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The Marine (Black Hawke Security #3) CHAPTER SIX 14%
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CHAPTER SIX

brIAR

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I stand by the kitchen counter and eat my salad. I’m too wound up to sit and eat.

There is no one I can talk to about this.

Mom.

But that’s not happening.

She was the one who started the screaming that day and I’ve never been unable to unhear it.

“It was him! It was that boy of yours! He killed him,” Mom screamed. “Aidan Black killed him.”

What did I know?

I was eighteen.

And he had punched him so hard that Dad had been unconscious for over a minute.

The next day, he was dead.

Trying to get it all straight in my head even now is difficult. Back then, I was nursing swollen windpipes and a bruised neck. Compliments of the man lying dead on the floor of our living room.

My dad.

I’d been dating Aidan for months. I thought he was the one. He was everything I’d ever dreamed a man could be. More, if I’m honest.

He was everything my father wasn’t. Protective, caring, attentive, loving. More importantly, he hadn’t hurt me or shown any evidence he would be like that.

Aidan’s southern manners had him opening every damn door he could find for me. He’d bring me flowers, take me out for dinner and to the movies, and...all of it.

My father hated him.

He gave no reason. He just said he didn’t trust him, and he was too old for me. It was sort of true. Aidan was twenty-three, and I was eighteen at the time. An enormous gap at that age.

But I didn’t agree.

I’d turned eighteen the day before I met Aidan, and he had never pressured me to do anything.

Sure, we had been frustrated, but he kept saying no, I want you to be sure. I wasn’t a virgin, and I kept telling him that, but he still said when we do this, I want you to know you are mine forever, Briar Sutton.

Be still my heart.

So, we’d walked through parks, spent hours at the beach where we’d swim and play volleyball. We’d stay out late and stare up at the stars.

We even shared our dreams.

“What do you want to do when you grow up?” Aidan asked, threading his fingers through mine.

Get away from my father.

That was the only dream I had. I spent most of my life thinking of ways not to trigger him so he didn’t hurt me or Mom.

People in happy and safe homes could never understand the mental space it constantly takes up. You don’t have the luxury of dreaming much.

In other words, it’s called survival mode.

But when I did dream, I imagined working in an office being a super organized personal assistant. I wanted to be married and have two children who ran to the door to greet their daddy when he came home.

I thought that man could be Aidan.

And he’d be tall, broad, and gorgeous in his uniform, kissing me as he scooped up the kids. Then late at night we’d make love quietly and he’d hold me in his arms as I fell asleep.

I didn’t tell him all of that, of course, but I was sure we were on the same page.

I never questioned whether he was loyal or how he felt. I could see it in his eyes.

One day we were taking a long romantic drive and ended up at Venice Beach. We got ice cream and walked along the sand, the wind making my hair slide through the chocolate. Aidan kept trying to save it and in the end, the scoop fell into the sand.

“Damn it.” Aidan had grunted, and I stopped dead in my tracks. An automatic reaction.

When he turned to me, I was expecting to see anger, instead he handed me his ice cream and said, “Here. We can share.”

I’m sure my eyes filled with tears that day, but he looped his arm around my shoulder after kicking sand over the discarded ice cream and pointed across the road.

“There,” Aidan said, and I spotted the random boutique looking hotel. “I want to take you there one day.”

Casa de Venice .

My heart blossomed.

Two weeks later, we spent a night in one of their beautiful rooms and made love for the first time. It was the most special night of my life.

After hours of the most amazing sex, we listened to the waves as we lay in each other arms, grinning stupidly at each other.

I don’t even know if it’s still there.

It’s one of my happiest memories.

I never told Aidan about my home life, and while I was an expert in covering up bruises and pain, I knew one day he would find out.

Dad had been getting angry less and less as I got older and, stupidly, I’d begun to believe it would stop.

I was wrong.

Months into my relationship with Aidan, Dad had been drinking a lot at dinner. I’d seen the signs starting: his raised voice at the TV, yelling at Mom for moving the coffee table—it wasn’t moved—and then I heard something being smashed in the room.

Familiar fear sliced through me, even from down the hall in my bedroom, and I quickly put on my shoes and grabbed my jacket. Leaving Mom with him always left me with guilt, but then again, she never stopped him from beating me. Not even when I was very little.

That night I reached the front door when Dad appeared in the doorway.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going, you little slut?” Dad had growled drunkenly.

“Nowhere. I was going to check I locked the car.” I had lied.

The risk of opening the front door was often worth it. But one that didn’t pay off that night. He ripped my hand off the door handle, and I screamed as my wrist snapped.

The piercing sound snapped him out of it enough to divert his attention to my mother, who came running. Both of us ended up in the ER that night.

Me with a broken wrist, her with a black eye.

We were both used to tag teaming our lies, and they just fell from our lips when asked.

Aidan had been harder to lie to.

I had to conjure up some story about sliding on the path outside and being clumsy. That was the first time I knew he suspected something.

His questions started.

Looking back, I guess neither he nor my father would ever have liked one another. Aidan always has had an innate need to protect me. My father, the polar opposite.

Eventually it all came to a head.

My phone rings, startling me. Dropping my salad, I slide the screen and answer, “Hey.”

Crunch, crunch.

“Jesus Briar. Are you eating?” Kael growls and my stomach lurches.

Hello, fear, my familiar friend.

“No. Well, yes. I didn’t have lunch,” I say, swallowing.

“We’re going for damn dinner, Briar.” He growls and I flinch.

Which is exactly why I was eating. He regularly commented on my weight, and I had missed lunch— mostly because I couldn’t eat after being with Aidan today—and knew I couldn’t order anything substantial in front of my husband. So I was filling up before we went out on date number one.

“It was a cracker. That’s all,” I reply.

Another lie.

“I’m downstairs.” Kael tells me and I can hear the anger in his voice.

Shit.

This isn’t a good start.

“I told you I’d meet you there.” My eyes widen at the awareness I’ll have to be with him in a car by myself.

“You’re my fucking wife. I’m not letting you drive yourself to our date.” Kael grunts. “Get downstairs. You need to give me a key.”

No, I damn well don’t.

I tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes, then hang up before he can reply.

This is not good.

I don’t feel safe being with him on my own the entire night. At the restaurant, it would have been fine, and then I was going to Uber home.

I dial my attorney.

“Hey, everything okay?” Vanessa answers.

“Kael is here to pick me up,” I say quickly because I don’t have much time.

“I thought you were meeting him there.”

I nod, even though she can’t see me as I slip into my heels.

“This is what he does.” I grab my purse. “I need an escape. I cannot let him drive me home. He’ll force his way inside, and that’s not safe.”

She’s silent for a moment.

If I ask Savannah, I’ll have to explain. She knows I’m separated from my husband but not divorced. I told her we might be working things out.

Not that I don’t trust her.

But she’s a very busy woman who sometimes forgets things, and if she said something around Kael that triggered him...well, I just need to get through these three dates and get a divorce.

Without ending up in the hospital one more time.

I also could’ve rung Alice or Trina, but my heart is thumping, and I can’t think straight enough to come up with some clever plan.

“I’ll ring you in an hour from a different number. Answer and follow my lead,” Vanessa says, going above and beyond for a lawyer.

She’s been amazing, even if she does think I should take a different path. Like filing charges and not giving him the apartment.

“Okay.” I push the elevator button after closing the door behind me. “Okay.”

“You know you don’t have to do this, right?” she says. “We can get you a restraining order.”

I chew on my bottom lip.

The thing is, I’ve seen enough people with restraining orders who ended up in the hospital or the morgue.

No thanks.

Recently I’ve begun to really fear Kael, and so I’m trusting my instincts on this. Unless you’ve lived with a violent man, you cannot understand how important it is not to provoke them.

A restraining order is just that. One that can be ignored.

What I need is a bodyguard, like Savannah has...and even then I wouldn’t trust Kael not to lose his damn mind, even if I could even afford one.

Vanessa understands this as a lawyer, but not as an abuse victim.

“I know. Thank you for helping me,” I reply softly.

“Hey, you’re paying me.” She laughs, but I know she also cares. Half the time she doesn’t charge me for the hours she puts in.

I hang up and pull myself together.

When I walk out of the building, Kael turns and walks to me, pulling me into his arms with total dominance.

“Baby.”

I close my eyes and force back my tears.

Please, God, let me get home safe and unharmed.

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