I put Havoc in her field and was walking back to the house when it started to rain. I heard the motorcycle start up minutes later, and a wave of relief swept over me. I didn’t know where he was going, and I didn’t care as long as it wasn’t here.
The reality was I had no idea who Logan was—the man I fell in love with or the son of a sadistic, ruthless Raul. Was he taking over his father’s business now that he was dead? Maybe he was here to take me back?
Somewhere inside me, I knew that wasn’t true. I’d escaped because of him. He’d managed to get Deck to Mexico to get me out. I’m not sure how or why, but that was how it went down.
When I’d left Logan that night all I knew was that Deck’s men stayed behind. I never asked what happened, and Deck never told me. I had assumed the FBI had gone after Raul when I told them what happened. But why had it taken two years? And why wasn’t Logan arrested if he was with his father?
I leaned over the fence and watched as Havoc galloped across the field toward her herd. The rain teemed down on me, and I closed my eyes, tilted my face to the sky, and let it trickle down my cheeks.
It felt cool after the blazing heat of the day. Within seconds my T-shirt was soaked and my breeches stuck to my thighs like Velcro.
I shook out my wet hair and ran my fingers through it. An image of Logan caressing my head, stroking my hair—
I slammed my palms into the fence and curled them. No. Stop.
I leaned my forehead against the cedar rail while the rain pounded hard onto my back and shoulders.
I’d liked it, his touch. How he was with me. I felt empty without him. Damn it, what was wrong with me?
My therapist had said the thoughts of what happened would fade, that with hard work and reconstructions, I’d stop hearing the girls screams and having nightmares. But she didn’t know everything; she had no idea that I loved the man that brought me into that world. To her he was a stranger who kidnapped me and took me to Mexico to be a sex slave.
Sliding down to the ground, I sat with my knees tucked up under my chin and my arms wrapped around them.
For two years I’d been able to keep Logan locked up inside of me. My therapist and I worked through what I’d witnessed and suffered, and the nightmares did fade. When she began pushing to know more about what I endured from the hands of the “stranger”, that was when I quit therapy. I refused to speak to Kat and Matt about what happened. Kat begged and pleaded with me to talk, but I couldn’t. She knew about Logan and how I felt about him and I wanted to forget, not relive the humiliation.
But eventually they both stopped asking, and I slipped into my void of living. Georgie came by a few times a week, and she was her usual self, no-holds-barred Georgie. She told me about her brother Riot, and we talked about the loss and how Deck had been overprotective of her ever since.
My tears flowed like the rain, slipping down my cheeks as I rocked back and forth, the needles pounding into me. I cried. I don’t know why really. I just did. And it hurt. Seeing Logan tore me open, and I was bleeding, and the thing was I didn’t know how to stop it.
“Mouse.”
I jerked, raising my head. He stood in front of me, soaking wet, water dripping down his face like teardrops.
I stopped rocking. He looked like the man I loved standing there, with his hands tucked in his front jean pockets, a little uncomfortable, maybe unsure of himself. No, Logan was never uncertain.
He stepped closer.
“Emily.” His voice. It was strained and harsh like it was when we ... we were together. He crouched in front of me, the rain having soaked his T-shirt, revealing the dark ink on his skin.
Logan had never left me. He’d always been in me, yet I’d denied it. Fought it because it was wrong. It was abnormal. I had to be crazy to still love this man, and yet ... some fragment of my soul did. I don’t think it would ever be cut out. But I’d keep trying.
He reached for me.
“Stay away.” I punched him in the chest then in the shoulder, my fists like drum sticks hitting him over and over again. “Why are you doing this to me? Just leave.”
He held me by the shoulders, eyes never leaving my face, his expression calm as he let me assault him until I was exhausted. I closed my eyes and fell backward until I was sitting in the wet grass, chest heaving and fists throbbing.
“You done?”
My eyes flew open, and I raised my hand and slapped him across the face. The resounding sound echoed, and the palm of my hand stung like I’d slapped a marble countertop as hard as I could. I didn’t care. I wanted it to hurt. I needed the pain.
I made a strange moan in the back of my throat and went to slap him again, but this time he caught my wrist.
“Once I’ll take. Not twice.”
When I relaxed my arm, Logan let me go. He took off his jacket and tried to wrap it around me, but I pushed him away. His frown lowered and eyes darkened as he relented and threw it over the fence instead. And it was him yielding, because Logan did what he wanted, and if he chose to wrap a friggin’ jacket around me he would.
I stared as the familiar crevices of his chest molded through his tight, wet T-shirt. Get a grip. He let me be tortured. He humiliated me.
I bit the inside of my cheeks until it was so painful that I remembered what I’d suffered with Logan was a billion times more. “You left. I heard the motorcycle—”
“I put it in the garage, out of the rain.”
“Well, I don’t want it in my garage.”
He ignored me. “We need to talk about this.” He reached for my hand; his eyes were downcast and glassy, yet hard.
Emotions I’d hidden away torpedoed to the surface. No. I don’t want this.
I shot for the house, but Logan was a fighter, quick and agile. He ran after me then snagged my hand, swung me back around, and trapped me against a tree trunk.
“You’re ... scared and angry, and you’re entitled.” He stared at me, and I remained frozen, droplets of rain sliding down my cheeks. “Eme, I’m not here to take you away. I’m here to tell you what happened.”
“I was there, remember, I know exactly what went down.”
“No Eme, you don’t.” His eyes narrowed when I went to argue. I kept quiet. With Logan you learned when to pick your battles; this one wasn’t one of them. “Believing the shit you are right now is eating away at you.” How did he know that? “The truth, Mouse. You have to hear the truth. I couldn’t let Deck tell you anything until Raul was dead, it was too risky ... And I wanted to tell you myself.”
I did realize that he helped me get out. It just wasn’t enough to erase everything else.
His arms caged me in as he leaned forward, his chest inches from mine, water droplets glistening on his tanned skin. He leaned closer, and I turned my head to the side. A spark ignited as his breath hit my skin just below my ear. A deep throbbing within me weakened my resolve to beat him with my fists.
“You are not shutting me out like you’ve done everyone else for the last two years.” How did he know that too? His lips were so close to my skin that if I took a deep breath they’d touch. Tears teetered-tottered on the edge of my lids.
“Don’t.” It was me begging, because I couldn’t tell him no any other way.
He tucked my wet hair behind my ear. “Eme, look at me.”
I sucked in air as his hand cupped my chin and brought my head forward to face him. I kept my eyes downcast, afraid to look at him and get lost within the chocolate depths. “Sculpt, you have to let me go.”
“Never ask me to do that.”
I stiffened and tightened my jaw as I ground out. “Nothing you say will make a difference. Not anymore.”
“I’m asking here.”
Logan never asked. If I gave him this would he leave me alone? “Say what you need to then I want you out of my life.”
He drew back, but still I could feel his breath on my face. “Raul—”
I stiffened and blurted out, “The man who had me waterboarded? Who dehumanizes girls? Who held a gun to my head? Are you referring to your f**king father?”
He grabbed me by the shoulders. “Yes, Emily. Yes. He was my father, but I didn’t choose him just like you didn’t choose your mother.” Okay, point, my mother was unkind and selfish who cared for nothing except her next drink. She didn’t even know what had happened to me, not that she’d care. “Do you think I didn’t want to shoot every single disgusting lowlife in there? Do you think I didn’t want to shove that fuckin’ gun down my father’s throat and pull the goddamn trigger?” I looked at my feet feeling vulnerable ... fine, I was feeling very vulnerable. Logan was always in control, and right now with his brows lowered, his jaw tight and his voice raised, Logan was losing that control.
“Emily. Please. Look at me.” I did. “Everything that happened gutted me. I trained every morning to try and control the fury that was raging through me. So I didn’t get you killed by screwing everything up. Damn it, Eme. I need you to look at me while I tell you this.” I hadn’t realized I was staring down again. Really, I was trying not to listen. I didn’t want to hear what he was telling me. I’d managed just fine believing what I did, and I couldn’t handle changing it. “I’ve lived two years knowing you hate me.” He shoved away from the tree, from me, and ran his hands through his soaking wet hair. “Tell me. What else was I supposed to do? I did everything I could to save you.”
I lay my head back against the trunk of the tree and closed my eyes feeling sick to my stomach. I was confused and uncertain. His eyes were filled with this destructive blaze of anger that was ... could it be pain? Was it real pain? Or was it a front? More lies.
I shook my head back and forth. No. No. Logan had watched. He’d done nothing. He’d driven me across the country to his father’s compound of hell. Why hadn’t he killed Jacob instead of driving me three days to Mexico? Dave had been his friend, he could’ve helped him. Why hadn’t he just taken me someplace else to escape? He was a fighter; he could’ve fought.
No. Logan was just as guilty as his father.
He walked back toward me and leaned forward, hands braced against the tree on either side of me. He put his finger under my chin and kept it there. “Baby.”
I wanted to run and hide. Forget he was ever here.
“My mother was Raul’s slave for seventeen years.” Oh God. My knees weakened at his words. I hadn’t even thought of Logan’s mother. “She became pregnant with me within a year of her capture. Raul wasn’t happy about it until I was born a boy. Then he made plans for me.”
“The fighting,” I murmured.
He nodded. “My mother tried to protect me from that shit you saw, Eme. But in a place like that, it wasn’t easy. I met Dave, and we both trained since we were five years old for the ring. That’s all we did. I can’t remember much else besides hanging out with Dave and fighting. We did go to school, but no one would talk to us. I imagine that was because of Raul. No one wanted to mess with anything of his.
“Raul had me in my first fight at twelve. I was gangly and hadn’t bulked out, but I was agile and determined.” He paused, and I felt his breath on my skin as he breathed in and out. “I was never part of what you saw in the dining room, Mouse. Never. Raul didn’t care that I wasn’t, because he was focused on me fighting, and he didn’t want girls clouding my focus.