Roar (Military Bad Boy Billionaire Romance) (Soldiers of Fortune Book 4) (5 page)

P A S T

I'm two minutes late for curfew.

And I'm terrified.

Two minutes late for anything, with
anyone
besides Bill, my mom's latest drunk asshole boyfriend of the month isn't anything. Two minutes late is stopping for gas, or timing the traffic lights back through town wrong. It's slowing down to not get busted at the speed-trap you know Sheriff Evans always nabs people at.

Two minutes late is just
being
eighteen years old and a senior in high school. It just comes with the territory.

But not to Bill it's not.
 

I'm shaking as I turn the car off and step out. The house is quiet, but the light in the kitchen is on, and I can see the flickering blueish glow of the television in the living room that tells me he's still up, drunk, and probably mad as hell.

It's fine; it's going to be fine
, I try and reassure myself, sweating in the Texas heat as I climb the three creaky stairs to the trailer door.

My mother is the first one I see when I open the screen-door, and the fact that her face looks as terrified as I feel is
not
a good sign.

"Mom?" I say, biting my lip and trying to give her my most pleading look, as if that'll change anything about the storm I know that's about to erupt inside the small trailer.
 

“Where the
fuck
have you been?" My mother quickly looks away at the sound of Bill's voice from the back bedroom. The curtain is ripped back as he stumbles out, cigarette dangling from his lips, a bottle in his hand, and his bloodshot eyes narrowed and gleaming wickedly at me. This isn't going to be the first time he's hit me, and I steel myself for the slap or the shove into the wall I know is probably coming.

"You even know his name?" Bill leers at me, shaking his head as he brings the whiskey up to take a swig.

Questions like these are loaded from the start; I have no idea what he's talking about, and any answer I give is going to trigger some sort of wrath. The trick is to find the
less
bad answer.

"Who's, Bill?"

His fist crashes against the trailer wall loud enough to make both my mother and I jump; "Whoever it was you was out
fuckin
and bein late with, you little slut!"

I can feel the anger flash hot inside of me, but I push it back down. He
knows
I was at the evening accounting class I signed up for through the high school vocational program, but it's not like that matters anyways.
 

"Bill, I wasn't-"

"Don't you
dare
talk back to me you fuckin
whore
!"

I flinch as he slams the whiskey bottle down onto the TV stand as he storms closer to me. Talking back to Bill, however warranted, is like throwing meat to the wolves.

“OK, fine.”

"The
fuck
did you say to me, girl?" He's on me in a second, and I barely have time to gasp as he shoves me back
hard
against the wall of the trailer. There's an extra glint in his eyes tonight, and the fear I tried hard to suffocate deep inside comes gasping back out.
 

Bill's hand comes stinging across my cheek, making me cry out sharply as the slap echoes through me. Tears spring to my eyes, even though I
hate
to show him any sort of weakness. Weakness is something cowardly, bullying assholes like Bill devour.
 

I could try and apologize for whatever it is he thinks I did, but there's no way to tell which way he wants me to go here, and the wrong way will hurt more.

"Bill, I-" I scream as the back of his hand comes down hard across my face, splitting my lip and making me taste copper as I go sprawling across the floor. I'm shaking now, and I look up towards my mother, who only gives me a small shake of the head and looks away; as if I'm on my own here.

And I am.

"I ain't gonna have no girl under my roof goin’ around spreading her whore legs for the whole fuckin town, you understand me, girl!"

Bill's boot connects with my ribs, making me scream again as I grit my teeth and nod through the tears. I've had
one
boyfriend, like that even matters, but something tells me we're past discussing the semantics of "slut" with Bill at this point. He's drunker and madder than I can remember him being; so much so that I'm even more scared of this new wildly unpredictable man raging through the trailer.

"Bill, honey-"

"I tell you to open yer fuckin mouth?" Bill whirls on my mother and slaps her hard across the face.

And something in me snaps.

I screech as I launch myself off the floor at Bill's back, clawing at his face and hammering at him with my fists; anything to get him away from my mother, as useless and as passive as she's been letting the man she shares her bed with beat on her only kid.

Bill roars as he tosses me off his back and whirls on me, and if he was mad before, he looks like a demon now. Blood drips from the fingernail marks I've left across his face, and I find myself scrunching into a ball as he quickly storms across the room towards me.

My scream cuts off as his hand clasps around my neck, and I'm choking and gasping for air as he squeezes tightly.

"Whoever yer daddy was never taught you proper manners, but I swear to fucking God I'm gonna put some respect into you if I gotta burn it into yer skin!"

The scream comes ragged from my throat as I feel the scorching sting of the lit end of Bill's cigarette bite into the skin of my arm. I'm squirming and jerking and rasping out screams as he
laughs
and burns me again and again. Tears flow down my cheeks as I look wildly at my mother.

She's watching TV.

Her only child is being tortured in front of her face and she's not just doing nothing, she's actively ignoring it. And as in-character as that is for her, it almost hurts worse than the burns and the choking hand around my neck.

Almost.

Bill is screaming at me, his face purple with rage and his hand growing tighter and tighter around my neck. Spots dance across my eyes, my vision bending a little in the corners as the air begins to leave my brain. I'm reeling, reaching my hand out and clawing towards my mother; clawing for anything.

Like the kitchen knife lying on the counter above my head.

"Oh, what," Bill sneers at me, his eyes crazy and his whiskey breath hot on my face; "You gonna stab me, you little slu-"

The only thing I can remember after that is my mother screaming "how could you" over and over again. I'm still choking later, still lying on the floor with my arm on fire, my breath still ragged, and Bill's blood pooling around me, when Sheriff Evans comes in and swears softly before pulling me up and leading me out of the trailer.

I have no idea what happens when you stab someone, but I know it's usually not good. And I know I should be scared, but in that moment, when they push my head down and guide me into the back of the police car with the neighbors watching and my mother screaming obscenities at me…

I’m really just numb. Because anything is better than that.

Out of the frying pan, and into the fire, as they say.

*****

P R E S E N T

The main offices of Archer Holdings in midtown are quiet this hour of the night. Roger, the head of security just gives me a cursory smile and nod as I swipe in with my key-pass.

I really hope he doesn't get in trouble for this. I mean, it's not like he knows what I'm doing, but still.

Logan's office is locked of course, but I could remember the key combo in a coma for the time I've spent here working late or just helping him out.
 

I know the rest of them all understand, but they don't; not really. They've all lost, I wouldn't ever say anything against that, but the Archer family has each other. They're still a family.

Me? I've just got Logan. Of course that doesn't mean they all don't want him back; I
get
it. But I
have
to do this. Bryce can do his thing, but I'm not stalling and I'm not fucking around back here worrying myself to death and wondering what I
could
have done.

Because there's no "could have" here; there's only "do."

The wall-safe in Logan's office sits behind a large framed picture of one of his hospitals in Guatemala; all smiling kids faces with my brother and Quinn grinning arm-in-arm behind them all. I feel the anger rise in me again, thinking of them putting the bag over his head and dragging him away from me. No one deserves something like that, but least of all a man like Logan who just
gives
so much to the world.
 

They're going to pay
.
 

I know they all see me as Logan's kid sister. They see me as the financial analyst, the office worker, the pencil-pusher, and the book-nerd. They don't see the other side of me; the dark side. Which is good, because I've gone to huge lengths to keep that side and that past hidden from everyone.

Well, everyone except Bryce. Him, I showed it all to.

My brother is predictable, and even if I've never had to go into this safe without him here, I already know the password is his birthday before it even ends up working.

C'mon, bro.

The spare corporate credit card will come in handy, but the hundred-thousand in cash will work pretty well too. It's not- well, ok, it
is
theft, but I hope it's one they'll forgive me for.

I'm dialing the company's transportation department from his private line and scheduling the flight before I can stop and let my brain catch up with the wild plan I've already decided I'm going to go through with. I've got ten minutes before the car picks me up downstairs, and I run into my own office and grab some spare clothes I keep there.

Three years later and I'm still keeping spare clothes and packed bags ready to go all over the damn place. I briefly wonder if the small bag I kept at Bryce's place is still there or if he's ditched it by now.
 

Shirtless, I catch my reflection in the mirror of the private bathroom off my office. My eyes follow the delicate tendrils of ink that curve down the whole of my right arm. The sleeve that covers and hides the cigarette scars; the sleeve I've carefully and deliberately added to over the years since that night when Logan came for me.
 

They're all going to be mad, but they'll understand; they must. I have to do this.

I think of Bryce's face; he's not just being bossy, he's just still watching out for me, and that might hurt worse. There was feeling there once, but - no. There wasn't a chance there, only room to get hurt or hurt each other. No good comes of two broken people deciding the other is the fix. They just shatter more off the broken edges of each other until there's nothing left but a bigger mess than they started with.

I close my eyes for a moment, pushing the thoughts away. I can dwell on that another time, but I've got so much else to think about right now.

I walk back to look around my brother's office once more, my face growing grimmer by the second until I focus on the picture of him and Quinn, smiling and happy.

I'm coming for you, Logan; I swear.