Page 68 of Boy of Ruin
“What did you fucking—”
“Do you know where we are?” he asks calmly, speaking over my heartbreak.
Pressure builds behind my eyes, that lump growing bigger in my throat as I claw at his neck, and he doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t let me fucking go. I shake my head, my forehead brushing against his even as I try to pull away. To get out of this car.
My husband…
Did something fucking happen to my husband?
Did he…do it himself?
He wouldn’t do that to me.
He wouldn’t fucking do that to me.
“What did you do?” I ask again, my voice hoarse. “Jeremiah.” I squeeze his throat, feel him swallow beneath my palms. “Jeremiah, what did you fucking do?” My voice breaks on the last words, and his grip on my arm hurts, making those tears fall freely.
“I asked you a question, baby,” he says softly, ignoring all of my questions. Ignoring the way my heart is breaking. My mind reeling. “I said, do you know where we are?”
I squeeze my eyes closed tight. Maybe he’s okay. Maybe this is about something else. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. “No,” I finally answer, my nostrils flaring as I try to hold back my sobs. “No. Where are we, J? Where the fuck are we?” I keep my voice low, try to breathe, eyes still closed.
Jeremiah releases my arm, his hand coming over my heart instead, his fingers brushing against my breast, on the outside of my shirt.
I can’t breathe all over again.
“We’re at Julie’s house, beautiful.”
My eyes fly open, my heart stopping.
“Ah, yeah.” He laughs, his breath against my skin. “You remember her, don’t you? And Finn?”
Of course I fucking do. I’d thought about her when we crossed the border. About what I learned here.
That this man, the one holding me, caressing my breast as I panic, one hand still tight around the back of my neck, assaulted me.
He assaulted me, then lied to me for a year.
He fed my anger to someone else entirely to prevent it from burning up our love.
I shouldn’t forgive him for that, but I don’t remember that night. Not the parts with him hurting me. In some sick way, it’s like it didn’t really…happen.
“Jeremiah. What are you talking about?” I keep my eyes on his, watch as he pulls back, sliding his hand from my chest, up my throat.
Higher still, until his thumb presses against my bottom lip. His eyes dart to my mouth.
“We’re here, baby.”
I want to get out. I want to turn and run. I don’t want to hear his next words.
“And guess who else is here?”
No. No, no, no.
“He is.”
I don’t move for several long moments as his thumb brushes over my bottom lip. But then my brain starts to work all over again, and I reason with myself. It doesn’t matter that he’s here. I’ve known he pays for this baby. I knew from the beginning it could’ve been his, then I learned it wasn’t, and I learned that as scary and dickish as Lucifer Malikov is, he has a soft spot.
In the form of…children.
