Page 82 of Compelled Obedience

“Your stepfather thought you were the leak. Correct?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Drago accused me of knowing something that night after he returned from the murder. He broke into my room, but I denied it. After a little while, he left, but not without warning me to mind my own business.”

The way her lower lip quivered meant the bastard had hurt her. I’d seen the scars on her back. She’d been roughed up.

“What did he do?”

“He threatened my mother and me that if we talked, he’d kill us. I had no doubt he’d make good on his threat. I think he was using drugs by then, but it was difficult to tell. I wanted to fight back, to drive a knife through his gut and I almost did because I didn’t think anyone would believe me if I told them the truth. Then I told myself to let it go, to convince him that I’d never say anything. I already had bags packed for both my mom and me.”

“Jesus Christ,” I snarled. “What did you do?”

“After he’d passed out from consuming a half a bottle of scotch, I begged her to come with me, telling her everything I’d seen.” Kerri took a few seconds, cinching her eyes shut. “After everything I said, she still refused to leave so I did by myself, determined never to look back. I had no other choice. But honestly, it was the worst thing I’d done in my life leaving her alone. I just had no idea what to do.”

“You can’t blame yourself. I learned a long time ago that breaking the abuse cycle isn’t something someone else can do. You have to do it for yourself.”

While she nodded, the guilt in her eyes yanked at the beast inside of me.

“How did the murder finally come to the attention of the authorities years later?”

“From what I was told, concrete evidence was forwarded to the prosecuting attorney. That prompted them to reopen the case. Obviously, at that point I’d tried to put my past behind me and wouldn’t have bothered returning to my old life under any circumstances had I not learned of Casey’s birth. Everything I told you about the timeframe was accurate.”

“However, something else happened,” I said gently.

She nodded several times, and a single tear slipped past her lashes. “Yep. The truth is that Drago lured me to Las Vegas with the promise of allowing me to take Casey. Now I know he had plans on eliminating any chance I would testify. I had no idea he’d been tipped off that he was about to be arrested. Everything spiraled out of control after that. He had no intentions of letting me go. He kept accusing me of betraying him. He also threatened Casey. I was certain both of us were going to die.”

“Fuck. You should have been provided with additional protection.” Anger continued to furrow inside of me.

“Now maybe you can understand why I couldn’t leave Casey in his hands. I didn’t care what happened to me. He was going to kill us both, but the police broke into the house and arrested him on the spot. I took the opportunity to take Casey with me. Maybe I was stupid coming back to LA, but at that point I didn’t know what else to do. There really weren’t any other options. He had a damn good attorney and was out on bail for months before his trial. I was hassled and almost arrested when he was the criminal. It was a horrible time, Casey’s autism spiraling out of control. Social services were no help, their system overwhelmed. I was certain Casey would end up in foster care.”

Jesus Christ. She shouldn’t have handled the situation on her own, but I understood why she’d felt she had no choice. “At the same time this was going on, the police were pushing you to testify?”

“Yes, and they pushed hard, even using the crap from social services as a bargaining chip, but I refused to cooperate. Casey was all I could think about. I said nothing to the police, but I always knew Sergeant Randolph believed I knew more than I was telling anyone. Attempting another tactic, he offered me protection, but I laughed at him. It took me hiring an attorney to be able to obtain guardianship, and I haven’t regretted it a day since. The man also made certain the sergeant realized he was crossing a line into harassment. That’s when the police backed off.”

The girl had balls of steel.

“You remained in LA. I’m surprised.”

“I had nothing and no one to help me. By that point I had few dollars in my bank account, every resource depleted. But at least I still had my job.”

I was surprised Drago hadn’t sold her off or worse. Maybe he’d just been looking out for himself, promised a deal of some kind. Either way, something smelled.

“I always knew my stepfather was just following orders. God. I watched him enjoy killing a man. I’d known the bastard was evil, but I had no understanding of how much until that night. I just…” Her hand was shaking as she took a sip of wine.

I did the math and the leader from before was still in charge of the cartel. It would make sense that Rivera would want to clean up any possibility of connecting the cartel to a murder of an undercover officer. Kerri was in more danger than she understood.

She toyed with her wineglass, finally pushing it away then cupping both sides of her face, tenting her beautiful fingers. I’d never seen such terrible despair in my life. The woman didn’t deserve any of what was happening to her. As I held the rocks glass, my grip tightened and I was certain I could easily crush it in my fingers.

When she stood, I resisted reaching out, pulled her closer.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said quietly, offering a smile while her eyes held such sadness. “Thank you for caring.”

“I care more than you know, baby.”

As she walked by, she brushed her fingers across my arm and by God, it was all I could do not to yank her down, fucking her like some wild animal.

“I want what this is between us. You have no idea how much I value our time together. And I want more than anything to become your submissive, but you’re going to need to give me time.”

“Take all the time you need, Kerri. This isn’t a sprint and I’m not going anywhere.”

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