RYDER (Slater Brothers 4) (30 page)

I didn’t want anything to do with him.

Of course, that meant nothing to him because he constantly tried to gain entry to my childhood home, shouting for me to ‘let him explain’. I humourlessly laughed every time he said it, and every time I thought about him saying it. He wanted to explain himself now, but not the millions of times I asked him before I was kidnapped. I refused to ‘hear him out’ and his brothers respected that so they kept him at bay.

I knew it was only a matter of time before he got me alone, but I wasn’t scared, I reached a point where I wasn’t letting him walk all over me anymore. I was done with that bullshit. Being so vulnerable with Big Phil toughened me up.

When Bronagh and Keela went through their ordeal, they both suffered from night terrors and didn’t want to be left on their own for ages. Luckily, that didn’t happen to me; so far I was as well as could be expected. When I slept, I didn’t dream, and when I was awake, it didn’t scare me when I thought about what happened. I knew the person who harmed me was dead, and he couldn’t hurt me any longer.

It was a
living
person who I was more concerned about causing me more pain.

My primary focus was on the being that brought me so much emotional agony. I was cold as ice when someone brought Ryder up, but I knew it was a defence mechanism to shield my crumbled heart. It was a front because when I thought about him in the comfort of my own mind, I became devastated and constantly fought back tears.

I was heart-broken that he cheated on me, I was destroyed that we were broken up, and I was completely torn apart that I couldn’t call him mine anymore. Even when things were at there worst with us, he was still mine, but not anymore.

“I’ll come with you,” Bronagh said, cutting through my thoughts.

I firmly shook my head. “There is black ice on the roads and I don’t want you out there walkin’ on it. You could fall.”

“So could you,” Bronagh countered.

I loved her for loving me so much.

I grinned. “You’re pregnant though, I’m not.”

My sister opened her mouth to argue, but I lifted my hand and silenced her.

“I’m fine. Me leg is practically healed, and walkin’ isn’t painful anymore. I won’t go far, I just need some time to meself to think,” I explained. “I’m feelin’ all kinds of fucked up, Bee. Being trapped in here isn’t helpin’.”

“Okay,” she relented after a couple of seconds. “But
please
be careful, and don’t stay out long. I’ll worry otherwise.”

We had somehow switched roles over the last few weeks.
She
was parenting
me
now.

“I won’t,” I assured her. “I’ll be no more than ten minutes. I’m just goin’ for a quick walk then I’ll be back. I promise.”

I kept my promise, I took a very short walk once around the block, and then I returned home, much to the relief of my sister. I didn’t mind taking a quick walk; I just wanted some fresh air, and some space. When I assured Bronagh, again, that I was okay, I went up to the bedroom that was
still
my bedroom. I stripped naked, wrapped myself in a towel then went into the bathroom and took a shower. When I finished, I headed back into my room but froze when I walked through the door.

“Branna?”

My heart jumped in fear of the man who had broken it.

“I
told
your brothers that you weren’t to come here.” I said, gripping the towel around my body tightly.

“They told me what you said,” he said, softly, “but I decided not to listen anymore.”

I started to humourlessly laugh.

“Because everythin’ has to be on
your
fuckin’ terms, right?” I asked through my cold laughter.

“No,” Ryder frowned, “because I
had
to see you.”

I shook my head and turned from him and walked over to my wardrobe. I grabbed some knickers, a bra, a pair of black leggings and a baggy T-shirt. I looked over my shoulder and narrowed my eyes at Ryder who turned and put his back to me, giving me some privacy.

He had never turned away when I dressed, or undressed, before, but things were different because I was his then, and now I wasn’t.

Don’t think about it.

I quickly dried my body, mindful of the scabs on the stitches of closed wounds on my shoulder and thigh. The rest of me was still tender, but all of my bruises were a light mustard yellow colour now, and it wouldn’t be long until they healed and faded completely.

“I’m decent,” I said when I was dressed.

Ryder turned back to face me, and instead of giving me a once over like I expected him to, he kept his grey eyes locked on mine. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t hold his gaze. I looked away then busied myself as I brushed my hair out then tied it up into a bun.

“You’re beautiful.”

The unexpected words slammed into my layered heart like a train.

I keep my gaze averted when I said, “Don’t, Ryder. Don’t try and butter me up. I look like shit—I know it and everyone else knows it, too. I’m still recoverin’ so me appearance isn’t on me list of priorities.”

I felt him step towards me, so I took a quick step back.

“
Don’t
.”

He stayed still.

“You’re beautiful no matter what you look like, darling.”

I lifted my eyes to his as I snorted. “I’m darlin’ now, am I? I’m not just Branna anymore?”

He looked hurt.

“You’ve always been my darling, and you always will be.”

My stomach roiled as sadness seeped into my bones.

“Stop it,” I pleaded, feeling my tough demeanour crack. “Stop talkin’ to me like the real you used to, just
stop
.”

“I’m still me, Bran.”

I furiously shook my head. “No, the real you would have
never
put me through what you did.”

Ryder audibly swallowed. “You’re right, I wouldn’t have, but I took the coward’s way out because I was too scared to rope you into things.”

Rope me into things?
I silently repeated.
What the hell is he talking about?

“Just leave,” I asked. “I can’t listen to this.”

“You have to.”

“No,” I snapped, looking at him. “I don’t have to do a fuckin’
thing
. I did nothin’ wrong,
you
did!”

“I know,” he agreed, “and I’m trying to fix it.”

I wanted to scream.

“You can’t!” I bellowed. “You broke what we had.”

“Don’t say that, Bran,” he pleaded. “Please.”

I hated that his obvious pain was hurting me, too.

I balled my hands into fists. “I’m so angry at you… you’ve hurt me so much.”

Ryder nodded in defeat. “I know, sweetheart, and I wish with all of my heart that I could take it back.”

“You can never take it back. You don’t understand the magnitude of what you did to me,” I whispered. “I wanted ‘im to kill me. When Big Phil had me, I was at the lowest point in me life, and death looked like the best possible outcome for me.”

Pure horror overtook Ryder’s expression.

“It was shortly after I woke up in his apartment that I wondered why I was so scared of ‘im, and why I was so scared to die, when in reality, I died the moment you pulled away from me.”

“Darling—”

“It was a moment of weakness,” I cut Ryder off. “It was one moment of
many
over the last year and a half. I’ve been so focused on you changin’, that it has changed me, too, and I hate it. I stepped on eggshells around you, I just accepted your refusal to tell me what you were up to, I fuckin’
saw
you with another
woman
and—”

“That wasn’t what happened.” Ryder cut across me as he reached for me.

I angrily pushed his hands away and shouted, “Let me finish! I saw you with another
woman
and I
walked away.
All because I wasn’t strong enough to face you or me reality of how things were with you. I turned into a doormat, a coward, and for what? Fuckin’
nothin’
!”

I shook my head in disgust at myself.

“The moment I asked you where you were goin’, and you blocked me out, I should have left you. No—I should have given you a chance or two to redeem yourself, but after
that
, I should have packed up and left you. I shouldn’t have put up with it; I should have walked away and never looked back. I keep thinkin’ about how different me life would be now if I had done that. Big Phil still would have probably kidnapped me because I’m tied to your family, but I wouldn’t have been as weak as I was when I was alone with ‘im. I would have fought for me life, not silently pleaded with ‘im to take it.”

“Branna, I hate myself.”

Out of all the things I expected Ryder to say—that was
not
it.

“What?” I asked, not sure if I heard him correctly.

“I hate myself,” he repeated, louder. “I knew that I was ruining us, but I kept telling myself that it’d be okay, and when the time came for me to be done with the bullshit that distracted me, I’d fix everything and we’d go back to normal.” He shook his head and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I was naive to think that you would always stick by me when I was treating you so poorly.”

“You aren’t makin’ any sense,” I said, annoyed. “The ‘bullshit that distracted you’ was
another woman
. You can’t fix us. The moment you decided to give yourself to another, we were doomed.”

Ryder looked me dead in the eye and said, “I have
never
cheated on you. I have never
considered
cheating on you, and I have never, in all our time together,
wanted
to cheat on you.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, I’m
not
fuckin’ stupid.” I set my jaw. “I
saw
you. I followed you the night he took me, and I saw you with a woman in a white Range Rover.”

Ryder nodded. “That was Lucy, she’s my contact, not my mistress.”

His contact?

I stared at him. “Are you hearin’ yourself right now?”

“I know, none of this makes sense but if you let me explain, it will.”

“No,” I replied instantly. “I don’t want to hear it, I wanted to hear it the first thousand times I asked, but not anymore. I am
done
with this conversation, and with you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, but darling, I owe
you
this explanation. Please let me give it to you.”

I wanted to shut him down again, but I couldn’t, it was like my body physically refused me to say the word ‘no’ again. I wanted to know what he had to say; I wanted to know the truth. He was right. I deserved that much.

“You’ll tell me where you went every night if it wasn’t to this Lucy?”

He sighed. “Yes, but it doesn’t start there, I have to start from the beginning—”

“No, answer that first
then
start from the beginnin’.”

“I can’t, it won’t make sense,” he said and looked down.

“Look at me,” I demanded.

He did. Ryder looked up at me, and when I saw unshed tears in his eyes; it broke through some of the protective ice that had layered itself around my heart.

“Branna,” he whispered, his body trembling. “Please. I know how hard this is, but trust me.”

No
, I told myself.
He wasn’t using that against me.

I shook my head. “I can’t do this anymore, Ryder. I can’t handle the lies. The deceit has broken me,
you
have broken me more than Big Phil ever could.”

Ryder visibly paled as he took a hesitant step towards me, but I held my ground.

“I don’t give a shite if it confuses me, tell me where you went every night right now, or I swear I will
never
even look at you again. This is your
last
fuckin’ chance to ever tell me the truth. The
whole
truth.”

There it was—the ultimatum I should have given him a
long
fucking time ago.

“Every night I had to meet with my contact Lucy from the FBI, get wired up, and go to Darkness where I was a mole for information against Brandon Daley.”

I stared at Ryder when he finished speaking; I stared at him for a long time before I said, “Get out.”

“No, Branna—”

“Get fuckin’ out!” I screamed. “Do you think this is funny? Do you think tearin’ me apart then tryin’ this bullshit on with me is fuckin’
funny
?”

“It’s the truth!” Ryder shouted over me. “Just
listen
.”

“No—”

“Branna?”

I looked to my doorway when my sister called my name. My eyes instantly dropped to her round belly, and I said, “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I’m fine… I just… you have to listen to ‘im.”

I stared at Bronagh and couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but before I had a chance to say anything, she pressed on.

“You have refused to be around Ryder since you got home from the hospital, but do you remember when I said Dominic agreed to a family meetin’ so we could get all this shit out into the open?”

I managed a small nod.

“We had that meetin’ last night when you were sleepin’, and trust me, you have
got
to listen to what Ryder has to say. I know what pulled ‘im from you, and it’s
not
what you think. I promise.”

My eyes pooled with tears as she closed my bedroom door.

“If you don’t trust me, Bran, trust your sister. Listen to what I have to say. Please.”

I looked back at Ryder and before I broke down I said, “Start from the beginnin’, and don’t leave
anythin’
out.”

I couldn’t even begin to form a clue as to what he said before Bronagh came in.

The FBI?

Wired up?

A mole?

Brandon Daley?

The only thing I could think of was,
what the fuck?

Instead of speaking, Ryder removed his jacket and jumper then gripped the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it up to his chin. I raised my eyebrows at what I saw.

He… was wearing a wire.

I stared at the black cable that was stuck—with what looked like surgical tape—to his chest, then to the tiny black box that was taped at his lower abdomen. I flicked my eyes between the two then looked up to Ryder to find his eyes were drilled onto me watching him.

“You’re wearin’ a wire,” I murmured.