A Safe Surrender: A Donnelley Brother's Novel (Donnelley Brothers Book 2) Read Free Page A

heart, but I said them anyway. “I didn’t even fight him.”
    Ember shook her head and I watched her desperate eyes search my face. “You can’t seriously think you’re to blame for this, Kamilla. That’s fucking bullshit and you know it.” She ran a hand through her hair, seeing right through my defensive tone. Ember always saw through my defense and right down to the raw, bleeding source, of my pain. “You’ve got to leave him.”
    “And go where ?” I cried, raising my hands.
    I’d finally cracked. Ember, the one person who knew me better than Rhett, had made me crack. All my cool calm control just went right out the window. Emotion threatened to drown me. My throat was tight and the air that existed around me made me feel as though it was a moment away from suffocating me. It was life, but in this moment, its weight was threatening. And I was terrified.
    “You can stay with me.” She said sternly.
    “Your place is the first place Rhett is going to go to look for me. When I leave him, I can’t chance going somewhere he’ll find me, Ember.” I blinked and the tears that had so desperately longed to fall slid down my cheeks. Ember sighed, pulling me into her arms even against my struggle. “He’ll never let me go willingly. I don’t know how to leave him or where to go.”
    Giving into her determined affection, I fell against her chest, before my arms circled around her body and I held her tight. I held onto Ember with a desperation that said she was my one and only lifeline. I knew my hold on her was a painful one. My arms were locked so impossibly tight around her small frame, but not once did she protest or wince. She didn’t pull away or even wiggle in my arms to relieve some of the pressure of my arms. Instead, like the admirably strong woman she was, she held me just as tight. She let me know she was there for me. That I could hold onto her as long as I needed to.
    And I cried in her arms.
    I cried because despite the loss I had faced in this cruel world, I had gained someone like Ember who possessed not only the strength to pull me to my feet when I was too beat down to pull myself up, but the spirit I needed in my life to show me that there was another way.
    “You can’t stay with him, sweetie.” She pulled back to catch my eyes with hers - ensuring I understood her words. “It’s too dangerous.”
    I sobbed at the complete and utter hopelessness of my situation. I was terrified and hurting and I had nowhere to turn. I had no family. Rhett and Ember were all I had - they were the only two people I’d allowed inside my heart after my mother’s murder. And now Rhett wasn’t a safe place. He was a danger, and eventually, if I remained with him, my fate would be my mothers.

Chapter 2
    “I have an idea.” Ember announced, glancing up at her phone and grinning. Her eyes were glowing brightly and her cheeks were puffed in excitement as she waved the piece of technology at me.
    I peeked at her phone before my eyes flickered back up to hers and I frowned. “What?”
    “You know that Ranch I spend a week at every summer riding horses?”
    I nodded slowly, still not understanding where she was going with this. “The Wild something or other?”
    “The Donnelley’s Wild Land Tours.” She corrected promptly.
    “What about it?” I asked with hesitation.
    “They’re hiring.” She waved her phone again. “I saw the ad a while back. I have them on my Facebook and Twitter. The ads right here.”
    I held out my hand, feeling my heart race with the forbidden hope of a way out. And the fear of leaving the only life I’d ever built to start over from scratch. “Can I see it?”
    She nodded. “Absolutely!”
    Glancing down at her screen, I began reading through the ad posted into her Facebook feed. With every sentence my eyes gobbled up, I felt something that resembled relief form inside of me and I knew that my leaving Rhett was possible. It was the right thing to do, and as intimidating as