“Or maybe beat him up instead. It’ll make your feel better.”
She turned to look up at Connor. “Will you shut up? You’re riling him up.”
He just gave her a cool look. “You’re in enough trouble, little sub. I suggest you be quiet.”
Be quiet? Be quiet?
“You did not just tell me to be quiet! And what do you mean, I’m in trouble? I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“You kept this from us.” Ajax was the one who answered, surprisingly. And his voice was chilly enough to freeze a polar bear. “You should have called me the minute this happened.”
“Well, I was kind of busy with the cops and EMTs.”
“Don’t be a smart ass,” Connor rebuked. “You know what he’s saying.”
She did. But she didn’t get why he was so upset. “I didn’t know I was supposed to call you.”
Ajax looked like she’d hit him. Then his face went blank. “Then I guess that’s on me for not making it clear enough that I’d want to know when shit like that went down. But, at the very least, Sophie should have called to explain why she wasn’t coming into work today. And you shouldn’t have tried to cover for her.”
“She doesn’t want anyone to know. She’s ashamed, all right?”
“Ashamed of what?” Ajax asked.
“She thought Jerry was a good guy. She thought he was the kind of guy you married and had kids with. Who you went to sleep beside and woke up in the morning, happy to see his face even though he had morning breath and was grumpy without his coffee.
“So, s
he stayed with him, even after he hit her the first time. Told herself it was just a lapse. He was so nice afterwards, so mad at himself, she thought she should give him another chance because she’d already imagined him with the two kids and the yard and the happy ever after.
“Then it happened again. Only that time, it was her fault. She’d stood too close to some guy, smiled at the postman, fuck I don’t know . . . talked too long to the guy bagging her groceries. And it escalated. And she kept staying even though she knew should have gotten out because she was scared, and he’d made her think it was all her fault, and she didn’t know where to go. Okay?
“She’s ashamed that she stayed. That she was duped. And that she wasn’t smarter than that.”
Both men stared at her for a long moment.
“You probably don’t get what it’s like to think something is one thing and then have your whole world tilted on its axis. You don’t get how that plays with your confidence.”
“But Sophie got out,” Connor said quietly.
“Yes. With my help. Only I obviously fucked up somewhere because he found her.”
And the guilt of that was eating her alive.
“Wasn’t your fault, baby.” That soft tone to his voice was back. The one that moved like a warm river through her senses. Shit. She could find herself melting all too easily when he used that tone.
“I fucked up. And now Sophie’s holed up in some shitty motel room, scared to death he’s going to find her when the cops let him go. Which they will,” she muttered.
“She’s not staying with you?” Ajax asked.
She shook her head. “She didn’t want to stay in that building. After the cops hauled him away last night, I helped her pack a few things that he hadn’t destroyed and we went to stay the night at a motel down the road.”
“Why don’t you tell us what happened last night?” Connor asked. He led her over to a chair. “Ajax, put the gun away. You’re scaring Ria.”
She frowned, looking up at Connor. She wasn’t scared of guns. He winked at her. Right. He was trying to help defuse the situation.
So, she sat in the chair and watched as Ajax sat as well.
“I was woken in the night by my phone. It was Sophie. I knew it had to be bad if she was calling me in the early hours. She said he was there. I got up, grabbed my bat and took off for her apartment.”