Chapter Nineteen #2
“You never asked.” Another round of thunder boomed, practically shaking the house. “Now, my team is disabling our tech and we kindly ask that…uh, what is his name? Oh, yes, Jake Murphy.” I blinked, going back to staring at the wall again. “Please ask him to not destroy our tech.”
Knowing Jake and how touchy he was with his laptop, I couldn’t ask him that.
Especially given how murderous Ash looked before he’d gone into the backyard.
“No promises, Agent Masters.” I padded down the hall, my eyes on the back door.
Lightning flashed, but Ash was still outside. I sank my teeth into my lip.
Even though I wanted to be angry at her, I couldn’t be. She was just doing her job in the end.
“Thank you for the update,” I said, swallowing. “Is there anything else I need to do?”
“No. I hope you can breathe a bit easier, knowing this nightmare is over.”
Tears blurred my vision. “Thank you,” I rasped.
“Good night, Angel. I wish you nothing but the best.”
I swiped a tear away. “Thank you, Agent Masters. Right back at you.”
“Tell your boyfriend I admire his work,” she tacked on before hanging up.
I set the phone on the small catch-all table in the hall, slipped on my rain boots by the back door, and headed into the storm, bracing my heart for what I might get caught up in.
“Ash?” I called out into the rain. I flipped on the back porch light. He was standing in the middle of the yard, surrounded by my trees with his back to me. “Ash!”
He lifted his head, looking over his shoulder.
At the sight of the pain in his eyes, I took a step outside. The rain instantly soaked me, plastering my hair to my cheeks. “Ash?”
His chest heaved as he turned to face me, his arms heavy at his sides.
He looked like a wounded soldier; a man lost in a time with rivers of blood and endless violence.
I wrapped my arms around myself and crossed the deck, my footfalls heavy and hurried.
I was halfway down the few steps when his voice stretched out through the rain, ordering me to stop, but I couldn’t.
There was no going back now. The truth was bleeding out all around us now, tainting us forever.
The second my rain boot sank into the soft, soaked ground, he moved. “What did I tell you?” he growled.
“Agent Masters just told me,” I shouted over the thunder. Tears mixed in with the rain. “I’m so sorry. I am so sorry, Ash. She told me she sent backup to get you. She said that I was her priority. You weren’t supposed to be there. She was on her way. You just got to me first.”
He kept his head bent, staring down at me as if I was a stranger, not the woman he cared for. Droplets were sliding down all angles of his face. They were still sharp; he was still beautiful, but in the light, as the skies cracked and howled above us, he looked like the angel of death.
I raised my hand, ready to place it over his heart, to feel the most beautiful beat in the world.
But his hand caught my wrist in a tight grip.
Then he yanked me to him. His other arm snapped around me, locking me against his hard body. His upper lips curled as he leaned down, getting into my space. “Where did Agent Masters take you?”
Lightning scattered above the trees and thunder rolled close behind. The sound scared the hell out of me. I flinched in his arms. “Please, let’s go back inside and we can talk about this.”
“Were you safe?” he pressed, squeezing me. I could hardly hear him over the storm.
“What?” I shook my head.
In a flash, my jaw was in his hand, his lips brushing mine, his eyes branding his name onto my soul.
Ash.
Ash.
Ash.
All at once, the storm, the rain, the wind, the thunder ceased. A haunting quiet followed. He backed us up to the porch, caging me against the house.
“Were you safe?” he uttered, his voice guttural.
“Ash, let’s go inside. We can talk about it—”
“I can’t set foot back into that house without knowing the truth,” he clipped. “I need to know the fucking truth!”
I nodded. “Okay,” I cooed. “Okay, I’ll tell you everything.”
“Were you safe?”
My hands went to his sides, taking hold of his wet shirt. “Yes.”
He dropped his forehead against mine, inhaling an unsteady breath. He closed his eyes, and suddenly I knew.
He was afraid.
“You weren’t in any danger after I freed you from that prison,” he rasped.
“You didn’t—there was no more pain for you after…
” He trailed off, and as he did, his hand dropped from my jaw to my neck, caressing me.
“No one touched you or forced you to do anything…” He looked pained and forced himself to stop.
“No, don’t do that.” I shook my head, holding on to him. “Don’t shut me out.”
“I don’t know how to ask this.”
“Ask me anything. Please.”
“Angel, have you ever been raped?”
I felt the blood drain from my face, everything snapping into place at once. “No.”
His eyes closed, a pained, devastating sound coming from his chest. “Fuck,” he croaked. “Thank God. I thought—fuck, I thought you’d been…” he trailed off again, lifting his head and giving me his profile. Agony was etched into every inch of his face.
“Ash, listen to me,” I said over the pelting rain.
“Alan Benson sought me out when I was at a conference in Las Vegas. Sometime during the evening, he spiked my drink. He kidnapped me. When I came to, I woke up in the room you found me in. Alan Benson did not touch me sexually; he wasn’t allowed to.
He was trying to sell me.” Ash flinched, his hold on me tightening.
I loved it. I’d never felt so safe. “According to Agent Masters, I was being held in Texas because Alan’s transport had been ambushed by her team and the FBI.
The feds were closing in on him, and he knew it.
Vegas had been his last-ditch effort to three more women, but I was the only one. ”
Thunder clapped behind him, but he didn’t seem to care. Or notice.
“We missed it,” he said, his upper lip curling.
My brows came together. “Missed what?”
“Benson hired Red Snake to track down a former employee who’d stolen from him.”
More of the puzzle pieces snapped together. “He was trying to flee the country,” I said. “Agent Masters said by the time she found me, all of his accounts had been frozen.”
“I thought you were his wife. You told me you were his wife.”
Pain sparked in my chest. “He told me to say that to every man who came in. That way they wouldn’t try anything. Agent Masters said that other men in this ring weren’t allowed to touch wives. It’s a cult.”
He dropped his head to mine. “I’m so sorry,” he rasped.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said over another clap of thunder. “You saved me!”
“You would’ve been saved either way,” he shot back.
I brought my hand to his chest, feeling his heart. “Fate intervened.”