Page 43 of Stay, Swear.

Walking into the room and sitting on the bed beside her, my hand finds hers, threading our fingers together. My thumb strokes the side of hers as I take in the much more lively woman than the one I left here earlier. “How was your time with Clara?”

She watches my thumb intensely, “It was good. We have a lot to talk about. I haven’t been honest with you.”

My heart drops out of my ass and all the way down to the ground floor. What does she mean?

“You can’t just say that then be quiet. What exactly does that mean?”

“It means I have something I need to tell you, and you aren’t going to take it well. But I need you to promise me that you’ll listen to me until I’m done. And that you won’t leave me alone after. I’m serious, Kie. This is shit that the only people who know outside of what happened are lawyers, police, and partially Clara. I need to know that this is safe with you, that I can trust you to not run back to your brothers. You have to stay.”

“I’ll stay, swear. But I’m going to be honest with you, you’re scaring me, I need you to rip the band-aid off. Also what does‘partially Clara’even mean?”

“It means that she doesn’t know everything that you’re about to.” She pats the spot beside her soI move to mirror her position, sitting at the head of her bed while leaning back onto the headboard. I want to pull her in my lap but don’t for fear that she’ll reject the comfort. I steel my nerves and turn my head to look into her perfect eyes.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

22

Chapter Twenty-Two

Brittany

He says he’s ready, but I don’t know if anyone can be ready for what I’m going to tell him. I need to, especially if Robert has really found me. That means that he knows about Kieran, and he never has taken well to someone touching his‘toys’. Taking a deep breath, I force myself to lock onto the pale green eyes of the man who’s stolen my heart. Even if I haven’t told him so yet. I take his hand so I can play with his fingers while I lay it all out for him.

“I was born and raised in Ohio, Columbus to be specific. My mom was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She was tall, had long auburn hair, and the most breathtaking steel eyes. She was kind, thoughtful, and for the time I had her, she instilled strong beliefs and morals into me. To be kind and clever, how to know when to cause a scene and when to fade into the background, and to be polite as well as powerful. Ihad her for six years before Robert broke into our house while we were having a movie night. That night my innocence was robbed from me. That night I watched my father brutally murder my mother. They weren’t together. I’m not actually sure if they ever were.”

“That night was the first night in what became the longest eight years of my life. After stabbing her to death, he grabbed me, threw me over his shoulder, and hauled me out of my house before throwing me in his car. He got behind the wheel then smiled back at me‘you’re going to be the key to solving all my problems.’” My entire body trembles as I let my mind go back to that place. But because he needs to know what he’s gotten himself into, I push on. My mind is no longer here with Kie but back in the hell that was my childhood.

“He took me to a house, I guess it was his. I was never allowed at his house, so I’m not too sure. He put me into a room that was decorated for me. At least that’s what I thought at the time. He gave me a bath and laid out brand new pajamas for me. After I was ready for bed he tucked me in and told me that tomorrow was the end of this nightmare. He was full of shit, it was just the beginning. The next morning my dad sold me into his best friend’s trafficking ring. I was kept in one of those dog crate things in a warehouse with so many other women and kids. Days turned into years and I learned quickly to disassociate and just get through it. So many men, touching, taking pictures, the red blinking light of a video camera. You think you know the worst of the worst until your own dad sells you into a sex ring, and becomes one of your abusers.

I’ll spare you the details but you get the point. I was there until I was fourteen. By that point I’d been traded and soldmultiple times. At the last place I was kept it was a shed with two seedy bedrooms in the back corners. They had moved me into a room that night, but the walls were paper thin and I could hear everything. Some boy found us and started unlocking the cage doors, but no one moved. Someone told him they weren’t going, but if anyone was going to chance it, it was me. A few minutes later my door unlocked and with a promise to make sure they were rescued, I left. Over the years different women taught me things, one of the women taught me to write and read. I wasn’t profound by any means, but I knew enough to have kept a notebook full of names, dates, identifying features, and when I could, partial addresses.

That night I took that old tattered composition book and ran. I had nothing but the notebook, a way too big hoodie, and too big boots I had taken from the room. I made it out of where we were kept and I ran. I spent all night in the woods running and hiding. When I finally made it to a town I went straight into the police station. The lady at the front desk noticed me immediately. I must have looked pretty bad because she screamed for the chief and others to come out.”

“Everyone came running at once and scared me. I threw my notebook at them and moved to the corner of the room to try to hide. I’m not sure how long I stayed cowered in that corner until a female cop walked in and sat beside me. She didn’t even say anything. She just sat on the dirty police station floor with me and when the medics came to take me to a hospital, she went with me. She ended up becoming my foster mom.

Carrie was a younger single woman who had no men in the home. She took in this broken kid, put me in intense therapy, and showed me how to be a strong, bad ass woman. Robert and his fucked up friends didn’t break me. I’m not a victim ofwhat I went through, I’m a survivor of it. I don’t remember the name my mother gave me. I was a number for so long I thought I didn’t have one, of course Carrie wouldn’t hear of that. So she started calling me Phoenix, or Nix, because just like a phoenix I rose from the ashes of my old life and came out stronger. We legally changed my name not long after she saved me. I testified against Robert and the man he originally sold me to and she held my hand through it all. They were sentenced to eighteen years. On my eighteenth birthday, I had to leave so they couldn’t track me down. I left my mom in Ohio, went to Arizona, and made an entire new life, story, and even name for myself. I met Clara as Brittany, and well you know the rest. I got a call not long ago that Robert and his best friend, David were getting out on ‘good behavior’. They shouldn’t have been able to find me, hell they shouldn’t have been able to get out at all. I called Carrie earlier, she said she hasn’t seen or heard anything about them leaving the state. But that was Robert this morning. He’s coming for me, Kieran. I bested him last time and there’s no way he’ll let that happen again.”

I realize that at some point during the recount of my childhood, Kieran pulled me in his lap. He’s wrapped his arms around me while peppering kisses all along the side of my head. Refusing to look at him after laying down all my darkest secrets for him, I stare at his fingers which are linked around my waist. His thumb is lightly rubbing back and forth on my shirt, his hands are trembling. Did I make him mad? I probably shouldn’t have told him all of this. He finally speaks after what seems like hours but was realistically a few minutes of silence.

“Brittany, look at me. Please.” The barely contained rageis evident in his voice, but there’s something else too. Pain, maybe? It’s enough to have me looking up at him with tears still streaming down my face.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have unloaded all that on you. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

Kieran furrows his brow, “What are you talking about? I’m not mad at you, Mo Stóirín. The men who hurt you? Yeah, they’re going to die a painful death after I torture them until I’m content they feel what you felt for all those years, tenfold. But you? No, I’m so proud of you for getting yourself out of that. You’re incredible.”

Kieran’s words light a fire in my soul. He’s right, they do deserve to pay. I deserve to sleep at night without the nightmares, and Kieran deserves a woman who is whole, and not just piece of who she could be. Locking my eyes onto his gorgeous pale green ones, and seeing him hold back the tears threatening to fall I make the decision that I just hope he gets on board with.

“You’re right, I want in.”

His face lights up just before he pulls it back and schools his features, “Brittany, I need you to be very specific with what you’re asking, we aren’t in a position where we have room to misunderstand each other.”

“They took a six year old, murdered her mother in front of her, then sold her into a sex trafficking ring for eight years, Kieran. Every single one of them taking part in the abuse, rape, starvation, and torture I endured for all that time. I want to help you find them, capture them, then kill them. You can help me or I can do it alone. But I’m owed this revenge, I survived, but not without scars mentally and physically. I will be the last thing they see as they take their dying breath knowingthey were hunted, tortured, and eventually murdered, by the same girl they once tried to shatter.”

I’m not sure Kie could look more impressed if he tried, “Okay, we do this together. Agreed? No rogue missions. We’ll start recon after you get home from work tomorrow. Tonight, I want to hold you, and spend time with you. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met, and we’re going to do this together. Outside of these walls, we’re bad ass assassins, but inside them? You’re just Britt, and I’m just Kie.”

Reaching up I brush his hair off his forehead, “Deal, on one condition.”

“Anything.” He doesn’t even hesitate.

---