Page 4 of Surviving the Darkness

“What do you mean pity her?” I growl out.

“Exactly that. She said we should have left her there to die. It’s bad, man, I had to walk away before I said something I would regret. I know she is fucking hurting but so are we. We need to remind her how much we love her,” Aidan states.

Fucking Christ, it’s worse than I thought. Standing up from the desk, I pace the room, thinking of ways to fix this. Sending her away may be best, so she can get the in-house treatment she needs, but then I would be flipping the fuck out every day that she is away from me, so that is out of the question.

Finding someone to come over may be helpful, but I’m not sure she will be receptive to that idea yet. Maybe we should wait a few days to see how she adjusts to being back home. While pacing the floor, I hear footsteps down the hall and hope that it’s Meadow, but when Phoenix comes steps into my office my heart breaks a little. Every day we searched for her, I hoped she would walk through that door and say she was home, but it never happened.

Nodding to Phoenix, I ask him to update me about Meadow, and he basically repeats the same thing Aidan said. She doesn’twant us near her and that we just pity her. Once she heals both mentally and physically her ass is going to be fire-engine red for ever believing we didn’t want her. Hell, I’m fighting a damn war because of how much I love her.

Thinking of ways to punish the girl I love is getting my dick hard. Oh, how I wish I could march up there and shove my cock deep inside her pussy, but I can’t. No matter how much I crave her body and her touch, I know that it will be a very long time before I’m inside her again. I guess I’ll just have to use Aidan for my pleasure until my baby girl is ready for me. It’s not a hardship to use Aidan, but sometimes a man just needs to sink his cock in the warm pussy of the woman they love.

Thinking of ways to get my dick to calm down, I head to my desk and continue working on the paperwork I was neglecting before Aidan came in. Sighing in relief, I feel my erection deflating. The paperwork is mocking me right now, and I can’t stand it. I can’t focus on the letters and numbers staring back at me; all I can think of right now is the frail girl in the room above me. I need to come up with ways to help her heal, but I’m lost as to how.

It shouldn’t be hard to come up with ways, but I’m not good with affection, and I feel defeated because I don’t know how to help the one woman I love. I grew up without love and feelings, so the one thing she needs, I can’t provide.

“You piece of shit; you are useless to me. I don’t know how I fathered a son like you. I raised you better than that. You need to be stronger. Tougher,” my father spits out as he lands another punch on my stomach while I writhe in pain. I don’t know why my father keeps hitting me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I cry out in pain as my father continues to punch me in various places. I feel like I’m going to throw up from the pain radiating through my body. I told my dad I didn’t want to go with him to beat someone up. I don’t know why he wantedme to go with him. I don’t want any part of this life. The men around the house scare me, and they look at me funny. I just want to play sports and hang out with my friends. I don’t see why I need to go today, but I guess saying ‘no’ to Dad was the wrong answer. Blow after blow, black spots fill my vision, and before I hit the floor, I hear my dad call me a pathetic loser who he should have sold the moment he knew I was worthless. Then I see nothing but darkness.

Aidan calls my name, bringing me out of the memory of the first time my father beat me unconscious. I wish I could say it was the last time, but that would be a lie. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” I ask as I shake that horrible night from my head.

“I asked what you think we should do about Meadow. I can’t go up there again, not without wanting to smack some sense into her pretty head, but I don’t want to scare her,” Aidan replies, sounding frustrated.

“I don’t fucking know. I guess we just play it day by day. We need to find out what triggers her and what that fucking bastard did to her before we can do anything. She needs to see that we care, but we won’t smother her, no matter how much I would love to,” Aidan replies.

He nods his agreement. I wish I was able to come up with something more but, for right now, keeping an eye on her and playing it day by day will have to be enough for now. I just hope I don’t fuck it up. Lord knows she has enough shit on her mind and doesn’t need me to make it worse. I’ll have to slowly prove that I want and care for her. She isn’t an obligation, no matter what bullshit excuse she comes up with next. She is my wife, well, soon-to–be wife, as soon as I can put a ring on her finger.

Fuck, I’m getting ahead of myself again. I need to think of something besides making her mine in all the ways that count. Shit, now my dick is getting hard again. Focus, Knox. Just fucking focus on anything other than Meadow and our lifetogether. I’m sick of getting hard at even the thought of her. I need better control, but that’s something I never mastered, even when we were younger. Something about the brown-eyed girl lying upstairs gets me hard at just at the thought of her.

Chapter 5

Phoenix

Walking out of Meadow’s room was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. My princess is broken, and I’m not sure how to help. Her eyes were filled with so much hate and loathing that I teared up at the venom she spewed. I know she didn’t mean anything and was lashing out, but those fucking words still hurt.

The way she thinks so little of herself bothers me so much; I just want to hold her and let her cry herself out on my shoulder. I want to protect her, but I fucking failed the first time, so why would she believe me this time around? I can’t say I blame her for reacting the way she did because at least she’s here andsurvived that hellhole alive. We need her to realize that she is loved and worthy of everything good in this world.

I wonder if Skylar would be up for a visit. Meadow doesn’t know what happened to her, or at least I don’t think she does. She hasn’t asked about Sky yet, so I assume she wasn’t aware of what happened to her. But I don’t want to stress Meadow out any more than she already is. I imagine waking up in an unfamiliar place may be frightening, but this isn’t unfamiliar. This is her home, and it will always be her home.

Heading down to Knox’s the office, I hear the guys quietly speaking, so I make my way to the door and peek inside to make sure everyone is fully clothed. I’ve walked in on them one too many times, and my eyes are scarred for life. I’ve seen them have sex, but that was when Meadow was here, and we did group activities. I’d been too preoccupied to care what they did with each other, but when Meadow isn’t around, I don’t want to see my two best friends doing it. No thank you. I’ve seen them before, and it gives me weird feelings, so I avoid now.

Once I notice that they are indeed fully clothed, I walk into the room and plop my grumpy ass on a chair next to Aidan. Looking at Knox, I wait for them to finish their conversation. Something about numbers for work, and that shit bores me. I hate these conversations. My job is to do all the talking and ass kissing, while Knox and Aidan deal with the rest of the bullshit after I’ve gotten the potential clients through the doors.

Knox looks at me and smiles, knowing I hate shop talk, and it bores me to tears. He writes something down on the papers in front of him before clearing his throat and turning his attention to me.

“Hey, how is she?” Knox asks.

“Fucking terrible. I don’t know what to do. She’s convinced we rescued her out of pity,” I state as I explain what happened after Aidan left the room. Aidan goes off on a tangent, and Knox lookslike he wants to punch someone or something; I’m not sure which yet.

Knox lays out a plan for what to do with Meadow, and I’m a little hurt that he isn’t doing more, but how much more can we actually do at this point? She doesn’t even want to look at us. We can’t force her to heal, so taking it one day at a time may be the best solution. I recline in my chair the best I can and listen to my two best friends talk about how to help without scaring her off.

Goosebumps raise on my arms as I think about my princess. She’s so small now, a shell of her former self. Her cheekbones are visible, her hair is a mess, and the scars on her body make me want to commit mass murder. The anger in her eyes toward me breaks my fucking heart, but I have to remember that it’s because of what that asshole did to her in that basement. None of it is meant for me; she’s just protecting herself the only way she knows how.

I wish I could pay better attention to the guys’ discussion, but I’m fucking beat, mentally drained from Meadow lashing out at me, and tired from the long drive to find her and then bring her home. I wish we’d found her sooner, but every time we got a damn lead, it vanished into thin air. The rat among our ranks will suffer for what they’ve caused, and I can’t wait for the day we find out who it is.

Knox knew the moment he refused to walk down the aisle meant declaring war. Add it to the list of things draining me. I never wanted a war, but for Meadow, I’ll do anything and kill anyone, even if that means taking it to the streets.

When we decided to do business with the Russians, Grisha and his men became our allies and were willing to stand with us in the fight against the Irish. We would already be dead if it hadn’t been for them. I shudder at the memory of asking them for their help. Grisha had been in the middle of torturing a poor soul when we discussed business. That psychotic fuckerremoved the guy’s eyeball from its socket and stuffed it into the prisoner’s mouth. I don’t think I’ll ever get that sight of my mind. Grisha got so excited at the prospect of killing Irish Mafia men that he killed the man in the chair quickly, putting him out of misery, then proceeding to bitch about his easy death and how he deserved so much worse. I don’t fucking know what the man did to piss Grisha off, but I honestly don’t want to know.

Speaking of the devil himself, our phones chime in unison, alerting us to a new text message.

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