Torn from You (19 page)

“I was there,
remember, I know exactly what went down.”

“No Eme, you
don’t.” His eyes narrowed when I went to argue. I kept quiet. With
Logan you learned when to pick your battles; this one wasn’t one of
them. “Believing the shit you are right now is eating away at you.”
How did he know that? “The truth, Mouse. You have to hear the
truth. I couldn’t let Deck tell you anything until Raul was dead,
it was too risky ... And I wanted to tell you myself.”

I did realize that he helped me get out. It
just wasn’t enough to erase everything else.

His arms
caged me in as he leaned forward, his chest inches from mine, water
droplets glistening on his tanned skin. He leaned closer, and I
turned my head to the side. A spark ignited as his breath hit my
skin just below my ear. A deep throbbing within
me weakened my resolve to beat him with my
fists.

“You are not
shutting me out like you’ve done everyone else for the last two
years.” How did he know that too? His lips were so close to my skin
that if I took a deep breath they’d touch. Tears teetered-tottered
on the edge of my lids.

“Don’t.” It
was me begging, because I couldn’t tell him no any other way.

He tucked my
wet hair behind my ear. “Eme, look at me.”

I sucked in
air as his hand cupped my chin and brought my head forward to face
him. I kept my eyes downcast, afraid to look at him and get lost
within the chocolate depths. “Sculpt, you have to let me go.”

“Never ask me
to do that.”

I stiffened
and tightened my jaw as I ground out. “Nothing you say will make a
difference. Not anymore.”

“I’m asking
here.”

Logan never
asked. If I gave him this would he leave me alone? “Say what you
need to then I want you out of my life.”

He drew back,
but still I could feel his breath on my face. “Raul—”

I stiffened
and blurted out, “The man who had me waterboarded? Who dehumanizes
girls? Who held a gun to my head? Are you referring to your fucking
father?”

He
grabbed me by the shoulders. “Yes, Emily. Yes. He was my father,
but I didn’t choose him just like you didn’t choose your mother.”
Okay, point, my mother was unkind and selfish who cared for nothing
except her next drink. She didn’t even know what had happened to
me, not that she’d care. “Do you think I didn’t want to shoot every
single disgusting lowlife in there? Do you think I didn’t want to
shove that fuckin’ gun down my father’s throat and pull the goddamn
trigger?” I looked at my feet feeling vulnerable ...
fine, I was feeling very
vulnerable. Logan was always in control, and right now with his
brows lowered, his jaw tight and his voice raised, Logan was losing
that control.

“Emily.
Please. Look at me.” I did. “Everything that happened gutted me. I
trained every morning to try and control the fury that was raging
through me. So I didn’t get you killed by screwing everything up.
Damn it, Eme. I need you to look at me while I tell you this.” I
hadn’t realized I was staring down again. Really, I was trying not
to listen. I didn’t want to hear what he was telling me. I’d
managed just fine believing what I did, and I couldn’t handle
changing it. “I’ve lived two years knowing you hate me.” He shoved
away from the tree, from me, and ran his hands through his soaking
wet hair. “Tell me. What else was I supposed to do? I did
everything I could to save you.”

I lay my head
back against the trunk of the tree and closed my eyes feeling sick
to my stomach. I was confused and uncertain. His eyes were filled
with this destructive blaze of anger that was ... could it be pain?
Was it real pain? Or was it a front? More lies.

I shook my
head back and forth. No. No. Logan had watched. He’d done nothing.
He’d driven me across the country to his father’s compound of hell.
Why hadn’t he killed Jacob instead of driving me three days to
Mexico? Dave had been his friend, he could’ve helped him. Why
hadn’t he just taken me someplace else to escape? He was a fighter;
he could’ve fought.

No. Logan was
just as guilty as his father.

He walked back
toward me and leaned forward, hands braced against the tree on
either side of me. He put his finger under my chin and kept it
there. “Baby.”

I wanted to
run and hide. Forget he was ever here.

“My mother was
Raul’s slave for seventeen years.” Oh God. My knees weakened at his
words. I hadn’t even thought of Logan’s mother. “She became
pregnant with me within a year of her capture. Raul wasn’t happy
about it until I was born a boy. Then he made plans for me.”

“The
fighting,” I murmured.

He nodded. “My
mother tried to protect me from that shit you saw, Eme. But in a
place like that, it wasn’t easy. I met Dave, and we both trained
since we were five years old for the ring. That’s all we did. I
can’t remember much else besides hanging out with Dave and
fighting. We did go to school, but no one would talk to us. I
imagine that was because of Raul. No one wanted to mess with
anything of his.

“Raul had me
in my first fight at twelve. I was gangly and hadn’t bulked out,
but I was agile and determined.” He paused, and I felt his breath
on my skin as he breathed in and out. “I was never part of what you
saw in the dining room, Mouse. Never. Raul didn’t care that I
wasn’t, because he was focused on me fighting, and he didn’t want
girls clouding my focus.

“My mother,
she kept me real. She taught me what she remembered of her life,
values, morals, what was wrong about my father and the life I grew
up in.”

“How old was
she?”

“When she was
taken?”

I nodded.

“Eighteen.”

I lowered my
head, and the rain hit the tip of my nose. God, that must have been
terrifying and horrible, and she was there for so long, and here I
was moaning about fifteen days.

“My mother had
been planning to get us out for years. Finally an opportunity came,
and she took it. We escaped.”

I asked the
question that I was afraid to ask. “Did you want to leave?”

He closed his
eyes for a minute. “It’s all I knew. Despite the stories my mother
told me, that place was where I spent sixteen years of my life.”
The back of his hand stroked my cheek, and I wanted to lean into
it, instead I pulled away. “Still, I hated that place. Every second
of it. I fought to stay away from everything else, but I saw what
went on there. The girls, the hurt, violence, the drugs.

“My mother and
I needed money after we escaped, so I continued the fighting, but I
never liked it. I did what had to be done, Emily. That was one
thing I learned to survive my father, determination and the will to
do what you have to. Giving up doesn’t exist for me.

“That’s how he
found me. He tracked fighting circuits, sending his men to look for
me. Took him eight years, but word reached him about an undefeated
Sculpt, and he showed up at one of my fights.”

“The night I
asked you to help me.”

He nodded.

“Is that why
you moved up your tour date?”

“Yes. I had to
leave. I had to get out of the fighting world, but it was too late.
I thought once I refused to fight for him, he’d leave it alone, and
he did for a month or so. I should’ve known better. Raul gets what
he wants. And he wanted me fighting for him.” He looked up and met
my eyes. “I would’ve done it for however long he wanted me to if
he’d promised to leave you alone.”

My breath
hitched. He couldn’t do this to me. He couldn’t make it better. I
wasn’t sure I could handle the truth.

He lowered his
head while he ran his hand through his hair. “But you don’t know
him. He doesn’t work that way. I knew that. Anyone who knows him
does. He finds your weakness and destroys you with it.”

“And I was
your weakness.”

“You and my
mother. Raul had men on her, if I didn’t show up with you in
Mexico, she was to be killed and not just a gunshot to the head.
Raul’s kills are long, slow, and agonizing.” That was why he never
attempted to take off with me when we drove to Mexico. “Before I
saw you, after you were taken by Alfonzo ... I contacted Deck. He
was out of the country, but he dropped everything to come back. He
told me what I had to do and what needed to go down. Deck managed
to get my mother out from under Raul’s men within four days.”

I hadn’t
realized I was holding my breath until I let it go when he said
that. He continued, “That’s when I had to be really careful with
how I treated you. Raul knew my mother was gone from his clutches
and all he had was you for leverage. He didn’t trust me, and I had
to convince him that I was there because I wanted to fight and ...
and that you meant nothing to me except a slave I wanted to fuck.
If he knew how much I cared ... it was the only way to save you. I
needed to give Deck time.”

“But why
didn’t you tell me? We were alone most of the time. You could have
told me, Logan.”

“Answer me
this, Emily. If I’d told you all this, would you have feared me?
Would you have trembled? Would you have had that look of fear in
your eyes?”

I knew the
answer. No. I would’ve feared the place and Raul and Alfonzo, but
I’d always feel protected by Logan. But none of it really mattered,
because I still felt like I’d been ripped apart and was trying to
put my pieces back together. “I feel broken.”

His hand
slipped into my hair. “We’ll fix this.”

I turned my
head to avoid his touch. “Sculpt.” I saw him flinch when I avoided
using his real name. “It’s too late. We can’t go back. I can’t. I’m
sorry ... God, what you grew up with, what happened to you and your
mother ... it’s horrible, unthinkable, but I ... Sculpt, I want to
move on with my life, and you’re a reminder of what I want to
forget.”

“Mouse—”

“Maybe it is
what you had to do. But when I look at you now, I’m not sure who I
see, the man I fell in love with or the cold, expressionless man
that watched me suffer and made me fear him.” I took a deep breath
and said the words I needed to say to save my already damaged
heart. “What I’m sure of ... is that I’m better without either
one.”

I turned,
slipped under his arm, and ran through the raging rain. I heard him
shouting my name and curse several times before I reached the
house. I went into my room, shut the door and leaned up against it,
my chest heaving in and out and my nerves shooting off like the
Fourth of July.

After I caught
my breath I took off my soaking wet breeches and shirt then dried
myself off and slipped on jeans without even searching for
underwear. I had no doubt Logan would come after me. My running
would not deter him from finishing what he started. I grabbed my
pink T-shirt from my bed and pulled it over my head just as the
door swung open.

Logan stood in
the doorway with his hands braced on either side. He looked
determined and impenetrable. Water droplets fell off the tips of
his hair, and his T-shirt was plastered to his broad, hard chest.
There was no softness in his eyes; he was hard and determined with
glistening moisture clinging to his skin.

He stole my
breath away, and for a moment I couldn’t move. It was his authority
that made my body hyperaware. It was like this basic need in me
begging to be fulfilled.

“Maybe I’m
like him. Because I’d have killed, murdered ... I would’ve done it
all if he’d sold you. I’d have done those things to get you back.
Yes, I watched you being whipped, fondled, dragged away, knowing
you were going to be tortured. And yes, my own father held a gun to
your head and I had to walk away or risk him killing you, just to
make a point.” His hands tightened on the wood frame of the door.
“And I’d do it again. Because there was no fuckin’ way he was
taking you from me. You get that, Emily? That’s what this is about.
I did what had to be done. You survived. And I’m telling you right
now, growing up with him, knowing what that shit was like, you
wouldn’t have survived being sold, and I wasn’t going to let that
happen. So, I did what I had to do, and so did you.”

I sat on the
bed, folding my trembling hands in my lap.

A tear slipped
from its captivity, and I was furious at it. He didn’t deserve my
tears. “I hate what you did to me.”

“You hate what
I pretended to be. You hate that I wasn’t your knight in shining
armor. You hate that I made you fear me. But don’t run from the
truth, Eme. You want to hide behind your Lego blocks and not take
the chance at being vulnerable again. But the truth is you’re more
vulnerable now, because you are hiding.”

“You made me
this way. You made me vulnerable,” I shouted.

“That’s
bullshit. You were strong as hell fighting Raul and Alfonzo. Shit,
you held a gun to me.” He walked toward me, and his hands ran up my
arms then back down again. “Mouse, we can fix this.”

“It’s not just
broken, Sculpt. It’s shattered.”

He remained
quiet, eyes meeting mine.

He watched me,
and I continued to brush away the stupid tears that refused to
stop.

“This. Us. It
hurts too much.” My words barely slipped from my mouth before he
was lifting me up and kissing me. A slow, long kiss moving across
my mouth like we’d been melted together.

His hands came
on either side of my head as his kiss grew harsher, his tongue
slipping inside, his grip on me tightening. It was so fresh and
raw, as if both of us had been starved for one another.

I tasted the
salt of my tears on my tongue as his mouth took mine in a sweet
urgency.

My body
responded, remembering the taste of him, the feel of him against my
skin, and it wanted more and that terrified me.

“No.” I pushed
on his chest, and he backed away.

“Emily.”

A part of me,
the side that was completely crazy for this guy, wanted to leap in
his arms and devour him. But there was so much crippling anguish
inside me. And I suspected him too. At his father, and himself. We
were bound to destroy one another more than we were already. “This
can’t happen, Sculpt.”