I waited and listened to silence.
Then I sucked in breath and went to the door. I had my hand on the light switch when I opened it but I stopped dead because Hawk was in the hall. He was wearing nothing but his cargoes, his ass was to the wall, his legs slightly out in front of him, his head bent, he was contemplating his feet.
Shit. He didn’t go.
He kept his head bent but twisted his neck and his eyes came to me.
“You need to go,” I announced, flipping off the switch and entering the hall.
Then I found my back to the wall and I was pinned there with Hawk’s body. One of his hands was at my neck, thumb in my jaw to force me to look up at him, the other one was at my hip. Mine went to his waist and I pushed, to no avail.
“You need to go,” I repeated.
“I was in the middle of an operation, an important one, they needed me. So when my wife and daughter died, they couldn’t tell me, they needed me focused. They were dead two days before I knew I’d lost them.”
Oh God.
“I don’t want to hear this,” I told him. “I have no interest in this,” I went on but I said this in an effort not to convince him but to convince myself.
Hawk ignored me. “I was thousands of miles away. Thousands of miles away when I lost my family, Gwen.”
“You need to go,” I said again with another push of my hands.
“I loved her,” he announced and I stopped pushing.
“Hawk, really, I don’t –”
“But I was f**kin’ pissed at her. Jesus Christ, so f**kin’ pissed. How f**kin’ stupid could she be? Not only goin’ there herself but taking our daughter?”
I closed my eyes and turned my head away.
“You should talk to someone about this,” I said, looked back at him and suggested, “Elvira. She’s a good listener.”
He ignored me again. “I was at base when Lucas, Darla and their crew entered your house. I was in the surveillance room and one of my boys whistled to me and I looked at the screens. I called the order to mobilize on your house, got my shit sorted and started to go myself but before I reached the door, I saw Lucas carrying you out over his shoulder. You weren’t moving.”
“Lucas?”
“Brock Lucas, you know him as Skull.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
“You weren’t movin’, Gwen.”
“They’d stun gunned me,” I told him.
“I didn’t know that,” he told me. “All I knew was that 911 had received a call from one of your neighbors, shots fired at your house and you were carried out not moving. That’s all I knew.”
“They’d stun gunned me, Hawk,” I repeated.
“I didn’t know that, Gwen,” he repeated back and continued. “I was in the car when the call came in that Brett was down, three to the chest. I knew the players. I could see the play. They took your body as proof of death, the beginning, you first, then your stepmom or your Dad. They’d go through all of you and Ginger would need to step up to stop that happening.”
“It didn’t happen that way,” I informed him of what he already knew.
“Yeah, but for two hours, I didn’t know the state of you. Lee got a lock on your location, we went in and I had no idea what I’d face when I walked into that room.”
“I was fine,” I lied.
“You were bound and gagged, Gwen.”
“Yes,” I returned, “but otherwise fine.”
He kept going. “Days earlier you were caught in a drive-by. Your car at the curb, your purse on the couch and you were gone. For f**kin’ hours, babe. The only thing I had to hold onto, seein’ as another woman of mine had been caught in a drive-by, was that no blood was at the scene and my boys saw Tack drag you out. Camera angles weren’t good so we couldn’t see for sure you’d not been hit but at least you were standing.”
Shit, that hadn’t occurred to me. Why hadn’t that occurred to me?
“I was fine then too,” I reminded him.
He pressed in deeper. “Yeah, Gwen, but I… didn’t… know that.”
All right. I had to give him that.
Still.
“You’re telling me all this because…?” I prompted.
His hand left my hip and went to cup the other side of my jaw as he said, “Jesus, Gwen, I’m tellin’ you this so you’ll know where my head was at.”
“Okay, now I know. Thanks for story time, Hawk, now are you going to go?”
His hands tightened and he whispered, “Don’t do that, babe.”
“Do what? Be an unfeeling bitch in the face of your pain? Sorry, is that not okay? Because, see, the day I was kidnapped and a man was shot protecting me, after a week of dealing with a bunch of really bad shit at the same time you came at me and got me to trust you, you ripped me to shreds Hawk. Firm and unwavering. You tore right through me, leaving me in tatters and you didn’t even f**king blink.”
“And now you know where my head was at and why I did that shit.”
“No, now I know that you saw Tack playing with your f**k toy and you don’t feel like sharing.”
His body froze and his fingers flexed. I could feel his fury but I didn’t care. I wasn’t done. The hurt he inflicted went too deep and I had to protect myself at all costs.
“That’s okay, baby,” I whispered. “There’s plenty of me to go around. But, rules are, you come, you make me come and then you go.”
He didn’t move and I felt his anger beating against me as he held me pinned against the wall. Then suddenly his body relaxed, the anger vanished and his thumbs swept my jaws.
“I cut you,” he murmured.
“Nothing a little cookie dough can’t cure,” I returned.
“Bullshit, Sweet Pea.”
It was then my body went still.
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.
He ignored me again. “We were us for a week, a f**kin’ week, and I cut you deep.”
“God!” I exclaimed pushing against his waist again. “Are you ever going to go?”
He surprised me by moving back. Then he surprised me again by bending and putting a shoulder in my belly and then I was lifted up.
“Hawk!” I cried, pushing against his h*ps and kicking with my feet as he walked me into my room. “Put me down!” I demanded.
He did. He bent, bumped his shoulder, I flew through the air and landed on my back with a bounce on my bed.