26. ABRAHAM
AbrAHAM
THE CALL I’D BEEN AVOIDING since I arrived at the hospital showed up on my screen for the second time this morning and I stepped outside onto the balcony. Hitting accept, I placed the phone to my ear while I watched a naked woman sleep through the glass window. “I have her.”
Seven missed calls, countless texts that’d already come and disappeared—I’d really pushed the bounds of my leash with my boss over the last two weeks, let alone the last year and a half, but Matthias must’ve known better because he didn’t bother with a lecture. “How is she?”
“Unharmed.” If she wanted to share to anything more, that was her decision to make.
He let out a sigh of relief. “What do you need?”
“It’s handled.”
“I would hardly call a fifty thousand dollar payoff to the forger you frightened, threatened and subsequently released, handled.”
Nineah rolled onto her back, lips parted, eyes still shut, and bare breasts made my morning wood jump.
“He’s a criminal.”
“A harmless one who almost exclusively takes on female clients and stays out of insidious enterprises. A potential asset you may have very well just made a problem of.”
“Then take care of him.” I didn’t give a fuck.
He was silent for a beat. “A jet will touch down at Riga International in roughly forty minutes. I’ve texted the information. Has she been cleared to fly?”
Doctor said seventy two hours. We’d been in Riga for less than forty eight. “Yes.”
“Be ready to board at thirteen hundred hours.”
I didn’t ask how he knew where we were or about Nineah’s medical status. Not contacting him had been more about plausible deniability than concealment, but now that I’d actually confirmed she was mostly fine, I appreciated his foresight.
“Copy.”
Matthias was quiet for several moments. Though I’d known him longer than anyone who was still breathing save for my family, I’d never met anyone more locked up about his shit than I was—he was just charming about it—but he must’ve been working on the corporate version of an ass-ripping because he never sat on the line this long.
“Is this your one off?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“I knew,” he said. “Your informal interview. The tour… You were never going to sign on with me. I could tell the second I picked you up from the airport.”
I hated when people talked in fucking riddles and the brainpower it took to keep up with them.
“Your point?”
“You uprooted your life for her, twice.”
I stilled.
“I know you love her. I know you’d scorch the Earth from both ends to protect her. But somewhere along the way, you’ve accepted that girlish persona as emotional armor rather than the intentionally constructed shield it is and that scares me.”
“You don’t know shit about her.”
“I know she’s miserable,” he said, so quietly it was the closest display of human emotion I’d ever heard from him.
“That she’s intent on punishing herself for something and I don’t have to tell you how many good men have drowned alive with that kind of weight hanging from them.
I don’t want to see you pulled under because you don’t know when to cut away. ”
As if on cue, Nineah stirred, her peace dissipating, replacing itself with a restless frown.
“I have to go.”
“Wait,” he interrupted. “I called to let you know law enforcement has been notified of her recovery. I also had Bishop check your home cams. He’s confirmed that your feed had been looped for several days, not minutes.”
Nineah sat up in bed, the worry line in her forehead disappearing when she saw me. Her small smile reminded me of simpler moments and I resented how much of them I’d taken for granted.
“If you have something to say, say it.”
“I am. Watch your six.” He cut the call before I could and I stood there, staring at woman who’d screamed my name less than seven hours prior.
I re-entered the bedroom, locking the sliding door behind me. “Good, you’re up.” I pocketed my phone. “Change of plans. If you want a shower, I’d grab it now.”
“We’re leaving?” she asked, surprised.
“Yes.”
I wanted her home.
Exiled in the mountains of Virginia, she’d not only be better protected, but there was a reason her assailant had trafficked her out of the States and I was willing to bet it was because the US wasn’t familiar terrain for them.
Nineah wouldn’t truly be safe until the threat was found and eliminated, but at home she at least had support and resources.
Rifling through her bag, I grabbed a pair of women’s leggings, a light long-sleeve top in a sweat wicking material, socks, and underwear, and tossed all of it onto the bed.
“Don’t turn on your cell until we’re back stateside,” I warned.
Nineah, who hadn’t moved from her place in bed, stared at her bag but didn’t reach for it.
“Problem?” I asked.
Rolling her shoulders back, she tossed the duvet over her legs and stood up from the bed. The massive purple bruises on her left side marked her naked body like patchwork and guilt sliced me for having spanked her.
“Are you in pain?” I asked her.
“Not any more or less than yesterday.”
Her tone put me on edge, but I didn’t have time to address it. If she needed something, she needed to ask instead of making me sit through a game of twenty questions.
I watched her snatch the clothes off the bed and stride into the bathroom.
A few moments later, the water cut on and I took the reprieve to check my messages.
I had two more from Agosto, three missed calls from my mother, as well as three texts, and one from Vanessa.
I discarded the phone and went to pack up our shit instead.
By the time I had my bags in the trunk and the engine running, Nineah exited the bedroom blank-faced and despondent, not that I blamed her.
When shit caught up to you, it hit all at once.
“Bag?”
She handed me the designer weekender and I threw it over my shoulder before locking up the rental. I helped her into the SUV, careful with her injured side, then rounded the vehicle.
Ten minutes into the drive, Nineah didn’t say shit. Her body hugging the passenger door, she watched the city of Riga pass through her window like she was mourning the end of a vacation in the Maldives. Anyone else and I wouldn’t have given a damn, but my baby never shut the fuck up.
I glanced at her. “When we get to the house, I’ll make you a room on the ground floor so you don’t have to worry about the stairs.”
“That’s fine.”
I switched my focus back and forth between the road and her. “Is there a problem?” I asked her again.
Finally tearing her attention away from the window, she faced forward, her hands in her lap. I wracked my terrible short term memory for potential infractions, but didn’t come away with shit, except… damn.
“About last night… We don’t normally use protection, but that’s not an excuse. I was reckless.”
Nineah scoffed. “You think I’m upset because you forgot to put on a condom?”
So, she was upset.
“Nineah.”
“Here’s a thought—maybe don’t act like you didn’t play Tic Tac Toe in my guts last night and toss some clothes at me like a bar hook up you can’t wait to shove into a ride share.
And just in case you weren’t aware, I have a very selective pussy so while that may have been SOP for you, it’s not every day that… are you laughing at me?”
I hid a smile. “All the shit you’ve been through this last week and you’re focused on my morning-after etiquette?”
“Whatever. Forget it,” she mumbled.
“Nineah…” Her shaking orgasm that’d been on replay in the back of my mind all morning made me want to rile her, tease her, then pull over to the side of the road and fuck her again.
But last night had muddied some already troubled waters.
Whether or not her memories returned, the fact of the matter was, the reality of her circumstances were going to catch up eventually.
I didn’t want to add to that if I didn’t have to.
Nineah started to turn her body back toward the window but I reached for her left hand and held it, stroking the inside of her palm with my thumb.
Making a choice I wasn’t sure was the right one, I read her in.
“That was Matthias on the phone this morning. He says our home feed was manipulated to make it look like you’d disappeared within the hour, not days before. That something you’ve done before?”
I watched her for a reaction, but Nineah just raised her brows in surprise. “No. No, you never corrupt evidence you might need later. It’s also a lot of work to go through to deceive someone when there are easier methods.”
“You saying you didn’t do it?” I asked.
“I’m saying the only reason I would is to send a message. Some kind of distress signal. But that implies a certain level of premeditation as that kind of digital manipulation takes hours.” She frowned.
“The night you went missing, you left me a coded voicemail. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
“Can I listen to it?”
I took out my phone, found the file I’d moved to a Dropbox and hit play. I could tell it unnerved her, hearing her own voice, but Nineah listened to it three times before shaking her head. “Save for some vague speculation, none of this means anything to me.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Only you could land in some shit, lose all memory of said shit, and leave behind all these damn riddles like I’m supposed to have any idea how your brain works.”
“Well, it’s not like you had no idea what you were getting yourself into,” she said. “Surely, someone warned you.”
I snorted.
Nineah sat in silence. For roughly ten seconds. “Where do we live?”
“Rural Virginia.”
She nodded. “What does our house look like?”
“Like a house.”
“Ranch? Colonial? Contemporary? God, talking to you is like trying to push a brick wall.”
I took the ramp that fed into the airport’s bay for private fleets and came upon a customs employee.
I handed her both passports and was led toward the Learjet 60XR with the corresponding tail number in Matthias’s text.
There, a member of the flight crew was lowering the stairs.
Parking the vehicle where Matthias had instructed, I helped Nineah out of the SUV and grabbed her bag. “Time to move.”
Keeping her pace, minding her injuries, I placed a hand on her back as we approached the attendant. A young man with a distantly professional stare greeted us. “Mr. and Mrs. Lawton?”
I nodded.
“Follow me, please.”
I started for the plane, but Nineah halted in place, regarding the stairs with trepidation, though I’d never known her to have a problem with flying. I frowned. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I… I don’t know.”
Grasping her chin, I tilted her face until she was looking at me. Her brown eyes were wide and frantic.
Shit.
PTS or sudden onset general panic, I didn’t know, but I did know that shit didn’t mix with adult asthma and though the jet would be stocked with Albuterol and nebulizers, I wasn’t going to force her onto a long haul flight in that state.
“It’s a ranch,” I told her. “Two acres of private land. A pool. Heavily protected. Your office has a pink door.”
She blinked too rapidly.
Fuck.
“Nineah. You’re safe now.”
She glanced over at the crew member who was busying himself with the view of the cargo hold before looking back up at me. “You’re such a good liar, I actually kind of believed you for a second,” she whispered.
I hesitated. “You once told me in an argument that if the truth wouldn’t make a difference, be judicious.”
“Yeah, well it makes a difference when you wake up with a cracked head, a tan line where a wedding band should be, and a man you barely traded two words with on a regular basis tells you things you said in an argument you don’t remember having,” she snapped.
She rubbed her temples. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I just—”
“Need to prioritize,” I interrupted. “Rest is the focus right now. Getting home is the focus. Everything else can wait.”
I held out my hand to my wife like this wasn’t the culmination of everything I’d hoped for this last week.
Safe, breathing, and relatively unharmed, she was beautiful and I wanted to hold more of that beauty.
But she was also so damn scared and I was selfish as fuck for taking her last night.
Making myself a promise that I wouldn’t do that stupid shit again, I made her one, too.
“I got you.”