“Because I know you will be safe here while I’m gone.”
We heard the barking noise of what sounded like it was a huge dog. Shortly after, I saw my boss as he looked out the window and then quickly opened the front door. He had a handgun in one hand and was holding onto his pit bull with the other.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked in total surprise.
I’m sure he didn’t even realize that I knew his address. My boss had actually done a very good job of hiding his assets under his wife’s maiden name. But when I had been checking into him and researching the company before I came to work for him, I made sure to investigate every aspect of his life.
River Blankenship was a good man. He sucked at running a company and would soon be bankrupt, but he was a good guy and I knew he did the best with the resources he had. Unfortunately, his best wasn’t that great, and when I opened up my company, I would surely drive him into total bankruptcy.
“She’s being hunted. There’s a hit on her and I can’t keep her with me anymore. She’s my girlfriend and I need to know she will be safe or I can’t take the job tomorrow.”
I was putting him in a horrible position and I knew it. He couldn’t back out of our job in Syria; he had probably already accepted the very large payment. But having someone in his home who had a hit out on her would put his whole family in risk. I didn’t have another option though. Putting Ana’s safety at his feet was the best option I could think of to ensure she would be protected.
Mr. Blankenship opened the door wide enough for us to come in and then he locked it and set his alarm code. He pulled his dog with him and into a back bedroom and then sat us both down in his living room. I didn’t like the look in his eyes, but I was prepared to stick out whatever it was he wanted to say. His home, with his family, was the safest place for Ana and I knew it. No one else would have as much to lose as he would.
“Nate, my wife and kids are here. What are you thinking bringing her to my house? Were you followed? Tracked? How do you know you’re safe?”
I went through the events of the night to try and reassure him that I had done everything that needed to be done
to ensure we had not been followed. I told him about leaving the car at the police station, getting a new one, the throw-away phones, and paying cash for everything. He really should have known I wouldn’t have done anything stupid and I knew how to disappear without being tracked, but I understood his concern and obliged him by answering his questions.
We talked for a good twenty minutes before he brought Ana and I to a spare room in his basement. He had reluctantly agreed to allow Ana to stay there, but he wasn’t sure yet how he was going to explain it all to his wife.
Ana had sat quietly through our conversation and followed me into the bedroom when we got downstairs. She didn’t say a word until my boss had shut the door and made his way back upstairs.
“A dungeon bedroom again for me,” she said softly as she laid down on the bed.
My heart sank at her words. The room certainly did look an awful lot like the room I had rescued her from at Stephano’s house. There was only one small window high up on the wall and nothing else in the room beside a bed and one dresser. I hated that she would have to stay in that room while I was gone and I could only hope that my job wouldn’t take very long. If everything went as planned, I could be back and by her side in less than two weeks.
“You are safe here. That’s what really matters. I’ll have him get you a treadmill and some weights so you can work out. As well as a television to keep you entertained.”
It all seemed like very little in consolation for being trapped in a basement for her own safety.
Chapter Fifteen
ANA
I didn’t really mind the basement room that Nate’s boss had given me. That wasn’t what was on my mind. What I didn’t like was being made to feel like I was helpless in taking care of myself or that I needed to hide. I didn’t want to give up my life and hide from Stephano. I wasn’t going to give him that kind of power.
Whether Nate liked it or not, I couldn’t stay in that house and just sit there and wait for him to get back from his job. Something inside me had been building over the last few weeks and I felt more powerful than I had ever felt in my life. I felt like I could take on the world.
Instead of fear filling my mind, I was constantly thinking about how I could make myself stronger. My thoughts were becoming more and more about what was best for me to be more productive and stronger and less and less about feeling like a victim, and I loved it. I loved the changes that I had gone through and I wasn’t going to go back to being a victim.
There was still a long way for me to go and I didn’t trust my own thoughts half of the time. But I was moving in the right direction and never again would I be made to feel like I couldn’t do something that I wanted to do.
Nate made good on his promises the next day. Before he left, I had a television hooked up in my room, a set of weights, and a treadmill for running on. We went upstairs and I met Mrs. Blankenship and their three children over lunch and heard Nate say how I didn’t have family in the country and couldn’t drive, so it was so nice that I could stay with them while Nate was on assignment. It was a good cover story and his boss seemed happy with it.
My mind raced with the plan I was making. Something had changed for me. I wanted more from my life than to sit in a basement and worry about my safety all the time. But I went about the rest of the day the best I could as I followed Nate’s lead and continued to pretend like I was perfectly fine with him leaving and staying there in that basement room.
“You’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. In a couple of weeks, this will all be over and I’ll be back and we can figure things out,” Nate said to me as he pulled me close for a hug.
He wasn’t nearly the asshole that he thought he was. Nate had this opinion of himself that he was a jerk and could only be nice on occasion. But I saw through all of that and knew who he was underneath that hard exterior. Nate and I had a connection. Maybe it was because we both had a hard exterior and tried to put on a face of perfection for the world. But I knew Nate cared. I felt it in that hug.
“I’ll be all right,” I said to reassure him.
There was no time to argue with him and I knew that. He didn’t need to know my plans and I wasn’t going to offer them up to him. In Nate’s eyes, he just saw a helpless girl who couldn’t take care of herself and needed him to do it. But I wasn’t helpless. I felt it inside of me. I felt a power that I wanted to use. I felt a drive to be more than just that girl who the guys had to protect and keep safe.
When Nate had been teaching me self-defense and other techniques to hurt people, I loved every moment of it. When I had been on top of him with my hands around his throat, I felt his pulse and how easy it would have been to stop him from breathing. It was a rush like I had never felt in my life. Even in my darkest days I hadn’t actually felt like I had the power to do anything to my attacker. But with Nate’s help, I felt powerful and that was better than anything I could have imagined.