Page 91 of Stag

“Hurt her again, Marissa, and they’ll never find your body,” I warned, in a dark enough tone that her eyes widened, and Danno smirked.

“I… I won’t. Claudia, I’m sorry. I… I did awful things in the name of love, or so I thought,” she glanced over her shoulder at Danno, and he nodded at her to continue. “I love you, sis. I didn’t mean to fuck up so much. I’m gonna get help. I… I need help.” Again she looked at Danno for approval or courage, or whatever the fuck he was doing to cause this.

“I’ll stay away. I’ll get help. Maybe one day we can be sisters again.”

Danno squeezed her shoulder, and she fell silent. How the fuck was he doing that?

“Anything you want to say, Claudia?” She must have been watching him too, because she nodded slowly.

“I… I agree you need help, Mar. I can’t be near you again until I know you won’t hurt me or try to hurt Stag again. He’s my other half now. My soulmate.”

Marissa’s face crumpled and she began to sob as Danno led her away. Fuck me. That was harsh, but it needed to be said. For Marissa, but also for me. She just said I’m her soulmate. Fucking right I am, and I will never hurt her, not even a tiny bit. Somehow, bizarrely, I’m better for this woman than her own sister. I’m her best choice.

Claudia

Once Jeffrey gave me the go ahead, the man who’d been with Marissa drove us home. He was one of the men who worked for the criminals Stag also worked for. I didn’t understand how there had been several of their people there to help us. Was this how crime lords ran their businesses? Or had we found good guys among the bad guys? Were the bad guys good, and the good guys bad? Marissa had proved to me that I could be so wrong about who to trust. I was certain of Stag though. He’d literally stepped in front of a speeding car to try and save me. He’d risked his life for me. He truly was the other half of me, not her, but him. The one who chose me, rather than being saddled with me.

A light tap on my wrist pulled me from my morose thoughts. I was curled up on the bed we’d been using at Henley’s house, a thick fleece tucked around me, which felt like a cloud of safety and comfort. Stag was crouching by the bed, his worried eyes fixed on mine.

“Talk to me, babe. You can yell, cry, scream, hell, you can hit me if it helps, just please don’t internalise all this. You need to say the things you needed to say then. You need to get them out.”

I cleared my throat, letting him help me move up to sit against the headboard, that thick blanket still tucked around me. He pulled it up to my neck and tucked it around my shoulders with a small grin.

“Wrapped in a little cocoon, so cute,” he said as he climbed up on the bed to face me, one knee tucked out to balance him.

“Talk to me, babe. I brought cuppas.” He pointed to two steaming mugs on the bedside cabinet and smiled when I looked back at him.

“Thank you. I think I’m still processing. My thoughts aren’t fully formed yet.”

“That’s okay. I’m not only here for fully formed thoughts, babe. You can babble at me like a weirdo if you want.”

He thought he didn’t get these things right, but here was the proof that when it counted, his words were always the right ones.

“I’m still remembering how it felt to be trapped with her, thinking I was going to die. I think… I might have nightmares about that. Even without sound, it was the most terrifying experience of my life. And when she aimed that car at you…” I trailed off as my words became sobs instead. She tried to kill all three of us, but the fact that she went for him was more painful than the way she risked me, or herself. She nearly took him away from me.

Stag kept kissing the top of my head as he rubbed my shoulder, edging closer to try and hug me.

“I thought she was going to kill you. That’s why I grabbed the steering wheel.”

He nodded. “I knew it might be a dumb thing to do, getting up in front of her, but I was out of options. I couldn’t even drive myself there, I felt so helpless. Fucking useless more like.”

He dragged a hand over his face, and that’s when I realised he had tears in his own eyes.

“I finally found you, Claudia, the woman I’m meant to be with, the woman I was fucking made for, and she tried to take you from me. If you’d… if I’d failed, I wanted to die too.”

I scrambled across the inches separating us and threw myself into his arms, that sense of security and comfort restored as his arms folded tightly around me.

I couldn’t hear if he spoke, so I hoped I wasn’t speaking over him, but I kept telling him the same thing over and over again.

“I love you, you’re my soulmate.” Over and over. I wanted him to hear it, feel it, and let it echo around inside him until he accepted it, until he believed it. Until it was as much a part of him as it was me.

Later that evening, I saw Stag’s head lift as we curled up in front of the TV, a blanket around me, and a hot chocolate in my hands. He looked towards the front door, and I realised someone had come into the house. As he got up and turned to greet them, I wriggled around in my seat to see who it was.

Henley and Glory were both standing there eyeing us warily, like it wasn’t their own home, even though we were the interlopers.

“Hi, welcome home!”

Stag approached Henley, and I saw him saying the word ‘sorry’ to my man as he headed his way, but I missed the rest as Stag dragged him into a bro hug, and then backed up to wave at Glory. She was already heading my way though, and sat beside me, lifting her hands to sign at me.