Chapter 38 Krista
KRISTA
“Krista!”
I ignored him and kept walking. I didn’t care right now if I had to walk to the next town. I’d find someplace other than his house to stay.
“Krista, wait!”
He grabbed my arm and spun me around, but I was ready and slammed my fist into his jaw, sending him back a step.
Staring at me in shock, he slid his hand over his face. “What the hell was that?”
“That?” I chuckled, flinging my arms wide. “That was me showing my displeasure for all the bullshit I just sat through.”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“You didn’t tell me I’d be moving out here to basically be held hostage!”
“The property is huge!”
“How the hell am I supposed to work if I’m stuck on that property?”
“You work on your family ranch! You don’t go anywhere now!”
“But I could if I wanted,” I argued. “When I want to go into town, I just get in my truck and drive off the property. Here, I might get struck by a stray bullet from a machine gun that’s mounted on top of a building for my protection!”
He shifted uncomfortably. “They’re drones. They need to be activated.”
I let out a barking laugh, then spun on my heel and marched away. How could I have been so stupid? I had a life. I had family around, and the crazy was something I knew and could adjust easily to. This…
This was crazy unlike anything I knew.
“Would you stop walking away!” he shouted.
Fair enough, but only because I literally had nowhere to go without him. “You should have told me about this.”
“I know, and I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t have come if you knew what it was like.”
“So, it was like an involuntary kidnapping. I see.”
“No, I just— I wanted you to give me a chance.”
“I was willing to!” I screamed. “I wanted to make this work. I gave up everything to be here!”
“You gave up living on the ranch with your family. Not much else.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, getting more pissed by the second. “I gave up my family, my friends, and walked away from Jeff and our business ventures.”
He paused, giving me that funny look. Yeah, I probably should have brought that up sooner.
“Your business ventures?”
“Yes. Every spare penny I had went to Jeff because he’s been buying businesses around town and turning them around. I’m his silent partner.”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“Yeah, remember that conversation about how I have no money and shouldn’t have that house?”
He winced. “I thought you were just really terrible with money.”
“You made that perfectly clear,” I snapped.
“But there’s no money trail—”
“Because I took cash out and gave it to Jeff!”
“Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you invest it in the company with a money trail like a normal—”
“You might want to check your next words,” I seethed.
Shoving his fingers through his hair, he turned away from me. Yeah, I knew he was confused and pissed, but not nearly as much as I was.
“Okay, we can talk about this. We can figure out a way to get around the protocols and everything else.”
“How? Everyone follows them!” I shouted. “Are you going to give me a special pass that says I can leave whenever I want? Do I get points for good behavior?”
“It’s not like that,” he argued. “These protocols are in place for a reason.”
“And yet, I’ve gone my whole life on that ranch without needing them,” I argued.
“You were drugged in Vegas!”
“So were you!”
“And look how that turned out for us.”
I laughed at his words. “Yeah, look at us. Married and yelling at each other. Yep, this is working out so well for us. We should have gotten that divorce in Vegas like we originally planned.”
“Is that really what you want? To just walk away from everything?”
Frustrated tears stung my eyes, and I quickly wiped them away.
“What I want is a normal life with a normal man. I want to walk out of my house and know that nothing is going to stop me. I want to go into town without an escort. And most of all, I want to live in my house without a killer robot that might shoot deadly toxins at me because it doesn’t recognize my profile! ”
His shoulders slumped in defeat as he nodded, staring at the ground.
“Rob, you did not prepare me for any of this.”
“I just…wanted a chance with you.”
“We had that in Montana. You didn’t like it.”
“It’s just—”
“I know,” I said softly. “It’s not the life for you, but Rob, this is not the life for me. I can’t live like this. I can’t be trapped on the Reed Security property, only going somewhere with an escort.”
“I could get rid of the killer robot,” he tried, stepping forward, sliding his fingers through mine. “We could find a way—”
I shook my head, hating that I was giving up so easily, but this was not the life for me. I couldn’t even pretend that I might like it here. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us, but especially not Rob. I didn’t want to give him hope when it was so clear I could never be happy here.
“Rob…I think we could have something really amazing,” I whispered, running my hand up his chest, stopping just short of grazing my fingertips over the stubble along his jaw that I loved so much.
“Maybe it’s just not meant to be. Your life is here.
You’re good at what you do, and I would never ask you to give that up.
But my life is in Montana on that ranch with the freedom I need to live my life. ”
Nodding, he tightened his grip on my fingers. “I know.”
Forcing a smile, I pressed a kiss to his lips. “It was fun, though.”
“Yeah.” A huff of laughter slipped free. “You have one hell of a right hook.”
My chest tightened painfully as I realized this was really it. We were both giving up, calling it quits on what could have been amazing.
“It was a good adventure,” I whispered.
His fingers speared through my hair, cupping the back of my neck as he tugged me closer. “I’ll never forget a fucking second of it.”
Warm lips closed over mine as tears slid over my cheeks. Never did I think anything could be as painful as this, but dragging things out would only be worse. It was best to call it quits before either of us was more invested.
“I love you, Krista.”
His soft murmur nearly broke me. Burying my head in his chest, I let the tears fall because come morning, I would need to be strong enough to walk away, and tears would not be allowed.
Leaving Rob would be one of the hardest things I ever had to do.
I finished shoving the last of my things in my bag, which didn’t take long considering I hadn’t had the chance to really unpack anyway. I was doing everything possible to keep my head high and not think of what I was leaving behind because it wouldn’t help a damn thing.
Rob and I were too different, and there was no getting past that. I would never want this life, and he would never be happy in Montana.
A gentle knock at my bedroom door, followed by Claire’s hesitant voice, had me turning with a smile. “Hey.”
“I just came to say goodbye.”
“Yeah, I’ll be heading out soon.”
She nodded, walking further into the room, staring at all my luggage. “You didn’t even get to unpack.”
“It’s better this way,” I sighed, slumping down on the bed. “It’s good that I figured it out before we were in too deep.”
“Yeah, but you were so good together.”
That’s what made this so hard, but I didn’t dare say that out loud and give her the opportunity to sneak in another way to try to change my mind.
“I’ll really miss you,” she said, her lips trembling.
“You hardly know me, Claire.”
“I know, but…we had good times on the road.”
I winced, not really agreeing with her. While she found excitement at the prospect of getting to use a weapon, I was more of the mindset that if I didn’t have to use a weapon, it was a good day.
“Before you go, just allow me to show you one more thing.”
“Claire, it won’t change my mind.”
“Please,” she begged, folding her hands together as she gave me a pouty look.
Rolling my eyes, I gave in. It wouldn’t make me think any differently, but at least Claire would be happy.
“Alright. What is it?”
Grabbing my hand, she tugged me from the house, hopped into a golf cart, and together, we took off back to the main building. I didn’t really have any fond memories of the gigantic monstrosity with weapons mounted on top, but I guess to people like this, it was a fortress to be reckoned with.
“I know you’re worried about being attacked, but you have to see this.”
She dragged me into the building, pressed her hand to the sensor, went through all the procedures to enter, then hit a button to take us lower.
I hadn’t realized the elevator went below ground, and now that I knew, I was even more grateful for my decision.
I had the feeling that this wasn’t going to go the way she thought.
She smirked at me as we went down several levels. Yeah, she really didn’t know how to read the room. When the doors opened, we walked down a long, dimly lit tunnel, stopping in front of a large metal door.
“This is the panic room!” She held her hands wide, the grin on her face making it impossible not to find her adorable.
Wow, she really didn’t get that a panic room would not excite me.
“So, at one time, we all lost our homes or gave them up to funnel money into the company. But luckily, we had this huge panic room filled with all the luxuries anyone could want.”
She opened the door and stepped in, grinning like a fool.
It was massive. Alcoves spread in either direction, with family living spaces and televisions as far as the eye could see.
She showed me the enormous kitchen with all the fancy appliances, the separate living quarters with the giant beds and hypoallergenic pillows…
Yep, it was fancy.
And didn’t do a thing for me. There were no windows. No light. No fresh air. And despite her excitement over the filtered air and the amazing cook they kept on staff, not a single ounce of it got me riled up.
“It’s nice,” I said, trying not to show my absolute horror over the place. I couldn’t get over the fact that they all lived here at one point. I guess they all saw themselves as family, and family stuck together.
It just wasn’t anything that would ever thrill me.
“Okay, I can see this isn’t exactly your cup of tea. But this is really just a desperate measure sort of thing. The real WOW factor is back upstairs.”
Oh, good. If she thought she was going to persuade me to stay with a panic room, she was talking to the wrong girl. We headed back upstairs, crossed through a building, over to another building that was brimming with screams and sounds of torture.
Yep, I could see this going really well.
“Alright, now before you say no, think of this. You and Rob get married. You have kids and you start to wonder, where do they go to school? Surely, your kids can’t go to a regular school.”
“Of course not,” I huffed. “They don’t allow weapons on the premises.”
“Precisely my point!” she grinned, totally missing my sarcasm. “But we have that covered!”
My jaw dropped at her words. “You have—”
She shoved the double doors open and guided me into some kind of massive gym. Kids ran all over the place, some of them fighting, some of them working out. But overall, it was absolute chaos.
“See? Brilliant, isn’t it?”
I stood there gaping, trying to think of the words that wouldn’t scream she was batshit crazy.
“Um…”
“We have teachers who train all the kids both in studies and in combat. Your children will never be defenseless.”
I winced as one child threw something through the air, into a dummy. “And…they use real weapons?”
“Oh, well, they have to be fully trained.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” I said sarcastically.
“We start them with throwing stars and work our way up to guns.”
I swallowed hard as she pointed to a large window. Behind it, I could see the firing range and the small children in there, firing their weapons.
“It seems you have quite the system.”
Letting out a deep sigh, she smiled at the chaos. “It’s pretty perfect.”
I jumped as Maggie ran across the gym, yelling at one of the instructors, who was doing something horrible to a child.
“They let the instructors hurt the kids?” I gasped.
“Caitlin! How many times do I have to tell you that eye gouging is not okay?” Maggie shouted.
“Oh…” Claire cleared her throat uncomfortably. “That’s Maggie’s daughter.”
My jaw dropped. “Her daughter is gouging out another student’s eyes?”
She chuckled nervously, tugging me in another direction. “But over here, we have schoolwork.”
They all looked like ordinary students, working at their desks. If you could look past the training uniforms turning them into little soldiers, they almost seemed normal.
“Wow. It’s…” I swallowed hard, trying to come up with something positive to say.
“Thank you for showing me this,” I said, trying not to let my absolute horror sound in my voice.
“I thought it might make a difference,” she grinned.
“Oh, you have no idea.”
I turned to leave, my steps stuttering when I saw Rob standing in the doorway, a sad smile on his face.
“So, Claire decided to give you a tour.”
“It was enlightening,” I decided to go with, over my preferred You guys are all psychotic.
“So.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, taking his hand in mine.
“I’ll take you to the airport.”
“Are you sure I’ll be safe?” I teased.
“No, but that’s why you’re not flying home on a regular airplane.”
“Oh, goody,” I laughed. “I was worried I would have to risk it on a flight with average people. Someone might cough in my direction, and then where would we be?”
He laughed at my joke, but I could tell my words cut deep. It was easier to make jokes about it than to face the fact that our lives were just too different. When I got home, things would go back to normal, and my life would be just as I liked it.
But it wouldn’t have him.
“I know it’s not what you wanted, but thank you for coming out here.”
I swallowed hard, forcing myself not to let my emotions get the better of me. After all, we both knew this was a long shot. Our lives weren’t compatible, and there was never really a chance this would work.
I would go back to Montana, and he would stay here, teaching kids to become little soldiers while he saved the world without anyone outside the gates of this company knowing any better.
And that was the way it had to be.
It sucked that I really did love him.