I guess I’d gotten a false sense of hope because it had been a solid five months of no word, no nothing.
But there he was.
Standing in the middle of my living room.
Unlike my boss Tommy, whose ugly inside was reflected on the outside as well, Josh Davis wore the skin of a stupidly handsome man, making it impossible to see all the evil underneath.
He was an intimidating sort of tall with a strong, but not overly wide, build, a chiseled jawline, big green eyes with lots of lashes, medium-brown hair with some reddish highlights, and a nose that had been broken once, so there was a slight crookedness to it that gave his face some character.
I knew about the nose because I’d been the one to break it.
After breaking his front window with a tire iron, and crawling through the jagged glass, making me leave a blood trail all through his living room until I got to him in the kitchen, cocking back, and knocking him on his abusive ass, so I could grab my battered little sister and run.
That was three years ago now. The night I’d gotten the hysterical call from her telling me she was hiding in the closet because Josh had hit her again, and she was pretty sure he was going to do worse.
And that feral sort of rage I’d felt that night still rose inside of me. Even though Wren was finally, freaking finally, free of him.
“Josh.” His name exhaled out of me, like my brain was struggling to solidify his presence, assure me that he wasn’t just an awful figment of my imagination. Then, clearing my throat, “Leave,” I snapped, taking a step toward the side of the door so that I could open it. To make him leave, or to be able to run myself if it came to that.
But before my hand could even turn the knob, he was across the room, grabbing my wrist, yanking it up, then back down, wrenching it behind my back as he spun me and slammed my face into the door.
“Where is she, Whit?” he asked.
He had an appealing voice too, damn him. I could see how Wren believed him when he apologized, when he love-bombed the hell out of her, when he swore it would never, ever happen again, breaking down her defenses until she went back to him. And again and again. The most vicious, brutal cycle. One I was powerless to break, no matter how many talks I had with her, how many times I picked her up from his place, how much I tried to convince her to see a therapist to understand what was going on.
“Eat shit, Josh,” I said, though the words came out tight because my mouth was squished against the wood of my door.
“You’re going to tell me where she is,” he told me, voice even, completely unaffected as he wrenched my arm up my back, making my shoulder scream. But I bit back my cry of pain, not wanting him to get the satisfaction.
“Like hell I am,” I said.
I didn’t give a shit what he did to me, he was never getting her location.
That was why she was where she was, why I’dstrongly encouraged—ie, forced—her to stay on campus instead of with me.
It was why all the mail for the college went to a PO Box and not my address.
Why I was careful not to go directly to the university without stopping off other places first, making sure I wasn’t being followed.
She was safe there.
She wasn’t safe with me.
Josh’s appearance in my living room was proof of that.
I was never so glad that I was cautious to the point of paranoia. Because there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that if he’d broken in and found Wren in my living room, she would be with him at his place again. Willing or not.
She hadn’t been away for long enough to be mentally and emotionally rid of him. Not after so many years of relentless abuse, of tearing her down to her foundations, then rebuilding a shadow self back up, one who forgot her worth, who believed she deserved his abuse, who was too sad and small and weak to leave.
He couldn’t get to her.
Over my literally dead body if that had to happen.
Though, objectively, I knew it wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
Because I was the only connection he had to Wren. If he was coming to me, it was because he’d already been searching for her. Likely for months. And after hitting too many dead ends, he finally got desperate enough to go after the only woman who’d likely ever stood up to him before.