Page 83 of Receiving His Mercy
Travis shot her a look, running his gaze over her. Yeah, she didn’t look fine. She looked pale and thin. “Jace has this.”
Kane grimaced but moved.
Travis was prepared to interfere if Jace started yelling. But to his shock, the big guy kneeled in front of Rory and reached up to take gentle hold of her chin.
“You’re okay?” he asked.
“I . . . I am. I promise. I’m so sorry I worried everyone. I really didn’t mean to. Why didn’t Mom tell you all where I was going?”
“Because your note didn’t say anything about where you were headed,” Jace told her. “It just said you were going back to the beginning.”
“But I wrote over the other side that by beginning I meant New York,” she said. “And I’ve been talking about coming back here for a while.”
“Shit. Did anyone think to check the note?” Travis asked. He quickly sent off messages to Gray and Hunter.
Fucking hell.
He thought that Hunter would have sent someone around to check the note.
Hunter messaged back. And he sounded angry.
“Hunter said that your mother threw the note out before anyone could see it,” Travis told her.
Rory shook her head. “Of course she did. Because then you’d all know where I was and she couldn’t create a drama.”
“You think she deliberately kept that information from us?” Travis asked. “From your brother?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not.” Rory looked tired. “Living with her is like . . . like being caught in a dark web. She manipulates things how she likes them. I don’t think Gray knows just howbad she can be. She’s kept me scared of the world for so long with her stories of doom and gloom. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had to leave. I had to . . . to come here.”
“Why here?” Jace asked.
“Because it was here that he took me.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I have nightmares of being kidnapped from here every night, you know? I thought maybe if I came back here I could face them head on. Is that dumb?”
“Not dumb,” Jace told her quietly. “But I wish you’d told me, Rory. You know I would have done what I could to help you.”
Had the two of them kept in touch? He remembered Jace asking about her during the wedding rehearsal.
Interesting.
“I know. I guess I figured I should be able to do this on my own.” Rory clenched her small hands into fists. “I’m just tired of other people having to take care of me. I want to take care of myself. I want to be strong again. I want to be able to sleep without nightmares in a bedroom that isn’t in my mother’s house.”
“Sounds like that part might be a smart idea,” Kane said.
They all looked at him.
“What?” Kane said. “Rory just told us that her mother loves drama and she’s full of doom and gloom, keeping her down and in a dark place. Maybe what Rory needs is some independence. A change.”
“She won’t let that happen,” Rory said, sounding dejected. “Even if I moved out, she’d still be at my place every day. Or bugging me constantly with videos of all the bad things happening in the world.”
No, Gray likely didn’t know any of this, Travis thought.
“So move towns,” Kane said.
He didn’t know Rory’s background, what had happened to her, so Travis knew that while he was just trying to be helpful, that wasn’t a simple thing for Rory to do.
“I can’t just leave Dallas. Gray would lose his mind. And where would I go? I couldn’t be completely alone.” She shuddered.
“Move here,” Kane said. “You have back-up here.”
