Page 11 of Danger Close
Teri
Six Days Before the Wedding
I moaned, after having the best sleep of my life. I was cocooned in a warm cloud, like a sauna, but the air wasn’t humid. It was just that bone-deep heat that soothed my aching joints and relaxed old, tired muscles.
I blinked my eyes open, the blurry white and yellow clouds coming into focus. Puzzled, I stared up at a white ceiling with intricate, gold-brushed crown molding. It was beautiful, glinting in the sparse light. I must have stared at it for several minutes, just admiring the craftsmanship before I bolted upright.
This wasn’t my fucking my room. Where the hell was I?
The heated blanket and luxurious duvet weredefinitelynot mine. An expensive, fur-lined electric blanket warmed all the sheets underneath it, which was responsible for my relaxation. The neat, hardwood furniture and navy blue and gold upholstery was not something I would ever,everbe able to afford! Not in my lifetime, at least.
“What the fuck?” I pried the blanket off my chest.
I was wearing an MIT hoodie and nothing else. Fuck! My mind reeled. I gulped down breaths trying to remember what had happened. I had to think rationally. I had to swallow fear. I had to think.
How do I feel, physically? Fine. My core wasn’t sore, nor did I feel… abused. Then again, maybe it was the warmth that gave me such an illusion? I couldn’t trust my mind or body, after all. I covered my mouth, a blubbering weep crawling up my throat which I swallowed down like bile. Crying would not help me now.
Where were my clothes? I looked around, frantic, gasping for air that leaked out of my lungs which never seemed to inflate again. What had happened? Had I been drugged?
Someone knocked on the door. A burly man with graying hair, and a thick, but trim, beard walked in without permission. His piercing light brown and green eyes assessed me, giving me a wide berth as he leaned against an armoire across the room. “Morning, Princess.”
“Joe,” I said on a disbelieving breath.
It was him. He’d put on more muscle, and lost the smoothness of youth. His demeanor was cold, and far from the ray of sunshine he had been all those years ago… but it was him. Or was I hallucinating? Was I dead?
I looked away to stare down at my hand. I looked for the scars on my arm that I knew had to be there. Old scars. Hidden scars. Things that would not be there if I was dreaming, no? At least not in the detail in which I was seeing them. They wouldn’t be there if I was dreaming.
He chuckled, “No one’s called me Joe since…”
That voice. I knew that voice.I shut my eyes, fighting back tears as memories of better times washed over me. I clenched my teeth together to keep the flood of questions from falling from my mouth.
Where have you been? Why did you leave me? Did you ever love me?
I had to stifle the whimper, as more questions came.Do you know what happened? Do you know what I’ve been through? Do you care?
No. Of course, not. The answer was alwaysno.No one cared.
“Jesus, Princess.” He used the same nickname he’dinsistedon thirty fucking years ago. A nickname that tasted bitter with the weight of broken dreams. “No one’s called me Joe since you.”
His voice was deeper, gruffer. It had a texture and edge that had not been there when he’d sung to me on the Champs-Élysées. Ifelt his voice crawling over my skin, as real as if he had reached out and caressed me.
“Most people call me Cobra, now.” His voice was so low, it was menacing.
The cold shiver of fear crawled up my skin like the legs of a spider. In my memories, Joe had never been like this. He would certainly not have fit the nameCobra.
A strange memory flashed in my mind. A dark night. Him, clad in leather on top of a black and silver motorcycle in some middle-of-nowhere gas station. Trinity, asleep in the front seat of a beat-up old car.
I shivered, as memories I’d kept locked far, far away came back, hard and fast like a baseball bat to my chest. A pain that I experienced both metaphorically, and literally.
“Did you drug me?” I pushed with my feet until my back was flush against the wooden, carved headboard, adding a few more inches between me and him.
I did not trust him.
Could Joe work for Raymond? How could that happen? Were they always friends? Had they conspired for my misery? If so, they did a brilliant job of it. Had my life been one cruel joke orchestrated by the two men I had trusted the most before they broke me?
“What have you done?” I felt the pain of bitterness mixed with indignation.
My lifewasa fucking joke. If there was a God, I was one of his most disfavored. I shivered with fear. Would Joe—no,Cobra—steal away one of the last sanctuaries I had in my mind? The brief moments of joy that I relived when life crushed me under its heel, and all I could do was endure the pain? Would he taint those purest moments? Would that be taken from me as well?
