Page 37 of If You Fight

“I love you, Ryder, and I’m so happy we don’t have to hide anymore. Everything’s going to be okay. We don’t even have to leave now. We can just be together right here.”

My heart sank. Maybe we would be okay, but the dream of leaving had been with me for so long that hearing we never would made me sad.

And I didn’t believe for a second that staying at that house would ever end up good for us.

“You don’t want to go anymore?” I asked as disappointment settled into my brain.

She heard it in my voice and looked up at me. “All I ever wanted was to be with you. Now that we can be, we don’t have to go anywhere. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“That means I’ll have to keep working for your father. Are you okay with that, with who I have to be in his world?”

I watched the hopefulness dim in her dark eyes and knew the answer. The problem was she didn’t even know all of what I’d had to become just to fulfill Robert’s orders. She thought I was some thug, but I was so much more than that.

So much worse.

“I love you, Ryder. I don’t care what you are for him or what you’ve had to do. I only care that you love me.”

“You once asked me what kind of father our child would have when you found out I was the one who killed Oliver’s brother. Now you’re okay with me being that man?” I asked, afraid of her answer but needing to know.

She looked away and lowered her head. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“What way, Serena? I’m that same man lying here now who was standing in that room with you that day. I’m exactly what you thought I was.”

“I don’t want to talk about this now,” she said and shook her head. “Whoever you have to be to the rest of the world doesn’t matter. I know who you are.”

I tilted her chin up so she faced me. “Who am I, Serena? What do you think working for him has made me?”

Her dark eyes turned a watery brown, but she didn’t look away. “I know what you do. What you’ve done. What you’ll have to do in the future if we stay here. I don’t care. All I care about is that you love me and I love you. That’s all that matters.”

“Why do you want to stay here now? If I’m going to have to still be that man, I need to know why.”

She said nothing for a long moment and winced like what she had to say hurt her, but then she said quietly, “I want to find my mother. If I find her, we can go. I promise. I just can’t leave here knowing she’s out there somewhere and the minute I go he’ll hurt her.”

From that first night I met her, Serena had never given up on seeing her mother again. I’d never heard Robert refer to her even once, and I wondered if she was even still alive. He’d used hurting her as a threat nearly every time he wanted to control Serena, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t bluffing.

“Did he say something about her today?”

“No. For the first time, he didn’t threaten to hurt her if I left. I think he knows that won’t work with me anymore.”

“Why?”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before laying her head back down on my shoulder. “Because I’m not afraid of him anymore.”

I closed my eyes and hoped everything she believed would come true. That Robert was okay with us together and I wouldn’t have to endure another beating. That he saw her strength and respected it. That we would be safe.

But my gut said none of that would ever happen.

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