Been there, done that, got royally fucked, and would never do it again.
“I can’t.” Nat’s quiet words pulled me from my thoughts about her pretty mouth.
“Why not?” I gently asked, doing my best to hold on to my irritation.
I’d given her no reason not to trust me. My team had worked their asses off to help her. My boss Zane Lewis had sunk money and resources into helping her. Everyone had been patient when she wouldn’t tell us who she was or where she came from. All we’d known was she was a victim; she’d been bought and sold and was getting ready to be sold a second time.
All of that, unacceptable. All of it despicable.
“If it were me—my life—I’d trust you. I’d stay. I’m not worth much anyway so it wouldn’t matter.”
Nat paused and was going to say more but I couldn’t let the jab at herself stand.
“Honest to God, Nat. Stop saying shit like that.”
“No, Owen, it’s true. You’re the one who needs to stop living in this fantasy world where you call me Natasha and think you’re some dark knight riding in to save the day. I. Am. Not. Worth. It. You have to believe that I’m telling you the truth. I’m dirty. I come from filth and the Pollaski stench will never wash clean. It will never go away because I’m one of them. It’s in my blood. It’s who I am.”
Christ. Without her knowing she was doing it, she sank her blade in deep. Dark knight. I’d heard that before, only my ex-wife had called it a savior complex and she’d accused me of riding a white steed. Of course, I was young then, I hadn’t been jagged by war. I hadn’t earned the darkness that now lurked in me.
“But this isn’t about me,” she continued. “My uncle’s not coming for me, he’s coming for you, and Eva, and Emerson, and Ivy, and Violet, and whoever else stands in his way.”
I didn’t have to look behind me to know my team had been giving me the appearance of privacy while still listening. Hearing Nat—no, Sarah…she was right. I needed to pull my head out of my ass and start paying attention—hearing Sarah say our teammates’ women were in danger, they’d filed in behind me.
“Why would you say that?” Myles asked the question I couldn’t.
“Because that’s what he told me.”
Sarah lifted her hand and offered me the envelope, but it was Myles who stepped forward and took it.
“He’ll send a plane,” she carried on. “If I can get to an airport in Easton, he’ll have his pilot pick me up. Then you’ll all be safe.”
Pinpricks of unwanted awareness tingled over my scalp and I shook my head.
“Let me get this straight. Your plan is to go back to the man who you know is dangerous. A man who either gave you to Ashaki Maloof or sold you to her, putting yourself in grave danger so Eva, Ivy, and Emerson will be safe. Do I have that right?”
“And you. I want you, and Gabe, and Myles, and Kevin… I want all of you to be safe. Everyone, Zane, and the rest, too. If I go back then my uncle will leave you alone.”
“And that right there proves you are wrong. You are not one of them. You’re not Pollaski filth. You’d give yourself up to protect people you barely know.”
“I know you,” she murmured and my spine shot straight. “And I know you don’t deserve whatever he has planned. I know Eva has two little boys. I know Emerson is pregnant and so is Anaya. I know that there are kids around, good men, good women, and none of them deserve to be in harm’s way. My uncle is a lunatic; he won’t care who he hurts to get his way.”
“Keep talking, babe, because the more you say the deeper that hole gets. You are not like them. You are nothing like your uncle, who is indeed a lunatic and doesn’t care who he hurts. But you? You care and you can’t deny it. If you didn’t, you would’ve kept that letter a secret, stayed holed up in my house, and not given us the information we need to keep the others safe while doing the same for you.”
Sarah’s lips pinched together and her gaze slid to the floor.
Yeah, that was what I thought.
She cared.
“I need to call Zane,” Myles announced.
“How about we all go into the living room?” Gabe suggested.
The men filed out of my room leaving me alone with Sarah.
“Trust me, Sarah. Trust us.”
She slowly lifted her head and dull, dead eyes met my gaze.
Christ, what had she been through?
Which one of the assholes in her life had taken the light and snuffed it out so completely?
Chapter 2
Trust?
I couldn’t begin to understand the concept. But I couldn’t deny I desperately wanted Owen to teach me. So it was seriously unfortunate I didn’t have the courage to tell him that.
“Sarah?” he prompted and my belly clenched hearing him call me by my real name.
I hated that name.
A long, long time ago I had loved it. Sarah was my mother’s name and my grandmother’s name. Though I’d never met my grandmother, when I was little—very little—my mom used to tell me stories about how beautiful my grandmother was. How kind and smart and how she’d wished I could’ve met her. That was before life had beaten my mom down. No, before my father had crushed my mom’s spirit. Then he ended her life altogether.
Now I hated the name, hated the reminder.
“Okay, now you’re worrying me,” Owen went on. “Need you to say something.”
“I don’t know how,” I blurted.
“Don’t know how to do what?”
“Trust.” Then since I was being honest I decided to keep blurting stuff out. “I don’t know how to do any of this. As far back as I can remember every decision was made for me. I was told what to do and how to do it. I wasn’t allowed out of the house without a bodyguard. Not for my protection but as a babysitter. Someone to watch me and make sure I stayed in line. Until you brought me here, I’d never been left alone in the house before. I’m thirty-two, Owen. Thirty-two years old and my whole life I’ve been treated like a child. I can’t trust you because I never learned how to do that. I can’t stay here and trust you to keep everyone safe. I can’t continue to lie to you. It’s not right. None of this is right. You have to let me go back to Chicago.”
“Then let me teach you.”
God, why was he making this so difficult? He should’ve been happy my uncle had found me. Now he could get rid of me. He could have his house back, his freedom, his…heat hit my cheeks and I quickly glanced away.
“Sarah?”
“Huh?”
“Babe, look at me.”
“Owen—”
“Nuh-uh, look at me.”
Shit. I didn’t want to look at him now that I was thinking about it. One of the many things I’d shoved aside, placed in the Do Not column of my mental spreadsheet, which was next to the To-Do column, and two over from the Maybe column. That was how I’d lived my life, rows and columns. Do-nots and to-dos. Thinking about Owen and his sex life was a Do Not. I should never, ever think about it but there had been many days when I held my breath and wondered if that day would be the day he called to tell me he had a date, or maybe that would be the day he came home from work, checked on me, then headed out to meet a woman. But days had slipped into weeks, then weeks into months and he never called to tell me he had a date, he never came home then left. He’d spent every night with me.