7. Ignacia

Chapter seven

Ignacia

N o!

I don’t know if I say it out loud. I just feel a little whimper escape my throat, and then I’m falling. Crumpling. Going down in a heap on the floor.

How could he have found me? I was so careful. I gave up my life and my freedom for nearly a year.

I see Aiden the Anus’ twisted, sick smile. He’s so proud of himself. He’s obviously just so darned thrilled that he’s managed to wreck everything and ruin my life all over again. That nasty grin is going to be the last thing I see before I pass out, and then…and then he could do anything with me or to me. I have to stay conscious. I have to fight this. Pretending he doesn’t scare me or that none of this affects me in any way, and I’m just fine and dandy, thank you, isn’t an option. I’m already on the floor. And I’m already very clearly broken and defeated.

A blur of black charges forward, and it makes a sound like an animal. I’ve let an animal into my house, and it’s rushing the door. Oh no, Aiden the Anus is going to be collateral damage as this enraged beast tries to get out. How very unfortunate that fate has a terrible sense of humor. He’s not going to get hit by a bus. That’s not how karma comes for him.

But it’s not a bull. Nor is it an animal. It is so rabidly angry that I think it might be foaming at the mouth. Not it. He .

Beau takes Aiden down in a brotherly hug that isn’t so brotherly. Either he’s seriously good at making a citizen’s arrest, or he starred at football when he was younger. He makes the best tackle. Aiden doesn’t just stumble back. No, he flies back. He’s a zero match for Beau’s momentum and expertise.

Aiden ends up on his ass on my porch, looking for all the world like he doesn’t know what type of bus just hit him, but it obviously hurt. It hurt so much that he’s gasping like a gutted fish. And Beau? He’s not angry. He’s brusque and collected. He’s stone-cold as he searches Aiden. I don’t realize what he’s looking for until a wallet goes airborne. Then, a phone. Beau’s hands keep flying until he lets out a grunt of satisfaction.

A weapon. He was looking for a weapon.

It’s a relief Aiden doesn’t have anything on him. He was never the type to threaten anyone outright. Even when he was at his worst, he hid behind a fake persona.

My real life.

When Beau’s satisfied that Aiden isn’t going to pull a gun or a knife or pepper spray him in the face, he hauls him up, grabbing him by the back of the T-shirt the way a mother cat scruffs a kitten. Aiden was always smart. His eyes are huge, so huge they practically redefine bugging out. He looks at me like I’ve just dropped from the sky, fresh from another universe. Like he’s never seen me before or ever had the audacity to fuck up my life.

I scramble off the floor, panic coursing through my veins. “Don’t kill him,” I beg. I know better than to use Beau’s name because the less Aiden knows about him, the better.

“I’m not going to kill him,” Beau grouches as he marches Aiden over to one of the wooden chairs on the porch and slams him down so hard that I literally hear his teeth knock together. His jaw practically flaps from side to side like a cartoon character meeting the business end of a big fist. Lips flap, and eyes get bigger. “But I am going to ask him some questions.”

“Who the f—fuck are you?” Aiden grits out.

Beau shakes his head, grinning coldly. He’s so freaking calm. I’ve barely just picked myself up, and I’m not calm. Not at all. I’m still shattered. My back is now up against the house, and I don’t remember even moving. I just feel the press of hardwood siding against my spine, and it feels good. It feels like security.

“That’s not how this works, but we are going to play meet and greet.” Beau hasn’t taken his hand off Aiden’s shoulder. He’s pressing him into that chair hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to crush bone. I don’t think Beau’s truly hurting him, but Aiden gets the message. He blubbers but stops short of crying. It’s just like Aiden to put on an act, even one of fear.

He’s only ever been one part truth and nine parts straight-up liar to the tune of douchebag extraordinaire.

Beau turns his eyes in my direction. I expect to see them flat and emotionless, the way they normally are, but they’re so fiery that I’m winded. He’s not even bothering to hide how pissed he is. He didn’t know anything about Aiden and me, but when Aiden showed up, he watched me crumple, so he flew through the door, tackled my ex-boyfriend, and sat him down. Now, he looks like just one word from me, and he’d be okay with doing things to make Aiden suffer, though not like torture since there are other ways to make a person squirm.

I want to give that word so badly. Because that word would feel like justice. But then, wouldn’t I be exactly like Aiden?

No, probably not. No one could be such a slimy turdball as that.

Still, I don’t have to stoop to the level of asking one person to hurt another. It’s not right, and in the end, I’ll regret it. Revenge never really feels good when it’s all over, does it? Or does it? Maybe it’s actually pretty satisfying. Shit, I don’t know. Letting Beau scare Aiden might be fairly entertaining.

Beau backs off and raises his hands in the air, palms forward. Aiden doesn’t read it as a peace gesture because it’s not one. Instead, he reads it as stay the fuck in that chair and cooperate, or I’ll make you stay the fuck in that chair and cooperate.

“Who is this person?” Beau’s voice is perfectly normal, but I hear the rage underlying it. It’s white-hot for him, even if he’s not showing it.

I swallow past the bile that burns up my throat. “My ex-boyfriend.”

“Do you have a protective order against him?”

“You mean a restraining order?” I clarify.

“Yes.”

“No,” I answer.

Why didn’t I get one? It was complicated. I wanted to involve the police as little as possible. But I can’t stand here and explain it all to Beau at the moment. I can’t take a chance that he wouldn’t think I’m the bad guy in this situation and turn me in. I barely know him, and I can’t trust him either. Although, somehow, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels more like he’s ready to rip Aiden the Anus a new…well, anus.

All I have to do is ask.

Jesus, it’s so tempting. Then again, can anyone actually turn him into a bigger anus than he already is? Because he’s a monstrous butthole.

“But you don’t want him here?”

“No. I—I don’t know how he even found me,” I mutter.

Beau nods. He doesn’t seem surprised that I’m hiding from this mega-jerk. Instead, he cracks his knuckles, which makes Aiden squirm in the chair. Aiden doesn’t just bite down on his lower lip. He practically gnaws it off. And I watch as he starts to shake. Physically, he’s no match for Beau since he’s about four inches shorter, and I can’t even guess how many pounds lighter.

His weapon was never his size. It was his brain. His devious, evil, horrible, devoid of morals and scruples brain.

Beau turns back around, and his look is so feral that I swear Aiden just about pees himself. Jesus, even I want to pee myself a little. And I’m also slightly…turned on. I know I shouldn’t be, but there’s something about a hot, muscly man going all feral and protective for you, especially when you’ve heretofore had to look out for yourself and try and figure out all your own problems, that gets a girl hot in the ovaries. I know it’s not okay, and I’m okay with it not being okay. I think.

You know what? I need a moment over here. This is all too much. I’m still in shock over Aiden finding me and Beau coming out all alpha male like he cares .

I know he doesn’t.

He’s just doing me a solid.

Maybe he has extra aggression he’s been dying to take out on society’s super sleezebags. Or maybe he fights crime by night in his regular life, on nights when he’s not hot bedding by contract with me.

He’s definitely the only guy in the world, contract or not, who has ever stood up for me. In the years Aiden and I were together, he never once had my back. He never made me feel special. I hate that I didn’t even realize it when I was with him. When the sky fell in, it shocked me so badly because I never saw it coming. I didn’t even realize the extent to which Aiden had been using me and really abusing me as well.

“Alright, Turdbag.” Jesus. I think I might have just fallen head over heels in love with this man. But it’s just a saying. It makes my heart pound to hear Beau use the very same moniker I apply to Aiden. “You’re going to tell me why you’re here. If I don’t like your answer…well, let’s just hope I do.”

There’s no way he’s going to like any answer Aiden gives him.

Especially not when his eyes literally fill up with frightened tears, and he stammers out a whole story about how he’s been trying to find me and get me back for the past ten months. Christ, he spins it like I disappeared into thin air, and he’s been broken-hearted.

Then, he turns to me and drops the biggest kicker of all. “I—I love you, Sam.”

Ugh, barf. I’m not immature enough to make fake gagging sounds, but they almost happen for real.

“I have a feeling the sentiment isn’t mutual.” Beau’s intuition happens to be correct. “She would like you to leave right now and never come back.”

Aiden turns his tear-filled eyes my way. There was a time in my life when I would have done anything for this man. Freaking anything. But he repaid that love and trust by stealing my identity and using it to hurt other people. Let’s just say sometimes it sucks having a unisex name, and I’ve never in my life gone by Samandra because who on the good and wide earth names their daughter such a wild thing? I’m sorry to my parents because I love them, but I don’t know what on earth they were thinking. Samandra is such a weird and long name to say. So, yeah. I’ve always been Sam. I thought I’d always be Sam. But then I had to go into hiding to escape probable criminal charges as well as this man, and I was forced to reinvent myself as Ignacia. I didn’t choose the name. It was given to me by a friend of a friend of a friend who made the fake IDs.

“That’s right.” I wish my voice were more than just a thin whisper. I wish I could sound certain and confident. I am certain and confident, but I also still feel like I might throw up on the spot. And I don’t want to do that. Not in front of Aiden. He’d take it the wrong way, and it would be any way except that he disgusts me. “I expressed the same sentiment to you almost a year ago. I meant it then, and I mean it now. Leave me alone, Aiden.”

I took extreme measures to ensure he would. I gave up everything to get away from him. I was scared if I didn’t just disappear, he’d do something that would get me arrested. Even now, I’m not entirely sure he hasn’t done something that could get me arrested. I think charges last for life, and I’d have to prove it wasn’t me doing all those things and stealing all that money. How the hell could I do that when Aiden’s a fucking genius criminal mastermind who stole my entire online identity? He had access to everything, and I gave it to him like an idiot. He said people who loved each other didn’t have secrets. People who loved each other and lived together and were going to share a life didn’t keep passwords to their social media or anything else a secret.

I was so, so, SO na?ve.

Then again, even if I hadn’t given him my passwords, he probably would have found a way to discover them all. He’s an evil genius like that.

Beau marches over, picks Aiden up by the scruff again, and practically throws him off the porch. It’s then that I realize the yard is black as night, which makes sense because it is night, but there aren’t any other cars around. No headlights and no flash of a vehicle parked by the house. How the heck did Aiden get here? Has he been watching me for days? For weeks? For how long? Did he park down the road and walk here so I wouldn’t hear him coming?

Goosebumps break out all over my skin, and my stomach churns. I have to swallow repeatedly to keep from hurling.

“You’re going to leave now,” Beau informs Aiden, who picks himself off the ground and brushes himself like he can rub off the injury as well as the insult. “And you’re not going to come back. This woman is under my protection. You don’t want to end up on my threat lists. Threats get eliminated. You’re just lucky I haven’t destroyed your life yet. Don’t push me. I just might do it for fun in my spare time.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Aiden growls, all brave now that there’s a few feet of distance between him and Beau.

Beau moves so fast that I’m not even sure it’s physically possible to do something like that until he’s down the steps, looking hecking murderous and frothing at the mouth rabid style again.

“My name doesn’t matter, only my intent, and that’s to protect this woman like it’s my job. I’m very, very good at what I do. I’m also incredibly bored with this, and bad things happen when I get bored. I have impeccable control, but I also have a boundless limit when it comes to cruelty and carnage. Unless you’d like to experience both, I would leave, stat.”

Aiden doesn’t stick around to follow that up with so much as an oh shit. Instead, he turns and sprints down the driveway. He trips once and goes sprawling in the gravel, but he doesn’t curse. He doesn’t say anything. He just rights himself and hurtles straight into the dark. I watch his shadow stop and stare back at both of us. He’s probably thinking a few murderous thoughts of his own. Maybe he’s trying to prove he has a bag and the stones to match.

Beau makes one single move forward, and Aiden scampers off, stumbling again. I can just see him hit the ditch and go down on all fours from a dead run. He didn’t see the large, yawning chasm there. He rounds the other side, climbing out, and then his shadow blends in with the dark. All I can hear is the crunching of fast-fleeing steps on the gravel road, and the sound gets fainter and fainter.

Beau isn’t gentle when he turns around. He looks just as angry and feral as before, and even if his anger isn’t directed at me, I take a step back. He blinks at me, stunned, and it’s like that single movement brings him crashing back into himself.

“I’m sorry.” He sticks out his hands, so gentle in comparison to how he did this exact same gesture at Aiden just a few minutes ago. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Most of that was just for his benefit of seeing it and knowing he can’t fuck around.” However, he doesn’t look like any of it was for the benefit of anything. His face is still a storm, even if he calms it down, so I know he will never break over me.

Of course, I know that. I know he will never hurt me.

His hand still feels heavy when it comes down on my shoulder. He doesn’t curl his fingers into me or around my upper arm or anything. There’s nothing forced. It’s just his hand and the slightest pressure. It’s comforting. I want to close my eyes and let him guide me, let him tell me what to do now, and let him inform, plan, order, and save me.

It’s all wrong, but I need a minute to catch my breath. No, I need at least an hour before I’m not a wreck. I’m still barely holding it together, and by holding it together, I mean breathing and not barfing.

“Let’s go inside.” His voice is deep and kind, but it’s the tone that gets me. It hits me deep in the belly like an oddly soothing bomb blast, and I know how insane that sounds. “I think you need to tell me everything.”

Why the heck would I do that?

He guides me with that protective hand, and as we walk through the door, I realize he’s angled to completely shield my body with his. He’s in natural protector mode, and I find myself doing more than just giving in. I want to be protected. I want him to be the shield that stands between me and the world until I can pick myself up. It’s not something I’ve ever asked for. I thought being tough was the only way to survive and get through all this. Even if I wasn’t tough, I thought I could fake it until I was, even if I was just faking it for myself.

Okay, myself and my family.

“How much is everything?” I whisper, my voice coming out all funky and wrong. It’s as wobbly as my legs and stomach.

“I need to know all of it.” He locks the door and double-checks all the locks even after he just slid them into place. The first thing he does is pick my phone off the kitchen counter and check that all the cameras are functioning.

It’s all very levelheaded and… professional .

Like he’s done this before.

Like maybe this is what he does in his other life.

I find just enough of my sass to throw my head back and try and be brave. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

He nods and checks the cameras one more time before setting my phone down. Then, he crosses his arms so his muscles bulge in that bloody sinful T-shirt. “You don’t have to, but you will because I’m going to keep you safe. I’m going to make this right for you and help you get your life back.”