Page 4 of Vail

“I knew you were there.”

“Would you have stopped?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I would have stumbled into you on purpose.” He held out his hand. “Gil Cresswell.”

I shook his hand. “Vail Ayers.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Vail. And here I thought I wouldn’t meet an attractive man on the first day of class.”

“He charmed me from the start. We saw each other a lot. I’d never had a serious boyfriend before, so I wanted to take things slow, which Gil was fine with. As more time went on, the deeper I was drawn into his spell.”

“Did he try to control you?” Lana asked.

“Not at first. He isolated me from most of my friends, especially ones who didn’t run in our circle. I didn’t notice until we were living together, building a life. I had no friends left. No one I could talk to but him. I told myself I had to make new friends. This was before we started our own financial firm. There was a guy at the office who had always been nice to me, so when he asked if I wanted to get a drink with a bunch of them after work, I agreed. Gil had to work late on a project. It was the perfect time to build a friendship again. Gil knew who the guy was too. He’d met him when he visited me at work.”

That night…

When I got home and kicked off my shoes, a smile on my lips from having friends again, a fist landed on my cheek, knocking me into the door. I was so stunned; I couldn’t do more than breathe through the pain while I cradled my cheek. Gil started screaming at me, throwing accusationsmy way about me cheating on him. I tried to tell him I’d never do that and how much I loved him, but he hit me again, this time in the stomach.

It wasn’t enough for him. Gil gripped the back of my head, fisting my hair, and dragged me into the bedroom. I was shoved onto the bed, my clothes torn from my body.

“He hurt you,” Lana said, cutting through my memory.

I nodded. “He hit me.” Tears that had already welled in my eyes broke free, running down my cheeks. “He raped me.”

Hartley moved closer, so his chair touched mine. His arms came around me to hold me close. “I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I told him.

“If I would have known?—”

“You couldn’t have. I didn’t tell anyone.” I focused on Lana again. “I took the following week off work. Gil called in for me to say I’d gotten mugged. He spent the week showering me with gifts while I healed, telling me he loved me and how sorry he was. I believed him, but then it happened again.”

“And again,” Lana filled in.

“There were many times I ran and called the police when I was sure I was far enough away. But he knew them and would concoct stories that made them think I wasn’t telling the truth. That I didn’t know what was really happening at the time. It went on for years. We’d have months of no fighting where everything was good between us. We started our own firm; we bought a place together. Then something would set him off and it would start again. Cycles of happiness followed by beatings.”

“You eventually got away.”

“I reached a point where I had to break the cycle. He’d beaten me to where I couldn’t see out of one eye, then raped me repeatedly, my mind and body too broken to fight him. I retreated into myself to protect my mind since I couldn’t protect my body.”

A muffled sob came from Hartley as his tears soaked my shirt. I couldn’t even put my arm around him to remind him I was okay now. The past weighed me down to where I couldn’t move. Not even Tahoe’s whimper could get me to pet him.

“When I came around, Gil was asleep. I got up and stumbled toward the kitchen, grabbing my phone and wallet before slipping out the door. This time, I didn’t call anyone. I got a cab right outside of our condo, where the driver saw me and took me to the hospital. It needed to be documented. I had to get proof from multiple witnesses when he wasn’t there to influence them. The driver, the nurses, and doctor, then two officers who I hadn’t seen before. They believed me.”

I wiped my cheeks and pushed on. “Gil was arrested, and I could get a PFA.” Not that the protection from abuse was a guarantee he’d stay away. I knew it wasn’t. “I did everything I could to separate myself from him. My share of the firm we owned was sold, which infuriated him. He’d harass me when he could, where there was no solid proof he violated the PFA. Texts from numbers that weren’t his usual. He even told me if I went to the police, he’d make it worse. He knew how to get into my head. But I didn’t go back. I bought a house and moved on with my life. I should have left the city all together, but I loved it so much. To let him take more from me, I couldn’t do it.”

“He tried to come for you again,” Lana stated. “This time in front of your friends.”

“I didn’t doubt Gil always knew where I was and what I was doing. But that day, Cody, Milo, and Slater were there for a cooking lesson. We were eating outside, enjoying the food and weather.” Slater was the guitarist in Ruined & Relinquished and Dash’s brother. He was at my home with his partners. We’d had such a good day until Gil showed up.

Just the memory of him saying my name after not hearing it for so long sent a chill through me. “He said I knew where I belonged.”

“And he tried to get close to you.”

“Yes, but Cody stood in his path.” Cody was the adopted son of Xaiden Dremest, Dexen’s brother. Xaiden used to be a fighter and owned the gym where Cody worked. Together, they taught people how to fight. Cody even taught self-defense. “Gil and Cody fought while I was unable to do anything.”

“Gil knew how to hit, didn’t he?”

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