Sweetest Torture (Sweetest Kill Book 2) (17 page)

I frowned “Do you think it’s okay
to wait on them?”

She nods “I really do, I think they
will be the most emotional, and I think you have a lot to work on, but I also
think you are stronger than you realize and you will get there before you know
it.”

“Is Landon okay?” I ask

“He’s beautiful, but he also is
reminded of you every single day and I think he will be excited to finally meet
his mommy again.”

“Okay.” I stand up “let’s do this.”

It takes me a month of constant
personal therapy with Sarah. She teaches me how to get out of the house. We go
shopping and I have a panic attack in the middle of the store, but she brings
me back. I end up needing a prescription for the attacks, but that is the least
of my worries.

Alexis comes by.

Ryan.

Mom comes by

Jaxon.

Josslyn eventually

Adam.

Nothing prepares me for the moment
when I see Dean and my son again.

We meet at an open park.

It’s early April. The trees are
starting to bloom in California. It’s T-shirt weather year round here, but it
feels nice to be out in the sunlight.

I’m not showing yet as far as my
pregnancy goes, I am only about 8 or 9 weeks.

We have a constant slew of guards
at least 4 are with me at all times. All giant men, but sweet as can be. They
are all armed. They are all men Ryan handpicked himself.

Ryan and Alexis are here with Sarah
and me.

Dean pulls up a few minutes after
we all settle.

I begin to feel shaky.

I look at Sarah “I don’t think I
can do it.”

She grabs my hand and looks into my
eyes “You can do this, you are strong and you miss them just as much as they
miss you. Hold on. Just hold it.”

I listen. I am scared, it’s okay to
be scared I remind myself, but I have to be stronger than my fear. I can do
this.

When I look back up, I see Dean. He
has Landon in his arms. He is 10 months old. He is a giant. He’s looking at our
table. Ryan and Alexis and Sarah, he knows who they are.

Dean is looking at me. When he
steps closer I can see that he has tears on his cheeks.

He’s still wearing his wedding
ring.

He stands next to where I am
sitting. I stand slowly. I forgot how tall he was. I forgot how strong he was.
He’s stronger than I remember though. Everything about him seems bigger to me.

“Hi.” He whispers after several
moments of us staring at each other.

“Hi.” I whisper back

I look at Landon He’s chewing on a
teddy bear. I know that bear. It’s the one that I bought him when he was born.
He always loved it most. I am glad that he still favors it.

Landon looks at me and smiles. He
has teeth. He has a row of teeth on the top and a few on the bottom.  He turns
himself more towards me and lets his hands out for me to pick him up.

I take a step back.

I can’t hold him. Why can’t I just
hold him?

Sarah comes up beside me and turns
me towards her “he wants you. You don’t have to do anything other than hold
him. Remember this is all about baby steps. Just hold you son.”

I nod, she’s right. I don’t have to
do anything other than just hold him.

I take a step forward again. Landon
giggles a small little laugh, and I can’t help but laugh in return. He’s
kicking his legs like crazy trying to wiggle from his dad’s grasp.

When I reach him, I gently put my
hands under his arms and Dean lets him go.

He’s heavy. Solid heavy.

“Does he work out with you?” I
joke, looking at Dean

Dean laughs lightly “Of course, he
bench presses blocks daily.”

I smile. Landon is holding onto my
neck, he reaches for my hair and examines it through his chubby little fingers.
He reaches up and touches my cheek.

“Does he talk?” I ask Dean

Dean shakes his head no. “He
babbles, but he won’t talk. We figure he will when he is ready.”

Of course. Well at least that is
one milestone I might be a part of.

We all sit. Everyone around me is
talking to one another. Landon and I sit on the grass. I don’t really pay
attention to anything else. Just him.

Landon offers me his bear. I accept
it and tell him he’s a good bear. This makes him smile. I hand him his bear
back. But he Landon won’t take it.

“He never gives his bear to
anyone.” Ryan says

I look at him and then at Dean, who
nods his head “I have to wait until he’s sleeping at night to wash it and hope
that he doesn’t have a bad dream and wake up to see him gone.”

I frown at this “he has
nightmares?”

Dean nods “nearly every night since
the night you left.”

“I didn’t leave.” I snap. I didn’t
mean to, but I didn’t like his wording

“I know you didn’t Liv.”

Hearing him call me Liv turns my
stomach into a puddle.

I look back at my son, who has
somewhere along the lines crawled into my lap and fallen asleep.

I pull him closer into my chest. He
doesn’t even stir.

Dean takes a seat on the grass
beside me. He’s watching me.

“I showed him your picture every
single day. I played your voicemail message over and over so he would know your
voice. Josslyn even gave him one of her voice birthday cards that you recorded
for her.”

I am watching the baby sleeping in
my arms, listening to him.

He reaches over and tucks my hair
behind my ear. I turn into his touch. I have missed the feel of him. I have
missed that innocent little touch that was only his.

“I have missed you so fucking much
beautiful girl.”

“I’m pregnant.” I blurt out

His face falls slightly, he looks
down. Shifts away from me slightly.

I look at him. He’s looking up at
the sky “I know.” He replies, voice tight

“I’m sorry.”

He looks at me “Don’t ever say
sorry to me for any of this. You didn’t choose any of this. I should have kept
you safe. I should have known that he would pull something like this. He asked
me way too many questions about you. And Stella, when she started calling to
ask how you were doing. I should have known.”

“I saw her, she came to Mexico. She
told me that you two were together. I shot her.”

“Wait, you are the one who shot
her?” he asks

“Yeah. When I told her to tell you
I wanted you to file for divorce. She told me that you two were together, that
you weren’t looking for me.”

“She’s such a fucking liar.” Ryan
and Alexis say at the same time

“She lied to you. I told her if she
came near me or Landon again I would kill her. I haven’t seen her since that
first day.”

“So what about the divorce stuff,
she said you freaked out.”

“She wasn’t the one who told me
about that. She had Alexis tell me about that. We were outside. She must have
been nearby because she wasn’t here for that.” He tells me

“She said you thought I just wanted
your money. I just wanted to let you move on and be happy since Max wouldn’t
let me go. I just wanted you both to be happy.” I look down at Landon

“She’s dead.” Dean whispers

“What?”

“I killed her when she told me that
you and Max were together. She told me that she was going to make sure that Max
never let you go, and I killed her. She was my last kill. I retired while you
were gone. I didn’t want Landon to lose his only parent, but she had to go.”

I was kind of glad that she was
gone. Maybe that meant that Max wouldn’t have a reason to come for me. Maybe
they wouldn’t know where I was. But I knew Max, I knew that he would find a way
to find me.

“Max will find me. He will want
this baby.” I tell Dean

“And I’ll be ready for him. You
won’t be left alone. We will figure it all out. But I really just want you to
come home. I need you to be with me and our son.”

Maybe I wasn’t totally ready, maybe
I was but I knew deep down I wouldn’t be able to walk away from this little boy
in my arms ever again.

“Okay.” I agree.

Dean bought the townhouses from
Erica while I was gone. He had them converted into one big area, the entry way
that once was is now an open living area.

It was beautiful.

“I thought this was easier than
buying a house. That and I wasn’t sure if we would ever get you back and this
place had too many memories for me to walk away from it.” Dean explains, he
walks in and lays Landon down in his crib.

He walks back out and hands me the
baby monitor. I immediately turn the video back on and keep it on. Dean smile
at my action.

“I’m glad you’re here.” He says
“can we sit down and talk?”

“Sure.” I reply

We sit in the living room. But I
notice quickly that this isn’t the same couch that was here when I left. No,
that couch is pushed to the new living area, filling my old living room is the
old couch. The one that I sold because it made me think of Dean.

“This couch.” I say to him

“I am the one who bought it. I had
a buyer pay for it and pick it up and store it until I could give it to you. It
was supposed to be a gift, but that didn’t really work out. Anyway, it is my
favorite couch, so I couldn’t just get rid of it.

I am glad.

“So.” I say waiting for him to ask
me whatever it is he needs to know

“So… Do you love him?”

He doesn’t beat around the bush

“I did.” I reply

He looks sad but nods his head in
understanding

“I didn’t love him in the way that
I love you though. It was different and it is very hard to explain. I think I
learned to love him because I knew I would never get out. I knew that I needed
to throw my love into someone and something because the people that I really loved
were so far away. I thought that he would make me happy. But I wasn’t happy. I
missed my son. I missed you even though I was angry with you for being with
someone else, I just tried to make the best out of a situation I never thought
I would be free of.”

He watches me “how do you feel
now?”

“I feel like I am having a baby
with a man that had to kidnap me to make me love him, and I feel like I will
never truly be free, but love is not something I feel for him anymore. I feel
something quite the opposite. I still worry that he is angry with me. I still
worry that this baby will disappear. But I want it. I want to make my life
work, but I want to not worry about Max too.”

“I get it, but I told you, he’s
coming near you again.” Dean says

“Doesn’t it bother you that I am
having a baby with him?” I ask

“Honestly? It does. But that baby
is half you, and I know that you didn’t choose any of this Liv, I know that you
would have gone home with me the night of our wedding if you had, had a choice
but you didn’t. You didn’t have a choice, he took all your choices from you the
last few months. I get that you had sex with him. I get that you felt a
connection. I also get that whatever you might have created with him is a drop
in the bucket to what you and I share. You are the love of my life. You are my
whole fucking reason for being on this earth, and if that baby is a part of
you, than that baby is a part of me too and I would be proud to help you raise
him or her.”

“So you don’t care that it would be
raising
his
baby?”

“I don’t care that it is
biologically his, because I will be that baby’s dad in every way that I am
Landon’s dad. I will love it and I will love it like I love you and I love our
son. You don’t have to worry Liv, this time us, our family all four of us. We
are forever. There is no changing that. You are my forever.”

“You’re my forever too, Dean.”          

The monitor lights up with sound
and I hear a little voice saying ‘mama.’

Natalie is sitting on Dean’s lap
telling him all about her very first day in Kindergarten

“The teacher said that I had the
coolest shoes in the whole wide class daddy.”

She has a shoe fetish. She never
wears one pair all day. She has slippers in the morning, sneakers for the day
and she is obsessed with flats. Dean is always running out to buy her new
shoes, just to see the smile on her face when she opens the box.

Landon walks in and rolls his eyes
“Dad tell Caleb to stay out of my stuff.”

He’s almost 7 going on 17. And he
can’t stand that his little brother wants to be just like him.

Caleb comes running down the
hallway with his cousin Josh in tow. “Mom Landon hit me.”

“Landon, what have I told you about
hitting your brother, he’s 3 you need to be gentle with him.”

Another eye roll “Mom; he is almost
as big as my chest, he needs to toughen up.”

He sounds so much like his father.

“I don’t care, don’t hit him again.
Why don’t the three of you go in and play Minecraft for a while?”

The boys all run into the second
living room and turn the game on.

Josh is 2, he’s Alexis and Ryan’s
little boy. He hangs out with us as often as possible, which is nearly all day
since his parents bought the house next door.

Alexis is pregnant again, this time
with a little girl. 7 months and 3 days in.

Which is amazing because I am 7
months and 3 days into my pregnancy as well. Another boy. When we found out
that we had the same due date, we both cried. Dean and Ryan laughed at us and
then took us for cheeseburgers like the good husbands they are.

Ryan is still in the business. But
nothing bad has ever touched our family since.

Max was dead. He and his father
were killed in an explosion at the mansion shortly after Natalie was born. He
made several efforts to find me, to take me back, but they never worked. I was
sad for a brief time, but Dean patched up any and all holes Max left inside me.
He treated Natalie like a princess. I think the day she was born, I fell even
more in love with Dean.