Release Me (New Haven Series #3)

by J.L. Seegars

For the hard hearts in search of a tender love. May it find you in time.

“The scar meant that I was stronger than what had tried to hurt me.” JEANNETTE WALLS

God stopped answering my prayers years ago. It took me too long to notice it—the way every hopeful utterance was met with silent indifference from an empty sky mocking me for daring to look up, for thinking there was anything waiting for me in the clouds besides raindrops that fell for the sole purpose of washing away my tears, invalidating their existence, and disappearing my pain. But once I noticed, I stopped praying altogether.

I don’t know what that’s like. Wanting life. Craving survival.

We take the curve, and the car spins out. He presses the brake and curses. Wild blue eyes with blown pupils swing in my direction, begging me for something. Reassurance. Direction. I don’t know. Whatever it is he wants, I can’t give because I’m preoccupied with the foreign flavor of hope on my tongue.

Fierce. Desperate. Final. “God, please just let me die.”

“Don’t be sorry, be attentive.”

Somewhere in the depths of my mind I find myself appreciating the subtle notes of what I’m sure is an expensive cologne. Only men with more money than morals spend thousands of dollars on scents you can barely smell.

“Alert. Awake. Watchful. Observant. Perceptive. Vigilant. Focused.” He

“Be any of those things, but don’t be sorry. I have no use for apologies.”

“You have no—” I can’t even bring myself to repeat his obnoxious words, and his lips quirk at my hesitance. “Who talks like that? Never mind, I have to go. Once again, sorry for bumping into you.”

Horror splashes across my features in that way it tends to do when you refuse to truly accept its presence. In repeated splatters, in rude and intrusive increments you tell yourself mean nothing until the splatters turn into torrents and you have no choice but to accept that you’re no longer looking at the rain because you’re in the middle of the storm.

Trying to get a job as a waitress when all I am, all I have been since the day of my college graduation, is what the monster I’m running from made me.

Even more surprising is the way my brain has chosen to hold on to it. To her wide, soulful eyes with sadness shuddered behind the puddles of whiskey that are her irises. To the way her lip curled with disdain when she called my future customers rich assholes and, in the same breath and with no additional words, suggested I was one of them.

“Because you’re a desperate bitch with no friends, no money and nothing to lose.”

“When you were working, you probably got it all the time. You probably still get it. The mix of annoyance and disapproval. The confusion and anger aimed at your audacity to exist. To be sensual and open on top of being beautiful and smart.”

She doesn’t know. Not really. Because she’s not standing in the dark, desolate representation of my need, of my despair. She doesn’t know the first night I slept in here, I did so without knowing that the door wasn’t fully latched because no one told me the series of secret movements necessary to secure it. She doesn’t know there’s mold in the bathroom that refuses to come out no matter how many times I bleach it. She doesn’t know I walk home every night and expect to find Beau waiting inside my room, allowed in by the greedy owner who would happily sell me out if someone offered him enough cash. Desiree doesn’t know, she can’t, but somehow she does, and I find peace in the sadness of our shared understanding. When we met, she told me she’d been desperate before and that the place she worked had changed everything. I thought my change would come in the form of a minimum wage job, but today I’ve accepted that it won’t. And that knowledge, that acceptance is enough to make me reconsider everything. I swallow, and the question working its way up my throat might as well be a sledgehammer in my hand because I’m about to use it to knock all the boundaries I’ve drawn around my new life down. “How much?”

No, the problem is almost six feet tall wrapped in an intoxicating combination of a black, leather midi dress and ebony skin that shimmers with specks of gold that must have been in whatever lotion or serum she applied to her skin to make it shine under the warm lights of the club. The problem smells like bergamot and amber. The problem is bent over the edge of the bar with bone straight lines of midnight silk trailing down her back, caressing her skin every time she moves her head.

Want. It’s still such a foreign concept for me. Wanting something. Being able to have it.

She looks like she’s learned that lesson a thousand times over. God, her eyes are so fucking sad now that there’s no fire behind them. She’s still gripping the hem of her dress, and I note the presence of a long, jagged scar on the inside of her thigh as I step into her space. Tears crowd her eyes, but she blinks them away, maintaining eye contact.

“You demonstrated the ability to think on your feet in a high stress situation. That’s something that can’t be taught, and I need someone with that skill running things on the rooftop.”

The tears have gone, so there’s nothing to accompany the sobs wracking my body. My despair is the only sound in the room until the door creaks open, followed by his heavy footfalls as he walks over to the nightstand. He shoves my diploma to the side to make room for the glass vase full of freshly bloomed white lilies. His hands are pale and smooth, indicative of the soft life he’s led courtesy of the money my parents left for me that, only days ago, I learned he and his father blew through the last of a few months ago. Up until yesterday, those hands had never posed a threat to me. They’d only ever been kind, maybe sometimes a little too familiar, but they’d never been violent. He’d never been violent. Not until I threatened to go to the police and report him and his father for drugging me at the dinner they insisted on having to celebrate my college graduation and selling me to a stranger who raped and abused me for days on end. When I made that threat, I’d unleashed a monster, and now that he’s been set free, Beau refuses to pull back his fangs. The mattress sags under his weight as he settles on the bed beside me. His hand is on my thigh. The metal on the gold signet ring he always wears is cold

against my skin, but I don’t flinch. I’m too weak to move or fight, too scared to push him away, so I just stare at the flowers and cry without shedding a tear. “You like the flowers?” he asks, fingertips tracing over the bruise he left when he kicked me in the back. “They were my mom’s favorite.” “I know that, Beau.”

“Your mom insisted,” I spit the words out, forcing them past the scream lodged in my throat. “She wanted to ask my dad for a loan because your father’s gambling habit had eaten through their savings and was about to cost them the house.”

“Don’t fight. You can’t win.” He’s right. I can’t win on my own. In a desperate, hail Mary attempt, I try to wheeze out his father’s name. Roland didn’t stop him from beating me yesterday, but maybe today he’s in a different place. Maybe today, he’ll draw the line at murder.

“I’m glad you like them. They’re supposed

to symbolize rebirth, so I thought it was fitting for your new beginning.”

Zoe’s smile is the smile that belongs to a person who knows what it means to be safe, to be protected, to be loved. Nadia’s smiles are few and far between, and they never look quite right. Joy is a stranger to her features.

Talia and myself. I don’t know where the words came from, but they feel right. They perfectly encompass the way Nadia’s presence in New Haven has interrupted my existence. She walked into my life and cracked open my reality, upsetting the delicate balance of control and predictability I’ve thrived in for so long. Now, I’m just like Talia’s sentence: fractured. Waiting. Wanting.

Wondering about how we could fit together. Not physically—because I have no doubts about the way her long legs would wrap around my waist or the perfection of her curves in my hands—but spiritually.

I have questions about her soul. About the pain it holds and the joy it might find intertwined with mine. I have thoughts i...

her. Secrets I don’t even know yet that can only be heard by her ears...

“Because even when someone is offering you something good, you should always remind them that you deserve better.”

is a bouquet of flowers. My heart starts to beat rapidly, and I realize that for the first time in a long time the increase in my heart rate isn’t tied to some negative emotion like fear. This time it’s linked with something else, something positive, something sweet like the scent of nectar coming from the honeysuckle buds that are nestled among the daisies in the bouquet.

experience that is Sebastian’s handwriting, in the way seeing it makes me picture him sneaking into my office early this morning, or late last night, with his arms full of gifts for me and stopping to write something he knew would make me smile.

Welcome to the 21st century, Nadia.

“For you? Always.”

“You’re supportive and encouraging.” She laughs softly, and the sound is half disbelief and half joy. “You make me feel like I can do this job.”

Because I can promise you that I’ll never be violent towards you, but I can’t say that I’ll never be violent for you.”

Our eyes meet, and I consider, for the briefest of seconds, asking him to let me go, but ultimately decide against it because inside the bracket of his arms is the safest place I think I’ve ever been.

“It means you’re used to being in charge of everything, and you always think you know what’s best for everybody.”

“Okay, but I’ll be here to help when you need it.”

Physical touch became something of a necessity for our relationship when I had to regularly take time out of my work day to cover up his bruise.

You’ll be safe here. No one will bother you.”

“I’m sure he didn’t even think twice about it. There are some people you meet that make you just want to do everything for them, no matter what it cost you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” “It means there’s no point in playing coy because I already see you, I already know you.”

The only reason I brought it up is because I wanted to tell you that one day I want to know your real name. The name your parents chose for you when they first gazed upon your face. The one they called you by when they needed your attention or wanted to reassure you of their love. The one that was probably the last thing on their lips when they knew they weren’t coming back home to you.”

I leave it there because the tears shimmering in Nadia’s eyes tell me she can’t hear anymore, but there’s no end to the list of things I want to know about her. Facts I know I’m not entitled to but feel like belong to me anyway. The way something does when you’re the first one to care enough to unearth it, to lay eyes on it, to hold it in your hands and declare it precious. Sacred.

That’s what Nadia is to me, sacred. Her name is a divine proclamation. Her past consecrated ground i...

“Thank you for today, for your help with finding a place. You went out of your way for me. You always go out of your way for me.”