Page 103 of Bad Enough

“Somewhere around that same time period, I got sick. It was probably just a cold, but he kept shoving medicine into me. I was so tired all the time, so muzzy-headed. I know now that he was drugging me. That’s when the marks began to appear on my arms. If I was aware enough to remember him injecting me, he just kept reassuring me that they were vitamin shots. He was trying to make me well again.

“There are entire periods of time that I have absolutely no memory of, or if I do, it’s shadowy. Just fragments of memories. I try not to think about what happened during those times,” she whispered.

The men murmured epithets under their breath.

With one swift motion and a growl of pure rage, TB swept the entire contents off the desk in front of the computers, screaming in anger. Before he knew what he was doing, he was out the door, down the hall, and bursting through the conference room. Chest heaving, muscles popped, breath soughing in anger, he could only utter one word.

“Where?”

Flame jumped up from her seat and pulled on his arm. “TB! Stop! It’s not worth it! It’s over. It was so long ago.” She put her hands up to his chest. Her eyes pleaded with him to regain control of his anger. “I’m not worth that rage inside of you.”

His eyes went glassy. “Don’t you ever say that, princess.” TB reached up and smoothed the strands of her red hair that had escaped from her braid at the nape of her neck. Then his hands clasped hers and held them tightly between them as if they were praying. “You are worth my rage and so much more.”

Waters broke in. “What caused you to decide to run anyway?”

“Gendry was on his way up in the organization. He had a huge client list, and he made good money. Penthouse. Nice car. Designer clothes. The finest of everything. But he also loved his product, and in the drug business, the dealers at the top end never use the product. Gendry didn’t have the strength to stop.

“He also had other interests, namely me. My mother had been in his stable of women that he would send out to customers who not only wanted drugs for themselves but also wanted sex. Just normal, everyday guys who made the mistake of contacting a hooker. Gendry would use her to put those men in compromising positions, and he would blackmail them. Not for money—for connections. Places he could funnel the product through. Businesses to launder the money he took in. Obviously, I was much older when I learned this, but a lot more made sense about my parents. In fact, they were probably trapped by him early in their days of using, just like what they were doing to others.

“When he got into a particular bind, either because he was using his own inventory or used the money he owed to his chain of command, he would ‘rent’ me out to a boss or a boss’ visiting client. After the clients left, he’d come into my room, drunk, high, and angry. His mouth would say more than he meant for it to, and one of those nights, I managed to be clear enough to hear him berate me, my mother, and my father for putting him in the position he was in, having to use me to pay off his debts. How my father promised Gendry that he could have me. How he got impatient and purposely overdosed my parents so that he could collect his prize.”

“It took two more years to finally get away, and it wasn’t easy. I knew no one who would help me, and I had nowhere to go. But I knew where Gendry kept his extra cash. It wasn’t easy, being so drugged up all the time, but I made a concentrated effort to see the combination on his safe.

“As sneaky and smart as he was, I guess he didn’t account for the fact that as you use heroin, you become accustomed to it. Like any drug, you need more in order to maintain the high. He never gave me more than what he gave me the first time, so eventually, the effects were less and less. I knew if I was going to get away from him, I couldn’t show him that I was capable of making decisions or doing anything without help, so I waited for the right opportunity. There were days when I thought it would never come.

“Then, one night, he left me alone in the apartment. He didn’t do it often, and usually, he gave me an extra hit when he left to keep me pretty much comatose. But that particular day, there had been a heated telephone call. Someone was demanding money he didn’t have. I think”—she shuddered—“he promised to sell me to them in exchange for whatever he owed. I knew this was my last chance.

“He left. As soon as he was out of the building—I watched him from the balcony—and into the limo waiting, I got into the safe, took what money was there, and I left. I borrowed a black hoodie from his closet, grabbed a T-shirt and jeans from my dresser, stuffed them and the cash into a backpack, and headed to the train station, where I bought a ticket to Florida. I got on the train, found a bathroom where I changed into the T-shirt and jeans, threw my dress in the garbage, put on the hoodie, pulled it over my head, and got off the train, looking like any other homeless vagrant hanging around the station.

“Then I went to the bus station. I asked a young girl there to buy me a ticket to the next city a bus was leaving for, and I ended up in Trenton. Once there, I stole away on a train with a huge family headed to Chicago. How I managed that is beyond me, but from there, it got easier and easier. I rode around to a different city each day, changing directions, backtracking, you name it. Finally, I made it here.”

Midas smiled at her. “You’re a pretty tough cookie.”

Her return smile was wan. “I don’t know about that. There were days when I wanted to just stay put. Let Gendry find me. I was so tired. The drugs were clearing my system, and I was very sick the entire time I was trying to get away.”

“But you didn’t give in,” Demon reminded her. “You were strong. You knew it was the only way.”

She nodded. “Whenever I felt like giving up, that’s what I would remind myself of. But still, there were days when the urge to give up was stronger than the urge to run.”

Her shoulders shook with exhaustion. TB felt the vibrations all the way through him as if he were a divining rod. She would crash soon.

“When I arrived and found a shelter to spend the night, I must have slept for two or three days. I woke up to discover that everyone around me was different than who’d been there before. The woman who ran the place, Ms. Monica, said just by looking at me, she saw I was running from something bad. Instead of waking me and kicking me out, she broke the rules and let me stay. Then she really broke the rules and took me home. I stayed with her for almost three months. She was the one who helped me get an I.D. and a social security card. She helped me get an apartment and learn how to use a computer.”

“I hate to ask, but your previous life is a long road from spicy romance novels. How the hell did that come about?” Waters asked.

Flame smiled. “Ms. Monica again. She loved them. Had hundreds of them in her house. While I was detoxing and she was working, that’s what I did. I read her books. And then I thought, maybe I could do that for a job. When I learned how to read and write, I did it nonstop. Sucked up everything I could find. I certainly couldn’t be out and about for Gendry to find. This was something I could do and be anonymous. Apparently, I have a talent for it.”

TB pulled her close, his large frame dwarfing her much smaller one. Glaring at his teammates, he growled, “You assholes don’t need to read any more of them.”

The guys were smirking at his order. He didn’t care if he sounded like he’d murder them if they did. These idiots did not need to be seeing what fantasies his woman created in her dirty little mind.

He kissed the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, princess. You shouldn’t, but if you forgive me, and if you’ll let me, I will protect you. I swear on my life, little Flame, no one will ever touch you again. I promise you will be safe,” he whispered. “With my last breath.”

Flame’s emerald eyes looked soberly up into his. “You still want me, knowing what he did to me? All the things I did?”

“Flame, you are a survivor. You didn’t choose that life. Most women wouldn’t have had the strength to do what you did. None of us would blame them for staying rather than attempting to break free. Still want you? Of course I do. I’ve always wanted you,” he whispered again, framing her face in his hands, his eyes imploring her to understand. “I wanted you before we even got to our third chat session. I’d never heard your voice. I’d never seen your face. But I wanted to make you mine.”

He brought his forehead down to hers and looked her in the eyes as he asked, “The real question is, can you still want me?”

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