Page 220 of Deep Cover

19

Annie

It's one of those things that I can handle but don't want to.

The instant Cole arrived, the minute I was in his arms, I was done. Or I wanted to be done. The shaking started until I couldn't stand but when he tried to lead me somewhere to sit, out of the room I'd been trapped in but still in the house, I refused to be separated from him.

I wanted out of the house. I wanted out of Paris. I wanted to be back in the United States to bury myself under the covers in my Seattle bed. Only I wasn't up to meeting with Mark. I needed time first. I'd missed a couple calls and my father and my fiancé had both gotten used to them in short order, to hearing from me on a semi-regular basis since I was in "rehab" and not deep cover.

Those I thought I could do.

Face to face? Not so much.

Seeing my father when he knew (and I didn't yet know he did) that I was using, that had been hard. Seeing my father once I was with Cole and what was being used was me? That was harder, even if he didn't know. It's perfectly possible to be an undercover narc for several years, a respected cop responsible for a lot of Class 1 felony arrests and killing a man.

It's another seeing your father when you've been the submissive of a billionaire who uses you the way he wants, who humiliates you and knows you intimately. Knows what makes you scream. And probably has a good idea when that screaming is pleasurable, no matter how hard you try to hide it.

I didn't want him to know any of that. I didn't want to see him with it hanging over me.

Daughters never stop being daughters.

I wanted to be in Vegas. It was late March. The equinox had come and gone. It would be getting hot there. I wanted all of that.

But even without police, there was no leaving the crime scene right away. There was coordination between Vincent's security and the men Cole brought with him. I was surprised they were all ex-SWAT and the like, his head of security and so on. I'd have expected Cole to run to mercenaries and maybe he would have if he hadn't found me.

He didn't want to let go. Other than trying to wrap me in a blanket on the couch, when that didn't work he held on to me. Wrapped himself around me even as he gave orders to the men and listened to security talk about the way things had been going downhill since Vincent brought me here.

"I want every detail," Cole told the head of Vincent's security.

He was one of the guards who had been halfway human to me. He dragged me around and he did Vincent's bidding, but he'd been –

I broke off even to myself. He'd been useless. He'd allowed what happened to happen. He'd heard the screams and he hadn't stepped in. He was responsible.

"Cole," I said, and when he didn't react to me using his name, "Sir." Because it felt right. "Please. Geddes is dead. Don't – "

He stopped me, though more gently than he might have. He simply took my arm in an unmistakable gesture of control. "I will want to hear every detail." His eyes bore into mine, though the tilt of his head toward the guards indicated he was speaking for their benefit.

"But he's dead," I said. "You can't pay him back measure for measure."

"It's not about you," he said and I felt my face heat.

"It feels like it's about me! Maybe I don't want you to know everything I – " I broke off. Everything I went through. Every degrading thing he did to me. Every way he punished me. Every way he hurt me.

Of course Cole would want to know. I just didn't know what he'd do with it. He couldn't make it up to me. He couldn't take it out on Vincent or on Kie.

"I thought he sent you videos."

I watched the muscles tighten in his jaw. The mischievous, triangular smile was nowhere in evidence. This was the rainforest businessman I'd accompanied out of the country, playing bodyguard, earning my keep. This was the man convinced I was harming my chances of recovery by not eating enough and insisting that I eat what he gave me. This version of Cole bought me textbooks and let me learn criminal justice so that someday when I left him I'd have a new career.

For the first time the idea of leaving him filled me with a kind of sorrow.

What I didn't know yet was that in a way, he had already left me.

He interviewed the guards, all five of Vincent's men, one by one. One of them had run, the woman. I didn't blame her. She had seen what I went through and it was possible if she'd been present, knowing she'd done nothing to help me that, unfair or not, either Cole or I would have killed her.

Women were supposed to be different. We're not, but even we can fall prey to the idea that we're supposed to support each other.

The other five he interviewed one at a time and I stayed in his arms or at his side, a blanket wrapped tight around me even as the day heated up.

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