AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I do—" Declan interrupts me. "It was a few months after we met at Oxford. We thought you were shacked up with the older woman you were shagging at that time. But I take it that wasn’t the case?”
I nod. "I managed to track down the whereabouts of Weston’s kidnappers, but instead of saving him and the rest of the boys, I was taken."
"And then they let you go?" Hunter frowns.
"I escaped."
"But they kept you for nearly two weeks…" his voice tapers off. "What are you not telling us? What did they do to you?"
"It wasn’t as bad as what you’re thinking… but it was everything else."
Hunter’s frown deepens. "Did they…?"
"Rape me, fuck no. Abuse me, yes."
"Fuck!" Hunter’s fingers tighten on his glass. "Did they catch the guy?"
"He’s dead."
"And you know that because—"
“Michael Sovrano, whose father was behind the entire plan of kidnapping Weston and the Seven, told me so.”
"So, he’s aware of what happened to you?"
"No. No one is—except her. And now you two."
There’s silence for a few seconds, then Declan murmurs, "I always wondered what happened to you during that time. You seemed to drop off the face off the earth, which wasn’t unusual, per se, but then you seemed to shut us out for a period after that. You stopped attending classes, went on a spree where you seemed to pick fights with everyone possible. You even volunteered for the Fight Club."
He’s referring to the very originally named street-fighting club organized by the Russian mafia that took place in a warehouse in East London. For a while I was, indeed, on a self-destructive spree. Rather than talk to my parents or a professional about it, I decided to take matters—and my life—into my own hands. I preferred to brawl as a way of dealing with what had happened to me. The fighting and the pain I inflicted on myself by my own choice seemed one way of being able to control my life.
"It was thanks to the two of you that I stopped before I killed myself."
"I assume you’re referring to the time the two of us intervened in a fight as you were about to be pounded by that Russian giant who looked like Big Foot?" Hunter snorts.
"He smelled worse." I scowl recalling the fetid odor of unwashed skin and desperation that had wafted off the man. He’d hammered me from the get-go and kept laying into me. And indeed, if the two of them hadn't found me in that makeshift ring and jumped in to save my ass, I’d have been toast. I wince. It was a good month before I was able to walk properly after the beating I taken at the hands, and under the foot, of that behemoth. It was a wake-up call. Nothing like a few broken bones and the inability to get out of bed to give one a chance to examine one’s sins and one’s past and decide what to do moving forward.
"It didn’t hurt that the two of you gave me a talking to, either," I murmur.
"Oh good, so you’ll realize this intervention is to stop you for making a bigger mess of your life than it already is?" Declan drawls.
"And maybe you’ll pay heed to what we’re trying to get through your thick skull," Hunter growls.
He’s not wrong. In fact, I hate to admit that both twatarses make a few good points. It’s what I’d already realized, but hearing it from them somehow makes it all real.
Not only am I well and truly fucked, but things are about to get worse. It’s the kind of life-changing shit that comes about only a few times in a man’s life. It happened to me when I was kidnapped, then when my father died, and now… When I realized I’d done the one thing I swore I never would. Fall in love with a blue-eyed, curvy, spit-fire of a woman from whom I won’t take no for an answer.
I glance between them, toss back the rest of my whiskey, then reach for the bottle. But this time, Hunter beats me to it. He tops off my glass. "Not preaching to me about the need to keep a clear head?"
He chuckles. "Somehow, I think you’re going to need the alcohol this time."
36
Isla
The sound of something crashing cuts through my sleep. I straighten in the chair where I fell asleep by the fireplace in the living room. My Kindle falls to the floor and I pick it up.
After Zara left, I decided to stay up and read in the library. I wasn’t sure where Liam was, and I wasn’t going to call him. I’m not really his wife. I certainly wasn’t going to act like one now. I wasn’t going to nag him or try to discover his whereabouts.
