Page 151 of Deacon

“You have?”

He runs a hand over his face. “I want to choose you, but I don’t see any way out of this.”

“Deacon won’t hurt you if I ask him not to. I get it, I do. I forgive you for anything, everything.”

He shakes his head hard. “Maybe I deserve for Deacon to hurt me. Maybe it’d be better if he just…you know, put a bullet in my head.”

I’m so sick inside, it’s making the room spin. I take his hand and squeeze it.

“Deacon will come for me,” I say. “I’ll make sure you get out of this alive, that you get clean, that you get a chance to be happy. I promise.”

I don’t know how I can promise this much, but I know it’s true. Deacon is a good man. A complicated one who sometimes does the wrong thing, but his heart is good. I trust that he won’t let me down.

He isn’t like Aiden at all.

“I promise,” I repeat.

Bittern stands slowly, like his body hurts. He coughs, a damning rattle in his chest.

“I don’t know, Frey,” he says. “I think all the bravery I had got used up.”

He leaves, just walks out and shuts the door. I sit there, stunned.

Out of everything that’s happened in the last few years, the harsh click of Bittern closing the door on me hurts the most.

I lay back on the bed. Deacon will come for me, I know he will. Through my slip, I dig my fingers into the delicate straps of the chastity harness. The lengths he went to get me were reprehensible, but his hands, once they were on me, were so gentle.

I can never go back. I have something to live for now, and I want to live so badly, to be Deacon’s wife, to have his babies. To let him love me with all his obsession, his dark desire, his steadfast certainty.

I need him the way I need the stars, and I believe with every fiber of my body that, like those stars, at the darkest hour, he’ll appear.

CHAPTER FORTY

DEACON

My heart fights like a live animal against the cage of my ribs.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The rest of me is perfectly still.

I’m standing by the kitchen window, staring out at the gray hills. The window is cracked, the cigarette in my lip trails smoke. November air bites my skin.

Nothing wakes me up out of this nightmare.

Jack Russell is on his way to Ryder Ranch. Jensen Childress is going for back-up, says he can get Sovereign Mountain behind me.

Slowly, I bring the cigarette down and stab it into the sink. The buzz of my phone vibrating against the sink jerks me out of my reverie. It takes a second, and then the screen flashes the letter B. Without thinking, I swipe it and bring it to my ear.

“Deacon Ryder.” The tone is soft, drawling.

“Brothers Boyd.”

My voice cracks and I clear my throat.

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