Chapter 16

I am not responsible for what my face does when you talk.

-things not to say to your alpha badass

Lark

I tiptoed to the door and pulled it open, thankful that he left it unlocked.

The neighborhood was quiet, late and safe meant that Baylor never locked the door. Which was good for me because I knew where he kept a spare key to the truck.

Which I retrieved moments later and used it to start the truck up.

Putting it into reverse, I immediately started to wince at the sound.

The tow truck made a beeping bleep that indicated it was backing up, and I cursed as it only seemed to get louder.

Which happened to be why I reversed a whole lot faster into the road than I would’ve normally, and hit a trash can.

I groaned and put it into drive, carefully adjusting my mirrors as I started to accelerate down the road.

I’d made it two blocks, turning onto the street that led to the exit from the neighborhood, when I saw the figure in the road.

I slammed on my brakes and came face-to-face with a very upset Baylor.

He was illuminated by the headlights, and what I could see wasn’t very happy.

In fact, it was safe to say that he was enraged.

Stalking around the truck, he came to the driver’s side and yanked it open.

“Move.”

I started to scramble out of the truck completely, but he blocked me with his body.

“Move as in scoot the fuck over. Not get out,” he ordered, gritting his teeth.

I did as he asked, and probably should’ve gone straight out the other side.

However, his next words halted me in my tracks.

“You so much as think about throwing that door open and running for it, you’ll regret it.”

I swallowed the saliva that was quickly gathering in my mouth and tossed him a wary look.

He got into the truck and slammed the door shut.

He was sweating…badly.

He’d obviously been on the final leg of a run, because his shirt was tucked into his waistband, and there was so much sweat dripping off of him that it was collecting in his shorts. Making them look more of a dark gray rather than the light gray I’d seen him wearing earlier in the night.

“You have two choices.”

I knew I wouldn’t want to do either of them.

Which I told him.

“No.”

“One,” he ignored my outburst. “You can either tell me what the fuck is going on then I’ll fuck you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, knowing where this was going.

“Or,” I interrupted again. “You can take me to the bus station.”

His eyes narrowed. “Or two, you can let me fuck you, and then you’ll talk.”

I was already shaking my head. “That’s not how any of this works, Baylor.”

“This is exactly how it works!” he bellowed.

I froze as he pulled over, yanked me into his lap, and put both hands on either side of my face. Then he pulled me so close that I was breathing in the air he exhaled.

He was sweaty, angry, and on the verge of cussing.

At me.

I could tell.

His body was practically vibrating underneath mine, and not only could I tell that it wasn’t just in arousal, but I could also hear it in the tone of his voice.

He was frustrated with me.

I’d never seen him so mad before.

“I’m sorry I stole your truck,” I blurted.

His eyes narrowed. “You think that’s why I’m mad?”

I nodded self-consciously. “Yes.”

He threw the truck into drive and started to motor back down the street toward his house.

I stayed silent the entire way.

The moment he pulled into the driveway, my heart started to pound.

Wasn’t it just my luck that he’d see me driving his stupid truck out of the neighborhood. Wasn’t it just my luck that he’d be running? Fuck my life.

“Start talking,” he ordered, me still firmly on his lap. “Tell me why I shouldn’t be reporting your ass for theft.” He paused. “You do know that this truck is about five hundred grand, right? That’s more than just a petty, little misdemeanor.”

I swallowed thickly and looked at the floorboard of the truck, knowing in my heart that he was mad at me past the point of caring right then.

I had a responsibility, though. He needed to know.

Likely he’d be one of the first people who Sal questioned.

He’d stood up for me with those cops. He’d protected me. He’d picked me up from jail.

It was time.

“I have a lot to tell you,” I told him, closing my eyes. “It might take a while.” I paused. “You have to make me a promise, though.”

He looked directly at me. “Anything.”

I smiled sadly. “You have to promise, once you know everything, that you’ll not step in when this all goes south.”

“What are you talking about?”

I opened my eyes, and let him see everything that I held back over the last couple of weeks we’d been seeing each other. The fear. The uncertainty. The knowing that Sal was going to ruin this for me like he’d ruined everything else.

I knew that this man was going to try to protect me from Sal, but I couldn’t let him. Sal was going to ruin Baylor, and he would stop at nothing to get me back.

“Promise.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll promise to listen to you, but I’m not going to promise something when I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in. I l-like you.”

I looked away. There was no way that he didn’t know I’d heard what he almost said. None.

“I guess that’ll have to be enough,” I muttered.

And I prayed that the words I thought he was about to say weren’t his true feelings. Maybe, just maybe, I’d get a second chance.

“Sal is…was my husband. We got divorced.”

His eyes narrowed.

“We got divorced while I was in a halfway house for women who were abused.”

His eyes narrowed even more. They were nothing more than slits at this point.

I inhaled, trying to gain the courage to tell him the rest.

It’d be better if the truck was dark. I reached forward and took the keys from the truck, tossing them on the dashboard.

The truck plunged into darkness, and now all I could see was the light shining on one side of his face from the streetlight across the street.

He waited.

I looked up, drew a deep breath of air into my lungs, and continued.

“I married Sal when I was young. Too young to be making such decisions. But I’d found out that I was pregnant within weeks of meeting him—and sleeping with him. The choice was obvious in my mind. Marry the man with the money, have him help me with the baby and school.” I shook my head. “I was in college with a full load of classes on my plate and student loans piling up. It was a stupid, rash decision, and not a day has gone by that I haven’t fully regretted the choice I made.”

I licked my lips. “See, what I didn’t know when I met Sal for the first time, was that it was me who didn’t know anything about him. Not the other way around. Sal knew everything about me from the day he’d seen me walk out of my college dorm room. He’d followed me for weeks, watching…stalking. Then, the day I graduated college, he made his move.”

“Only I hadn’t realized he’d made a move. I’d just thought he was a blood donor. Turns out, Sal had never donated blood before in his life. He’d come to the donation center to ask me on the date, but I had no doubt in my mind that had I said no to his offer of a date, he’d have gotten me to go out with him some other way.” I closed my eyes. “That date was the date I got pregnant.”

I closed my eyes, feeling sick to my stomach.

“The first time he beat me was the first day of our honeymoon while we were in the Bahamas,” I continued. “I miscarried.”

He growled, but I continued before he could ask.

“He was drunk. Pissed off that he was forced to marry me,” I continued. “See, I was only an obsession to him. A plaything, if you will. He wanted me, but he didn’t want to be married to me. We had somewhat of an arranged marriage. He’d done the unthinkable for a Donovan. Gotten a woman pregnant, and he had to make it right. I, being the stupid girl that I was, thought I was making a good decision. I was excited…happy.”

He squeezed my waist.

“After he beat me, I miscarried in the bathroom while he was passed out drunk,” I said. “Then he beat me again the next morning when he found out that I’d lost the baby that he’d been forced to marry me because of.”

He dropped his head to my shoulder.

“At that point, I think he was just with me to punish me,” I said. “He did what he wanted. Who he wanted.” I knew he got my point because he growled again. “He was a police officer. Like his father. His grandfather. His mother.”

Baylor exhaled.

“You never stood a chance, did you?”

I shook my head.

Tears threatened, but I choked them back and continued.

“I stayed with him for eight years. Did the things he forced me to do and played his happy little wife who always did what he said.” I paused. “I tried to leave four other times before this last time that was successful.”

“And what happened the first four times?”

He knew that there was more to the story than I was letting on.

“He beat me so bad that I miscarried the first and third times.”

Everything inside of him stilled.

“If I didn’t have sex with him, he got mad. If I took birth control, he got mad. So, I had no defense. It was bound to happen.” I hiccupped as I tried to find the ability to draw air. “The second time I found out I was pregnant, I stole a thousand dollars from his mother and tried to run.” I opened my eyes and looked at the streetlight that was five houses down from Baylor’s. “He found me within twenty minutes. That’s when I found out that he had an app on my phone that told him when I left a certain area.”

At this point, Baylor’s arms were around me so tightly that I knew he was very angry and upset…for me.

But I continued.

“That night, he beat me, then beat me again the next morning when he found out I lost the baby for the second time.” I choked. “The third time, a year later, I managed not to take my phone. My mistake was trying to take money from our account…which he had an alert set up for when anything over a hundred dollars was withdrawn. He caught me at the ATM machine.”

“And then he did the same thing again,” Baylor guessed.

I smiled, but it wasn’t nice. Not at all.

“He waited to beat me for a few days,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting it. Which was what he was hoping would happen. He waited for me to let my guard down before he did anything.”

“And the last?”

“It took me a year, but I was able to do it. And I got on birth control.” I bit my lip. “I’ve never seen him so angry in my life than when he found the pills I’d hidden. That was the day that I decided that I’d leave or die trying. I waited until he was at work and stole a car. His mother’s. And I drove until I was out of gas. From there, I walked to a shelter that was two towns over from where the car broke down. That’s where I got the name of an organization that helped women get free of abusive situations.”

“And then what?”

“Then, they sent me here,” I said. “Harold was my point of contact with them. He is the man that set up the girl before me. The one that was with your brother—or so I’ve heard.”

He looked like he wanted to ask about that, but chose to keep silent. “Why in the hell would they choose Harold?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Seems kind of crazy to me, too.”

“Harold wasn’t chosen. I was,” came a voice from the side window.

I screamed.

Baylor didn’t.