She paused to clear her throat, years of resentment toward her parents bubbling up from deep inside her and spilling from her mouth. But as difficult as it was to finally reveal the truth about her past, it was equally as freeing. Because if she continued to keep it a secret from Logan, he would never really know her. And she wanted that. She wanted that more than anything.
Logan brushed his fingers up and down her arm. The gentle strokes on her skin soothed her, encouraging her to continue.
“When I was sixteen,” she said quietly, “I discovered my friend Leah was being physically abused by her father. She had bruises all over her body. At first she denied it, making those excuses you hear about falling down the stairs, but I didn’t believe her. I mean, I could see the fingerprints on her arms. As the daughter of our church’s religious leader, I felt it was my duty to tell him. She was so scared. I can still picture her shaking and sobbing in my arms in the girls’ bathroom at our school. I went home that night and sat with my father in his office, telling him all the horrible things I’d learned about what went on in Leah’s house. I was sure he’d call the police. Instead, he scheduled some counseling sessions with her father.”
He resumed holding her hand and squeezed it. “It wasn’t enough to stop him, was it?”
She sighed. “No. It was the first time I saw my father as fallible. Not only did the abuse not stop, it got worse. Leah wasn’t allowed to speak with me anymore, and she no longer changed her clothes in front of me, but I saw the stiff way she moved and the way she’d wince when anyone touched her. I begged my father to call the police, but he refused. It was a ‘community problem.’ So for the first time in my life, I broke one of my father’s rules. I called the police myself and reported the abuse.”
It had torn her up inside to go against her father’s wishes, but she was sure he’d forgive her.
“Did it help?” Logan asked.
She shook her head, remembering. “Leah lied to them and said she’d fallen down the stairs. Her father stormed over to my house, sure my father had called the cops on him. Instead of being proud of me for standing up for the weak and defenseless, my father apologized to the abuser and grounded me for breaking the rules. I realized at that time I couldn’t stay in a community that was more worried about showing skin than the bruises hidden underneath the clothing. In my senior year of high school, I secretly applied to state colleges and got loans to afford it. I left for college the day after I graduated high school.”
The two years between the incident and leaving for college were the longest of her life. In some ways she wanted to savor each moment spent with her family, knowing her time with them was limited. In others, the inability to speak her mind or act on her beliefs caused her to resent her parents.
She loved them. She missed them. But she’d never become them.
Logan kissed the center of her palm. “What happened to Leah?”
“I’d been expected to marry the son of my parents’ best friends.” The boy whom she’d given her virginity to a month before she left for college. “It wasn’t an arranged marriage per se, but if I’d stayed in the community, I have no doubt I would’ve married him to please my father. Jacob was a good man. Before I moved away, I encouraged him to take care of Leah. They were married a few months later, and they now have five kids.”
She needed him to understand what drove her. “When I left my parents’ house, I swore I’d never be powerless again.”
He drew her in for a kiss, his warm lips lingering as they breathed into one another.
She’d do just about anything to hold on to what she and Logan were building together. He was nothing like her father, and yet doubt lingered. Logan was a Dom. Didn’t that mean he expected his partner to be submissive? Just because Rachel allowed him to take charge during sex didn’t mean she’d take that role outside the bedroom.
She hadn’t lied when she swore she’d never be powerless again.
Even if it meant losing Logan.
“The store carried clothes, so I got you a pair of University of Miami shorts and T-shirt. I bought us some toiletries. I don’t know about you, but I could use a shower.”
A shower sounded heavenly, especially if Logan would be joining her. But right now, she needed food more than anything.
Logan turned up the television volume, and they listened to the news as they ate their sandwiches and washed them down with ice-cold bottled water.
The reporter segued into the chaos that had erupted on Capitol Hill within the past two days. Senator Hutton, the chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, had successfully filibustered Senator Byron’s bill to cut the budget of Homeland Security, taking the Senate floor for a record eighteen hours. As a result, he delayed the vote until the Senate reconvened from a two-week nonlegislative period, giving him time to launch a campaign to sway public opinion and swing the Senate votes in his favor. A panel of political analysts debated whether Senator Hutton was paranoid or justified in believing that a bioterrorism attack was imminent.
The report cut to a part of Senator Hutton’s speech.
“No one thought Ebola would ever make it to our homeland, and yet recent events have proven otherwise. Our country was caught unprepared, and now, more than a year later, we’ve done nothing to address the issue. Imagine what would happen if a virus worse than Ebola crossed into our borders. Now is not the time to decrease the Homeland Security budget, not when terrorists all over the world are plotting attacks on the United States. Do we really believe we can keep our people safe from the greatest threat to our national safety? Bioterrorism isn’t a possibility. It’s a reality. With the amount of power and money these terrorist groups are accumulating, how long before they get their hands on a biological weapon and release it in our country? Viruses including Ebola, but also Marburg, dengue fever, smallpox, and malaria. Or possibly even the obscure Leopold virus, an airborne pathogen originating in what was formerly known as Leopoldville, Congo. This virus is similar to Ebola, but far deadlier . . . and airborne. According to the research performed by the Centers for Disease Control, this virus has the potential to wipe out the entire United States population within days of initial infection.”
Rachel froze. Did he just say Leopold? She elbowed Logan in the gut. “Did you hear him say Leopold, or am I going crazy?”
Pale, he shook his head. “You’re not going crazy.”
At the end of the short news clip, the anchor added that Senator Hutton would be speaking to some of the wealthiest businessmen in the country during an upcoming appearance at the Tuscany Hotel in Las Vegas, in an attempt to sway influential public opinion and to prevent Senator Byron’s bill from passing in the Senate.
She didn’t know much about viruses, but she didn’t have to in order to know that the Leopold virus would spread easily in a crowded place like a resort casino. “Could Fink and Evans be transporting the virus in the gas canister?” she asked Logan, a chill running down her spine.
Swearing loudly, Logan whipped out his phone and dialed. He put it up to his ear, his jaw tight and his eyes worried. “Looks like we’re going to Vegas.”
Chapter Fourteen
“SO ARE YOU going to tell me who the hell this friend is who is flying us up to Vegas?” she asked as they parked the truck across the street from a house with its own runway. Seriously, even the president didn’t have his own runway at the White House. And she’d thought Cole DeMarco, the owner of Benediction, was filthy rich.