Beyond Revenge (The Ransom Series) (16 page)

Her Understanding

∞

There is so much
to say,

feelings to share,

love to reemerge.

Happiness.

Yet the darkness
remains,

cold and endless.

Terrifying.

Secrets hidden
that must be told.

Exposed and
enlightened.

The world will
know.

She will
understand,

but can I ever be
forgiven?

∞

I watch the slight movement of Morgan’s
chest with each steady breath she takes as she sleeps soundly on her side.  My
hands and arms crave to hold her, my body wanting nothing more than to lie down
next to her and conform itself to the shape of her, but it will have to wait.

Robert sits in a chair in the corner of
the room watching his daughter with the same amount of admiration and disbelief
as I am.  We’re both quiet.  We’ve been sitting like this watching her for what
seems like hours even though it’s only been minutes since Cindy and Jack left
to pick up food from a nearby diner, and I could stay here like this for the
rest of my life.  To see Morgan safe and peaceful within an arm’s reach of me
is the most amazing thing.  It makes me feel complete.  It makes me never want
to leave her side again.

The sound of Robert clearing his throat
startles me.
 
“I have to ask you something, Leo.”

His words
instantly trigger
anxiety
within me.  Whatever he’s going to ask,
it’s
nothing
good.

When I reluctantly meet his gaze, he
continues with his question.  “What did Mark mean back at the cabin?”

“What are you talking about?”

Robert shifts his eyes around the room
uneasily before locking them back on mine.  “Just before we left.  He said you
killed his family.”

My entire body stiffens, but my face somehow
manages to remains even.  I look away from Robert and back to the person who
brings me absolute happiness and love, to the woman
who
saved
me and gave me
life.  I try to take
comfort from her presence before I reply.

I open my mouth to speak, but no words
come out.  My mind draws a blank for a moment before the memories start to scramble
in my brain at rapid speed.  Everything that happened with Morgan and Stella
all seems to come back to me at once, and I’m helpless to stop the subsequent
shattering of my heart when the memories remind me of the painful truth of what
I’ve done.

I caused all of this.

With a glance back up to Robert, I remain
breathless a moment before I finally let myself say it out loud.
 
“I’m responsible for their deaths.  What happened to Stella and
Elise
was all my fault.”  I’m
shocked at my own words, my overdue admission of guilt.  “And their deaths led
to all of this, to Mark taking out his revenge on you, and on her.”  I look
down at Morgan and run my fingers through her hair.  I desperately wish she
could take me up in her arms and give me comfort even though she’s the one who
needs support right now.

“How are you responsible for their
deaths?” Robert asks
doubtingly
.  “The truck that hit
Stella was driven by one of Mark’s rivals.  Elise’s death was suicide.  You
can’t hold yourself responsible for any of that.”

I wince at his words.  I’d give
anything for his statement of my innocence to be true.  “Elise killed herself
because she was at the kitchen window
just in
time to
watch her daughter die before she could call her in from the driveway.  Stella
died because I wasn’t there to protect her.  I was supposed to be there to pick
her up when she was waiting outside the house.  She knew better than to sneak away
from her mom and the guards to wait out
side
alone, but
she did it because I was always on time
and there for her
.  I never let her down until that day.”

“You cared about her,” Robert says,
completing my thought for me.

“I loved her.”  As the words blurt out
of me, I feel like I’ve let the gates
of my emotions
open
too much and now I’m letting honesty flood out of me
uncontrollably
.  “I loved her so damn much, but I knew I could never
be
with
her.  When Mark went to prison, the temptation to give
in and
act on my feelings
was too great.  I needed to
keep her as far away from Mark as possible, so I stayed close to Mark and his
operation while he was in prison and tried to push her out of my mind.  The
morning I was supposed to pick her up at the house, I was running late from a
one-night stand.  While I was off trying to forget about her, I wasn’t there to
protect her like I should have been, and she was killed as a result.  It was directly
my fault.”

“Leo.”

I look down toward the source of the
sound.  Morgan’s
bruised face
is tilted up toward me,
her eyes glassy with tears.  She turns her body slightly and reaches a hand up
to
my cheek
.  Even through the bandaging I feel the
warmth of her touch.  It gives me the comfort I need to not break down
completely at admitting my guilt out loud for the first time.

I take Morgan’s hand from my face and
hold it carefully in my
palm
, kissing her exposed fingers
with the light touch of my lips before
bringing
her
hand to my chest.  “I should have told you sooner.”

Morgan shakes her head.  “You weren’t
ready.  I understand, and I’m not upset.  I’m just so sorry you lost her.”

I can’t stop myself as I sneak my hands
behind her back and pull her into my arms and up against my chest.  I embrace
her tightly, closing my eyes and relishing in the love she gives back to me
with her touch
, and I whisper,
“I had to lose her to
find you
.
”

My own words crush me as I realize I
don’t know what I would have changed.  All I ever wanted was
to
protect Stella from her father, to give her a chance at a good
life that I knew I’d never have after my
parents were killed.  For years I took the brunt of Mark’s beatings and rage to
protect her, and in the end
,
the act of me distancing
myself and Mark from her got her killed.

If she hadn’t died, though, Mark may
not have sought out the revenge he did against Robert and his family.  He may
never have brought me and Morgan together as part of his grand scheme that
didn’t end the way he
hoped
.  Morgan and I may never
have met had Stella not been taken from the world that day.

I thought I couldn’t imagine life
without Stella, but I’ve lived it.  Now I can’t imagine life without Morgan,
and soon I won’t be able to imagine life without her and our baby.

“You’ll always have me.  You’ll have
us,” she whispers before pulling back from me.  As she creates more distance
between us, my hands move from her back to her sides.  She nudges both of my
arms with hers to encourage my hands toward her belly.

The white tank top she wears clings to
her skin
so
I can easily see the round bump in her
belly underneath it.  I splay my hands out over it and am overcome by the
warmth that swells within me at knowing that a piece of me is
possibly
growing inside her.

For years I’ve told myself I couldn’t
start a family
,
no matter how
much
I wanted one.  I could never have a child of my own
,
because Mark would find a way to take it from me, to feed my
bloodline back into his organization the way I was made to follow in my dad’s
footsteps as a key part of Mark’s crew.  I couldn’t let Mark’s destruction of
my family become an endless cycle.

As my hands rest within inches of my
potential
progeny, it becomes clear to me that I can finally let go of
that fear.  I have a family to love and protect now.  We can be together.  We
can grow and thrive in a world where Mark can’t hurt us anymore.

I don’t have to be afraid.  The cycle
is broken.

The sound of the door opening from the
other side of the room
startles me
.  I withdraw my
hands from Morgan’s belly as Cindy and Jack walk in with plastic bags in hand. 
Cindy’s eyes find mine, and her face fills with concern.

“Is everything okay?” she asks as she looks
between me and Morgan.

“We’re fine,” I reassure her, though
she
still
doesn’t seem convinced.

She quickly sets down the bags on the
other bed and walks over to her daughter, cupping the side
s
of Morgan’s face and leaning in to give her a kiss on her
forehead.  She turns to me and pulls me in for a hug
. 
I still can’t help the strange shock I feel at being shown this
kind of motherly affection.

For a moment it reminds me of how Elise
used to hold me, how she would grasp on to me and whisper her thanks in my ear
for protecting her daughter, but the moment passes and I’m gratefully brought
back to the present.

Cindy lets go of me and smiles briefly
before she starts digging in the bags she brought in, her hands moving with
speed
and
purpose.
 
“We have lots to
choose from: eggs,
bacon,
toast, pancakes.  What
sounds good?”

She glances back at Morgan, and I can
tell by the uneasy look on
Morgan’s
face that she’s
feeling a little overwhelmed by something that should be a simple question.

I place my hand on Morgan’s arm,
reminding her that I’m here for her.  “Are you up for eating?”

She looks between me and Cindy.  “I
don’t know.  I don’t have much of an appetite after… everything.”

“Toast,” Jack suggests.  “Her morning
sickness is better than it was, but let’s still start out with something
simple.”

Cindy nods and takes a piece of
buttered toast out from one of the to-go boxes and hands it on a paper plate to
Morgan
.  After Morgan hesitantly accepts it,
Cindy
looks to me.  “What would you like?”

I’m hungry and
know
I need to eat something, but I can’t stop watching Morgan approach
her piece of toast like it’s going to jump up from the plate and bite her.
 
“You guys go ahead and eat.  I need to focus on something
else for right now.”

With a knowing smile
,
Cindy turns her attention toward Robert and Jack. 
While
everyone else
is
distracted by Cindy and
the food she’s starting to plate, I take advantage of the opportunity to scoot
closer to Morgan on the bed and wrap my arm around her shoulder.  I can feel
the sigh she releases when I embrace her.  The tension seems to
slowly
work itself out of her body.

S
he finally starts to relax
and
brings the toast to her mouth
to take
a
small bite.  We both remain quiet as she nibbles away at the toast and I
gently
rub her
b
ack.  I love just being
here for her, doing nothing but providing her comfort with my presence and my
touch.  I always want to be with her in this way.

By the time she finishes the slice of
toast
,
Cindy is all over me about eating something.
 
“When was the last time you ate anything, Leo?  Don’t forget
you’re injured.  You need sustenance, too.”

She practically forces a paper plate of
eggs, bacon, and two pancakes on me, and I
finally give in and
accept it.  The first thing I do is offer a piece of bacon to
Morgan, who
gives
it a disgusted look as if I’m
offering her a slug to eat.

“It’s bacon.  What pregnant woman
doesn’t like bacon?” I say, trying to lighten the mood.

A tiny smile curves up her lips at my
joke.  She knows I’m right.  I can see it in her eyes even before she takes the
piece of bacon from me.

I grab my own piece and knock it
against hers as if making a toast before devouring it.  She takes a lot more
time in eating her piece, but she does eventually finish it.  She won’t try the
eggs, but she steals a piece of pancake from my
fork
and ends up finishing the rest of it for me.

Some of the spark is back in her eyes
by the time we’ve both cleaned the plate, and though she initially rejected the
orange
juice that Cindy tried to give her, she’s
sucking it down now.  I sip slowly on the cup of coffee that Cindy made for the
rest of us with the in-room coffee maker.

With my focus so centered on making
sure Morgan got something in her stomach, I’ve only just now caught on to Mark
and Jack’s quiet conversation on the other side of the room.

“Colorado?  I don’t know how she’d
react to being back in the mountains,” Robert says, looking to the floor in
front of him and rubbing his temple like he’s deep in thought.