Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Vienna

I was just trying to steal one of his hoodies because they had that super soft, worn-in feel that came from years of washing, and all of my clothes were kind of stiff and new still.

It was innocent, going into his wardrobe.

I wasn't snooping.

I had no reason to snoop.

We were open with each other about everything.

Or so I thought.

Until I spread his hangers on the bar, trying to get my chosen hoodie off.

And I saw something odd, something that my mind immediately said didn't fit.

It was wedged back in the corner. Like something forgotten.

Like something hidden.

It was that sudden, gut-punch of realization that had my hand shooting out, had me snatching at the ball of crocheted material.

"No," I said to myself as my hand grabbed the long strap and watched the purse fall open, a memory crashing into my present. "No no no."

Why did he have my purse?

The one that I'd lost in the scuffle with my kidnapper on that one awful, fateful day? The one I figured was lost to space and time.

But here it was.

Shoved in the back of the wardrobe I built for the man I was falling wildly in love with.

I didn't even have to open it to know it was mine, that it didn't just belong to some other woman.

Because I'd found it in my grandmother's basement. It had been my mother's when she was a teenager. And my mom had told her to throw it out, that it was out of style. My grandmother insisted that everything always came back into fashion if you waited long enough, so she'd stashed it away for that eventuality.

I'd pulled it out and taken it when I'd been clearing out her house after she passed.

I knew the zipper that didn't close all the way, allowing some of the fun bright pink silk lining to show through. I knew the snag near the bottom that I once got caught on someone else's keychain.

This was my bag.

But how was it here?

My mind flashed with a thousand possibilities that included him being a witness to the kidnapping to him stalking me or something until rationality finally took root.

No.

No, it wasn't as insane as all of that.

He'd gone back.

To the house in the woods.

Where he'd found this.

Then he'd taken it.

And had hidden it from me.

Then proceeded to lie about it.

Omission was a lie, damnit.

My vision was going weird, jumping, flashing. Little images from the past cut into the present. Hands grabbing, fear choking, pain starting.

They seemed to flash faster and faster, blurring the present and past, making it impossible to think clearly.

"Looking for something, darlin'?" Riff asked, tone light and playful as usual, oblivious, it seemed, to the way tension was sparking off my every nerve ending.

For a moment, the visions stopped flashing, letting me see clearly again.

When I turned, I found him dressed in jeans and a tan henley, his wet hair leaving a few drops of water onto the shoulders.

His smile had been soft as ever.

Until he saw what I was holding.

Then I got to see the way his face fell.

"What is this?" I asked, voice shaking almost as much as the hand holding my purse. My stomach was cramping; a cold sweat was spreading across my skin.

"I can explain," he said, holding up his hand in a placating gesture. It begged me to understand.

But I didn't.

I couldn't.

Not with my brain playing tricks on me like this.

"I don't know if you can," I said, flinging it back into the wardrobe, and slamming the door.

"V—"

"You went back there," I said, voice tight as the memories started to flash across my mind again, making bile rise up my throat. The shed, the shackle, the clawing hunger, the door opening… and him coming inside with me…

"Yes," he admitted, having no choice. Because there was no other explanation.

"You didn't tell me you were going back there," I said, holding onto my stomach, trying to breathe, but it was getting harder with each passing second.

"I didn't want you to—"

"You don't get to choose what I can handle," I cut him off. "You don't get to try to protect me from things that directly involve me ," I snapped, hating how my voice hitched, how I was so close to crying.

Not wanting to break down here like this, I turned and rushed toward the door.

"Vienna," he called, rushing down the steps behind me, but I only broke into a run, ignoring all the faces in the living room as I rushed through, barely pausing to grab my jacket on my way outside.

I had to get away.

I had to get control of myself.

I felt like I was losing my grip on reality.

"Leave me alone," I said to Riff before slamming the door hard in his face.

To his credit, he did what I asked.

Even if a part of me ached for him to follow me, to apologize, to say he was wrong.

Because he was, damnit.

That was wrong.

Not necessarily going. I understood that the club had lost a lot of money on that deal, and that, eventually, they would have to go back to get some sort of revenge for that.

But he was wrong to lie to me about it.

For well over a week now.

Each time we were together, there was this big thing he was keeping from me.

Maybe it was wrong to feel so betrayed by this. But I was still raw, damnit. I was still trying to learn to trust people, especially men. And it had been so easy with Riff. Because he'd been so honest with me.

It felt like all that trust was crumbling now that I realized he hadn't been.

I paced around the grounds for a while, but I was aware of everyone inside, likely talking about me, discussing how to handle me and my outburst.

A bitter little laugh escaped me as I rushed away from the clubhouse, deciding this was as good a time as ever to take my first little solo walk.

I needed to cool down.

I knew I was probably overreacting, but I couldn't seem to reason with my overwrought emotions right then. Even if the flashing memories had stopped, they felt like they still had a hold on me.

But I found myself all the way into town and it was all still right there, asking to be acknowledged instead of tamped down.

On a desperate hope for some calming, I found myself walking up to my therapist's office, knowing she told me she had an open-door policy for me. If she was with another client, I could just wait until she had a few minutes.

So that was exactly what I did, sitting in the uncomfortable chair in her waiting room, ignoring the way the secretary kept casting sympathetic glances my way.

Until, finally, the door opened, and Dr. Swift was walking out with another young woman whose eyes were still red and puffy from crying.

I'd been there so many times too.

Silently, I hoped she had someone to go home to, someone to support her.

"Vienna," Dr. Swift said, voice surprised. Then, "Come on in," she said, waving toward the open door to her office.

Dr. Swift had been nothing like I'd been expecting. I guess I'd imagined her being much older, kind of sedate in her dress, with one of those generic, kind faces.

But Dr. Swift was tall, statuesque, a gorgeous blonde with icy blue eyes and a charming cleft chin. She was always dressed professionally, of course, but her suits and suit dresses were always perfectly tailored to fit her lithe body, making her look more like she belonged in a board room for a billion-dollar company rather than in a tiny little therapy office in a nowhere town like Shady Valley.

"What happened?" she asked, already knowing that something must have if I was showing up out of the blue.

"He went back to the house," I told her. There were no secrets between us. She knew every ugly detail of what had happened to me. In the van after I'd been taken. In the shed. And everything since. "He went back and he didn't tell me."

"How do you know that?" she asked, sitting calmly at the edge of her desk as I paced her office.

"I found my old purse shoved in the back of his wardrobe. He must have found it there."

"You're upset because he lied to you," she assumed.

"Yes," I said, sniffling but refusing to cry about it. Not until I gauged if she thought I was being irrational or not. "He's been so easy to trust because he's never lied to you."

"And now, by omission, he has."

"Yes."

"What did he say when you confronted him?"

"That he could explain."

"And did he?" she asked. I must have looked guilty then, because she nodded. "You didn't give him a chance to."

"No," I admitted. "I know I'm probably overreacting, but I was just—"

"It was a shock," she said, shrugging a bit. "More so than the feelings of betrayal, I believe it might be the shock of seeing that item, evidence of the past, that is making you react so strongly."

That… well, that was likely true.

The second I picked it up, knew it was mine, it all came flooding back. In bright, cinematic detail.

The way I'd been walking down the street toward my car, thinking about my bank account, about giving myself a little coffee splurge, maybe flirting with the handsome barista because I was really feeling myself in my new dress.

Then the blur of something dark maroon pulling up beside me, jarring enough to make me gasp, but I hadn't been quick enough to clock the danger, to remember all the programs I'd seen about vans with sliding doors, and how easily a woman could be abducted into their depths before she even knew she was in trouble.

I couldn't quite remember if the door had already been open as the van pulled up next to me, or if it had slid open.

All I knew was that hands were grabbing me before I could even fully turn to see what was going on, hot fingers sinking into my hips, dragging me until I was airborne, my legs pedaling in the air, a surprised cry escaping me.

It was too late to scream, though, as I was yanked back against a body, a hand slapping over my mouth as the door slammed shut, cutting off any hope of freedom.

"Vienna," Dr. Swift called, like she was sensing me back there again.

In the van.

My abductor's hot breath on my neck.

His hands… roaming.

As the others… as the others cheered him on.

No.

No .

I sucked in a deep breath, counted, and released, seeing the memory start to blur around the edges, then trying again until it disappeared completely.

I sat down on the couch, feeling the tears that I'd been fighting welling up again. This time, I didn't fight them. I knew they needed out, that they were just poisoning me by staying buried.

Dr. Swift came from her desk with her handy box of tissues—she must have stock at the company at this point from me alone—and sat with me as I cried, talking to me when I finally calmed down again. I listened to what she had to say, how she thought I might productively talk to Riff about the incident without triggering another PTSD episode.

Because, she agreed, there needed to be honesty between us.

"I know Riff is your safe person, Vienna," she said, giving me a soft smile. "But you have to remember, he is just a person. He will make mistakes. He will let you down. That is the nature of all relationships. What makes a good one is your ability to talk it through and work through your feelings about things."

She was right, of course.

She hadn't let me down yet.

And as she led me out of her office half an hour later, looking much like the girl I'd seen leaving before me, I felt lighter, ready to walk back to the clubhouse and have a calm, rational conversation with Riff.

Maybe we could take a drive, like we'd been planning. I always found it easier to talk while in the car for reasons I didn't even begin to understand.

Mind on that, I glanced back at the clubhouse, feeling that newly familiar sense of home sink into my bones.

Until I came here, I hadn't felt that since I'd been living with my grandmother. My apartment had never had that same level of comfort.

Maybe because home wasn't a place but a feeling.

And the people inside that clubhouse, especially Riff, were what created that feeling for me.

Taking a deep breath of the crisp late winter air, I started the walk back toward the warehouse, the distance suddenly feeling twice as long as it had when I'd been overwhelmed with the hurricane of my thoughts, the violent storm of my emotions.

But I'd been in such a rush that I hadn't grabbed my phone, so I could text Riff for a ride.

I couldn't even go up to Rook's apartment to ask, since he'd been in the living room when I'd rushed past.

Oh well.

I was hoofing it, like it or not.

I felt so comfortable in this town, so safe thanks to, I imagined, the protection that came from the club, that I didn't even think to be afraid, to look for threats.

But as I walked toward a wide alley between a few of the abandoned shops on Main Street, a flash of color cut in front of my vision.

Maroon.

A maroon van.

No.

No.

A cry strangled in my throat as it cut off my path.

I had to turn, to run.

Even as I thought it, as I started to do just that, hands were reaching out.

Grabbing me.

Pulling me back to hell.