My hands run down the skirt I’m wearing that isn’t mine. The shirt I have on is still Ryken’s. “I don’t know if it is,” I reply honestly.
“Saskia, where have you been?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Away.” My hands touch the scar on my leg, then the scar on my wrists.
“What the fuck.” He pulls my wrist then looks at it. Then touches the still very red scar on my leg. “Tell me right now what the fuck has happened or I’m calling the police.”
“I was collected.”
He drops my hand, stands and walks to his desk where his cell is laying. “Don’t bullshit me. Now tell me the truth, or I’ll call.” He dials some numbers, and before he hits call, I tell him again.
“I was collected. Ryken Lord is the king of the underworld. He shot someone for me, and his payment wasn’t enough. So the payment ultimately was me, and Ryken made restitution in the form of me.”
His cell drops from his hand. “You’re serious?” he asks, sitting back down next to me.
“I am.”
“I’m going to kill that handsome fucking prick.”
I shake my head. “He got me out of it. Livia was pregnant, or so we thought. They actually wanted her until they heard of me. He wasn’t going to let them collect her if she was pregnant.”
“She’s a whore.” His words don’t even make me smile. Because I miss Livia’s company, I really do. And I get why she’s the way she is, I deserve that.
“How did you get here?”
I bite my nail and look up at him. “I may have jumped from a moving car. Then, I was rescued by a doctor who also happened to have a private jet, and he flew me here.”
“Now you are pulling my leg.” He laughs, standing, then turns back to me.
“I wish it was all a dream.”
“He came back, Ryken came back?” he asks.
I nod my head. He was here when Ryken left. When I tried hard to make it work with Stiles, which failed. Not because of him, though, because of me.
“How was that?”
I shrug my shoulders. “It was hard, and easy at the same time.” His arms wrap around me, and he pulls me to him. This thing with Ryken and me, I don’t even understand. It’s hard for me to get my head around what I feel.
How can you love someone, and not be with them?
How can you love someone and choose someone else?
It hurts my heart.
Ryken hurts my heart.
The doorbell rings and Robert lets go of me and walks out the room. When he walks back in Cane is behind him. The look on his face is sympathetic.
How the fuck did Cane know I was here?
“I have the keys to your shop. Let me take you home?”
Robert looks to Cane then to me. “You can stay here if you want to.”
That isn’t something I want to do, I think as I pull myself up into a standing position. Pulling him in for one last cuddle before I walk out with Cane, I say, “Thanks, but I just want to go home.”
Cane’s car is out front and Robert waves as we leave.
“It’s still running? The shop, I mean?” I ask him while he drives.
He doesn’t look at me as we turn the corner and head to my place. “It is. Ryken instructed we pay your staff extra for opening and closing out of our wages.”
“I’ll pay it back. Every cent.”
Cane waves his hand at me then looks back to the road. “You don’t have to do that. The club brings in more than enough money to support us.”
We come to a stop, and I see it—it’s a place I created from an empty shell. I’ve missed it, I really, really missed it here. He gets out, and I follow him inside. Cane finds the light switch quickly like he’s been here before. Maybe he’s the one in charge of looking after it for Ryken. It’s the only thing Ryken will get a thank you out of me for, for not killing this dream of mine even if he killed everything else inside of me. Apart from the parts of me that still want him, crave him, that’s all that seems to be left.
“He’ll know you’re here soon. It’s just a matter of time before he comes.”
“Don’t tell him yet, please?”
Cane offers me a small smile.
“Thank you, Cane. You really didn’t have to do this.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “It’s the least I can do.” I lean in and give him a hug, and he hugs me back, his face buried in my hair before I pull away and open the door for him to leave. He passes me my keys as he leaves, and I lock the door and go upstairs. It’s still the same, my clothes from the night before I left are still on the floor, and my bed’s a mess of crumpled sheets.