AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She shrugged. “Not much. What I know is from books. Stories were my only form of escape the past several months.”
I wanted badly to continue asking her what precisely she knew about kinky stuff, but there was a more pressing matter at hand.
“It’s time for you to tell me your long story.” It was the middle of the afternoon, Luke was going to demand answers this evening and, with Declan lurking around town, I needed to be prepared as to how to best protect Miranda. As soon as everything was taken care of, we were going to continue our talk about BDSM.
She lifted her head so we could look at one another. “You’re absolutely sure you want to hear this and help me?”
I quirked one of my eyebrows up. “Do you need a repeat spanking so soon?”
“All right. I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect,” she said, raising her hands slightly in the air as a universal gesture that she meant no harm. She put her hands in her lap and said, “As I told you, my older brother, Evan, and I lost our parents when I was twelve years old and he was fourteen. Shortly after this, my brother started to hang out with the wrong types of people.”
“Wrong types how?” I asked. There could be vastly different definitions of what someone considered the wrong type to be.
“His friends were into drugs. Pot, which led to cocaine.”
“Yeah, those aren’t the best types of people,” I admitted.
She chuckled. “No, and because of them, we were moved around a lot in foster homes. No one wanted to deal with a teenager on a dark path. This kept happening for years until he graduated and then I did. By this point, he was in deep with a gang. I went to community college so I could be close to him and try my best to get him away from those bad influences.”
My heart broke for Miranda. Not only had her childhood been stolen from her by the premature death of her parents, but her teenage years and college experience were taken by her brother. No one should be forced to lose all of that.
“I ended up graduating with an associate’s degree in business. I got a job at a local law firm as a secretary, kept taking classes and eventually ended up being promoted to a paralegal. Things were going decent for me until Evan disappeared.”
She paused for a moment and took a couple of deep breaths. “It was terrifying because I thought he had been murdered. My brother made a lot of stupid decisions in his life, but he always stayed close to me and checked in at least once a week to let me know he was okay. When he didn’t, it made me feel like a failure, as if I had somehow let my parents down.”
Her breathing hitched with her last statement and I could see the tears forming behind her eyes. After everything she had gone through, I felt like a class A jerk for making her recount this story.
“Miranda—” I started to say, but she held her hand up.
“About two days after I started to suspect foul play, I decided to file a police report. That evening, Declan visited me while I was eating dinner alone at a diner. He told me my brother was alive, but he had disappeared.”
She smiled as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “I was relieved he hadn’t been killed until Declan told me my brother owed him $15,000 for cocaine usage and, if I didn’t pay it to him, he’d kill me in place of my brother.”
I clenched my teeth as I imagined the son of a bitch who had graced my doorstep less than an hour ago. It was a smart thing Miranda hadn’t told me this story before then because if she had, I would’ve smashed his face in before he could get through telling us his ridiculous lie.
“I wanted to be done with him, so I agreed to pay him monthly payments until I paid off the amount my brother had owed him. Our arrangement should’ve been finished last week, but, at that time, he told me he wanted more. I made it clear I’d taken care of my brother’s debt and I wanted nothing else to do with him. He didn’t like that and stated he didn’t want my money, he wanted me. Apparently, he got off on how sweet and loyal I was to my brother and thought I’d make a good wife for him.”
“He didn’t like your rejection.”
“No, he didn’t,” Miranda confirmed. “I was able to convince him to let me go home to get my affairs in order before I came back to him. I called my boss, not wanting to disappear on him. He informed me Declan had the police chief of our town on his payroll, so the best thing I could do was run. He didn’t have to tell me twice. I packed everything I could in my car and left. I thought I was in the clear until I realized a couple of days later Declan and one of his goons were tailing me on the highway.”
The desire to smash this guy’s face in grew stronger and stronger. Why did he have to pursue Miranda? He had put her through enough.
“By some miracle, I was able to take an exit off the highway toward Dixon, and he missed it. I got as far as I could until my car’s engine gave out and then I set out on foot.”
She fell silent, so I continued for her. “Instead you ended up finding me, fainting, and waking up here only to find out Declan somehow tracked you.”
She nodded, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. “Yep. I don’t know how he keeps doing it. All I want is for him to go away permanently. I gave him the money he wanted. I don’t understand why he can’t leave me alone.”
She wiped the tear away as part of my heart broke for her. This poor woman had been dealt such a shitty hand in life.
“Men like him want what they can’t have. So, when you ran, it was like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull.”
She narrowed her eyes, and her body tensed. “So, this is my fault?”
“No!” I exclaimed. “I’m not saying you’re to blame at all. I meant, this is his nature. Nothing you could’ve done would have made him not want you.”
She relaxed and leaned against me. “I wish there was something I could do. I’m tired of constantly looking over my shoulder and feeling helpless. I want some normalcy to my life.”
