Page 93 of Wicked Oath

Once year ago today,I was stolen and trafficked. Trafficked… It was hard to come to terms with knowing and understanding that I am a survivor of human trafficking. I was raped and sold to a man who hid me in Russia before systematically breaking me down until there was nearly nothing left of my soul. By the time Talon got to me, I was a shell of who I once was. The only parts of me left were desperately clinging onto reality, trying to keep me from becoming lost to the abuse.

Sergei Ivanov is the demon who haunts my nightmares. He was so cruel to me. I still have nightmares about how he would whip me, and then fuck me unconscious.

No… Rape.

He would rape me.

I didn’t want that. I wanted Talon, Jude, Chris, Tony, and Adam. I didn’t want him. Sergei gave me no choice but to either learn to want him or die. No matter how broken I had become, there was always a part of me that wanted to go home to my men. Even when I thought they had abandoned me, small shards of my soul left buried deep inside of me yearned for them. My dreams were still filled with happier times and nothing he ever did got rid of that.

When Sergei tried to manipulate me into shooting my men, I nearly did it. For a split second, I believed that it was the merciful thing to do, but Talon saved me. He still doesn’t realize how, but it was the vast contrast between him and Sergei that saved me. He stayed consistent that he still loved me, no matter my actions. That level of compassion was something I hadn’t experienced in six months, but threw me for a loop just long enough that I was about to make a real decision for myself and kill Sergei.

I rode that high for days, but eventually I crashed. We all knew it would happen and when I did, it would be gnarly. After killing Grim, we went home, and Talon gave me my favorite tattoo to date. I have “Daddys’ Little Whore” tattooed on my pubic bone just above my pussy. The next morning I had sunk so deep into a depression that I refused to do anything other than sleep. My memories were filled with Sergei, and I missed him. I hated myself for missing him and I couldn’t shake the grief. I was grieving the loss of a man who bought, beat, raped, tortured, and whipped me. He had completely broken my will to live. I made myself a cot in the basement, and I stayed there. No matter what anyone did, I wouldn’t get up unless it was to use the restroom.

The one time they caved and carried me upstairs, I completely lost my mind and tried to shoot myself. I don’t remember this, but they have explained it to me. I was so utterly broken that I was done living. I yelled and screamed at them, blaming them for taking the man I loved. I begged them to just kill me so I could be with him. This all led to me getting locked in the guest room. Talon held onto me while the others cleared everything out but the mattress so I couldn’t hurt myself, and then they locked me in. They all took turns coming in, so I was never alone.

This went on for a month before Ashley had an idea. Writing was my solace when I was in Russia, so they gave me a notebook and a pen. I instantly took to this and started writing everything, just as I had before. Everything was addressed to Talon and he read everything I wrote. Over the course of two weeks, I started to work myself out of that manic state and they gave me privileges back as I earned them. Maybe some would think that was outrageous, but it’s what I needed. I expressed it very early on that I needed my men to break me and put me back together the way I belonged because I didn’t have the mental capacity or the willpower to do it on my own. I could have checked myself into a mental health facility, but everyone agreed that I needed to be somewhere familiar and with the ones I trusted most, even when I couldn’t truly believe that I did.

Within two months, I was back sleeping to between Talon and Jude. I was allowed to leave the house and live life normally, but I was required to stay with them. Mostly this was because Boris was still out there and had taken over Sergei’s operations. They were afraid someone would come after me, especially because the other men who helped kidnap me were still out there somewhere. It took us forever to track them down, but we did.

Three months ago, we located the three other men who were there the day I was kidnapped and helped take turns raping me on the way to the auction house. One by one, they were shot point blank between their eyes while they kneeled in front of my men, just how I was tricked in to almost killing them. Before they died, though, Ripper was able to get a lot of useful information about how to find Boris. And boy… did we find him.

Two months ago, Boris visited the United States. The Sons of the Reaper alongside four other groups went after his entire group. In total, twenty people were rounded up and killed one by one. No one was spared because they all contributed. Boris was left for last, and that is when we learned that Sergei had placed a tracker of his own in me. They had my location the entire four months and had plans of taking me back to face the consequences for killing Sergei. Talon and Jude immediately took me to another room and searched for the tracker. It was located in my thigh and Ripper cut it out so it could be destroyed. I racked my brain trying to figure out when it was placed, but it likely happened on the way to Russia when I was unconscious for more than a day.

Once Boris was dead, the entire Ivanov empire had been destroyed, and other families learned a valuable lesson about fucking with me or anyone connected to The Sons of the Reaper.

It took Talon a while to go completely legitimate, but as of last week, everything we do is legal and we have severed connections with anyone involved with illegal operations. Since taking back control of his father’s company and merging it with my family company, life has been amazing.

I still wake up to horrific nightmares that leave me sobbing hysterically, but the guys have been incredible. Really, they have been incredible through every step of this hellacious rollercoaster. Every one of them has been so incredibly patient with me. They never once got upset for things beyond my control and was just who I needed them to be in that moment, whether that be my husband or my warden.

After having sex initially, I completely shut down to sex and the idea of it until two months ago. Now, I am standing at the bathroom counter while everyone is in the kitchen getting ready for breakfast. On the counter in front of me are two pregnancy tests. I didn’t believe the first, so I took another. I am fighting the urge to get a third because I know I will still get the same result.

I am pregnant.

We weren’t preventing it and we had discussed letting things happen naturally before we had sex for the first time. I decided that I was mentally prepared for this, and I am. All I can think about right now is how I could decorate a nursery. Imagining any of my men holding our little baby… Fucking perfection.

I pick up the tests and take them downstairs. When I step into the kitchen with the tests behind my back, Talon smiles at me. “I was about to send search and rescue to see if you fell in,” he jokes. “Pancakes?”

“I’m pregnant,” I say simply. Everyone snaps their heads to me, and no one says a word. I can see the wheels turning in their minds, and it’s Jude who reacts first when I lay the tests on the counter.

“You’re pregnant!” Jude says excitedly as he picks me up in a hug and spins me around. I giggle until he sets me down and kisses me hard.

Chris, Tony, and Adam all come and give hugs and kisses before Talon even moves. “You okay?” I ask with a smile.

“We’re having a baby,” he says as he turns to me.

“We are having a baby,” I confirm with a smile. I laugh and wrap my legs around him when he picks me up in a hug, but by the time he moves us to sit in a chair, he has tears in his eyes. I take his face between my hands and wipe them as they fall.

“You are going to be an amazing father, Talon,” I say. “You learned from the best.”

“I wish he was here to see who I became,” Talon says.

“Baby, he is still here and very much alive in your memories,” I say. “You carry a piece of him and no matter the genetics, this baby is getting a piece of him too… of all of you.”

“You have helped me heal in a way I could have never done on my own,” Talon says.

“It’s been one year since I was taken and, in that year, we have all gone through so much. We all learned to heal ourselves, but we also learned that leaning on someone else when you can’t keep yourself upright is okay. I’d like to think we have all learned to heal.”

“I am so proud of how far you’ve come, Delaney,” Talon says. “I don’t tell you nearly as often as I should.”

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