Chapter Three
Jayla started moving around in the back seat when they were within a mile of the cabin.
Beau laid his arm on the seat and turned to check on her. “Are you waking up?”
Jayla tried to turn, but her ribs reminded her she had to be careful for a few days. She knew she should be nervous in a car with two men she didn’t know, but the director told her a little about them, and he trusted them with his life.
“I’m fine. Where are we?”
The men jerked at the sound of her voice.
“We’re almost at the cabin your godfather sent us to.”
“Could we just call him Director and not Godfather?”
The director had made it sound like they were close, but from her tone, it wasn’t true. The men glanced at each other but otherwise kept quiet.
“Sure. I’m Beau, and the one driving is Diego.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
Beau pulled up to the cabin, and something inside of him cringed. From the outside, it looked like a one-room cabin. The three of them in one room for maybe weeks made his stomach churn. He’d probably have to talk to the girl some, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.
Jayla sat up but kept the sweatshirt hood on and the blanket over her shoulders to fight off the chill already invading the vehicle.
Diego got out and started unloading the bags and supplies.
“Do you need help out?” Beau asked.
Jayla glanced at him, then down. “No, thank you.” She took her time, moving slowly, sliding down from the back seat onto the ground.
She took a quick look around before following the quiet one up the few stairs into the cabin.
She didn’t even take a look around before trying to find the bathroom that she desperately needed.
She turned at the door. “Is it okay if I shower?”
Diego looked at Beau who turned to her. “From what I scanned in your discharge papers, it’s all right, but remember, Diego will have to bandage the burn after. I’ll put your bag in the bathroom.”
A shiver coursed down her body when he passed her. His smell was intoxicating. Jayla looked over to the muscular, quiet man who stood off to the side. “Are you some kind of medic?”
“A bit,” Diego mumbled and then walked back outside.
Shit, that’s all she needed, was more people who treated her like she was nothing. She’d had enough of that growing up. Jayla turned without saying anything and closed and locked the bathroom door.
The first thing she did was turn on the small wall heater, then drop the blanket and pull off the paper pants and shirt they gave her to wear out of the hospital, and she cringed as they ripped.
She took her first look at herself since the kidnapping.
Thankfully, they hadn’t kicked her in the head, and they didn’t have time for everything they wanted to do.
She shivered again at the things they promised to do to her.
She could remember pleading for death in her head because she’d rather be dead than have several men rape her.
They hit her ribs and hip on the right side once, with boots.
A few bruises on her jaw and cheekbone, several more scattered all over her body.
But it was the brand that really bothered her.
They were planning to brand her with an “M,” and actually just started, but were stopped before going further than a burn on her right breast.
The pain was something she’d never forget.
The bastards had gotten great pleasure from her agony, and it made her hate them more.
The burn was third-degree, an inch long on the outer curve of her breast. She pulled the bandage off carefully before bending forward a bit and pulling up on her breast to inspect it.
She would never be a thin girl, but with it came fuller breasts than most women, which could be a good thing or bad.
Jayla hadn’t decided yet. She could only see one corner of it, so she turned to the mirror.
She flinched. Yeah, that was going to leave a scar she’d have to live with for the rest of her life. A sob raced up her throat, but she caught it at the last second. She swallowed down the despair that clawed at her.
She had to stay strong. Her mother and father would have expected it from her, and she wasn’t going to disappoint them now.
Her eyes rose to the ceiling as if to talk to them in Heaven.
“I’m going to get through this, I promise.
” She was a general’s daughter. Even though they were both dead, she felt them with her sometimes, and that helped get her through the bad times.
God, she missed her parents. She’d only been nine when a drunk driver killed them.
Her whole world had changed for the worse that day.
She not only lost her parents but any security she’d had before that.
It hadn’t been a week after the funeral when her godfather, the one person in the world she thought she could depend on, had sent her to a private, exclusive girls’ school in Oregon.
She hadn’t done well the first few years. She showed up as a traumatized little girl but left nine years later a self-sufficient, strong woman. No one ever had to know she sometimes, in the deep hours of the night, curled herself into a tight ball and cried until she had nothing left.
After she left the glorified orphanage, she was sent to another high-dollar girls’ college.
She hadn’t fit in anywhere. So many things had made her stand out, and none of them she could change or make better.
She was plump. However, every picture she had seen of her mother helped because she’d been fuller-figured, too.
She could remember how enamored her father was with her.
It was like there was no other woman in the universe.
The only positive thing about the accident that killed them was that they were together because Jayla knew they wouldn’t have been able to live without each other.
Her hair was a dull black. She’d tried to bleach it when she was fourteen, but that had ended very badly.
She couldn’t describe the color it turned.
It had a mix of orange, green, and puke brown blended.
It was a great way to get even more teased.
She just wanted to be blonde, even for a short time, but unless she wore a wig, it would stay black.
Her eyes also set her apart. They were an unusual light blue, almost transparent. People either thought they were pretty or thought they were spooky and were afraid of her because of them. She snorted to herself.
What set her apart more than anything were the three men her godfather had placed on her detail. They went everywhere with her. They even had the dorm rooms on all three sides of her—one on the right and the left, and one across the hallway.
She had tried over the years to get him to stop, but he would tell her that her safety was the most important thing to him.
Bullshit. She would never believe he cared about her.
Who sends a nine-year-old off, whom he might call a few times a year, who has spent holidays with him a handful of times?
The last time she’d been home, three or so years ago, had been horrible.
They both sat at the dining table, eating and saying nothing.
Her whole visit had been awkward and miserable, even though her godfather tried several times to start a conversation.
They were strangers, and the only thing in common was they had loved two people who were taken from them too soon.
She had vowed to herself it would be the last time she spent any time with him.
It was time to let go of the only thing she still had of her parents. It was time to let go of the past.
Most years, she spent her holidays alone in the dorms or with her security guys when they could talk her into it.
A few times, she’d gone home with a friend, but she stopped doing that when she realized how much she really missed out on having a family of her own, and her friend’s family hadn’t been happy about having to host three men with her.
Finn, her head of security, had become her confidante, her big brother, and her friend.
She only just realized, as an adult, what he’d given up by staying with her.
The other two guards were different every month or year, but Finn had always been there.
He’d given up having a family of his own to take care of an orphan nobody wanted or cared about.
She would never be able to thank him enough for giving her the one source of stability in her life.
She was going to miss him so much, but was thrilled he finally got to have a life.
They still kept in touch, and she had been pleased he’d found a woman he really cared about.
He might still be able to have children.
He was fifty, but his girlfriend was thirty-two and still able to have children.
Finn would be the best father, and maybe she would be an honorary aunt.
A knock at the door jolted her enough that she almost fell, and she had to bite back a moan when her ribs were jerked.
“Is everything okay in there?”
Jayla cleared her throat. “Yes, I’m sorry.”
“Call if you need anything,” Beau said.
“Thanks.” She needed to get clean so she could sit down before she fell.
She knew some of her lack of strength was from the drugs they gave her to sleep, but the rest was from lack of rest since the kidnapping.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the look in the maniac’s face, and it was something she knew she’d have to deal with for years.