Page 6 of Nave (Henchmen MC: Next Generation #14)

Lolly

I remember everything.

My heart felt like it squeezed at those words.

Out of, you know, relief.

That he remembered.

That he would, hopefully, honor his offer.

There was no other logical reason.

“I know you’re, uh, busy right now. But I was wondering if we could meet up.” Soon. Tomorrow. I’m desperate .

“I’m not busy,” Nave said, climbing off his chair. “Want to go talk out back? Can barely hear yourself think in here.”

“Sure,” I agreed, gaze slipping briefly to the donut box, wondering if there were any in there. “But it really could wait until you don’t have… company.”

“The club has company,” he clarified, snagging one of the boxes of donuts, “not me. Come on.”

With that, he led me through a small crowd and out the back door.

There were more people outside, hanging around and in the pool, making out on the chaise loungers, laughing in the hot tub.

Nave led me past all of that and toward the side yard where two picnic tables were set under a tree. He set down the box of donuts and opened the lid in a silent invitation.

Did I reach for one of the chocolate-frosted ones like a lifeline? Yes, yes, I did. What can I say? After years of being denied sugar in any form other than fruit, I was desperate to get a taste of it whenever I could. Especially if it was free.

“Do you mind?” I asked, putting Edith’s bag down on the opposite picnic table, then undoing the zipper. Her little brown head popped right out, sniffing the air.

“Ben let you have a dog?”

Even the sound of his name had my stomach flipping over and clenching.

“ Let is a kind of fluid concept,” I admitted as Nave reached out toward Edith. She’d hated Ben. And he’d hated her in turn. But she gave Nave a sniff and a tentative lick that he took as an invitation to pick her up.

“How’d you get her then?”

“He got her for me after three months of a depression so deep that I barely ate or bathed. The latter was, clearly, a problem.”

“He always smelled like bleach.”

“He bathed in it,” I told him.

“That tracks. The marble frosted are better than the chocolate,” Nave said, nodding toward one. I knew he was just trying to make me feel able to have another. And, well, I wasn’t going to pass on that. “So he got you a dog.”

“He knew after dragging me into the bathroom and shoving me into the bath to clean me that I was lonely. And since letting me have actual human friends was out of the question, he got Edith. Under some very, very strict conditions.”

“Lots of baths, I’m assuming.”

“Once a week. But her feet had to be cleaned and dried each time she came into the house. She had to be brushed twice daily—even though she is virtually shed-free—and the house vacuumed an extra two times a day. It added another two hours of chores to my day. But…”

“It was worth it.”

“Yeah. She was the only thing getting me out of bed most days.”

“Can I ask you something I’ve wondered for years?”

I watched him dig in the bag to find Edith’s leash, clipping it to her collar, then putting her down to sniff around.

“Why did I stay?”

“Yeah.”

I glanced past him, looking into the darkest part of the backyard and sucking in a deep breath.

“Don’t you think that if I were able to leave, I would have?”

“I had my suspicions,” he admitted. “But I didn’t know if you just stayed because you were scared of being on your own, of having to find your own way, or if it was something… more sinister than that?”

“It didn’t start out that way,” I admitted. “I mean, it happened in phases. If he’d gone full-on controlling monster right at first, he’d never have gotten me into that glass house.”

“Was he always… that clean?”

“I don’t think he showed it to anyone at first. I mean, he was very clean and so was his office.

He was a little obsessed with hand sanitizer and insisted on everything being paper or plastic because washing dishes didn’t get them clean enough.

But it wasn’t like… what you saw.” And all the things he didn’t see.

“Wait. It sounds like you worked for him.”

“I did,” I confirmed. “I was a temp at his office. Until he decided that he needed me to work for him full-time. And I’d been so desperate for solid employment with good pay that I’d let myself ignore some red flags even in those early days.”

“Whatever happened, it’s not your fault that he was a manipulative and controlling fuck.”

He didn’t even know the half of it.

“I’m not taking on the responsibility of his sick nature. But I can see how often I squashed down my own gut feelings for the promise of comfort and stability.

“It was only three months after working for him that we started dating.

Another six weeks before I moved in with him.

Before I stopped going anywhere without him.

When I agreed to enable tracking on my phone and gave him my passwords.

I submitted to all his requests for how to dress, how to bathe, how to eat.

“And each time I gave into him, the walls closed in tighter and tighter. Until I agreed to move into the new glass house.”

I’d been so naively excited at first. So charmed by the views all around, by the little bunnies, deer, turkey, and songbirds that were all around.

“That’s when you really got locked down.”

“Yeah. At first, I let myself believe that all the cameras were just for safety. Especially because we were out in the middle of nowhere and the cops would take forever to get to us if something happened. But then the cameras went up inside.”

“Did you think of leaving then?”

“I hate to admit this, but not at first. It was when the demands got higher and the diet control and everything like that got stricter that I tried to leave.”

“Tried.”

“Tried. I got about an hour into the woods before he found me.”

“What did he do?”

“Dragged me back.”

My mind flashed back to the bruises I’d had for weeks after.

Ben hadn’t been violent, per se. He didn’t beat me. But he grabbed. He pulled.

“It was then that I realized the anklet he’d gotten me as a gift had a tracker in it. And why he’d insisted on putting it on me.”

“Because if you had put it on, you’d have realized you couldn’t take it off.”

“Exactly.”

“Did he chain you or something after that?”

“No. But all the locks in the house changed after that. They wouldn’t open for anyone but him.”

Nave nodded, but his gaze slipped down to Edith.

“She came with another rule.”

“No running away when you take her outside.”

“He threatened to put her out if I tried. He, uh, had seen how hysterical I’d gotten watching one of the bunnies get killed and eaten by a fox. And we both knew that Edith wouldn’t stand a chance against a predator. And that I couldn’t get out to save her if something came.”

“He was a sadistic fuck.”

“Slowly, over time, I gained some more trust from Ben. He would let me take her for longer and longer walks, but I had to wear a tracker. I think, over time, he started to think I wanted to be there again.”

“But that was never the case.”

“God, no. All I could think about was trying to get free. But you were right. I was scared. Not of trying to find my own way. I’ve always managed that.

But… because of what I knew Ben was capable of.

I once saw him stalk a girl who’d rejected him in high school.

He followed her via the CCTV to and from work, to her kids’ extracurriculars, to the grocery store.

“And, even more terrifying, I saw him get into the devices inside her house. Her camera on her phone, her tablet, her laptop. Her doorbell camera and driveway security camera. Worst of all, the camera in her TV. Where he would watch her as she got undressed for bed. Where she would… be intimate with her husband.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah. I know you saw a bit of what he was capable of. But you have no idea how good he was at what he did. He could get into any camera he set his mind to. Random people, government agencies, you name it. I knew that, even if I got away, some camera somewhere would find me.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. It was eerie to watch him manipulate the CCTV footage, making people just straight-up disappear with no trace that he’d fucked with the footage. Crime literally disappeared before my eyes.”

“And I heard him talk about how easy your job was.” And what suckers the guys he worked for were, to pay as much as they did for such a simple job.

“I can imagine. But… You’re here.”

“I’m here,” I agreed, swallowing.

“How long ago did you get out of there?”

“Five days, just about. I headed right this way. But I got turned around a lot. I had to use maps. Well, I had to find maps first, then I had to use them. Which is not a skill I remember learning since GPS has been around as long as I have.”

“Especially hard with no co-pilot. Well,” he said, looking down at Edith, “No co-pilot who can read anyway.”

“Yeah. I think I had to pull over on the side of the road every few hours. If not more. It was not fun.”

But worth it.

“You came here for me?”

My belly flipped, worrying I’d overestimated how much he would be willing to help me.

“I… I had nowhere else to go.”

“I’m glad you came here. I just wasn’t sure if you happened to pass through, or if you came here for me.”

“I came here for you. I don’t know what else to do. Where to go. I have… nothing. I can’t stay anywhere.”

“Because you don’t have the money?”

“Well,” I said, snorting. “Yeah, that. But also… cameras. I mean, I planned this painstakingly for weeks. But… all the planning doesn’t make it any easier to live in your car and have no idea how to make a living that won’t put me on the grid somewhere.”

“Hey, look. We can figure that part out. You’re not gonna sleep in your car another night. You don’t need to worry about money.”

“I can’t ask—” Except, I had to, didn’t I? Even, best case, I found some sort of under-the-table job the next day, it would be a week before I got paid. And then what? And what happened in a couple months, when…

“Can I ask you something?” Nave asked, interrupting my swirling thoughts.

“Yeah.”

“Why now?”

I wasn’t even conscious of it.

But I knew it the second Nave’s gaze slid down that my hand had gone to my stomach.

“You’re pregnant.”

It shouldn’t have been possible.

It was against all odds.

And yet.

I sucked in a deep breath.

“Yes.”

I watched the surprise, the understanding.

But the emotion he settled on at the end was confusion.

“Babe, how ?”