9. Chapter 9 #2
“Yeah.” I clear my throat and try to focus. “Let’s move.”
She guides us to the service entrance she told us about. The security panel glows green when she punches in the code, and the door clicks open. We move through the darkened hallways in single file, our footsteps silent on the polished floors.
Reese leads us up a back staircase, avoiding the main areas. Then we are on the third floor. The hallway stretches ahead of us, dark and empty. At the far end of one corridor there is a single door.
Halfway down the hall, Reese stops in front of a painting and reaches behind the frame. Her hand comes back with a small brass key.
“That is the key to the room.” Her voice has dropped to barely a whisper and I can tell how she is fighting just to breathe.
“We can do this without you going inside.” I grip her shoulder. “Thorne can get into the safe. You can wait out here.”
“No.” She shakes her head. Determination hardens her features. “I need to do this. I need to see that room and prove to myself that it can’t hurt me anymore.”
God, she is so fucking brave it breaks my heart.
“Okay, baby.” I take the key from her. “But you stay right beside me. The second it becomes too much—”
“I know.” She manages a small smile. “You will be there.”
“Always, baby girl.”
We continue down the hall. Each step feels heavier than the last. When we reach the door, I fit the key into the lock and turn it. The mechanism clicks, and the sound is deafening in the silence.
I push the door open and step inside first.
The room is large and set up to entertain. I see the brown leather couch. Bookshelves lined with volumes that have likely never been read. The faint smell of cigars permeates the entire room.
It looks like any wealthy man’s study. It could be a room where business deals are made and expensive whiskey is poured.
But I know what this room really is. I know what happened on that couch. I know what Reese endured here.
And I’m going to burn it to the fucking ground.
“The safe is behind that painting.” Reese’s voice comes from the doorway. She has not crossed the threshold. “The one with the man in the blue coat.”
I turn to look at her, and my chest cracks open.
She is frozen. Her face has gone white, and her eyes are fixed on the couch.
“Baby girl.” I move toward her. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t respond. Her breathing is getting shallow, rapid. Her fingers are pressed hard against her lips, and her whole body has started to tremble. I should have never let her come here.
“Reese.” I grip the back of her neck, firmly enough to anchor her. “You are not back there. You are here with me. Right now.”
She blinks, and her eyes focus on my face for just a second before sliding away again.
“I can smell them.” Her voice is strangled, as she begins to sob. “The cigars. The cologne. I can smell them, Tate. They are here. They are—”
“They are not here.” I pull her against my chest, blocking her view of the room with my body. “There is no one here except us. You are safe. I have you, baby girl.”
But she is spiraling. I can feel it in the way her body shakes and the way her breath comes in ragged gasps. Her mind is not here with me. She is somewhere else, somewhere dark and terrible, and I am losing her.
“I need—” She is clawing at my shirt, desperate. “Tate, I can’t breathe. I need—”
“Baby,” I plead with her. “Stay with me baby. Come back here with me.”
“Is she alright?” Fox asks, coming to check on us.
I motion for him to back away. “Help Thorne. I’ve got her.”
“I–” She chokes between a sob. “Ta—” She tries to say my name and then she opens her mouth again but nothing else comes out.
I back her against the wall, away from the doorway, away from the view of that fucking room.
Fox and Thorne are inside now, moving toward the safe, giving us what privacy they can.
I don’t give a shit if they see. I don’t give a shit about anything except the woman in front of me who is drowning in memories.
“Look at me.” I grip her jaw and force her eyes to mine. “I am going to give you what you need. You don’t have to ask. You don’t have to be embarrassed. Just take it.”
I reach for my belt with my other hand. Her eyes drop, and I see the desperate relief flood her face before I even free myself.
“Take what you need, baby girl.” My voice is rough, wrecked. “I have got you.”
She sinks to her knees and wraps her lips around me, and the tension starts to drain from her shoulders immediately. She is not sucking, not moving, not trying to get me off. She is just holding me in her mouth, using the weight of me to ground herself in the present.
I brace one hand against the wall and slide the other into her hair, stroking gently.
My cock is hard because it is physically impossible for it not to be when her mouth is on me, but this is not about that.
This is about giving her an anchor. This is about being the thing that pulls her back from the edge.
“That is it.” I keep my voice low and steady. “You are here with me. You are safe. Nothing in that room can hurt you anymore.”
I hear Thorne and Fox working on the safe behind me. Fox says something, but I don’t turn around. My entire world has narrowed to the woman on her knees in front of me, the way her breathing is slowly evening out, the way her grip on my thighs is loosening from desperate to steady.
A minute passes. Then two.
Her jaw must be aching, but she doesn’t pull off. She just holds me there, her eyes closed, her body finally still.
I have never felt closer to another human being in my entire life. This woman is trusting me with the most broken parts of herself, and I will spend the rest of my days making sure that trust is never misplaced.
“Look at me, baby girl.” She opens her eyes and looks up at me with my dick still in her mouth. “That’s it. Look at my face. Try to remember my face, baby.”
She keeps her eyes on mine, and I see the tears spilling down her cheeks.
“You are the strongest, bravest woman in the world, baby girl. I am proud as hell of you. There is nothing in there that has any hold on you. Just me.”
After another several seconds, she slowly pulls off of me, her lips swollen, her face wet. I pull her up to stand and wipe the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs.
“Tate—” Her voice cracks. “I need . . . I need to tell you . . .”
“You can tell me anything, baby girl.” I know she’s been holding something back. I’m scared that I know what it is, but she needs to say the words when she’s ready. And I fucking love her no matter what she’s survived. Nothing would change that.
Her breathing goes erratic again, and I pull her to me, my dick still hanging out, but I kiss her this time. I give her my tongue, hoping I can ground her before she has another full-on panic attack.
She sinks into me and kisses me hard, massaging her tongue with mine, sucking when she needs it. I don’t care if we do this every day for the rest of our lives. I will be what she needs in these moments of darkness, and I will bring her back to me each and every fucking time.
Reese finally pulls back and her breath is even again. She looks up at me with so much emotion in her eyes that she could bring me to my knees.
“You don’t have to go back in there if you don’t want to.” I press a kiss to her forehead.
She is shaky, but the panic has receded from her eyes. When she looks toward the room, she doesn’t freeze this time.
“No. I am ready.” She squares her shoulders. “I need to do this.”
I finally tuck myself back into my pants and take her hand. Together, we walk into the room that is the source of her nightmares.
Thorne is at the safe, which is now open. He is pulling out folders and stacking them on the desk. Fox is rifling through a filing cabinet in the corner. Ivy stands near the door, her arms wrapped around herself.
When I look at Ivy, I notice her hands are shaking. She is staring at the leather couch with an expression of disgust.
She knows. Maybe not what happened to Reese specifically, but she knows what this room is.
“Ivy?” Reese’s voice is soft.
Ivy blinks and focuses on Reese. Reese crosses to her and takes her hand. “You don’t have to be in here.”
“Yes, I do.” Ivy holds onto my girl. “I am not leaving you alone with this.”
The two of them stand there for a moment, holding hands in the middle of a monster’s lair. I watch my girl face her fucking fears like a warrior, and I fall a little deeper in love with her.
“Holy shit.” Thorne’s voice breaks the moment. “You need to see this.”
I move to the desk where he has spread out the contents of the safe. There are folders, hard drives, and stacks of documents going back years.
The first folder is a ledger. There are names in one column and prices in another, then dates. The entries span almost ten years.
I start reading, and my vision goes red.
“This is a record of every girl he ever sold.” Thorne’s voice sounds far away. “He kept documentation of everything. Probably as leverage to hold against all of them.”
I flip through the pages. Some names appear multiple times—the same girls sold over and over to different men. The prices vary. Fifty thousand. A hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand.
Lives reduced to line items in a monster’s accounting ledger.
And then I see her name.
Reese Donaldson. He put his own fucking daughter’s name is his ledger. The first entry is dated ten years ago, and the buyer is Richard Castellano for seventy-five thousand dollars.
I flip forward with shaking hands. Michael Collier appears again and again, paying premium prices for the privilege of hurting her.
The ledger crumples in my fist. I did not even realize I was crushing it until the paper tears.
“Tate.” Fox’s voice is sharp with warning. “Take a breath.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. All I can see is her name on that ledger along with the names of the men who used her body while her father counted the money.