Mine Now (The Phantom Vipers MC)

1. Prologue

Prologue

Blake

Some people say that you are not in an abusive relationship until your spouse lays their hands on your body. I feel like I would rather have my ass beat every day than have to deal with the emotional trauma Craig’s words do to me daily. I have tried talking to him about it. I told him his words cut like knives and that I was in a really dark place.

He told me I was being silly and that I should be grateful he didn’t beat me. Mid-argument, I laughed at that comment. It made him even more upset, but I just couldn’t understand why the hell I should be grateful that he screamed at me and called me names.

The worst part about all of this is that he wasn’t always this person. Sure, when we started, we had our ups and downs and made mistakes. But no one is perfect. He was a bad boy, checking off every box I had. He was tall and handsome, with dark hair and blue eyes. The second I laid my eyes on him, I knew I would do everything in my power to make him mine.

Looking back now, I realize that he was a walking red flag. Unfortunately for my self-preservation, my favorite color is red. I have always thought I could change him. Show him that all he needed was to be loved and cherished, and the problems from his childhood would go away. Little did I know…

“Why is there no fucking dinner again tonight, Blake?” Craig's voice comes from downstairs, and I quickly shut my diary and hide it under my bed.

I check the clock on the wall. Shit. The time got away from me. I was supposed to put the chicken in the oven an hour ago. I hurry down the stairs, and immediately, the hairs on my arms stand at attention as Craig stares me down.

His face turns into a scowl as he says, “You know I like to come home to dinner. You are home all day, and you do nothing. Is it really that hard to have the house cleaned and the food ready?” He motions toward the mess that Charlie left on the floor by the couch. I cringe. I cleaned up this entire bottom floor of the house earlier this morning. But I can’t very well be mad at a five-year-old for playing with her toys. “Why are you so goddamn worthless?”

Worthless? I am worthless because I didn’t have dinner ready? No, no, no, I can’t be worthless in his eyes. I have to make this right, or he might abandon me like my father did. I wasn’t good enough for him either. I have to be perfect. “I’m sorry.” I quickly begin picking up her toys and placing them in her toy bin.

Craig huffs and takes off his tie. He doesn’t say anything else, but I can tell he is disappointed in me. His silence might be worse than his yelling.

I have lived my entire life as a people pleaser—a person everyone can count on. I can’t stand it when someone doesn’t like me, even if I don’t know the person. It hurts even more when Craig does it to me, though.

He has always been my best friend. Hell, my only friend, actually. And when I disappoint him, I can feel his mood shift throughout the house. It’s almost like it is suffocating me. My mother always used to tell me I cared so much what others thought of me because I was an empath. I personally just think it is a character flaw of mine.

Once the living room is clean again, I rush to the kitchen to put the pan of chicken in the oven. Now we have to wait an hour for the meal to be done, which means he will be even angrier. Charlie comes barreling down the stairs, excited to see her father, and yells for him. “Daddy!” She rushes over to where he sits on the couch and embraces him. I expect him, in his grumpy mood, to yell at her or be upset with her, too. But he surprises me when he wraps his arms around her and starts to tickle her. I let out a breath that I’ve been holding, anticipating the worst outcome, and go back to the kitchen to start on the dishes I’ve neglected too.

Three Months Later

Blake

“I don’t think I love you anymore, Blake.”

Panic swells in my belly as I listen to the words come from Craig's mouth. He can’t be serious, not after all the years and all that I have sacrificed for this marriage. He has taken so much from me, and now he wants to abandon me and our child?

“You don’t mean that,” I whisper, my heart sinking.

He nods. “I’ve tried for years now to find my way back to you and what we once had, but I just don’t think it’s there anymore.” He gives me a wistful smile and holds out his hand for me to grab it. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Blake. I can see the man that I have become. You deserve better than me.” I know his tone is almost condescending, but that means he feels bad. He feels sorry that this is happening and that I’m upset.

My heart hurts. He is showing me the old Craig—the Craig that I fell in love with all those years ago. I shake my head as the tears begin to fall. I have never felt good enough. I don't want better, I just want the old him back. “After everything we have been through.” I swipe some tears away. “Are you really going to abandon me?”

I have been with him for more than half my life. I basically grew up with him, and now he wants to leave me on my own. How did I become this woman who is dependent on a man so much that she can’t bear the thought of living a life without him?

It feeIs like someone is tearing me apart layer by layer. How am I going to do this?

He pats the top of my hand. “You will always have me, Blake. I will always be here for you.”

I bite my lip. “Did I do something wrong? Am I no longer good enough?”

“No, no. It is just me, Blake. I just want to be free. I want to live my life and be happy.”

His words pierce me like knives, and I put my head in my lap. “But I thought me and Charlie made you happy.”

“Of course Charlie makes me happy. I would never abandon her. ” Her… the way he spits our daughter's name like venom at me. I don’t understand how he went from me always having him to this.

I don’t miss how he says Charlie makes him happy but leaves me out of the equation. As usual, it makes me feel so fucking worthless. I should be used to it by now with the constant push and pull of our relationship. One second he is giving me praise and treating me like a queen and the next I am worse than the shit on the bottom of his shoe. This is how he keeps me hanging on, but even knowing that, I can’t seem to let go. I pull my hand from his. “So it is me. I am the problem.” Of course I am the problem again, no matter what I say I am wrong. His words make my anxiety spike and my overthinking brain race. Nothing I ever do is good enough for anyone around me. I am a constant fuck up or at least that is what Craig constantly reminds me. Maybe if I wasn’t around anymore, the people I love would be better off.

I get off the couch and beeline for the back door for some space. My chest tightens to an unimaginable pain. My heart pounds in my chest and it feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest. Am I having a heart attack? I wait for the fallout, but it never comes.

I take deep breaths to try and steady myself before sitting on the back patio.

How am I going to explain this to Charlie? She adores her father and will be devastated without him around. Maybe we can find a way to make it work for her sake. She deserves to have both her parents in the same house. I have to do my best to hold on to him. For Charlie’s sake.

The sound of the back door opening draws my attention, and I turn to watch Craig step out of the house.

I quickly wipe my tears from my face and try to hide it so he can’t see that I am crying. That’s all I’d need is for him to see more tears fall from my eyes. But it’s too late. He lets out a breath and stands over me with a look of pity on his face. “Please don’t be sad, Blake.” He takes a seat across from me and leans forward. “I’m setting you free. Can’t you see? I am opening your cage and allowing you to fly.”

I raise my brow. “How am I to fly when you’ve clipped my wings?”

He shakes his head. “You get to be yourself again. The real Blake instead of Craig’s wife. Go out with your friends and have fun. Live your life like you always wanted to.”

“What friends? You made me get rid of all of my friends over the years. You have always told me that I was the only person you ever needed and that we didn’t need friends. There are only so many times that friends invite you out for a get together and for me to tell them no, because I know it will upset you, that they just give up on the friendship.” More tears well in my eyes.

“I no longer know how to be Blake. Don’t you get it? You have turned me into the woman I am now and forced me to live a life where you were my only person. But it was worth it because I was your wife. That meant something to me.” I pound my chest. “Yet you are so willing just to give me up and toss me out like a piece of garbage. You want to abandon me!” The tears begin to flow again. “I have done everything for you.” I sob. Fucking everything! “I cook. I clean. I take care of our child. I make sure you are sexually satisfied in every way possible. Hell, I even do sexual things for you that are so outside my comfort zone just to make sure you are happy.” The memory of the time he tied me up and used me like a whore, not even letting me get off because it ‘was his fantasy’, flashes in my mind and I have to stop the bile from rising in my throat.

I lean back in my chair. “I have lived every day since we got together, learning exactly how to please you and be the perfect woman for you.” I throw my hands in the air. “This is what I get for that. You abandon me like I have meant nothing. I have accepted you for all of your faults, Craig. Do you truly think anyone else will? I know all of your baggage. All of your trauma. Hell, I know all of the terrible things you have done over the years, and yet, still, you believe there’s someone else better for you out there.”

I am heartbroken. So many years were wasted on a man who quickly tossed me aside when he was no longer happy instead of communicating with me about anything. Sure, I have seen the change in him. The random bursts of anger toward me over the smallest things. How he no longer acknowledges me at the dinner table, always too busy playing on his phone or talking to someone else. The way he puffs out his chest and rolls his eyes the second I start talking to him, like I am the bane of his existence. But I always held onto the hope that he would go back to my Craig. To the Craig I fell in love with all those years ago, the man who made me feel like a queen. The man who made sure I was always taken care of and loved me so fiercely.

I know it is naive to think that he would ever be capable of such a thing. But, I was young when we got together. Hell, we both were. And beneath all of the hatred toward the world, I used to see a softness in him. I was his person. I was the one human being on earth that he didn’t hate. Now, I don’t know where I stand. The feeling is heart wrenching.

“We haven’t been good for a long time, Blake,” he sighs. “I know you have seen it. This has nothing to do with another woman. I… I just want to be Craig. I don’t want to be a husband anymore.”

I knew he was selfish; he has always been this way. But at least before, he always made us a priority. Now he wants to just step away, like we didn’t build a life together all these years.

“What about a dad? Do you think your responsibilities just go away because you leave?” I snap at him.

“I would never abandon her, Blake, and you fucking know it. I am a great father.” He stares at me for a moment before walking toward the door to the house. But before he goes inside, he turns a sad expression toward me. “I may be a shit husband, but you know how I was raised, Blake. I would never do that to our child. It’s how I know that what we have is no longer love. You don’t abandon the people you love.”

With that, he leaves me to wallow in my own self-pity. If I am now no longer good enough for him, who’s to say that one day Charlie won’t be either?

As I walk hand in hand with Charlie down the street, I think back on things. It has been months since the night Craig told me he no longer loved me. We promised each other to work it out for Charlie’s sake, but I can tell his heart isn’t truly in it. It isn’t even because he has been mean. It’s because he has chosen everything and everyone over me. He never wants to spend time with me anymore. He always wants to go hang out with his friends, and to top it all off, he has started drinking.

Drinking, just like his father did. Will he become violent with me now, too? Or will he end up drinking himself to death?

I have thought about ending my life in more ways than I care to admit. I have felt worthless and unloved. I spend my days when I am alone without him, staring off into the abyss. I feel nothing. I'm just trying to ground myself to keep from falling off the edge.

I feel like I am being pushed and pulled in different directions at all times. I never know where I stand in this marriage or even my own house. One second he is telling me he doesn’t love me, and we are better off friends, and then the next second he tells me if he leaves, he would still be around lurking in the shadows to kill any man who dares touch what is his. He claims me, yet doesn’t want me for himself. I just don’t understand how to survive right now. How do I play this game that he is so insistent on playing?

I can’t wear what I want to or listen to the music I wish to listen to. God forbid I smile at anything that doesn’t have something to do with my husband. I would get accused of cheating on him and wanting to leave. Or worse, called a whore or something else that demeans me as a woman.

I just have to stay strong for my five year old. That is my true motivation in life. I need to get a plan in place if Craig decides I am no longer worth his time and casts me aside for good.