“Of course.”
“You made me promise I would never go back to The Pit.”
“I know.”
“And I kept that promise”—she dragged her eyes from my chest to pin me with her tormented gaze—“but you forgot that I still lived in that town.”
If she couldn’t hear my heart before, there was no way she didn’t now. My jaw clenched tightly against my grinding teeth as I looked down at her, immediately terrified of whatever was going to come next in this part of her life’s story.
“I think it probably pissed them off—”
“Who’s them?” I managed to mutter.
“Seth, his friends … you know, Levi—”
The sound that rumbled from deep within my chest rivaled a growl as I tore my eyes from hers to stare at the ceiling. “Fucking Levi …”
“Yeah, um … they didn’t like you, Soldier.”
“No shit.”
“No,” she said, harsh and frantic. “They really didn’t like you. They didn’t like you getting in the way, stealing their business, interfering with the stuff that didn’t concern you, and when you stopped Seth from, um”—her breath shuddered—“doing what he was going to do …”
I could still hear her screams. I could still see her struggling against that tree. The look of panic and blind desperation in her eyes. The way she had feared me, even after I got her away from him, the way she thought I wanted her for myself. Like something to own and break.
I saw that fear alive in her eyes now. But it wasn’t aimed at me despite the way she looked ahead at her hands against my chest.
“He knew where I lived, and he took what he wanted,” she whispered.
And just like that, the girl I had saved became the girl I had failed.
Just another name to add to the list.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. Not wanting to believe it was true.
I didn’t want to hear what had happened, yet I wanted every last detail. I wanted her to pierce my skin with whatever torture had been inflicted on her. I wanted it stitched into my heart. I wanted it to be the end of me, just to keep it from being the end of her.
“It was just the one time,” she was quick to say even with how much her hands shook against my shirt.
“Yeah, but it wasn’t really, was it?” I sounded mad, but I hadn’t meant to. My anger wasn’t meant for her.
Her breath came in quivering huffs as she hesitated before quickly shaking her head.
Then, I uttered the words she didn’t want to say, “And he’s Noah’s dad.”
I hoped she’d say I was wrong. I hoped she’d tell me I’d misunderstood and that Noah was the son of someone bad, but not that kind of bad. But Ray couldn’t give me that satisfaction because it would’ve been a lie.
Her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip, her fingers barely twitching against my chest, and my stomach bottomed out. The need to vomit rolled over me like a freight train, and I looked away, sucking in breath after breath, hoping to quell the rise of my fury before I destroyed something important.
“I thought I had saved you,” I whispered, knowing how stupid and pathetic it sounded now.
God, what kind of idiot had I been to believe that I had somehow stopped every bad thing from happening in her life by protecting her once? Thirteen years. Thirteen fucking years had passed since that night, and while maybe my life had been a monotonous cycle of nothing much occurring for nearly ten of those years, hers hadn't. Shit had happened. Lots of it, apparently.
And it had been my fault.
Would things have been different if I had just stayed out of it? Would I have been able to live with myself if I'd just stood by and let it happen while I ignored her, like every other asshole there that night?
“Soldier, no,” Ray said, reaching for my face with her hand, bringing my eyes back to hers. “You did save me. You were there for me that night when nobody else would even look. You were my hero. You showed me there were good guys in this world, and I never ever forgot about that. I never forgot you.”
I stared into her eyes, unwilling to understand how this woman could have suffered so much hurt and still look at me with such hope. How was she not broken after all this time? And how could she continue to face that man time and time again? How could she face her son, the product of her continued torment?
God, shame on me.
“So, when he was last here, he”—I pinched my eyes shut, unable to believe I was about to speak the words—“hurt your wrist, and …”
I remembered what Noah had said. That his dad would get mad when Ray refused to go to her bedroom with him.
I'm going to throw up.
She shook her head. “I wouldn't let him. That's why he got mad, and I told Noah to sit outside.”
“Okay.” God, no, it wasn't okay. But at least she'd fought him off. Not without paying a price, but … she'd fought him off.
I struggled to steady my breath and heart as I said, “You won't see him again.”
Ray gawked at the demand, as if I had some nerve. “Soldier, I can't just … keep his son from him. H-how am I supposed to explain that to him?”
“You won't have to,” I said, my fists clenching and unclenching. “If I see his big fucking truck roll up again, he'll deal with me.”
“No!” she shouted, and that reaction startled me to narrow suspicious eyes at her. “No. Let me handle it. Please. I'll tell him I'm done with this shit and that I'll get a restraining order if he ever comes near us again. Just let me try.”
Intuition told me not to agree, and it had nothing to do with not trusting her to try. No, what I didn't trust was Seth and his willingness to comply. The guy had been violating her for years. He had been acting out in violence for years. What the hell did she think was going to be different now?
But still, she was a grown woman, and I had to respect that.
“Fine.” I relented hesitantly. “When will you see him again?”
Ray shrugged and wrapped her arms around her middle. “I never know. He comes around when he wants to. Sometimes, months go by before he shows his face, and other times, only days. It really depends, I guess, on what else he has going on.”
My jaw clenched as the gears in my head squealed to life. What else did he have going on? This was Seth we were talking about, and I didn't know much about him, other than that he was Levi’s buddy and what Ray had just told me.
“What does he do for a living?” I asked a little absentmindedly.
Ray's brow creased with uncertainty. “I … don't really know the details, to be honest. He doesn't tell me much. Just that he has to go on the road sometimes and …” She lifted her hands, then dropped them helplessly. “I really have no idea.”
Levi's pals always helped him sell.
Without The Pit, where are they selling?
“Huh …” I nodded slowly, poking at my inner cheek with my tongue. “That's okay. Probably better you don't know.”
“Why?”
I twisted my lips and shook my head while the gears continued to turn and turn and turn.
“Just a feeling I have.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FIRST DATES & FIRST FLOWERS