The faceless number 18 - the wild wolf and his pack

help me

*Riana*

I felt some relief when the race weekend was over and I could fly back home. At least for a few days before we would have to be back at the factory. And I would need those few days to take a breath.

Lance had taken all the air I felt I had to breathe. We had been so close, had been so drawn to each other, that it had almost driven me out of my mind. It was not good that I had let myself be so attracted to him.

I was putty in his hands and I wanted to melt way too much in his hands. I could barely bring myself to stay away from him.

I hardly knew myself that way. Actually, I was not impressed by such things. No man had ever wrapped me around his finger like that. But Lance had this way of...

I couldn't even put it into words.

Whether it was the mysterious that made him so attractive to me?

Or was there more that drew us both to each other so much. Because that he felt the same attraction was more than just clear. He had sought my closeness as much as I had sought his. Even if I had tried to avoid him in the obvious situations when we had not been alone. Whether anyone had noticed, I didn't know. I had done my best not to make it too obvious that I was interested in him.

Still, it did me good to have a little peace and quiet now.

I was lying in my bed taking a deep breath when Kayla dropped down next to me "Have you heard yet?" she asked.

I turned my head to her and looked at her questioningly.

"From your ex?" she specified.

"What ex?", I asked, feeling a cold chill run down my spine. I prayed she wouldn't say HIS name.

"Mark Paterson.", I didn't mean to cringe, but I did.

"What about him?", I asked nervously.

"He'll probably go to jail. For tax evasion or something. But there's probably more against him. Nobody really knows where these things came from. But he's really screwed. He's going to lose his company.".

I knew exactly where these things came from.

My heart started beating faster.

"Oh." was all I said, trying to sound surprised.

He had been on probation since he had tried to kill me. He had gotten a probation sentence for the dangerous assault and he was going to jail now. There was nothing he could do about it. And I knew Lance had had a hand in it.

"Have you actually been in touch with him again?" she asked, and I shook my head.

She didn't know that he had left me with an unsightly scar on my thigh.

"No. But I'm not sad about it either," I said "We didn't have a nice ending."

"You never talked about it," she noted.

I had lived with him at the time and had always tried to hide how bad things were between us. I had always tried not to let on that there was a lot going wrong between him and me. And even when the relationship had come to an end and I had moved into the shared apartment of my friends, I had never told them what had caused the end.

I had never told them that he had tried to kill me.

"I honestly don't want to, either," I admitted, closing my eyes "It wasn't good. Now he's getting what he deserves," I muttered.

I had been more than disappointed then that he hadn't gone to prison. Only because it had been construed as assault rather than attempted murder. Otherwise, he most certainly would have gone to jail then.