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Klay holds me closer. Tighter. “I love you,” he says, feeling packed into every word. It takes him a couple of extra ticks to look at Ruger, his throat working in patters. “Both. Both of you.”
Ruger jolts, looking shocked.
At least until Klay gives him a slow grin and Ruger melts further into our circle, pressing tightly to my side, happiness transforming him from anxious to complete. I can barely breathe around the joy spreading in my chest. At watching these men grow. Knowing I’m theirs and they are mine. “Wherever you’re going, I’m going with you.” The very idea of being without these two men fills me with astronomical fear. So much that I sit up suddenly, ordering without words for them to cram in tight around me. Anchor me. “I won’t let the police find you and lock you up again. I can’t.”
“That won’t happen,” Klay murmurs fervently into my hair, calming my pulse slightly. “Nothing is going to keep us from you. Not ever.”
“I might have something to say about that,” says a familiar voice. “That child there is my property and it’s about damn time she comes home to earn her keep.”
My father is standing in the doorway, his signature sneer twisting his features.
The lining of my stomach turns to acid, my knees beginning to tremble like they did when I was a little girl. I have an embarrassing impulse to run as fast as possible to my old room and hide under the bed. But then I remember I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a grown woman with a new life. A job and a home…and two men who love me. Need me. Have opened themselves up to me and tried to cure me of my fear in the process.
Both of them have fixed their clothing and are now bristling, preparing for a fight. Possibly even ready to kill my father. And they could—easily. Especially when my safety is at stake. I can see that. A moment ago, they were my tender lovers, but right now, they are hardened and dangerous. Eyes glittering, jaws full of tension. An eerie calm has settled over Klay while Ruger wears a mask of fury, just waiting for the word so he can attack.
It’s when I’m looking at them that I realize…they have cured me.
Or rather, encouraged me to cure myself.
I’m not running anywhere as long as these two are by my side.
I’m a woman capable of turning three lost souls into an unlikely threesome. I’m the glue these two men need and they’re mine. I now have the power of three instead of one inside of me and that strong bond can’t be broken by my father’s hate or thirst for control. In fact, as I look at his sagging jowls and hunched frame, the very idea is laughable.
“Klay,” Ruger says. “As soon as I’ve got him out of the doorway, bring her outside and I’ll handle the rest.”
“Sound plan, mate,” Klay responds without missing a beat. “Do be careful. A man like that doesn’t issue a challenge unless he has a weapon hidden somewhere.”
Ruger grunts and starts forward, but I stop him with a hand on his elbow. “No.”
My lovers turn to me with raised eyebrows.
“I don’t need him…handled. I’m not afraid of him anymore.” I laugh a little incredulously to myself, then sober, putting some steel in my spine. “It’s a far worse punishment to let him live, anyway. Let’s go home.”
“I’d really like to kill him, Wendy,” Ruger rasps, nostrils flaring.
I smooth my hand up Ruger’s spine and his eyelids droop, stiffness draining from his muscles. “You’re not a killer anymore.” I lean over and kiss Klay, lightly. A tease of lips. “And they don’t decide our actions ever again,” I whisper, referring not only to my father, but Klay’s.
Klay blinks several times to camouflage the emotion in his blue eyes, but it’s there and eventually he stops trying to hide it. I reward him with a smile and take hold of the hands of both men, walking as one unit toward the door.
When we’ve almost reached where my father is standing, his bravado begins to crumble. He knows it’s over. He has nothing and no one to control or terrorize anymore. And in that panic, he produces a butcher knife from the inside of his dirty jacket, the steel glinting in the moonlight. My skin turns clammy and cold. One again, the fear threatens to rear its ugly head, but I force myself to calm down. Instead of running or letting Ruger attempt to disarm my father, I simply reach back and pick up the matches left behind on the kitchen table.
I strike one and throw it down on the twirling pattern of lighter fluid—and I watch the flames zip off down the hallway like I used to do.
