Page 156 of Resurfaced Passion
Her father smirked and rolled a hand through his salt and pepper hair. He was relatively still in good shape for a man of his deplorable morals.
“Don’t look too disheartened, Paige. I’ll be back. We got us a good thing goin’ here now I made contacts with some big guns who know what the fuck they’re doing.”
She didn’t know who the Russian people were he made her deliver back and forth to, she only knew they scared her. She could guess though they knew more than her father and most probably he was in over his stupid head.
“No. I said no more.”
“Do you want me to go to the cops and spill all the shit about your murderin’ husband? You wanna visit him for the next fifty years behind plexiglass?”
“Still going for father of the year, I see.” She accused weakly, the stab of his rejection hitting its mark as usual. Bad people were always going to be bad; she knew this and yet there was still a shred of hope in her that one day her family would do one decent act of kindness towards her, would show that they actually acknowledged her existence.
What was the definition of insanity? It was doing the same thing, but expecting different results
That was Paige in a nutshell with her family.
She felt her fists clench in her lap. Unmoored by fury. It was a little more powerful, more explosive than any other kind of anger she’d ever felt before. It drove a stake of coldness through her entire being. “You don’t even care what Sony did to me. He got what he deserved, you know how he followed me all the time, you probably know he came to my apartment that day to—” Paige was unaware of the hand swinging through the air until a meat-shovel palm connected with the side of her face and rattled her skull against the inside of the passenger door window.
Pain exploded, leaving behind a throbbing sting.
His eyes seethed and she saw no affection in them whatsoever. For all intents and purposes, this man she’d grown up with was a stranger to her. Her enemy. “You’ll shut your damn mouth about my boy!”
“He wasn’t your damn boy! I’m your daughter. Your flesh and blood! For once act like my fucking father.”
His face mottled and for a second, a short second she was sure she’d gotten through to him until his lip curled and darkness entered his eyes. “Get the hell out, Paige, and do as you’re told, or you’ll be spending the next decade alone without the pretty boy, see how fucking far that gets you.”
She wouldn’t let her father see how hurt she was, how fucking smashed down she was under his threats. She took his stupid package, stuffed it into her purse and left to do his dirty work.
On the drive across town to that creepy-ass Russian house again, she passed two of the Renegade Souls bikers on the road and felt her throat choke with all that shame and guilt again.
She was doing it to save Reaper. The love of her life, the epicenter of her entire world. To save their marriage, as brand new as it felt to her, she’d found it shockingly easy to do anything.
She’d had nearly three decades of being used by her father and wouldn’t allow him to lay one finger on the man she loved.
Reaper had withstood their separation; she could do this to keep him unharmed.
An ache settled in her chest.
She’d endure this, she would. And they’d get their happily ever after.
There was one thing she knew she could do to make all this go away … though it sat heavily in her belly with clattering dread and put tears in her eyes…because it could mean she’d be apart from him.
Paige didn’t hit the turn to take her to work, she headed in the opposite direction.
This was going to end.
* * *
Reaper learned early on to listen to his gut feelings and what his gut was telling him now was that his girl was holding something back from him.
He thought they were doing good. She was happy, and more than satisfied. If he fucked her any more he was in danger of losing his dick.
No, he was right. This wasn’t relationship related, finally they were on the same page and he didn’t have to hide anything from her.
Yet the gut feeling continued while he worked that day.
When he couldn’t take it any longer he slammed down his cold cup of coffee on the tool bench, not like he’d worked at all that day anyway, garnering attention from Preacher who rose his brow curiously. Reaper ignored his friend in order to fish out his cell phone.
Did he feel remorseful he’d always had a GPS tracker app on Paige’s cell phone? Not even a little bit. It was his one saving grace to keeping his sanity knowing how far away from her he was, that if she were ever in trouble he would be able to find her at least.
