Chapter 27 Confessions
Confessions
I only lasted another four days before I was ready to bite someone’s head off. I finally got a taste of the outside world, and Darren spat all over it in a single night.
The car chase had been fucking terrifying of course, but it was also incredibly exhilarating.
I hadn’t felt that damn alive in so long, absolutely thrilled by the fact that Darren was essentially forced to work with me like we were some kind of functional team.
And it had gone better than I could have ever hoped.
But naturally, Darren didn’t see it that way and probably never would, which was disappointing. Getting him to acknowledge my ability to hold my own was like pulling teeth. He wanted too much to be needed by me to ever let me match him in anything.
Still, at that moment, it felt invigorating to contribute something to the fight, to be useful in ways I was never allowed to be.
What good was all this training if it never got put to the test?
It was worthless if Darren kept me from ever utilizing my hard-earned skills that he himself had instilled in me.
And worthlessness was not a term I ever wanted to be associated with again.
Bored out of my mind, I decided to hit the bags in my personal gym to blow off some steam. It only took about twenty minutes before the strain eventually kicked in, but my body bounced back with a vengeance, and it kept me motivated.
I decided to take things a little further and started training with weights around my wrists and ankles, hoping to increase the speed of my strikes over time. Strength alone didn’t always secure a knockout. Sometimes, you literally had to beat them to the punch.
When I finished, I took a quick shower upstairs and headed back down to find Camaro where I’d left her, in the kitchen so she could eat her lunch peacefully. But as I rounded the corner, I smacked face-first into a solid wall of muscle.
I stepped back on reflex, and my upper arms were caught by large, warm hands that kept me still. I glanced up in confusion, angry with myself that I hadn’t heard him walking down the hallway like I usually could.
“Where are you off to?” Darren asked, his hands still clutching my arms.
“I was going to find Camaro. I left her in the kitchen while I showered.”
Darren glanced down at the left hand I was using to point in the direction of the kitchen and immediately scowled.
“Where the fuck are your rings?” he barked, tightening his grip with a quick jerk.
I looked down at my fingers and realized I was, in fact, not wearing my rings.
Shit.
“Oh, I must have left them in the gym. I took them off when I was hitting the bag earlier.” I tried to keep my tone as innocent as possible, but I doubted that would be enough to pacify him.
He stepped closer to me, raising me so I was basically standing on my toes, and forced me backward until he crowded me against the wall. I silently cursed myself for my absentmindedness, my stomach clenching in anticipation of his anger.
“I thought I told you to ensure those rings never leave your finger again,” he rumbled, his voice low with a dangerously dark edge.
“Well, I can’t exactly train with my rings on,” I tried to argue, but the sharp knots of regret that began to twist in my stomach made it difficult to think past the encroaching panic.
Darren’s frown deepened, the intensity of his scowl growing with even more disapproval. “Why not? You’d be fighting with them on in real life anyway.”
I tried to shrug, but his fingers continued to bite into my skin. “I don’t want to injure my hands—”
“I had your engagement ring specifically designed so it could also be utilized as a weapon, Jaden, not so you could shelve it at your discretion.”
“I know—”
“You know,” he mocked sharply. “Yet here you are, once again discarding the one thing I’ve repeatedly told you not to remove.”
My mouth suddenly went dry as he glowered down at me, the forewarnings of something sinister preparing to surface setting off all the alarm bells in my head.
I grimaced as he started to squeeze even tighter. “Darren, you’re hurting m—”
“You disobeyed me, Jaden. Again.”
The more he spoke, the harsher his voice became. His gaze sharpened to a lethal edge, dark waves of fury brimming in those deep blue irises of his. And the longer he stared at me, the tighter his grip around my arms became, causing me to visibly wince.
“I’m sorry,” I implored, emphasizing the regret in my voice. “I didn’t—”
“No. You’re not. Not even close. But your reckoning has finally come, little girl. And I’ve waited long enough to exact it.”
I looked up at him in confusion, his words ill-fitting of my sins. He’d seen me plenty of times without my rings, but he’d never been this angry about it before. The unmistakable rage rolling off him was palpable, like a charged storm cloud suffocating the sky, making breathing almost difficult.
Something was different this time.
What the hell was happening?
“You have exactly sixty seconds to go get your rings and get your ass in my office. There’s something I need to show you.”
With that, he released me and turned away to stalk down the hallway toward his office. Dread tore through my nervous system like acid.
I didn’t know what the fuck had brought this kind of reaction on or what he wanted to show me, but I didn’t want to make it worse by making him wait or enticing him to hunt me down.
Racing back down the hall, I shoved through the double doors of my gym and zeroed in on my rings lying neatly on one of the benches. Snatching them up, I beelined it back toward Darren’s office, slipping them on my finger as I ran.
Approaching the door left ajar, I slowed my pace and sucked in a deep breath to calm my erratic heartbeat. The guard next to the door looked down at me with a cocked brow, his eyes moving up and down at my state.
Ignoring his clear judgment, I released another slow, deep breath, then steeled my spine, schooled my features, and reluctantly pushed my way through the doorway.
With vigilant eyes, I scanned the room for my threat, finding him seated behind his desk, a dark look emanating from his piercing gaze. And just like that, my heart reverted right back into panic mode.
“Shut the door and come here,” Darren commanded.
Sighing quietly, I shut the door and cautiously made my way around his desk to stand beside his chair. I could see on his computer screen what looked like a paused video of some security footage.
Reaching around my middle, Darren pulled me into his lap and wrapped his arm securely around my body, his grip noticeably tighter than what was necessary.
Red flag.
Testing him, I took in a big breath to expand my rib cage and felt his grasp tighten for just a second before relaxing it again. He was preparing for me to flee.
My stomach clenched.
Fuck. I’m not going to like whatever is on this video. And he knows it.
Darren then reached forward and hit the play button on the screen.
“Watch,” he ordered.
My eyes focused on the footage, observing a woman walking into what looked like some kind of store. She had a hood up over her head, concealing most of her face, and approached the glass counter.
My brow arched in confusion. What the hell did this have to do with me forgetting to put my rings back on?
A store clerk then came into view and addressed the woman, exchanging what must have been pleasantries as they both smiled. And then she took what I assumed was a ring off her left hand and showed it to him. Suddenly, an ominous aura of doubt gathered at the base of my spine.
Wait…
As the clerk took the small object from her, he examined it first for a moment, holding it up to allow the natural light to shine over it. When the hint of a sparkle caught the light, my heart immediately plummeted to my stomach. The man was reviewing a ring with a very large clear stone.
No.
The hairs on the back of my neck began to stand on end, my gut hardening around an onslaught of anxiety that violently slashed its way through my body.
After his brief assessment, the man smiled and then took the ring out of the camera view. Left alone, the woman turned slightly to look over her shoulder at the other patrons behind her, revealing more of her petite body to the camera.
I found myself leaning forward to get a closer look, hoping with all my might that what I saw was inaccurate—that I was considerably mistaken. Darren loosened his grip on me just enough to allow me to get a closer look at the screen.
Please, no.
Please don’t let it be her.
Please be wrong…
And then Darren paused the video, immortalizing half of her face on the screen. It was still partially covered, but the blue diamond collar around her neck was unmistakable.
Kayla.
“No,” I whispered, my hope shattering into a thousand pieces.
I felt my body start to shake, the tremors riding up my arms and into my shoulders as I tried to blink the quickly forming tears away. But the dark energy radiating from Darren’s body had my heart accelerating into overdrive.
He knew. Just like I’d suspected. He knew.
But he didn’t know everything.
“When was this?” I asked, swallowing back my trepidation.
“The day after we picked you up from the storage facility. I hadn’t even reported it stolen yet.”
I held back my sigh of relief. She had acted quickly.
Good girl.
In that case, this was from months ago, and Kayla would be long gone by now. But I couldn’t let Darren believe in my hope for that. As far as I was concerned, Kayla was dead. And she would fucking stay that way.
Shaking my head, I leaned back and steeled myself away, forcing my mounting fear back into the shadows of my mind. I needed to fight back while I still could.
“No,” I repeated more forcefully. “I can see what you’re trying to imply, but that’s impossible. She’s dead. She has to be.”
“Clearly, she isn’t,” he retorted, his calm tone a terrifying warning.
“That’s not her,” I argued. “I refuse to believe it.”