The first three years had flown by because she’d still been in college, and then she went to law school. After she’d passed the bar, Ralph had demanded she be with him in Denver where he was on the Broncos team. He was already on rocky grounds with them, and he thought her presence would influence John Elway, the general manager. That was her Ralph; he was always willing to exploit her beauty to get his way. He loved the fact that his teammates had been in awe when they’d first met her. Whenever any man showed an interest in her that seemed to turn him on more, and his lovemaking later would be almost violent. Of course, he’d apologize afterward with the same explanation—that he’d gotten carried away with lust.
Nakia had long since learned to turn off her emotions during those episodes, because, while she didn’t mind rough sex, she realized that he wasn’t trying to have rough sex with her. He was trying to punish her for being desirable to other men. She knew he had problems, but he was so sweet to her when he wasn’t being a demon, and she was trying to live a Christian life, cleave to one’s husband and all that. But Lord, this road was rough sometimes. She’d somehow talked him into letting her move to Miami after she’d passed the state bar and now worked at one of the most prestigious law firms in the United States. That was why her feelings for one of the senior partners of the Ragnarson Law Firm was such a no-go zone.
Her crush on Justin had started innocent enough, and then hearing him give a speech at a legal symposium in Miami had changed all of that six months ago. He was not only a gorgeous virile man; he was incredibly brilliant. She’d gone into overdrive researching his previous cases and arguments and had fallen even more in love with him. Nothing could have prepared her for their meeting today. Today was the first time in her life she’d feelt such intense desire for any man. She felt both ashamed and sinful that her husband had never gotten that response from her.
Ralph maintained his litany of complaints for the next half-hour until their flight was called. She was happy when he fell asleep ten minutes into their almost-three-hour flight to Miami. However, she knew her reprieve wouldn’t last for long.
They’d been home for about an hour before he lit into her again about the man at the airport. Granted, it was after he’d received a call from his agent, dropping him as client. She should have expected what happened, but never would she have anticipated such violence from him.
It happened after she’d taken a shower and was sitting on a stool in the bathroom meticulously taking off her makeup, as she did nightly.
“You won’t let me fuck you anymore! You think I don’t know what you’re about? You’ve been working in that damn white law firm too long. Now you want white cock. Is that it?”
Not turning away from her chore, she made three mistakes in that moment. First, she rolled her eyes, next she let him see her do it from the reflection in the mirror, and then she was not on her guard immediately after.
His fist connected with the side of her head, causing her neck to snap awkwardly and her head to turn and extend to an angle that wasn’t natural. The flesh inside of her cheek smashed against her teeth, causing it to split, and blood immediately pooled in her mouth. Pain ricocheted throughout her head. She was a mass of pain so intense she almost fainted.
“Are you crazy?!?!” he yelled. “You think I’ll let you fuck another man right under my nose?”
She tried to stand, but her legs and her head weren’t steady enough to navigate something as complicated as walking. She immediately fell back into the chair she’d been sitting in.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” He punched her in the face again. “Maybe if I rearrange this pretty face of yours, men will stop eye fucking you all the damn time!”
Nakia knew she had to move, even if she had to crawl, and let the dead weight of her body and gravity drag her to the floor. Thank God it wasn’t far, so the fall wasn’t painful. However, his booted foot to her ribs made up for any caution she’d taken. The hard crack of something within her—she wasn’t sure what it was—seemed loud in her ear. Pain unlike anything she’d ever felt in her life crashed through her body. Then the sound of a blood-curdling scream pierced the air. She only realized then that screaming was coming from her when his boot connected to her bruised ribs again and it knocked the wind out of her. The only thought she had then was to get help, because the gun in her handbag and those self-defense classes she’d taken couldn’t help her now. She could barely raise a finger, much less a foot or a hand, to fight him off. She pressed the panic button on her watch, which was linked to a domestic violence hotline. The person at the other end of the panic call could track where she was and would call the nearest police station.
Ralph kicked her again, this time breaking something that made her numb and so dazed she had only seconds of consciousness left.
She only hoped that help arrived before he killed her.
Chapter Two
Justin Ragnarson paced his office in Austin, Texas, with a glass of whisky clasped tightly in his palm. This was his third, or maybe his fourth, glass of the potent brew. He was wound so tight from waiting on news about the mystery woman he’d bumped into at the airport that he doubted whether he could get drunk at this point. She really wasn’t much of a mystery. While he didn’t know her name, he knew that she worked for their firm in the Miami office. He’d seen her a few months back, and he’d had to continuously remind himself that he was trying to save his marriage. If he’d acted on his interest then, at least he would have known her name. As it was, given the Miami office had over three hundred employees, he didn’t even know which department to look in and not every employee had a photo in their records.
Letting her go with that maniac husband of hers had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. He kept telling himself that this was about his innate need to protect and to act when wrong was being perpetrated. The soldier, the man in him, hated that this had happened under his watch. He had to make this right.
He’d encountered enough domestic violence cases to recognize the behavior, the aggression, and language they used. He shouldn’t have let her leave with him. On the pretext of looking for a better coffee shop for Melissa, he’d combed the airport in the general direction that they’d taken and had found them purely by the stunned look on some spectators’ faces as they witnessed the husband continue to berate her. Justin had had an overwhelming urge to pick her up and take her out of there. And when she’d put the earplugs in her ear and her Kindle in her face, he was slightly mollified that she would be okay. Lifting his phone discreetly, he’d taken a picture of her and noted that their flight to Miami was in about an hour.
The fact that he’d taken out her picture at least fifty times in the past hour to look at her beautiful face and stunning body should have warned him of what he was really feeling.
“What’s going on, little brother?” His brother Colt walked into the office without knocking.
Justin scowled at him and continued pacing without answering the question. He looked at his phone for about the hundredth time in the past hour wondering what the fuck was taking Roscoe so long to call him back. Roscoe was a cop friend he knew from his army days, who thankfully worked for the police in Miami. Despite the picture, they had yet to identify who his mystery woman was. He could’ve easily called human resources and gotten the answer quickly, but he didn’t need that kind of gossip in the firm about him and whoever she was.