Page 30 of Love Her

I unfolded the handwritten note first.

It hurt to leave you,

his handwriting said, in his tight script, that I’d mostly seen on tablets and legal pads.

I’m not using your name, so that both of us have plausible deniability, but know that it doesn’t matter—you are written on my heart.

I bit my lips immediately, and sat down before reading the rest.

Will you remember everything I told you to do (or did I make you come too hard to think?)

That doesn’t matter either.

Nothing does, except this: You are mine.

And while in person I may need to act like a man who has not tasted your blood and come in your cunt, know that I am, and I have, and I will again, repeatedly.

I own you.

You belong to me.

I own everything you do. Everything you are. And I own all of your upcoming suffering, too.

Know that you never hurt alone—not when you hurt because of me.

I took a deep, deep inhale, trying not to cry—which was helped by the rest of the letter becoming immediately more practical.

Your own phone’s been in airplane mode for hours—the code for the burner is “DUCK”—use the Uber app on it to get a ride in the opposite direction from your apartment till you hit the edge of the city, then turn your own phone back on and hail another ride home.

I don’t care where you tell your father you’ve been, as long as you don’t say it was with me—but try to not to murder him.

As for your fiancée—your ring is in the pocket of your jeans. Play the good Catholic Princess card and do not let him touch you.

If he does, tell me.

I will see you at Corvo—but also check in with me when you wake up in the morning, and before you go to bed at night.

Nothing about the next few weeks is going to be pleasant little girl—but have faith and trust in?—

Your Daddy

(who will never let you go)

PS: leave this note behind so I can destroy it—or you can eat it, if you want to.

I dabbed away the tears gathering at the corners of my eyes, remembering when I’d eaten a note to hide it from him before, trying to prove that I had some modicum of spycraft in me.

It’d been stupid then.

It wasn’t now.

I stroked my fingers over the paper that Rhaim had just touched—like me—and knew that I’d do whatever it took to keep him safe.

I didn’t care if it made me sick—hell, I didn’t care if it made me bleed—I just folded the note twice and put a corner in my mouth, before biting it savagely and ripping a chunk off.

There was nothing that could hide the taste of the paper, and the chance that the ink was slightly toxic, but it was good—it was real—it was proof.

Rhaim loved me—possibly past the point of danger.

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