Page 114 of Unbroken

Every person that walked by was a suspect, and every sound made my head twist in that direction. I didn’t notice anyone, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t lurking. I slipped into the driver’s seat and closed the door behind me. I lifted the key to start the car but caught Blakely looking at me out of the corner of my eye.

“I noticed you started doing that,” she said, motioning to the parking lot. “Scanning our surroundings every time we’re in public.”

I guess I hadn’t been as inconspicuous as I thought. I turnedthe car on and didn’t waste any time backing out of the space and heading toward the main road.

“Just trying to keep you safe,” I said quietly. What I didn’t admit was what a shit job I was doing at it. Instead, I reached over and placed my palm on her thigh. “Tell me what else happened today.”

Her leg immediately began bouncing, and rather than dive right into the story, she glanced out the passenger window. Her hands wrung together in her lap, she held her bottom lip hostage between her teeth.

My attention was split between the road and the obviously distraught woman beside me. Thankfully, we approached a red light, and the moment the car was stopped, I turned to her.

“You can tell me anything, sweetheart.” I squeezed her thigh, and with a sigh, she glanced over at me.

“I like when you call me that.”

“I like calling you that,” I said, my eyes bouncing between her tumultuous gray ones. “Now, tell me what happened. Please.”

The light turned green, and Blakely began speaking. She told me the entire story, beginning to end.

My left hand was strangling the steering wheel, and I tried not to show any other outward signs of how angry her story made me. How much I wanted to strangle the person stalking her and not the goddamn steering wheel.

“After everything that happened today, I’m suddenly really fucking angry, hence the yelling at my therapist and showing up unannounced at the gym. I knew you were there and that there was likely something that would take the edge off. But I still feel like I want to rip someone’s head off.”

I stayed quiet as she took a deep breath and readjusted in her seat. I glanced over and saw more words on the tip of her tongue.

She took a deep breath and continued, “I spent months in that fucking basement absolutely terrified. Every second ofevery day, I wondered if it would be my last. Then there were days when I hoped it would be my last. It was a horrible way to live, and even after I got out, for months, I was terrified. It wasn’t until Nick Hammond was arrested that some of the fear lifted. I thought I was in the clear, but it all came rushing back the past two weeks. That fear was overwhelming, and I’m just done.”

“Done and angry,” I said, prompting her to keep going.

“Yes,” she said without missing a beat. “I’m not going to let thispersonmanipulate and control my life like that anymore. I’m done living in fear, and I’m angry that I let it go on this long.”

“Fuck, I love you.” It wasn’t what I had planned to say, but the words were welling up inside me to the point that I couldn’tnotsay them. She was so impressive. She’d been through one of the worst things a person could and still come out the other side.

I was the luckiest man on earth.

Pulling into the driveway, I cut the engine and looked over at her to find the first genuine, unrestrained smile I’d seen in days.

“I love you, too.”

I was about to open the door when Blakely pulled out her phone and eyed the screen with a furrow between her brows. She tilted it toward me and I read the Austin area code but didn’t recognize the rest of the number.

She shrugged and hesitantly lifted it to her ear. “Hello?”

Her eyes widened, and she quickly clicked the speakerphone. “I truly am sorry about how our first interaction went down. I didn’t mean to upset you or trigger you.”

“I…uh…I appreciate your apology,” Blakely stuttered, and it took me that long to realize who she was speaking to.

“But I would also like the opportunity to tell you more about the project I’m working on. It will hopefully be an influential paper on the ongoing and long-term impacts of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. And as I understand it, you’re now dealing with a stalker that?—”

Oh no. Absolutely the fuck not. Anger? Anger had nothingon the dark and explosive emotions building inside me. I reached for the phone, and Blakely willingly handed it over.

“Julian, I’m going to stop you there,” I said as calmly as I could manage when I really wanted to jump through the phone and strangle the inconsiderate asshole who couldn’t take a fucking hint if it was a neon sign that slapped him in the goddamn face. “Blake doesn’t care what you’re trying to write, and honestly, neither do I. So next time you think about calling her, don’t. Because I can assure you it’ll be either me or the cops showing up at your front door. And trust me, you’re going to hope it’s the cops that get there first.”

I didn’t give him a chance to respond. I hung up the phone and handed it back to Blakely.

“Thank you for that,” she sighed. She stared down at her phone a beat longer. “Do you think he?—?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t know anything anymore. I wouldn’t put it past my sister’s new boyfriend to be Blakely’s stalker. Since she’d never seen his face and couldn’t distinguish his voice, it could have been anyone. “But we should talk to the detectives. And my sister.”

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