“You didn’t get any money in the divorce?” Wyatt asks.
I shake my head. “I wanted nothing from him. And I knew Derek. I’d threatened to humiliate him in front of the whole town. He would never forgive or forget. I didn’t want to give himmore of a reason to hate me by taking his money, and I knew I couldn’t go to my sister because it would be the first place he looked for me when he got out. So I packed what I could, emptied our shared bank account, and left. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going or why.”
“But he still found you,” Hunter guesses.
“I moved every month and kept a go-bag by the front door, just in case. Then I made a mistake by lowering my guard and staying in one place too long. Derek found me in Nevada after they released him early because of prison overcrowding. The bruises you saw when I first came to town were from the night he nearly killed me. A motel worker heard me screaming and intervened.”
“You got away,” Wyatt says.
“I’d grabbed my purse and run to my car. The motel worker wound up in intensive care. It made the news because he nearly died from the beating Derek gave him. I drove for days and slept in my car when I was tired.”
“To your sister?” Hunter asks.
“When I first got in my car, that’s where I thought I would go,” I tell him. “I was panicking and terrified and hurting. It wasn’t an hour later that I knew he would expect me to run to Pittsburgh, and he’d find me again. I decided to avoid big cities. I could easily hide in them, but that meant so could he. Small towns were dangerous. I’d be noticed and remembered, but he would stick out too. Then I stopped for something to eat in a small diner in an Iowa town I’d never heard of.”
Exhausted, with no clue what to do next, I felt so lost that day.
The diner had been busy, but not crazily so. Lina had been friendly and warm, guiding me to my table, seeming not to even notice the bruises on my face that concealer couldn’t quite hide. Nico had brought me my food since it was busy, and Winstonwas singing so badly in the kitchen that the people sitting on the stools at the counter were smiling and shaking their heads.
“It had felt like the first place I didn’t want to leave. All warm and friendly andsafe. It had all my favorite smells, and the pies in the glass cabinet looked exactly like the ones I’d made with my grandma. I was running low on money, so when Nico had casually mentioned he was looking for a waitress, it had felt like this was the place I was supposed to be. Nico even said he had an empty apartment if I needed a place to stay.”
Like the universe had brought me to Rios, opened the diner's doors, and saidthisplace is for you, Maisie Lucas. I heard it as clearly as if the universe had whispered those words into my ear.
Then four handsome alphas walked into the diner on my first shift, and my world felt right in another way I hadn’t expected. And as the month trickled by, they kept stopping in during lunch and after work, asking how I was and telling me about themselves.
They made me feelsafe. I’d never had that before and I didn’t want it to end.
I still don’t.
Chapter 12
Wyatt
Ten minutes getting blasted in the face by a chill evening wind does jack shit at cooling the rage simmering in my veins.
I told Maisie I needed to use the bathroom after leaving her in the living room with Elias, Knox, and Hunter. She’d wiped the last of her tears and been smiling a little when Hunter cracked a joke.
I couldn’t sit with my rage for a second longer.
I’ve paced.
I’ve debated punching something or taking up running like Knox in the off-chance it would relax me. But nothing can.
The abuse, fear, and pain Maisie went through… I've never wished someone dead more than her ex.
She suffered for so fuckinglong, and no one helped her. And even though I didn’t know she existed, I still feel like I should have been there to save her.
So I sit my ass on the top porch step, staring toward town, thinking of a man who I would give every last dime I have to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze.
A hand slips into mine.
Startled, I snap my head to the side, to Maisie, who followed me out and tucked her palm into mine.
Instantly, my back stiffens with alarm. “Is something wrong?”
Shit. Something must be. I shouldn’t have left her to come out here and stew. Maybe there was more she had to say. Maybe I left her right when she needed me most.
“With me?” She shakes her head. “I thought something might be wrong with you.”
