Page 217 of Those Who Are Bound

“She told me that story.”

Becks nodded. “The story she didn’t tell you, because she doesn’t remember, is that when she was three years old, she went missing from a petting zoo. We found her later that night in a nearby lake, wrapped in rope. Naked, like she’d been stripped and discarded.”

Jonah stared at him.

“It was storming pretty badly, but her dad would have searched in a hurricane for her. Almost lost her once, all that…”

“Assaulted?”

Becks nodded slowly. “She doesn’t remember. Or at least, never let on that she did.”

“She’s afraid of storms.”

Again, Becks nodded. “If not for the rope she’d managed to cling to, she’d be gone.”

“Jesus.”

“So, with her experiences in the early years, her daddy and her brother were super protective of her. As much as they could be, at least; her mom, too. Everyone circled their wagons. She was never told no. Ellie was the epitome of spoiled rotten, except she was never rotten. She wasn’t coddled, though—that would have left her soft.”

“So how were you allowed to groom her?”

Becks chuckled. “You think I groomed her?” He shrugged. “There was a manipulation occurring, but it wasn’t from my side, and not for sex. She was a curious kid. I thought she wanted to grow up and be like me, idolizing her namesake. I never fucking foresaw what she was after with those pictures. I’m not proud of what I did, how I might have contributed. I thought I was keeping her safe. Did I? Or was I being selfish? That’s something I’ll have to sort out with God on my own. Because I know I am not a good guy here.

“But I digress,” Becks said. “Let me tell you what she needs. She needs someone who can keep her in check. Someone she can’t break. And she’ll try. Those fuck boys she tried to have relationships with?”

Another scoff came from his companion; Jonah didn’t have respect for them, either. It encouraged him even more. “Well, she scared the shit out of them by showing them their true nature. They blamed her for it, of course, for their own weaknesses, desires, things they were afraid to admit about themselves. They turned on her, disappointing her. She thinks it’s her, something she does to them, rather than their own pussy-assed selves. And in a way, it is. Because Ellie demands the sacrifice, she doesn’t make the sacrifice.”

Jonah was giving him a perplexed look now.

“That’s the decision you need to make. If you want her, then you need to be aware of it. You need to be the one in control. You’re strong enough for her. Fix whatever broke inside her all those years ago.”

Jonah shook his head, his expression one of distaste. “You talk like she’s a toy. She’s not. She doesn’t need to befixed.”

Becks smiled at his positive outlook, reminding himself that the other man hadn’t known Ellie that long.

“And you’re talking like you have a say in this, but she doesn’t, that we get to plan her life for her. This isn’t my decision, and she doesn’t—”

“She wants to protect you. That’s what got my attention when it comes to you. Because in the past, Ellie hasn’t done that. She hasn’t gone to such lengths to protect anyone.” He tilted his head, wondering if what he was hinting at was getting through. “She’s convinced she’s defective and will end up hurting you.”

A look of realization came over the other man’s face. He again turned and looked out over the Plaza, but he wasn’t seeing the shops or the people this time.

“Oh, so that’s not news to you,” Becks said.

“No,” Jonah confirmed. “But I didn’t understand why.” He glared across the table. “Fuck you for not telling her the truth, for letting her think this washer. For playing outyourfantasies with her.”

Becks sat back in his chair. Fuck, the balls on this dude. But he liked it. He’d noted it before, her finding these types of men now—Killion, Jonah—to surround herself with. Instead of those weak-assed sissies.Thesemen weren’t going to check out on her.

No matter how hard she tried to get them to go.

“Get over your outrage. The fantasies were hers. She’ll own that. Not saying I was right to indulge—I am not the good guy here, I’ve said it. She paid for it; we paid for it, for that part of it.” Becks shifted, looking away, referring to Gage. Again, that was Ellie’s story to tell. “Did I think that night might have played into her… preferences? Her games? Yeah, I knew it could have. It’s my fucking job, seeing the result of trauma. But her parents wanted to ignore it, so we did.”

“They died. She was old enough to be told.”

Becks nodded slowly. “I couldn’t exactly ask her brother for permission to disclose what had become a family secret without a reason, could I?”

Jonah looked ill. “Because, he would wonder how you would know about…?”

Turns out, Becks should have made up something. Hindsight being twenty-twenty and all that. Becks leveled with him. “Everything you think about me, I feel and have felt the same. I’m not going to blame you for any of it. Judge me. Hate me. Ellie and I have gone around and around it ourselves. She hates herself, for me, for her brother. For what she thinks she’s capable of doing to you.”

Shaking his head, Jonah answered, “She can’t do anything to me. First of all, she isn’t what she’s been led to believe. Second, I…” He shifted in his chair, pissed off. He finished, but it wasn’t what he was going to say, “There’s nothing wrong with her.”

“Prove it to her.”

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