Chapter 77 #2
“Sorry, I can’t help it. I’m worried about you. The only people you visit are us and his mother.”
“So you’re having me followed by Caleb Edwards? Yeah, that will make me feel better.”
“Monitored,” he grumped, crossing his arms. The effect wasn’t as strong, seeing as how he was covered in baby spit-up and a burping cloth covered in tiny gray elephants.
Breathing in Val’s powdery neck, I rolled my eyes. She’s fast asleep, curled up on my chest. “Same difference, Jace.”
“I wasn’t. The paparazzi was getting nuts and I just wanted him to make sure you were okay. There are still a few paps following you.”
“She doesn’t need you following her, Park,” Sophia protested, taking Val from me, kissing her daughter’s head as she walked toward the hallway to the bedrooms. “I’m going to put her down.”
I watch her leave and smile. My smile is rueful because I realize that in the past, I would have been nervous about Sophia leaving when I was dealing with my father or brother. I wanted her to be my buffer, but now I don’t need her to help soften the blow.
“I was worried, okay? After what happened--”
Not wanting to relive anything, I interrupted him, facing him head-on. “I love him, Jace. Love him down to the marrow of my bones.”
That stopped my brother cold, and he sagged a little, hands on his hips.
“Jesus, Cam.” Jace’s green eyes, so like mine, bore into me, watching me like a hawk. Yeah, he and Stone are cut from the same cloth. “You do?”
“Yes, I do. I want to be with him.”
“I, for one, like him. Sexy, Smart. Scary.” Sophia sings-songs as he walks back into the room.
“Hey. I’m your fiancé,” Jace murmurs, frowning at her.
“I’m well aware, Jace. I love you more than life, but that man is beyond, and it’s Camryn’s choice.
Jace scrubbed his face. “He’s—”
“—who I want, Jace. I know you may not agree with it, but I don’t care what you or anyone else has to say.”
“He said you’re his and have been for a long time. How long?”
My brain focused on Jace saying Stone declared me as his, and I forgot the rest. If I were his, then why hadn’t he shown his face? Where the hell was he?
“Cam?”
“Since the pool party,” I confirmed.
Jace’s eyes bugged out of his head, and then he shouted. “You’ve been having sex with him for over a year?!”
Sophia hissed, “Shhh! You’ll wake Val! The people on the sidewalk probably heard you!”
Correcting him, I shook my head. “No, we weren’t intimate yet, but there’s been something there since then.”
“He lives a certain lifestyle, Cam, a dangerous one and he’s older.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know exactly who he is, Jace, and his age doesn’t bother me and it shouldn’t bother you.”
“Park! I know damn well you didn’t just condemn their relationship because of his age? No blow jobs for you buddy.”
Jace looked ill. “Dammit, Sparta. I’m worried, okay? The gang who took you is still around. Stone’s still a member of his club. Being with him may not be conducive to what you want.”
“You don’t know what I want, Jace. I’m figuring it out as I go.”
“Are you okay with a future that includes the man in your life traveling all the damn time? His allegiance is to his club. A club where violence is an everyday occurrence. He has enemies, Cam. You of all people know that now.” He looked at my neck, covered in the pink scars.
I tugged up the collar of my sweatshirt and hugged myself because, as much as I want Stone, Jace may have a point.
I haven’t talked to Stone about any of it.
I don’t know what the future looks like.
I didn’t know what else to say to Jace, and he went to his office, leaving me alone with Sophia. She sat beside me on the couch, hugging me close. I couldn’t ignore the ache in my heart.
“What are you going to do?”
“I have no clue, Sophia. He ghosted me. We were hooking up and now we’re not. And we didn’t talk about anything long term.”
“Too busy enjoying his dick?”
I looked at her and folded like laundry, giggling. We both laughed until tears came to our eyes.
Once she had settled down, she shook her head. “Hooked up? Girl, please. No, we are not using that phrase. Too mild. Let’s start that bullshit over and tell me the truth because the way he was looking at you was more than hooking up. Stone doesn’t seem like the type to hook up.”
Sophia air quoted it, and I had to agree.
Sex with Stone is otherworldly, all-consuming.
Nothing as trite as ‘hooking up.’ “I love him, Soph. I’m in love with a man who has secrets and may or may not have murdered the man who kidnapped me.
A man whose world is so much more than I understand.
” I returned the pressure of her hand when she squeezed mine.
“That’s some big shit right there.”
“Huge. I never felt like this before, but how do we work?”
“Aside from what I can imagine is some delicious sex—”
She let it hang, and I nodded, blushing, “So good. Like, make me insane good.”
Her long romantic sigh was accompanied by a secret smile.
“I know about that.” She hugged me again.
“Don’t put limits on yourself or him, or whatever relationship may come from it.
Opposites attract. People who come from different worlds can make it work.
Look at your brother and me. Two vastly different people and here I am pumping milk for his daughter, having incredible sex and more in love with him than ever, minus his little ageism shit just now.
Going to have to correct him tonight.” She grinned, the anticipation on her face clear as day. I leaned away from her.
“Is that some sort of sex thing?”
“Sure is. But I don’t think you want to hear about how I teach Jace his lessons.”
“No thanks. And it’s more than just socio-economic and whether one of us likes hot dogs or hamburgers, Soph. What do I know about being with a man like him? And it all may be moot anyway because he hasn’t shown his face in days.”
“Welp, if you want my thoughts, you may have to go to him. Find out what the hell is going on in his mind. And then you figure out the rest. Him un-aliving people is not something to fuck around with, but I have a feeling he’s not doing it like a Ted Bundy or Gacy. He might have his reasons.”
I thought about his sister; I knew he did.
He has reasons for wanting to find the people who brutalized his sister and niece, and women like Cara.
I remembered what he said the day El Jefe held me captive.
Stone mentioned the eight-year-old he prevented El Jefe from hurting.
Girls like Cara and countless others have had their lives negatively impacted by men like him.
Now, sitting alone in my apartment, I stare at the art around me.
The brutal, violent art I’ve created. Scenes of El Jefe’s eyes.
Close-ups of knife wounds with my face in the center.
Visuals of Women being ripped away from their children.
Scenes of terrified women’s faces. I’m one of those women.
I will never forget those moments when El Jefe was on top of me.
When his fingers squeezed my breasts, when he bit my neck, and stabbed me over and over.
The scars all over my neck bear witness to the irrevocable way my life has changed.
Nightmares plague me, too. Vicious dreams of being held down.
The type of panic that makes me wake up in a cold sweat, fighting El Jefe’s phantom form.
It’s the type of panic that I had never felt with Stone.
I’ll definitely never be able to eat oranges again.
The smell makes me sick to my stomach, remembering the scent of it on his breath.
Everyone’s been encouraging me to go to therapy, but I’m not ready yet. I want to speak to Stone first.
Suddenly, I remember the recording devices in my apartment, and I look around.
I forgot about them. The night when I threatened to destroy them was long forgotten.
I had never gotten around to it, and days later, I was in the back of a van, tied up with my friends.
I wonder if he still watches me from the devices.
Did he see me crying? Did he watch me pacing, walking back and forth when I couldn’t sleep, wrapped in his shirt or my sheet?
Did he hear me calling his name when I pictured El Jefe’s face?
It’s weird, but I feel closer to him knowing that maybe he can see me.
I stand in the middle of the living room and speak loudly. “Where are you?”
I wait like he’s going to suddenly knock on the door and walk in, hold me, and make me feel what I always feel with him. Alive. But he doesn’t, and more and more it feels like whatever we had is dead.