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“No code word,” I laughed. “But I could use a ride to my new life, if someone was willing.”
There was a long pause before she spoke again. “Keys are in my hand and I’m heading to the door right now. Be there in three.”
I laughed again, miraculously. “Three? You live fifteen minutes away, Dani.”
“Yeah,” she sighed dramatically. “I’ve been hovering just in case you needed me.”
I smiled as I grabbed my bags and headed to the front door. “I’ll be outside waiting,” I told her before I opened the door and stepped onto the porch one last time.
It wasn’t bittersweet.
It was… a relief.
Two minutes later, Dani beeped as she pulled up to the curb and hopped out, waving excitedly to me. “Hey bride-to-be!”
I rolled my eyes even though I couldn’t help but smile at her. If not for her, I might’ve ended this miserable existence years ago.
She rushed up to the porch and grabbed the duffel bags. “Come on, let’s blow this pop stand, bitch!”
We loaded my stuff in the back of her vintage sky blue Blazer and left Rex’s house in the past where it belonged. I didn’t look back at my childhood home. I told myself that I wouldn’t look back, only forward. That was my past and held no bearing on my future.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said.
“Are you kiddin’ me? There was no way in hell I was letting you do this alone.” She shook her head, reaching out to grip my arm with her free hand. “This is big, Ivy. I know it’s not what you wanted, and definitely not how you wanted to get away from him, but you’re free. You. Are. Free.” She whooped a laugh I couldn’t match.
“I’m free of Rex, but not necessarily free.” That was the truth I’d been struggling with since he told me what my future would look like.
“Bullshit!” she spat. “Make it freedom.”
“How?” I asked, genuinely curious. “What if he’s just as bad, or worse, than Rex?”
“Then you call me with the code word, and we’ll hit the road and never look back. But what if this Knox dude doesn’t want a quiet little woman who does what she’s told? What if he wants the spitfire you hide out of survival?”
I sighed heavily, watching the deceptively sunny Colorado sky get brighter with every street we passed. “What if, huh?” It was hard to imagine there were men—or a man—out there who wanted a feisty woman with a loud mouth and opinions of her own. “That’s a fantasy.”
“Maybe, but fantasies become reality all the time. Remember that guy I told you about, Ty? He had a big dick and a magical tongue. Fantasy,” she held up one hand, “meet reality,” she held up the other and then smashed them together.
I stared at her for a long time before I burst out laughing. “You’re crazy and I love you for it.”
Her smile grew bright and her eyes were shiny. “You are free, baby! You spent twenty-six years in that house with that monster controlling every move you made. Boyfriends mysteriously gone,” she groaned.
“Job offers suddenly falling through,” I added, thinking of the photography apprenticeship I’d gotten before an anonymous reference said I was unreliable.
“The friends who vanished after one of Rex’s threats. Or the blood-covered bikers who showed up during sleepovers so you could stitch them up.”
“Yeah. All of that.” I hadn’t understood it all as it was happening but each passing year, every missed opportunity, every faded friendship had all become clear through the lens of hindsight. “He’d built a perfect prison for me before springing this trap on me.”
“Or…” she interrupted in a much louder voice than the car required, “it’s a trap he couldn’t have anticipated.”
I turned and frowned. “Explain.”
“Rex chose this man for strategic reasons, but otherwise he never would’ve approved of a man like Knox.”
“Wait, what do you know about him?”
“Very little,” she said around a smile. “He’s gorgeous in that badass, rugged biker way. He was born into the MC life, just like you but he’s only rough when he has to be. General consensus is that he’s a nice guy. Nice and quiet.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s the same as nothing.”
