Now, right now… she needed to brace and I wanted her to trust me completely. I knew there was a greater chance of earning that trust if I didn’t blindside her about shit.
“You need to come with me to Zack’s office tomorrow morning.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“The partner summit in Thailand is in a few days. He needs to brief you. They need us to go, baby.”
She nodded blankly but then lines appeared between her eyebrows as she tried to process what I was saying.
“Go?” she finally asked.
“To the partner summit. We need to go.”
She did the slowest blink I’d ever seen in my life.
Fuck.
I saw a swallow move down her throat and then she blinked again. And then a few more times. Rapidly.
“Angelbaby. I promise you, promise you, they’ll know you’re off limits. If any one of them even
think about laying a finger on you…” I felt her body rev up into a full-on tremble.
I put my arms around her and pulled her to straddling on my lap, “Hang onto me, baby. You’re safe. Talk to me.” I backed against the headboard.
She started to gasp for air. “Can’t breathe, ah---”
“I don’t want this for you. I don’t want this for us. But my baby, this could bring those fuckers down, set all those girls free. You know? And it could help us get out of the dirtiest shit Pop stuffed us in.” I ran my hand up and down her back.
She was nodding and gasping and trembling in my arms, her eyes shiny.
“Breathe, baby,” I cupped her cheek, “I put you first. You’re number one, you got me? I am taking all this shit very fuckin’ seriously. This is not what I want for our lives. But the sooner we shut this shit down, the sooner these sick fucks are out of our lives. You know?”
She was trying to nod but she was trembling so hard that her movements were jerky, erratic.
“We go, we’re there a few days, we gather information, and then we leave. In a couple months you may need to stand on a witness stand and tell the judge what happened to you. I don’t know yet how it’ll all play out because we don’t want to reveal we helped take them down but that’s to be determined and might not be in our control. But right now, we just control what we can control. We take a step at a time and you do so knowing you got me with you every single step that you take.”
She swallowed.
“Or…” I started, not premeditating what came out of my mouth at all, “Fuck it. We run. I have enough money to set us up. You tell me you can’t do it and we’ll go. We’ll disappear. Forever.”
A minute earlier I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but she started to shake even harder. And she looked shocked. I’d fuckin’ give her anything, anything in the world she wanted.
I got her tighter against my body. I ran my hands up and down her back. She was glued against me.
“We have to stop them,” she said, her voice steady.
I was so fucking proud of her.
“We will get through this,” I promised her and she nodded and burrowed in deeper to me.
“I promise, we’ll be okay.” I kissed her tears away, “And I’m gonna make them pay, Angel. I mean that. I’ve had to play it cool but do not mistake that. I want those fuckers taken down. I’ll blow the place up if I have to. You get me?”
She shuddered but nodded again, “I just want it over.”
That she wasn’t begging me to fuck her or bring her to orgasm was shocking to me. She held me tight and shook like a leaf, crying quietly. It was almost as extreme as the first night we were here, when I told her that she wasn’t a slave any longer. This news was cutting deep, rocking her fragile world.
There was no way she could handle news about Holly on top of all that. I’d talk to her about that later. Maybe much later.