It’s our last night on the road as we’ll be home tomorrow evening and I such have a mixture of feelings about the whole thing. I’m excited to see Liam and Mikey. A little sad to end my time alone with Conor. And nervous as hell to see Shane. Despite what Conor tries to assure me, I don’t think our differences can be fixed with a simple conversation.
I walk across the parking lot towards the motel as Conor takes his bag from the trunk. The lot is almost empty except for a light blue pick-up a few yards away from me. I barely notice it, until the driver starts the engine and it sputters to life. Glancing over at it as the driver pulls out of his space and turns the vehicle, I get a glimpse of him. He looks directly at me and my legs nearly buckle beneath me. My blood freezes in my veins as time seems to stand still. I have seen those eyes before. I’m sure I have.
My body moves entirely on instinct. I turn and run in the opposite direction, straight into Conor’s arms. He places his hands on my shoulders as I struggle to run past him. Has he brought me here to hand me over, after all? Was Alexei telling the truth about the Ryan brothers?
My heart pounds in my chest. Blood thunders in my ears and tears run down my face. I have to get out of here. I try to wrench my arms from Conor’s grip so I can run, but he holds me tight to him. He is speaking but I can’t hear him because my senses are completely overloaded. My feet stumble on the asphalt and I’m falling. I can’t breathe. I gasp in a mouthful of air, but it doesn’t quite reach my lungs. I’m going to pass out. Right here. And he’s going to take me. The Wolf is going to take me away.
“Jessie!” Conor shouts loudly, penetrating the fog of confusion I’m enveloped in.
I blink up at him as he stares down at me, his dark brown eyes full of concern. “What’s going on?” he asks, his voice softer as one of his hands slides through my hair until it rests against the back of my neck. “Talk to me, Angel.”
“Volk,” I whisper, reverting to the name he made me use for him. Russian for Wolf. “He’s here.”
Conor looks around the parking lot. “There’s no-one here but us,” he frowns as he looks down at me.
“The blue pick-up,” I mumble as I lean my face against his chest.
“The one that just drove out of here?”
“It was him, Conor.”
He takes a sharp intake of breath and the muscles in his chest and arms tense and flex. “Let’s get into the motel, Angel,” he says softly.
I turn my head, my eyes darting around the now empty car lot to make sure he’s really gone before I allow Conor to walk me towards the motel with one of his huge arms wrapped around me. My legs continue to tremble and my heart is still hammering against my ribcage, but I can see and hear clearly now. I wipe the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand. Conor is on high alert too, checking all around us as we make our way to our motel room.
As soon as we’re inside, he bolts the door behind us and pulls his Glock from his bag, tucking it into the waistband of his jeans. “You want me to go check outside?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. Stay in here with me.”
“Okay,” he whispers as he pulls me back to him, wrapping his arms around me and pressing a kiss on the top of my head. “Tell me what you saw, Angel.”
I suck in a shaky breath. “That guy in the pick-up. He looked straight at me. And his eyes. I would never forget those eyes,” I shudder.
“You’re sure it was him?” he asks as he smooths my hair with one hand.
I close my eyes and picture his face again. He looked right at me. Did he smile at me like he knew me too? Did he even look like the Wolf? Here in the safety of Conor’s arms, I’m not sure at all. “I don’t know,” I sniff. “He was far away. He didn’t look exactly like him. He was clean shaven. I never saw the Wolf without a beard. But he had those same grey eyes.”
Conor looks down at me, cupping my chin in his hand. “How would he know we were here, though? We didn’t even know we’d be here until about thirty minutes ago.”
“I know. I just saw him… and I…” I shake my head and press my face back against his chest. I feel like such an idiot. I have been preparing to face that man down for the past eight years, but the minute I see someone who looks like him, I have a full on panic attack.
“You’re safe now, Angel,” he whispers against my ear. “I will never let anyone hurt you. I promise.”
“Can we just stay in here for rest of the night?”
“Sure. I’ll order us some takeout and we can veg in front of the TV. Okay?”
I nod, my face brushing against his shirt as I wrap my arms around his waist and out of nowhere the tears start running down my cheeks. I suck in a deep breath as I try to stop sobbing, but it only makes me worse and I make a strangled, choking noise that makes Conor’s whole body tense as he squeezes me tighter to him. “Jessie,” he says softly and the concern in his voice only makes me cry more.
When I’ve finally stopped crying and shaking, Conor and I sit at the small table in the motel room. I pick at my fingernails while he stares at me and I feel the concern and anger coming from him in waves. I look down at my hands, avoiding his gaze because I can’t bear to see the hurt in them.
“You want to talk about it, Angel?” he asks softly.
“I don’t know. I’ve never told anyone about what he did,” I shudder and Conor reaches for me and takes hold of my hand, brushing his fingertips over my palm and soothing my frayed edges the way that only he can.
“Maybe it will help?”
I look up at his face and stare into his deep brown eyes, which are so full of love and concern that it makes me feel completely safe and protected. “After he murdered my family… the Wolf, he tied me up with duct tape. He put some over my mouth too, and then he put me in the trunk of his car and we must have driven for almost a day before he stopped and let me out. We were at his house in the mountains. It was so dark, like pitch black. There were no streetlights or anything. I couldn’t see a thing as he made me walk to the house.”
I swallow hard as my heart begins to race again and Conor squeezes my hand gently. “It’s okay, Angel. We got all night.”
I give him a faint smile before I continue speaking. “That first night, he took me to a room and he…” I choke down a sob as I recall the first time he raped me. “I tried to fight him. I kicked and scratched and I screamed so loudly that I felt like my throat was bleeding, but he just laughed at me,” I feel the tear running down my cheek and Conor brushes it away with his free hand. “I’d never even kissed a boy before. It hurt so bad, like nothing I’d ever experienced. I thought I was going to die. But even worse than the pain, was the smell of him. He stunk of cigarettes and stale sweat, and it was suffocating. He was suffocating. His pale, clammy skin against mine. I closed my eyes and tried to block it all out. My mom was big into meditation and she taught me how to tune out the world, but I couldn’t escape the smell of him. No matter what I did,” I draw in a shaky breath and realize the tears are running down my cheeks again.
“Jessie,” Conor whispers as his eyes search my face and I see the anger and the pain I’m causing him. It’s the same kind of hurt I experience when I think about what Conor and his brothers endured as children. It is the same pain I feel when I think about my parents and my innocent little brothers and the night they were slaughtered in front of my eyes. I know that it doesn’t come from a place of pity or sympathy, but from pure love.
“After that night, he would come to my room most nights. And when he started to trust me a little more, he would summon me to his. The house was a fortress, I knew I could have overridden the security systems, but I was always locked in my room or his, and when I wasn’t, he was always watching me. I swear he hardly slept. I tried to escape almost every day for the first few weeks I was there. But he always caught me and punished me and I realized I would have to play the long game. And that was when I started to pay attention to what he liked and what made him lose control. Even at sixteen, I understood that when he’d just got off was when he was at his most vulnerable. He used to tie me up for sex most of the time. Duct tape was a favorite of his, but after he began to trust me, he would untie me after. I think he even believed that I was beginning to develop feelings for him.”
I brush the tears from my eyes and smile at Conor who still watches me intently. That actually did make me feel better. Saying those things out loud made them seem less powerful. They are memories now. They do not define me. The Wolf and what he did to me will not define who I am.
Conor leans forward and takes both of my hands in his. “You are a goddamn warrior, Jessie. And when we find the Wolf, we will make him pay, Angel. I promise I would die before I let him ever touch you again.”
I lift his hand to my face and press a soft kiss on his knuckles. “You’d better not die, Conor Ryan! Not ever.”
“Well, I’ll certainly do my best, Angel,” he smiles at me.
Two hours later, I’m lying on the bed with Conor’s Glock beside me while he takes a shower. I still feel jumpy and anxious, but at least I can breathe now. We ate our takeout an hour ago, and I finally relaxed enough for him to consider leaving me alone for five minutes to take a shower.
I’m watching Fast and Furious, and although this is one of my favorite films, I am barely concentrating on it. When Conor walks back into the room a moment later, with a towel wrapped around his waist, some of the tension slips away from me again. Being around him makes me feel so much better. I feel completely safe when I’m with him, and I wasn’t sure I would ever experience that feeling ever again.
He dries himself off and pulls on a pair of shorts before lying on the bed beside me. He holds out his arm and I snuggle against his muscular chest, taking comfort from his warm skin against mine and the sound of his heartbeat against my ear.
“You okay, Angel?” he whispers as he pushes my hair back from my face.
“I am now.”
