Ben (The Sherwood)

I shook my head. “Why did he come after you?” I asked Matt.

“Because I paid him a visit outside the compound one night. I told him you had stopped seeing Disa. I threatened him, Ben. He didn’t like being threatened. He sees himself as untouchable and I made him realize just how vulnerable he was.”

I didn’t understand. I shook my head. I was trying to comprehend what he was saying. Then with his next words, things started sinking in just how depraved Elder Ron was.

“I found his private home,” Matt explained.

“What private home?” Disa interrupted him. “Elders have one home at the compound. They aren’t allowed to have private homes. Or wealth. They do good for the benefit of the church not themselves,” Disa explained.

Matt nodded at her. “Heath had hacked the compound’s computer system. He has a world of talents, thank God. Ron Parson had been funneling money from the church funds and bought a private home where his women were being kept for his pleasure after they left the compound. That’s where they disappeared to Disa.”

“Why didn’t you help them?”

“We did try after that night. He moved them somewhere.” Matt lowered his eyes trying to hide the guilt that he felt but I caught a glimpse of it before he lowered his eyes.

“I visited him there. Told him everything I knew about him. I showed him just how vulnerable he was. I let him know I had evidence that the other elders wouldn’t like about his embezzling and women. I showed him what I had on the women that Hawk wouldn’t like much either. If he so much as breathed on you, Ben or you, Disa I would let them all know what he had been doing.”

“That’s why he didn’t come after me, or Merci.”

“Right. He wants Lilah though because she can put him away.” Matt rubbed his jaw.

“Matt, you can’t give her to him.” She looked at me. I knew she was trying to decide what to tell him. What she had seen about the Lilah’s body. “He tortured her Matt. Please, you can’t give her to him.”

“Disa, I know.” His voice was soft. “I won’t give her to him. I promise but we have to figure out a way to bring Ron down if Hawk can’t do it.”

After Matt’s explanation about mine and Disa’s past, we left. There wasn’t much to say. I felt cheated by my own family. We should have been given a chance to decide for ourselves what we wanted instead they took it all away from us.

Chapter 19

We were home alone. No Seth. No Asia. It was late, and Heath suggested that she just stay the night. He loved having her, he told me on the phone. I was uncertain. I had to be honest, I was more than uncertain.

I was afraid to leave my daughter with my brother but Merci and Lilah were there, my only consolation. They were taking most of her care on themselves. So, I left my infant with my brother. I was going to sleep through the night for the first time since Asia had moved in and that sounded like heaven.

In my bedroom, I plopped on the bed patted the pocket where Disa’s ring rested while she we

nt into the walk-in closet to hang up her dress and put her shoes away. I reached into the pocket and lifted the diamond ring out from where I had been secretly stowing it. Holding it in my hand, I stared at the brilliance and sparkle of it.

This ring took on a whole new meaning tonight. It represented the years that we were cheated out of. I wanted to go ahead and ask her to marry me but didn’t know how she would feel now. My uncomplicated life had suddenly become complicated.

Disa came out of the closet and I didn’t notice until she slid into my lap and laid her arms around my neck. She was wearing only her strapless lacy bra in a soft gray and matching underwear.

She pressed her forehead against mine. She hadn’t noticed the ring in my hand. I clutched it tight and wrapped my arms around her body, holding onto her as if she might slip away.

“Talk to me, Ben. I know you’re upset.”

I chuckled. “Upset?” That didn’t begin to cover the gamut of emotions that I was feeling. “Angry, upset. Pissed off. I feel cheated. They should have let us make the decision.”

“I agree,” she whispered against my lips, then she kissed me with such tenderness that it broke my heart for us. For what we could have had. I closed my eyes and enjoyed her sweet breath in my face. Her warm skin beneath my fingers. Her body just being near me comforted me. Calmed me.

I cupped her cheek with my free hand and contemplated whether to go ahead and ask her to marry me. Disa pulled her lips away from mine. I opened my eyes and gazed into the loveliest eyes I had ever seen. Those eyes were what captivated me. They owned me from the first moment I gazed into them.

“Thank you for tonight,” she told me again.

“I’m sorry it didn’t end the way I wanted it to.” I kissed her nose. She smiled at me.

“It’s the thought that counts, Ben.”

She pushed my jacket off my shoulders and let it lay against the bed. I pulled my hands out of the sleeves. Disa unbuttoned my shirt, one, two, three buttons were undone. I didn’t know if she was starting something or just trying to relax me.