Page 23 of Stockholm (Angel of Mercy #1)

The Kept

S leep refuses to find me tonight. No matter how still I lie, my mind races at lightspeed around the events of the day.

How could this happen? Everything I’ve known has flipped on its head in a matter of days.

The only person in the world I would put my entire life and faith into was a liar .

He tricked me for years . Knowing how badly I wanted our family together, how much time and emotion I had involved and invested in us having a baby.

I squeeze my eyes shut against another fresh tidal wave of sorrow, the child I had daydreamed for that I would never have. Even just a few hours ago I had thought it was still a possibility. Now it’s over. Gone for good.

It doesn’t make sense. And yet, I know it’s true. That’s our doctor’s name, his office address. His signature on the medical files. The dates for the procedure line up with when he had lied about getting an injury, pulling a muscle. He lied to me for so long.

How embarrassing my last phone call to him is now that I know. Humiliation floods me for pushing Eric to go with me to a doctor. He had sat in his hotel bed, looking ragged and hungover, telling me to give it another six months.

Another six months for what? Had he just planned on waiting and waiting until the likelihood of me having a healthy pregnancy had passed?

I can’t reconcile the man I thought I knew with this new image of Eric.

They shouldn’t fit together, but when I look at all the evidence, I’m forced to see that they do .

Nothing makes sense. My life is scrambled. And to top it off, my captor, who could have laughed in my face when delivering the news, did so without any joy. Like he actually felt for me.

How embarrassing. Proven wrong about the man I’d defended by the very people who intend to destroy him.

I blink back another round of tears. I’m tired of crying. Underneath everything, I can’t stand that I’m here because of a man that’s betrayed me so deeply. It was easier to defend him with my whole heart when he was my knight in shining armor.

Now? It just feels like a waste.

I wish Noah would come back. I’m so totally distracted by his presence that I don’t feel all of the other sharp things so clearly.

Noah.

I think about that first time he walked into the bank, and how my words had melted away as I took in the sight of him. I’d been speechless. His tall, lethal body, messy black hair, and those whiskey eyes that made me drunk enough to fly straight into the web of a spider.

He had wanted me. I knew it immediately. He had wanted me, and I was okay with it.

The guilt had been heavy every single morning that I’d woken up from another dream of Noah with his hands on my skin, gripping, bruising. Touching me in ways that Eric had never done.

I remember how guilty I’d felt after running into him with Bo at the bar, that I’d actually called Eric to confess. The irony almost makes me laugh.

Maybe lying to me about this operation felt like nothing to him. A harmless white lie. As I killed myself, twisting my every thought into how to make my dream of becoming a mother a reality. Maybe it just didn’t register to him how much it meant to me.

But to me , it’s like a bomb has gone off. I can’t even think of Eric without the damage glaring back at me.

Noah on the other hand—despite his anger, his disrespect—everything he says rings with honesty.

Which makes no sense, because he’s deceived me too.

Yet, somehow, it feels different. The way he speaks to me makes me trust his words.

He’s got a goal, taking down Eric. And though I don’t know what the reason is, I do believe that it’s great enough to justify what’s happening.

How scary that I can believe there’s a monster inside the man I’ve been living with for five years. How completely disorienting it is, to start wondering what other things my husband has done, what kind of person he’s been when I wasn’t able to see it.

I wish Noah would come back. Even his biting anger and sharp insults would feel better than sitting alone with this information.

I wrap the awful fleece blanket as tightly as I can around myself and try to force my eyes shut, to force sleep into taking me.

In my dreams, I’m touched by a version of Noah that burns with the need to have his hands on me again.

My eyes flash open when I register that the repetitive click is part of reality rather than my Dreamworld.

Gasping, I surge upwards when I catch sight of the man in my room.

The chair’s in the corner, Jesse’s tall, lithe body stretched out with his legs kicked up on the edge of my dresser.

Jeans and a white t-shirt grace his body like he’s a model, thick chains around his neck that match the lip ring and line of studs and tiny hoops in his ears.

A double hoop nose piercing emphasizes the angular features of his face, and he looks camera ready without any effort.

“Awake, finally,” he says, flicking his lighter on and off. The sound that had drawn me from sleep.

“What do you want,” I ask breathlessly. I don’t know this one. I want Noah. Even after such a short time I can tell he seems to reign in the dangerous energy that rolls off Jesse. My eyes dart around the ceiling for a camera.

“I think it’s time we had a chat. Can’t let Noah keep you hidden away forever, can I?” His white teeth glint when he smirks at me, somehow looking playful and dangerous at the same time.

“What do you want to talk about,” I ask, scooting back subtly so that my back’s against the headboard.

“Bo.” The word falls from his mouth, and suddenly the playfulness is gone.

“Bo? What’s wrong? Is he okay?” No, please don’t let anything happen to Bo. He’s innocent. He shouldn’t even be in this situation.

“Believe me, he’s being very well taken care of.” Jesse glares at me and again I wrack my brain for a reason why he seems so angry with me.

“Can I see him? Please, he’s my best friend,” I say, trying to keep my words soft so as not to anger him.

“To be perfectly clear, your access to Bo goes completely through me. As of right now, you can fuck completely off. Bo is mine. I won’t let anyone near him without proving to me first that they can be trusted.”

My eyes narrow. “I’d never hurt Bo. He’s my best friend, like family. Let me remind you that it was you who stole us both, and shoved us into this house. With no answers, no nothing. I’m not sure why I should trust you— believe you —when you say you mean well with him at all.”

The anger flares from nowhere, but it feels good. It’s refreshing to say what I feel. Instead of constant restraint, of minding manners and feelings, I can pass on my hurt to someone else if they deserve it.

And they deserve it, I think.

He laughs, his feet kicking down from the dresser so that he leans forward, arms on his knees as he looks at me. “It’s hard to trust a bitch with the kind of company you keep. Tell me, what do you know about things with Bo and Eric?”

His head tilts as he asks, and it catches me off guard. This is the very last question I thought he would ask .

“Eric?” I wrack my brain, trying to imagine what could be meant by that.

“Eric’s his cousin, his older cousin. They were always close, even before I married him.

He’s the one who gave Bo the job at the bank when their family disowned him.

After he came out as bi,” I say, then worry about sharing this information.

Has Bo told them any of this? Jesse’s accusing us like we’ve done something to hurt Bo.

“Eric always was there for Bo, when he had to restart his life and everything. Bo means the world to me.”

Jesse’s eyes are sharp on mine, searching for the hint of a lie. How strange, to defend myself for caring about Bo against the man who had essentially stalked him before literally kidnapping us.

After a moment, Jesse must be satisfied with what he sees in me, because he sits back, running his tattooed hand through his green hair. Silver rings glint on most of his fingers.

He’s actually quite beautiful, if you can get past the chaotic, dangerous energy that rolls off him.

“Let’s say I believe you. Bo asks about you a lot. He wants to see you.” My eyes light up at the thought of some kind of normalcy being allowed to me. “I had to make sure you were safe first. You understand.”

I don’t, not at all. “Does that go both ways? From where I sit, it’s you and Noah that he needs protecting from. Considering, you know, you’re criminals . That you lied to Bo to get him to hook up with you.”

His eyes flash, and in a moment, he’s in front of me, one leg kneeling on the bed to get his hand around my throat. My head bangs off the headboard and a terrified squeak comes from my mouth.

He’s so close that my eyes are wide, taking in details I hadn’t before. Blonde roots peek through the hair dye, his eyes a disconcerting color of the sea. A sort of green-blue mess that might shipwreck you with their intensity.

Jesse looks down at me with barely contained fury, and his thumb rubs up the column of my neck to press down right under my chin, immediately making it hard to catch my breath .

“Let me make one thing very fucking clear to you,” Jesse says in a hushed tone, his breath brushing against my ear. “Bo’s my concern now. Got it?”

I look up at him, saying nothing. He looks so unbalanced, like any movement on my end could touch the tripwire to make him detonate. “He’s my friend,” I say quietly.

He huffs a laugh under my jawline and there’s a twist in my stomach. A twist that doesn’t feel awful .

The tiniest inhale from me causes him to freeze and pull back slightly. His eyes are on me again as that intoxicating smirk lights his face. I swallow as he looks down at me, crawling further over my body so that I’m pressed down into the pillow, trying to keep space between us.