Chapter Fifty-Six

Safiya

E cho pulled up to the beach house and entered the gate code. Then he used his cell phone to open one of the garage doors before pulling into an empty bay.

"Wait." The impossibly tall SEAL with tattoos that crawled all the way up his arms, under his shirt, and skirted around his neck shoved his door open.

I did not ask how he knew the gate code only Grayson and I were supposed to know, how he had opened one of the garage doors, or how he planned to disable the alarm system once he got inside.

I sat.

The rain sheeted.

The wind blustered.

And my mind went to the place I never allowed it to go.

Home.

Would the house my anne and I had lived in still be there? Were any of the sheep I had tended to still alive? What would have happened to me if my mother had not died? If I had stayed? If I had made it to my aunt's house that night?

A harrowing gale-force wind rushed into the garage and shook the vehicle as its haunted moan rattled the metal rails of the opened overhead door.

Echo came out of the house.

Scanning the front drive as he strode to my side of the car, he opened my door, but he did not step back for me to exit. "Storm was upgraded. You want me to close the shutters on the back sliders while you hit the rest with the remote?"

I did not ask how he had ascertained in the mere minute that he had been in the house that the only non-remote-activated storm shutters in the entire mansion were the accordion ones along the glass wall facing the ocean.

"Is it a hurricane?" I had never experienced hurricanes before coming to Florida. Or tropical depressions, summer rains, and a Navy SEAL who held me one night while he was allowing another woman or women to believe they were married to him.

"Not yet."

"Then no thank you." I preferred to not be closed in, and I could manage the storm shutters myself if need be. I had done it before. I had also ridden out hurricanes by myself before. I had done a lot of things by myself.

"It'll take me two seconds," he grumbled in his ornery manner that I was somehow getting used to despite us barely engaging in any conversation.

"I am fine."

Another raging gust of wind blew, but he did not move. "Fine like those sixteen women that motherfucker used and kept on ice while he mainlined his own vendetta? Or fine like I gave you a gun and you're gonna point and shoot the next time he tries to walk his ass into your house?"

"I…." Shocked by his vitriol, by his naked honesty, by him, the defense of Grayson that had immediately tried to spill from my lips disappeared as fast as it had formed, and humiliating emotion welled in its place. "I am fine." My voice broke on the wind.

"Want my take?"

Did I have a choice? "You are blocking my exit."

He stepped back.

I got out of the SUV.

He repeated himself. "Want my take?"

I walked toward the door that led into the house. "Thank you for the ride."

"Not an answer."

I made it to the first of three steps that would take me to the solace and the escape that I was desperately craving. Into the very house that I was ashamed and angry to admit had become more of a home to me than the memories of my childhood with my anne . To the one place I wanted to be right now more than anywhere, even though it hurt. It hurt so bad, I could feel my body starting to give up its tenuous hold on composure.

But I still glanced back at the tattooed SEAL because I was now that woman.

The woman who did what men bid.

Maybe I always had been.

I had always wanted to please, to keep the peace. I had never wanted to cause my anne any trouble. I had done what I was told. I had never needed rules. I had studiously listened and learned English from my anne as eagerly as I had learned protocols from a ghost.

Now I was about to learn an opinion from another SEAL. "What is your take?"

"Shoot him."

"I will not."

The wind shook the garage door on its rails as a SEAL grunted in disapproval. "Didn't think so, but it was worth a shot. Pun intended."

"It was never going to happen."

"Fucking figured. You left your gun in the SUV."

"It is not mine."

"Could've been." He slammed the passenger door shut.

"Why do you really hate him?"

I had heard his response to the question I had already asked, but I had also thought about it. Even I could see it was not Grayson who had abused those women. He had rescued them. Every last one. Even this SEAL who harbored so much animosity could surely see how those women had reacted to Grayson.

Echo did not hesitate with his comeback. "Why do you really love the motherfucker?"

I did not reply.

He shook his head and walked toward the driver's side. "Last piece of advice." He did not wait for me to say I wanted to hear it. "Ask him why he did it. Ask why the fuck he used all those women instead of setting them free. Setting you free."

His words struck with the full force of a lethal blow and lanced across my stomach as if I had been sliced open. The punishing new wave of pain decimated me as I fought for composure to keep my emotions from bleeding all over this garage.

Then I spoke sentiments that hurt in a way I was too ashamed to think about. "It is not my business, but he had his reasons. He was protecting those women. He had to do what he did to keep them all safe."

"You fucking sure about that?"

Before I could think of a response, Echo had gotten into his Range Rover and backed out.

A moment later, the garage door closed.

I went inside the house.

I locked the door.

I set the alarm.

Then I fell apart with the raging storm.