THE DEFLECTION

We just had to work it out,
And baby, I needed space.
Ain't nobody 'round here on your level
You're so far away.

***

CHAPTER XVII

*****

BY THE TIME the sun had risen later that day, we were already at the next place we were going to be staying at until we were ready to go again. It was a hotel this time. An appreciated upgrade from the dinghy motel we stayed at, but it definitely wasn't five or even four stars.

It's star rating failed to bother me though. As long as the room was clean, the bathroom was clean and the sheets on the bed were clean, crisp and bedbug free, I was happy. And thankfully, this hotel seemed to tick all the boxes.

The reason, Daniel had said, why he were staying at all these types of low-profile places was because they didn't need ID. And if something didn't need ID, then nobody could prove where we had and hadn't been, thus making us harder to track.

It was smart, but I didn't really care about how high-class it was. In fact, I was more surprised that he could stay in all these places without a word of complaint. Knowing how he was raised, I assumed he was only used to expensive, highly rated places. Going on this 'trip' showed me how down to earth Daniel really was.

He could spend as much money as he wanted on material things and often times he did, but when things got rough, he never complained about what little he had. He always just appreciated it.

It made me wonder if he had spent his entire childhood living well with his father like I originally thought or if... maybe he lived with somebody else before that.

I needed to stop coming up with these theories. Especially when I didn't have the balls to find out the truth for myself.

After Daniel had signed in at the front desk, he led me through the reception, up the stairs and into the room he booked which had been located on the second floor. The door clicked shut behind us, filling the otherwise silent room with some inkling of sound as we both took our time to look around.

This room was a decent upgrade from the motel for sure. While the decor in the motel seemed more old-fashioned, like it had been put together in the eighties and only been maintained through the years, our hotel room was much more modern.

The bed was centered in the room, drawing your eyes to it immediately you stepped in and it was bestowed in high contrast white and dark, brown sheets that gave it a somewhat elegant feel. The headboard too was a rich dark brown faux-leather piece, making me question if this really was a three star hotel. What made a hotel three stars anyway?

By the window looking over a small swimming area, were two brown leather armchairs and a wooden coffee table with the stark white curtains pulled back. Beside them was a small desk with a magazine for the hotel and a telephone which I assumed we could use to call for room service.

"What do you want to eat?" Daniel asked me, making me turn to him as he cautiously took off his role and placed it on the bed.

I let my eyes roam over his whole body and fought the urge to answer with "you" before finally answering with, "seafood."

He looked at me, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "Any dish in particular?"

"Anything with seafood."

His eyes lingered on me for a second before briefly casting down to my stomach. He walked up to me and took my face in his hands before placing a small kiss on my lips. I noticed he liked to do that a lot. Grab my face and then kiss me.

"Order it then," he said, pulling away but before he could get very far, the familiar sound of my ringtone broke through the quiet of the room.

He stopped and glanced at me as I fumbled through my handbag for my phone. I didn't get calls very often, so I was never really prepared to answer them when they did come in.

Once I had it in my hands, I didn't waste any time in picking up the call without checking the caller ID. Daniel had taken a seat in the armchair, ubbothered with my haste.

"Hello?"

"Where were you?" I wasn't as surprised as I was supposed to be at the sound of Derek's voice. A part of me knew that after the whole Travis stunt, he would be calling sooner or later. I didn't mind too much. I appreciated the sound of his voice since it had been a while.

"What are you talking about?"

"I've been calling for like the past two hours and you haven't picked up," he explained, making me check my missed call log and indeed seeing his number pop up a few times. "Where were you?"

"Shitting," I answered, going with the first lie that came to mind.

"For two hours?"

"It was a big shit."

I could feel Daniel's intense glare on my back, but I didn't pay him any mind because if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been telling the lie in the first place.

Derek was silent on the other end of the phone for a couple seconds before he spoke again. "Why are you telling me this?"

"You're asking!"

"Anyway," he said, showing that he wasn't going to partake in this conversation and changed the subject instead. "I just called to say that Travis is pissed at you."

I wasn't surprised at that either and quite frankly, I wasn't going to bother myself about. Not now anyways. I loved Travis, but I had a lot more pressing matters on my hands.

"Yeah, well the world goes on, doesn't it?" I said as I inspected my nails, just to do anything to take my mind off the anxiety that was building in my chest.

"Cold," Derek chuckled, but didn't seem too bothered by my feigned indifference.

A moment of silence went past where I deliberated on whether I should ask the question I wanted to ask or not because I knew there was only one likely answer and I knew I wasn't going to like it. I asked anyways.

"You're... you're not pissed at me too, are you?"

"That depends."

I raised an eyebrow at his vague answer. "Depends on what?"

"Depends on how this conversation is going to go," he answered which still didn't answer my question. Not in the way I would've liked.

"And how is it going to go?"

"That depends also."

I couldn't help but grit my teeth in annoyance as I asked again, "Depends on what?"

"On how you'll act." I furrowed my eyebrows at his words, but let him continue. "Will you finally tell me where you are?"

"Is this really why you called me, Derek?" I asked, letting out an exhausted breath because what else had I been expecting? The truth was not only was my safety at risk, but theirs was as well because if an enemy of theirs caught me, it meant they could use me to get closer to Morgan and Derek.

There was so many people involved in all of this and it was really starting to get messy.

"We just want to help you," he sighed, seemingly also tired of this whole ordeal. "Araceli, we helped you for two years when nobody else would. We protected you. Why do you suddenly not trust us anymore?" he asked, pulling at my heartstrings as I looked down at the carpeted floor.

I wanted more than anything to tell him the truth, but it was a long story and one I knew I couldn't have over the phone. I knew if I even began to tell him bits of what happened, he'd lose his shit and everything would go downhill.

It's why I wanted for all of us to be face to face so I could control the atmosphere and deliver the news according to how they reacted.

"I do trust you," I tried to reassure him, but even I knew that my words had no substance when my actions seemed to contradict them.

"Then why won't you tell us?"

"Because you won't..." I trailed off, thinking of the best way to put my words. "You won't like what I tell you. It's why I don't want to say it over the phone."

He didn't say anything, leaving me to stand there painfully anticipating his next response. Instead of the soft voice I had gotten used to listening to, a firm voice bordering on angry came through instead. "Tell me. Now."

He definitely wasn't playing around.

I focused my tired eyes on the wall opposite me and in a quiet, defeated voice I told him what he had been trying to find out since I left a couple weeks ago.

"I'm with Daniel." Daniel let out a chuckle from behind me, but I kept my eyes trained on the wall with my back to him while I waited for Derek's response. My heart began to speed up in my chest at all the implications his silence had and so to fill it, I spoke again. "It's really not how you think it is," I tried to explain. "There's a perfectly calm, reasonable-"

"Where are you?" he asked, cutting me off. My breath hitched in my chest as I struggled to find the right words, but he wasn't taking any of my bullshit. "I swear to God if you don't tell me your location right now, I'll track it from your phone."

If I was an instigator, I would've had the mind to tell him to do it because in that moment, not even I had any idea of my location.

"Derek, just let me explain-"

The sound of a voice in the background had cut me off and without much thought, I knew it was Morgan's. "Derek?" she said in her usual soft, melodic voice. "What's wrong?"

"She's with Daniel," he answered curtly, not even needing to elaborate on who 'she' was for Morgan to know it was me.

"He got her?"

"No, nobody got me," I interceded, not wanting either of them to believe that I was kidnapped. "You guys have got it all wrong."

"I knew you wouldn't be able to keep it in," Daniel's voice had come from behind me, making me wonder when he had gotten so close to me. Without warning, he snatched the phone from me and held it up to his ear, making my eyes widen in fear. "Derek," he said calmly as he began to walk away.

I made to follow him, but he stepped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut before I could. I pressed my ear against the wood of the door, deciding that it was just as much my conversation as it was his and I had every right to listen to it. Unfortunately, while I could just about hear his voice, I couldn't make out what it was he was saying and that pissed me off.

It hadn't taken long before the door had swung open and he had stepped out again. By then, I was sitting on the bed trying to remain as calm as possible while I waited for him.

He glanced at me briefly and tossed me my phone. "Keep it switched off," he said, not even addressing what had gone on minutes ago.

I stood up and made my way over to him, leaving my phone on the bed. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, acting like he wasn't the slightest bit intimidated. His lips seemed to have even curved upwards a small bit as I approached him.

"You're adorable," he said in his usual unserious matter, but I ignored him and asked him the burning question on my mind.

"What did you tell him?" I demanded, making him smirk at me.

"What he needed to know," he shrugged.

"I said what the fuck did you tell them?" I asked again, this time not even trying to hide how angry I was.

He narrowed his eyes at me and grabbed my neck in the way he usually did when he was pissed at something I did or said. "I already fucking told you."

I glared at him for a couple seconds in silence before slapping his hand away from me and turning away, muttering a "let go off me" under my breath. I was so tired of looking at his annoying fucking face.

"They hate me now."

"They would've hated you anyways, babe," he let out an unamused laugh, making me turn around to glare at him again.

"Don't you understand?" I hissed, stepping closer to him before holding myself back so I didn't do something stupid. "They're the only friends I have. And now they're gone."

"You have Pablo," he rolled his eyes as if it was obvious. "You have Anna."

"And who else?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and waiting for a response, yet no matter how long I waited, none came. I knew none would come. There was no one else. "They saved me, Daniel," I hissed as he turned away from me. "They helped me for two years when they didn't have to. When I had nothing else -no one else. They owed me nothing yet they helped me."

"The owed it to you."

Shocked I took a step back, my eyes widening at the words that had left his lips. "What?"

"They owed it to you" he repeated as if it meant nothing, yet I could feel my heart begin to beat a little faster in my chest in fear. "You're the reason they're still together, no?" His back was to me yet I could almost envision the sadistic smile on his face as he spoke.

"How do you know that?" I demanded. "Who told you that?"

"Told me what?" He turned to me, trying to play it cool, but there it was. The humour in his eyes. The ghost of a smirk on his lips. The glint in his eyes. He knew.

"Oh my God, you know."

He made to take a step closer to me, but I held my hands up and took a step back. I wasn't sure how it was supposed to protect me if he decided to hurt me, but it surprisingly made him stop in his tracks anyway.

"What do I know, Araceli?" he asked, still playing his stupid fucking game because he knew what I was talking about. He just wanted to hear me say it.

I suddenly remembered the situation I was in with him. How I had no idea where we were, how nobody here knew either of us and how I could've been miles away from Mateo. If he wanted to kill me, this was the perfect opportunity.

"God, you're going to kill me," I muttered under my breath, making him furrow his eyebrows in confusion as if he didn't know what I was talking about. He stepped closer to me again, but instead of stepping back, I stood in place, feeling all my will to keep fighting leave my body. "Please don't kill me," I whispered, though I knew it was going to do little to actually save me.

I made to get on my knees and start begging for my life, but by then he was directly in front of me and he grabbed my arms and pulled me up, a frown obvious on his lips.

"Don't kneel," he said, his tone disapproving. "Now why would I do something so cruel?"

"Because I betrayed you," I cried, the tears now trailing down my cheeks like rivers. I wasn't sure if I was more upset over the fact that I was going to die or because I genuinely felt bad for what I did. It must have been both since the pain in my heart was so intense. "I'm so sorry," I muttered and I meant it because I was. If he killed me now, he would be justified. "I didn't think it would happen like that. I thought... I thought..."

"Thought what, amor?" he prompted, yet he didn't sound angry or even upset. He couldn't have been when he called me that, right? Or was it just another game? His hold on me wasn't tight, but gentle and soft as if I was free to leave his hands at any moment I wanted to.

I didn't want to. I didn't deserve the liberty. I didn't deserve anything after what I did. It was because of me that he almost died after all.

"I'm so sorry," I continued to weep as I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his chest. He delicately brought his hand to the small of my back and rubbed small, soothing circles. It didn't comfort me like it usually did as the memory of what happened six years ago filled my head again. "I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't think he would die."

"The guard, yes?" he filled in for me, only confirming that he knew exactly what I was talking about.

A sob racked through my chest as I nodded my head, making my knees buckle as I lost all ability to hold myself up. Daniel held me tighter and made his way over to the bed to take a seat with me still in his arms. "I thought he'd only sleep," I continued. "I thought he'd sleep long enough to get her out. I didn't think -didn't know... I-I-"

"Calm down," he cooed gently into my ear, never raising his voice at me and continuously comforting me even though I had wronged him and I had tried to keep it a secret. I deceived him. I let out another loud sob at the thought of being so dishonest to someone I loved so much. "Calm down, Araceli, you're fine. You're safe, okay? I won't kill you or whatever you convinced yourself I would do."

"I am so sorry," I cried. It was no longer the fear that he would kill me that made me upset anymore. It was the fact that I had done what I did. "I honestly thought she would just go. I thought they would go together. I didn't think..."

"That she'd try to kill me after."

"I just wanted to help her," I nodded, confirming his words. "I didn't know what they were planning to do."

"It's okay," he said, his voice still soft as he laid back with me on his chest. "I just want you to tell me what happened. Is that okay?"

I finally mustered up the courage to look directly at him, yet to my surprise, there was no sign of anger or malice or anything of the sort. He just stayed neutral, his eyes always focused on me. I thought he would hate me.

"Can you do that for me?" he asked again in my silence and I looked back somewhere else to help relieve the guilt.

I guess it was the least I could do.

"Please don't hate me."

"Very little you'd do could make me hate you."

"It happened back when Lucien was in charge and he still had the brothels up. Before you shut them down." I looked at him as if to make sure he knew what I was talking about. "I knew a lot of the girls there. Before Anna started working with me and usually they'd help me beat up Lola so we were close enough."

"On that day, they told me that there was a new girl so I went to go meet her. The girl was Morgan." I looked up again to gauge his reaction, but there was none. All I was met with was stone cold indifference and I didn't blame him. He must've not liked talking about Morgan. "I don't remember how I found out. I think I had maybe heard it from the other girls or from Derek. I don't know, but I found out that she was being forced into sex work." Daniel again didn't respond to that, making me wonder if he had known the whole time and just chose not to help her.

"I met with her because I could travel anywhere I wanted, remember?" he noddedd, giving me the confirmation I needed for me to carry on. ""I told her that I wanted to help her get out and so she redirected me to Derek. That's where we hatched the plan."

"It was simple really. All I had to do was drug the guard that was watching her with sleeping pills, help her sneak through the house at the dead of night and then sneak her into Leonardo, the maintenance man's, van at night. He told me he would take care of the rest. The problem came when the guard had died instead."

I took a deep breath to calm the panic that was rising in my chest as the memory of that night had come back to me. The night I had taken my first life.

"Jesus Christ," Morgan said, alerting me to where she was standing over the guard's unconscious body.

"What is it?"

"How much did you give him?" she asked in reference to the sleeping pills I had slipped into his drink. She turned to me with a deep frown on her face.

I returned the frown. "I don't know. Why?"

"He's dead, Ara."

My frown deepened and my eyebrows furrowed as I quickly cast a glance towards the champagne bottle. My heart beat slower once I realised that I had dissolved the whole bottle of pills in the full champagne bottle, but now all of it was gone and he was the only one that drank.

"Shit." I sprung into action, nudging myself past Morgan who easily stepped back and stood over the man. I spent my time inspecting him, noting the way he still had some colour to his skin, but despite that, he lay completely still. "He's not dead," I announced but it wasn't confident and deep down I knew he was.

"Oh yeah? Check his pulse and then say that again."

I didn't want to, but I knew I had to. I leaned down to his face and placed my ear by his lips, but there was no whoosh of air against my skin or sound to even remotely sound like he was breathing. Slowly, I brought my index and middle fingers to check for the pulse that was usually at his neck, but much to my horror, I was met with cold, dead skin.

I snatched my hand away from him as fast as I could, like one that experienced a strong static shock and got up. I let my eyes roam over his body, my heart beating slow and my stomach churning.

He was really dead.

"I'm going to puke."

"No, you're going to get me out of here," Morgan hissed, clearly not having the same reaction to his death as I did.

I looked to her, my eyes watering with unshed tears as I placed a hand over my mouth and my other hand over my stomach. "But he's dead." She only rolled her eyes at my words. "We can't just leave him here."

"You said it yourself, Araceli, he's already dead," she hissed, clearly irritated at my lack of agency. "What's us staying here and getting in trouble going to do? It's not like it'll bring him back."

"But maybe we can call for help and save-"

"He wanted to rape you."

"It's not rape!"

"You are a minor and he is twenty-six. Just because you didn't say no, doesn't mean you said yes." She shook me as if to try get some sense back into me. "It is rape. Now let's go."

She grabbed my hand and tried to lead me away, but I didn't budge. My eyes remained trained on the dead body in front of me, making Morgan let out an exhausted sigh.

"Araceli, please. This was your plan. Don't ruin it now. When we've done so much already. Let's just leave."

I looked to her and then back to the dead body before coming back to my senses. She was right. It was too late now to start backtracking. Especially since she was relying on me to get her out of here safely. If I fucked up, she would be the one to suffer the most.

I wrapped my hand tighter around hers, letting the warmth from her palm further ignite the fire within me. Without focusing on anything else but the next step of our plan, I led her out of the room closer to her freedom.

"I couldn't do anything to help him," I said, returning back to the present moment. "All I could do was sneak her into the van and pray to God that everything went as planned." I looked at up at him, hoping he could see the sincerity and honesty in my words. "I didn't think she would come back with him. I didn't think they would try to kill you. I didn't think they'd do any of that. Please believe me."

"I do," he said without a moment of hesitation. His eyes were trained intensely on me, letting me know that he believed every word I said. "I could never hate you for doing the right thing."

Neither of us said anything after that. Instead we just laid there in silence until he suddenly picked me up and walked the both of us towards the bathroom. Once we were inside, he placed me on the marble countertop before turning around and running the bath.

"What are you doing?" I asked as he turned around to me. The bathtub was filling up with warm water and soapy suds as Daniel placed me on my feet and tilted my head up to look at me.

A small smile that had absolutely made my heart melt formed on his lips as he looked down at me and silently wiped the residual tears from my face with his thumb.

As delicately as he could, he slipped my dress off as well as my underwear before picking me up and placing my naked, sore body in the warm water. I considered the fact that he might've wanted to drown me before shaking the horrifying thoughts out of my head. It was obvious that he was giving me a bath.

He wanted to care for me.

"Is it too hot?" he asked as he crouched down next to me.

"No," I shook my head and let myself slip further into the water. We both sat there in silence, something I noticed was becoming more common the closer we got to each other. They were comfortable silences, yet I still couldn't help the ache in my chest at what just happened. It felt so hard to live with myself knowing that I had betrayed him. It was impossible to live with myself. I wanted to die.

"You can drown me."

"What?" Daniel asked, a small laugh blowing out of his nose but the concern in his eyes was still obvious to see.

"Push my head under the water and kill me," I repeated, my eyes trained intensely on his. "I won't even fight it. It'll look like a suicide and nobody would suspect a thing."

"I already said I'm not going to kill you," he said his eyes narrowing on me. "All I want to know is why you didn't think to tell me instead of taking matters into your own hands and almost getting killed in the crossfire."

"I didn't tell you because I thought you already knew and that you wouldn't help," I confessed, making him shake his head as he gently ran the soapy washcloth against my skin.

"You always think the worst of me," he said, making me frown and look down at my hands.

He wasn't wrong. There were so many times I thought he would do worse than what he actually ended up doing. But then I remembered the many times he really did do worse than I expected of him and I felt my eyebrows furrow at it. Why was he making me feel guilty for something he caused?

"I don't think that for no reason, Daniel," I said, defending myself because I genuinely did have so many reasons to be scared of him, especially in the beginning of our relationship. He wasn't someone you could call friendly or safe. "I'm not purposely trying to make you the villain in my head."

He narrowed his eyes at my words. "I don't give you reasons to think that."

"Yes, you do," I hissed, glaring at him in anger I didn't even know I had in me. "Oh, I'll massacre a ton of innocent people and call it collateral damage just to kill my one enemy but I draw the line at rape," I mocked, making him clench his jaw at my words.

"That's not what we're talking about. You don't trust me," he accused.

"It is. How am I supposed to see this and still trust you?"

"When have I ever given you a reason to not trust me?" he asked, his eyes flaring up with anger I hadn't seen in him in a while. "You've hit me before and I never hit you back even though if it was anybody else, I would have. You believed that I trafficked you for sex slavery even though if I wanted to traffic you, I would have just sold you to Vincent and called it a day. Even now you thought I'd kill you, but believe me when I say you've done many things in the past to warrant your death, yet you're still alive. What reason hav-"

"Don't you understand?" I hissed, getting tired of his exhaustive list of why I should trust him as if I didn't watch him shoot people for the most minor mistakes. "There's going to be something I do one day that's going to set you off like a bomb and that'll get me slaughtered."

"There isn't."

"There is," I insisted. "I'm on a much longer leash for you than everyone else and that's only because you like me but a leash is still a fucking leash and it's still fastened around my neck, Daniel. Just because you're patient enough with me to let me get away with some things doesn't mean you'll let me get away with everything. I still shit myself anytime I see you and it's not for no reason. My fear is never for no reason. I don't trust you and that's your fault."

He said nothing for a while, letting us both sit in the silence of the mess we had created. And then quietly, in a voice so small, I almost didn't hear it, he asked, "then why are you with me?"

And to that, I laughed. Not because I found something funny, but because I wanted to make it seem like all of this was a joke, even though, to me, it wasn't. "I'm not with you. Just because I blew you doesn't mean I'm back with you," I said, rolling my eyes and ignoring the hurt that he had let flicker in his gaze for a fraction of a second. "When did I ever say that?"

"You said you were mine," he said in a quiet, yet firm voice. I only shrugged, watching the way all the emotions disappeared from his eyes and I was left with nothing but a cold, hard glare.

"My bad."

Wordlessly, he let go of the washcloth, stood up to his full height and walked out of the bathroom, leaving me to sit their with all my thoughts, regrets and bad decisions.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them, closing my eyes before the tears could start up again. I really didn't have a reason to cry. I was the one who put myself in this predicament in the first place. And now I finally lost him. I made my bed, now I had to lay in it.

I sunk down into the bathtub until my head was completely submerged.

*****

This chapter took a while to write because it's actually a pretty complicated scene in the whole novel. If you didn't know, there was actually a book before this one (which I'm currently rewriting) about the characters Morgan and Derek and the flashback Araceli had was a scene in the first book, but written in Araceli's point of view.

I needed to take the rewrite into account so I had to make sure that I wrote the flashback right in a way that didn't give too much away. Also, if you're confused, go read the prologue for His Woman again. It won't answer all your questions, but I promise you this chapter, the flashback, the prologue and the next few chapters coming up will clue you in so just trust the process.

Also, when I put the book before this one back up, I'll definitely let you guys know because yall need to go read it. It's good as fuck at least in my opinion. Plus, it'll help you understand a lot more from this book as well.

The main character is white because I wrote it when I was still a c*on and then got attached cuz she's a badass, but yeah. It's still a good read.

Anyway, I'm sad and depressed now and my mental health is going to shit but this is the time i do my best writing so now I'm just conflicted?? Lmaooo

Anyways, see yall for the next chapter which will be posted this time next week (and I can guarantee that because its already written. In fact the next five chapters are all already written) so I guess see yall next week.
Byeeeee