“Four.”
“Five.”
He exhales, and I greedily gulp him down. His forehead presses to mine—his hands are steady on my face. In. Out. Together. Repeat.
“There’s my girl,” he murmurs. “You’re okay. You’re strong. I’ve got you.”
“She always said I’d never be free,” I choke out. “Now this. How can I feel safe when she’s always in control?”
“We’re going to find her,” Valen says, his voice hard and lethal. “And when we do, I’ll make sure she never hurts you again.”
There’s a violence in his words that should scare me, but instead, it makes me feel safer than I have in months.
Even with my wildly swinging emotional state, I have to believe that I, that we, will control our own narrative. It’s the only way to move forward.
“I need to get out of here,” I say. “I need—I can’t be in this room anymore.”
“Okay.” Valen loosens his grip on my shoulders, ensuring I’m steady on my feet before wrapping an arm around my waist and practically carrying me from the room. “Let’s go outside and get some fresh air.”
Roman steps aside to let us pass, but his expression is grim. “I’m calling in the rest of the team. We’re going to tear this place apart until we find how she’s getting in and out. And Valen?” Sadness and guilt fill Roman’s eyes. This isn’t his fault, but like Valen, he’ll always take the blame. “Nobody stays anywhere near this property tonight. Nobody comes in, not even the local police. Whoever is fucking with you will feel the full wrath of our family.”
The way he says it makes me shiver. Like he has secrets that can banish the darkness simply because he wills it to be so.
Valen nods, already moving, guiding me out of that horrible room, down the hallway, and down the stairs.
But the images of it are burned into my retinas.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the walls covered with my words, my life, my pain.
Every hope. Every fear. Every moment I thought was private.
This is what she does. She’s an emotional terrorist that no one can catch.
We make it to the front porch before I throw up.
Right there, on the front steps of the building, I lose what little food I had in my stomach. My body purges the horror like it’s poison.
Maybe it is. I don’t even know what it feels like to truly live without her venom invading my every decision.
Valen holds back my hair, his free hand rubbing circles on my back while he vows things I can’t quite hear over the roaring in my ears.
When I’m done, there’s nothing left. I’m empty. Void as I sit back on my heels and stare at the compound.
This place took everything from me once.
And now it’s trying to take everything again.
“I was so stupid,” I say, mostly to myself.
“What?” Valen crouches beside me. “Clover, no?—”
“I was writing to you, thinking, hoping, that someday we’d find each other again.” My laugh is bitter and broken. “Instead, all I did was give her a roadmap to my soul. I handed her everything she needed to manipulate my mind again.”
“You weren’t stupid,” he says fiercely. “You were hopeful. You were brave. You kept believing in us when you had every reason not to. That’s not stupid, Honeybee. That’s the most courageous thing I’ve ever heard.”
He says all the right words, but he can’t hide how the guilt slams into him too. It’s written in every line of his body, the way his shoulders curve inward, the way his hands clench at his sides. He’s doing the math—I saw it as he scanned the dates written harshly in red ink. Fourteen years of letters. Fourteen years he spent building a company, living a life, while I poured my heart onto paper, clinging to a past that’s been all but forgotten.
“This isn’t your fault,” I tell him, but his eyes tell me he doesn’t believe me. “And it doesn’t feel courageous.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “It feels like I’ve been playing right into her hands this entire time.”
