With the radio turned off, the truck was silent as they drove down barely used highways and back roads. Dylan didn't make a sound. No heavy breaths or sighs, no clearing his throat. With hands gripped tightly on the wheel, he just stared straight ahead into the dark night.

Hailey knew what that sort of quiet meant. He was trapped in his own head, with thoughts going a million miles an hour. "Say something."

With his eyes remaining focused on the road, not so much as flickering in her direction, Dylan spoke. "Has he laid his hands on you?"

"We're married."

"You know what the fuck I mean, Hailey."

Honestly, Alex laid his hands on her either way about the same. She wouldn't need all her fingers to count the times they'd been intimate in the seven years they were married. It'd been a good year and a half since the last time. If he wanted sex, he sought it elsewhere. But Hailey knew that wasn't what he was referring to. "A few times. If I do what he asks of me, everything's fine. If I challenge him... Alex loses control easily, so I avoid making waves. The only time it was really bad was when I asked him for a divorce. A taste of what I'd get if I left him, he called it."

Dylan went quiet again, but his knuckles whitened as he clutched the steering wheel. He used those hands to turn the wheel down a dirt road, the only light around them coming from his headlights.

"When did you move back, or didn't you leave?" Hailey asked, hoping to change the subject.

"Moved back last year. Got into some trouble up in Boston. The fight scene there has a lot more risks. Good money, but seedy shit. Called a buddy of mine back here, and he told me he could get me into some fights. Still illegal, but better organized, and no one goes out looking for vengeance when they lose a fight. Everyone's kept in check. Shit, most of us are even friends when we aren't beating the crap out of each other."

There was only a hint of a cut on his skin next to his eyebrow, but a baseball cap still shadowed the top of his face. "So, that's how you make a living? You fight?"

Dylan laughed. "You try to make your living that way, and you'll go broke pretty fast. It all depends how many fights you win in a night. In a good week, I'll take home around six hundred. It adds up, though. Anywhere from twenty to thirty grand a year, which I live on just fine.

"I still do editing, and I more or less just put that all in savings, so it's added up in the last few years. I never really needed to go into the office, so I've been working for Richard's publishing house for ten years now. He's a friend of my family's, so when I turn in my work, he's able to ensure them I'm still alive. My bank and post office box are halfway across the state to keep me under the radar. I'll still call my parents once a year, just to let them know I'm okay, but I keep my distance. I haven't seen them since I left."

A house came into view, barely in sight with the trees surrounding it. If there hadn't been a single light illuminating through a window, Hailey never would have spotted it.

"Something tells me you don't want to talk about what the last seven years were like, and trust me, I get that more than most. But if you want to open up, I'll listen and do my best to keep a level head about it." Dylan put the old pickup truck into park and killed the engine.

"I don't see you keeping a level head about it," Hailey responded honestly.

"A level head around you," Dylan corrected before he left the truck and grabbed a small duffel bag out of the bed of the truck, making his way to the house despite the black night. He turned the handle without needing to unlock the house, then flipped the light on and waited for Hailey to catch up. "I want to kill him, Hailey. And I can't promise you I won't. There's actually a better chance I'll kill him if you don't tell me, since I'll be thinking the worst without you correcting me."

Hailey didn't doubt Dylan could physically kill a man, but he never allowed her deep enough in his mind to know if he was mentally capable of taking a life. "So, if I don't tell you, you'll probably kill my husband."

Dylan let out a heavy breath as he walked her into the house, flicking on a series of lights. "Do me a favor and don't call him that. I know what he is to you on paper, but in the eyes of a God worth praying to, he's barely even a man."

After ripping her gaze away from Dylan, Hailey looked around the house. It was more a shack than anything. The kitchen had only two counters, with one dim light above the sink. The living room had a single plaid couch, coffee table, a crackling fire, and one end table with a lamp on it. The television was small, probably only forty inches. No curtains on the windows or a colorful rug adorning the floor. Nothing personal on the walls.

Hailey walked down the short hallway and flicked on a light in the nearest room, seeing nothing more than a small desk with a laptop, a cup of pens, and a printer, along with a bookshelf against the wall, and a futon. After turning the light back off, she went to the next room. A sink with no cabinet beneath it, a walk-in shower, but no tub, and a single towel draped over the door.

Across the hall was a much larger bedroom, but still nothing personal within it. A couple of more bookshelves filled with books, stacks of papers on top, and a queen sized bed. The only other door was a small closet with towels and linens, along with some cleaning supplies.

"Washer and dryer are down in the basement."

Hailey turned to see him standing in the middle of the small living room, hands in his pockets with his gaze on the scratched up wood floor.

"I have nothing to wash or dry," she pointed out.

He gave a lopsided nod and took a hand out of his pocket to scratch his face. "We'll handle that tomorrow. There's some work I have to finish up by tomorrow night. You can watch some television if you want to, or I've got pretty decent internet speed."

"I don't have a phone anymore," Hailey told him. "Alex installed a tracker on it, so I gave it to my friends. They're going to make a few stops so my trail doesn't go cold at the bar."

Dylan pressed his lips together, then finally looked up at her. "It means something to me you're here, Hailey. I don't know what your relationship with him was like, but I want you to know that you're safe with me."

"I know I am," Hailey admitted. No one in her life had ever made her feel as confused as Dylan, but he'd also kept her safe all those nights he walked her home. He may have hurt her once or twice emotionally, and he may have been capable of causing someone physical pain, but never her.

Dylan walked past her and into his small office. After a minute of drawers opening and closing, he returned with a stack of papers.

Once she accepted them, Hailey looked at the top page. 'Good Boys Never Tell' was written in large font. "Did you write a book?"

"Autobiography. One therapist thought it would be healing for me to write everything out," he explained before finally removing his baseball cap, the cut above his eye much more prominent than it previously appeared. "You're putting all your faith in me by being here. It's time I finally do the same. Everything you wished I'd been able to open up about, you'll find in there.

"I'll sleep on the futon in the office. If you need anything, that's where I'll be."