to say? Words can’t fix what we’ve broken, and she seems to be of the same mindset that it would be wasted energy.
I step off the elevator first, something most fucking idiots would consider rude, going ahead of a female, but if there was fucking danger in the goddamned lobby? People who spout shit about chivalry obviously don’t consider all fucking possibilities.
I don’t bother giving Ugly a second glance when he spots us crossing the lobby, but he isn’t as courteous.
“Ayla,” he says as he walks closer, and I fucking hate the man.
I didn’t want to learn her goddamned name this way.
It’s one more fucking thing that we’ve both been robbed of, because I never would’ve demanded it from her. I need it to be something she willingly gave to me after everything I took.
I growl at him, but the fucker either sees how weak I am from weeks of captivity or he’s too egotistical to consider anyone could get the better of him.
“You don’t have to go,” he says, having enough sense not to put himself between the two of us.
“Are you going to keep me from leaving?” she asks point blank.
“Of course not.”
She looks at him like she thinks he’s as much of an idiot as I do before walking right past him.
I follow her this time, but she freezes just outside the hotel.
She has to have been a prisoner for longer than I was.
She knew all the ins and outs of the operation.
They were able to get compliance out of her.
Being free must feel like a trick after so long.
I know I was only gone for a couple weeks and the traffic and noise are overwhelming.
I don’t know that I’d react at all if I heard someone scream for help because I heard it so many times and was unable to do anything about it even if I were willing.
I walk past her, giving her the option to stay back with the Cerberus assholes or to follow. She asked me to tag along, not the other way around. I’m not going to be the type of man that requests a goddamned thing from her.
I can only imagine how many requests she got that were tainted with the threat against this Alani person she was willing to do anything to protect.
I roll my lips between my teeth as we walk down the sidewalk, away from the hotel, wanting so badly to ask her who that person is to her, but I don’t feel like I have the right.
I don’t honestly know why she chose this instead of staying. I make a right, walking several more blocks before making another right.
I have a gut feeling she’s going to change her mind, and there’s no sense in getting her too far from the hotel if that’s where she wants to return. I’d never walk away and tell her she needs to find her own way either.