“Good Lord, you’re so damn cute. You do a lot of work around here, sweetheart. You deserve to be paid for it. Being with us doesn’t change that.”
I shake my head and set my shoulders trying to push the envelope back toward him. “No, you guys give us everything we need. I’m not going to take your money. Not now that…”
He smirks and my blush blooms again.
“We are going to take you to the bank and set you up with your own account. You’re carrying around way too much cash to be safe, Avery. It will be in your name only and I can have your pay deposited in it every week instead of giving you cash.”
When I still protest, he takes my chin between his fingers and his expression turns stern.
“Yes. You spent way too many years being controlled by that man. You will have your own money to do with and spend as you please. I promised you freedom, Avery, and this is part of it. If you never cook another meal here or wash another dish, I will still put money in your account for you to use.” His expression softens and his fingers holding my chin turn to a caress. “I don’t want you to leave. I want you, all of you. All of us want you and Chloe to stay and be our family but I won’t ever have you feeling trapped again. Don’t spend it if you don’t want to, blow it all on one purchase. I don’t care, but the money is there for you if you ever feel like you need it.”
My heart feels like it’s going to burst. This man…I lift up onto my toes to reach his mouth, trying to tell him what that means to me with a kiss instead of words but he takes it to a different level with pure heat and desire and my knees go weak as he claims my mouth. My skin tingles and heat blooms between my legs as he presses his hard body against mine.
This is so different from when Ryker kisses me. It’s hard and primal and I feel like I’m burning from the inside out. When he finally breaks the kiss and pulls back from me, my heart is pounding and I feel a little dizzy. A smirk forms on his wicked lips.
“Glad we settled that.” He says in a low amused tone and then sidesteps me. “Chloe! I think Zack needs more tinsel.”
I clutch at the cool marble of the counter until my legs stop shaking and then turn and join them to help finish the Zack-mas tree they’ve created.
Avery
“Aves, we got to go or she’ll be late for school!”
Zack is calling me from the front foyer. I twist my fingers around the strap of my purse. I know I have to go but…I haven’t left the house since they told mehe’smissing. It’s stupid and irrational. He doesn’t care about us, he’s probably long gone like the guys told me but I just can’t shake the feeling that our freedom cannot be this easy. I know him. I know how punishing and vindictive he can be. My eyes land on the chef’s knife block and without hesitating, I pull a wickedly sharp blade and slip it into my purse and then run to the garage door. Just in case…
We wait in the dropoff line, moving up every few moments, getting closer to the door. I keep sneaking looks Zack’s way but he keeps his eyes firmly ahead. Something’s changed with him and I can’t quite put my finger on it. His smile lately has seemed just a little bit dimmer. I rarely see his dimples flashing my way anymore. I glance down at his knee that’s bouncing under the steering wheel and worry that he’s still in pain and that’s what’s caused him to pull back from me. So as soon as Chloe hops out of the car with waves and blown kisses, I turn back to him.
“Zack, um, I was wondering if, um, after we go to the bank, you would, um, like to go…do something with me?”
His hazel eyes dart to me and then back to the road. “Yeah, whatever you need to do, Aves. I’ll take you anywhere you need to go.” He tells me and I try to not sigh with frustration.
“Oh, I don’t have anywhere in mind really. I just thought it might be nice if you and I did something…together.” I swallow hard. “Like a…date?”
His head jerks my way and the look of shock I see in them confuses me. Why would he be surprised by that when Ryker told me…
The world explodes around us. Glass shatters and metal shrieks as the car spins. My head slams into the passenger side window even as my eyes are locked on Zack jerking around like a rag doll against his seat belt. Blood pours down over one of my eyes but the car is still moving, keeping my arms pinned in place so I can’t reach up to wipe it away. Horns are blaring and brakes are shrieking and then it all starts to fade as what’s left of my vision goes fuzzy and starts to dim.
The window my head is resting on smashes and brings me back to awareness as something rips at my hair, pulling hard against my scalp. I scream in terror because I know this pain. This is the pain of him fisting my hair to drag me somewhere to punish me and I’ve felt it way too many times before.
My hands scramble for my purse as he hauls me up and out through the window but I manage to get one finger hooked in the strap so it comes with me. My body hits the icy pavement and a moan of pain gasps out of me. Seconds later he’s dragging me by the hair across the road and up onto a snow-covered sidewalk but I push past the terror, past the pain, and keep all my focus on the purse trailing on the ground behind me. I pull and pull and pull the strap until I get the body of the purse in my hands and then dive my fingers into it until they hit cold steel. I force myself to ignore the sting as the blade slices two of them. Doesn’t matter, it won’t only be me bleeding in a minute.
“Stupid cunt! Thought you could leave me? Take what’s mine and spread those whore legs for another? You’re going to be begging me to kill…”
His tirade cuts off with a yell of pain when I twist around enough to slash the wrist of the hand fisted in my hair. He drops me but I don’t stop slashing. I’m growling and grunting as I scramble through the snow to get closer to him. He takes and takes and takes but I’m not letting him TAKE anymore. I’M NOT HIS! NEVER AGAIN! Is all that screams through my mind as I slash and stab at him even as he tries to back away from me. I ROAR up at him and the fear I see cross his face has me baring my teeth in satisfaction.
“FUCK YOU!”
I scream, lunging to connect the knife with any part of him but hard hands grab me and haul me back, and then voices are yelling and hands are holding and trying to pry the knife from my hand stopping me. He turns with one last hate-filled look and runs away. I clutch the knife tighter in my grip, throw my head back and scream.
****
“Avery? Sweetheart? Can you hear me?”
“Get these fucking cuffs off her right now or I swear to God…”
“Baby, I need you to come back to me.”
I float. I float in darkness and it’s a safe warm place. I like it here…glass shatters, metal shrieks…NO! I push those sounds away. I like how I float here. The darkness is comforting. Bright light blazes through the darkness causing me to jerk my head to the side. Stop it! Leave me alone.
