Page 5 of Rescued Hearts
Now that the initial nerves of meeting him had gone, I noticed things I hadn’t at first. The steadiness of his voice and the easy yet assured way he carried himself. It was confident but not arrogant, like I worried he would be, given his last name.
“Your voice was a much more pleasant wake-up call compared to my alarm, trust me,” he continued, leaning back in his chair. He pushed his black rimmed glasses up before his eyes met mine. “So what brings you in today?”
“I don’t…I don’t really know where to begin,” I admitted, feeling foolish. And maybe a smidge hung up on the fact that he said my voice was pleasant. Jeremy had told me once that it was whiny.
He uncapped his pen. A fancy fountain one. “That’s okay. You said this morning you wanted to get custody of your son?”
“Yes,” I replied, wringing my hands together in my lap. “Luke. He’s four.”
“That’s a fun age,” he said while jotting the information down.
“You have kids?” The question came out before I could stop it.There goes your mouth again, Tess.I pressed into the back of the chair, wishing it could swallow me whole.
He scoffed in amusement. “Oh, no. I just know from working with families that children that age can be a handful.”
“Yeah.” I looked at the wall behind him. There was a window overlooking the parking lot, two bookshelves filled to the brim, and diplomaspluralfrom Harvard. What was a man like this doing in tiny Wild Creek? He looked like he belonged somewhere else. Somewhere bigger, better.
“And Luke’s father? I’m assuming he’s the one you want the protective order from as well?”
I clenched my jaw, remembering how Jeremy’s apologies after every strike turned into threats not to tell anyone or there’d be more.
He has no idea where you are. You’re safe,I reminded myself.
“Yes.” My voice was hardly more than a whisper.
Levi nodded. “Are you married to him?”
“No.” Thank God.
“Do you have an existing custody agreement with him?”
“No.” I licked my dry lips. “I…I’ve been…stuck with him for the last eight years, so there wasn’t a need to have an agreement.”
Levi’s eyes flicked to mine. They suddenly weren’t as calm as they were moments ago. Something in them burned with an intensity that made me squirm. “Stuck? Was he holding you captive?”
I swallowed roughly. “Not in a literal sense. He let me come home for my mother’s funeral, thinking I’d come back.” Saying it out loud was beyond mortifying. Heletme, as if I weren’t a twenty-six-year-old woman with a child of my own.
But it had honestly felt like I couldn’t leave until now. With all the gaslighting and intimidation, I was trapped. And given the way the hard edge in Levi’s eyes softened slightly, I could tell he understood what I meant.
“But you’re not going back…”
I sat up straighter, hoping he could see just how serious I was as I said, “Never. I’d rather be dead than go back there.”
“Good.” He set his pen down and interlocked his hands on his desk. My heart raced, knowing the real interrogation was about to start. “Can you walk me through what happened between you two? Was Luke ever involved?”
“He never did anything to Luke, but he’s seen a lot.” My throat was so tight I could barely get the words out. My eyes started to burn, and it was only a matter of time before the tears followed. I brought my hand to my forehead, hiding my face. “I don’t think I can say it,” I whimpered.
Levi got up and sat next to me in the other chair. “I can’t even begin to fathom how hard it is to open up about this, especially to someone you don’t know. But I do need to know what happened in order to help you the best I can. Anything you tell me stays between us. Anything. Even if you say something horrifying, like preferring pineapple on your pizza.” I let out a tearful laugh, looking over at him.
His expression was tender. Heartfelt. “I want to help you, Tess. You and Luke. Help in any way I can.”
The dam burst.
I told him everything. From the way Jeremy charmed the vulnerable eighteen-year-old version of me who’d just lost her father, to how he tricked me into getting pregnant with Luke, to the masterful way he isolated me from my family and friends. I brought up the time he smashed my phone because I called Savannah to tell her happy birthday, how he convinced me nobody could want or love a “used-up single mom,” how Luke wet the bed and had night terrors. I told him about every glare, every word, every hit. All the texts and voicemails he’d been leaving since coming home. Levi now knew about all of it in gruesome detail.
He offered me more tissues while I tried and failed to rein in my emotions.
“Sorry,” I rasped, wiping my nose. “I didn’t mean to dump all that on you.”
