Page 75 of Hidden While In Sight

She nuzzled against his chest, holding him tighter. “My love isn’t about you. It’s mine. Mine to give.” She lifted her head, that soft half smile of hers destroying him. “I’ve already given it to you. I love you, Diego. I love you.”

She sealed her words with a kiss. It wasn’t consuming or passionate. It was a soft kiss that shook him to his core.

Diego hadn’t changed. He would have still marched over there and murdered the pedophile if he saw what he had on the screen. Even now.

But he felt wholly new at the same time, like a light had flooded through his body. His eyes burned, so he shut them, holding Hannah close and breathing her in.

“We can’t stay,” he mumbled all too soon, pulling away slightly. “It’s not safe.”

Hannah nodded, and their bodies separated. They packed up the SUV together. They had more stuff than before, but not so much that it took too long.

Both Emma and Connor could sleep through an earthquake, and Hannah had let them, only going to get them when the packing was done. Her children looked innocent and whole and so very precious, lying there dreaming in their beds.

Diego hesitated in the doorway to their room. “I could carry him,” he offered, a cloud of darkness slithering inside. “If you don’t mind me touching him.”

Hannah crossed back to the doorway, taking his hand and tugging him inside. She moved to Emma to lift the little girl into her arms.

Diego picked up Connor, who woke up long enough to blink into his face, curl an arm around his neck, and rest his head against his shoulder.

He barely stirred as Diego buckled him into his car seat.

Emma hadn’t stirred at all.

Diego had already backed out of the garage. He closed it up, returning to the car and getting behind the wheel.

He’d never stayed in one place for long. His gaze lingered on the house in front of him, and he felt a tug toward it he ignored as he backed out of the driveway and took them away from the violence he’d created, the violence that lingered far too close for comfort.

Chapter 30

Exhaustion crept over Diego once they settled the kids into the new house. Hannah led him to their bedroom, and he settled into bed beside her, with only their shoes discarded, careful not to touch her. He could still picture the blood on his hands.

Despite his exhausted state, his sleep wasn’t dreamless. The dream of his father, or at least he thought it had been his father, trying to drown him in the bathtub tortured him.

Worse things had happened to him. Much worse. Things that made him snap in ways that the view of water never did. But it was always that sense of drowning that waited for him, that dragged him down as deep as it could.

Each time he startled awake that night, he woke to Hannah’s voice soothing him even though all she said was, “It’s okay.” The phrase was so generic, but somehow it grounded him. It seeped through the exhaustion that kept pulling him under.

He clutched at her wrist after yet another dream, feeling like the clingiest scum in the world as her patient gaze held his. The windows had brightened with the rising sun, and the green flecks in her eyes calmed his ragged breaths.

“It’s okay,” Hannah said. He’d lost count of how many times she’d said it.

She’d been through so much. Diego hated himself for putting her through even more. Images plagued his mind of what he’d watched her endure, watched and watched without lifting a finger.

There was one thing he’d never seen in the Ashford household. The one thing that dragged all the sanity out of his mind. “D-did—?” He broke off as he sucked in a steadying breath. Diego didn’t want to say her husband’s name. His grip gentled around her wrist, and he stroked over her skin with his thumb, his eyes dropping to watch himself be allowed to touch her.

“Were your children ever abused? Like you were?” he asked, even the thought of it letting more darkness inside of him.

“No,” Hannah answered. “We neglected them. Both of us, because I was too scared. They were like trophies to him. They brought him satisfaction, but they were best put away and ignored.”

His eyes slid up to meet hers.

Hannah looked so sad. “Connor and Emma were hurt, but not physically.” Her fingers stroked over his face. “Were you hurt that way?”

His insides seemed to shrivel. He never talked about this. Not even to Ramiro, though his friend had guessed. He’d seen him triggered, so he hadn’t needed the words.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Hannah soothed.

Diego was able to breathe again, but he also knew it wasn’t fair. He’d seen Hannah’s secrets firsthand, but he had no desire to share his own.

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