Chapter 38
Mistakes Were Made
CALLIE
Idid exactly as he asked me to do, yet I think there’s a good chance Shane is going to kill me.
“Fucking bitch.” Shane has me duct-taped to a folding chair in the cold, dark barn, and he’s pacing back and forth in front of me.
I have no idea where we are. Last thing I remember is approaching my car in the dimly lit parking garage, and then nothing.
I woke up about ten minutes ago with my hands, wrists, and mouth duct taped. There’s an ache in my head that indicates Shane hit me with something to knock me out. As an aside, I much prefer Wes’s less violent drugged hot chocolate.
I’m freezing, but adrenaline races through my veins as I observe this completely unhinged man. And not unhinged in a good way. Unhinged in a he-might-murder-me way. My whole body shakes with fear and cold, and I clench my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering.
When I saw Shane at the fight club in New York, I felt confident, protected, furious. But that was with Wes and Noah by my side. Now it’s just me and Shane, who’s muttering under his breath as he continues to pace.
Where the fuck is my phone?
I concentrate on taking deep breaths through my nose.
I can’t think straight with my heart beating so loudly.
After getting some air in my lungs, I scan my surroundings.
We’re inside a dark barn, the low light coming from flickering bare bulbs hanging from the barn ceiling.
There are stacks of hay bales to my left along one side of the barn, and to my right is a tractor and snow plow equipment.
I look over my shoulder into the dark back of the barn.
I can’t tell what I’m looking at. A sliver of moonlight streams in from a door behind Shane, but all I see is dark outside of the barn.
I have a feeling we’re in the middle of nowhere.
My eyes settle on a pile of items by the door. My purse. A shadow of a duffel bag on the ground. A gun on top of the duffel.
Fuck.
For a second, hope surges through me as I spot my phone resting on the dirty floor next to the bag, far away, but at least here in the barn.
“Don’t worry. Your phone is off. No one is finding you here.” Shane strides over and reaches down to pick my phone up and hold it out to me. “Want it?” He laughs. “Nah. Not yet.”
My throat tightens. Fear grips my chest. Even I know that you can’t track a phone if it’s powered off.
“Oh, and I took the liberty of stopping by your apartment and grabbing these.” Shane walks over to the duffel bag and pulls out a blue folder. My stomach flips.
The divorce papers.
A whimper escapes my throat, and he drops them back on top of the bag.
“What’s that, Cals?” Shane strides over and rips the duct tape off my mouth, the sting eliciting a gasp from me.
“What the fuck,” I say in a voice so small it barely exists. Tears spill down my cheeks, and my mouth burns. “How—”
“I know how to break into an apartment, Cals. Fuck, you’re stupid as shit.”
“What about Jake?” And Honey Bunny. I suppress a pathetic whimper.
“In and out of the window, Cals. As easy as walking through the front door. Don’t worry, no one noticed me.”
My fear for my brother and rabbit morphs to despair.
So Shane broke into the apartment and Jake didn’t notice?
Par for the course. And I bet Jake won’t check on me tonight.
Sure, maybe it’s because of the way I blew him off earlier, but maybe it’s just always how it goes with people who are supposed to love me. I’m not anyone’s priority.
You know who didn’t do that? Wes. In the most important moment at the fight club, Wes even chose me over his brother, the one person he’s sworn to protect no matter what. I’m not proud that he did that. But it showed me he would choose me over everything else. No one’s ever done that for me.
And what did I do? I said the worst thing to him that I could think of. Because if I didn’t scare him away, I wouldn’t have been able to leave.
I could never be with someone like you.
What did I even fucking mean? I could never be with someone who chooses me first? Who is kind and deep and gorgeous? What is wrong with me? And now here I am. In a situation that I’ll probably never get out of.
My regrets come crashing over me. I wish it were Wes’s zip ties on my wrists right now instead of Shane’s duct tape.
Wes found Shane for me.
He protected me.
He chose me over his brother.
He made me feel like the center of his universe, not a side quest.
And I broke it off with that man.
What a fucking mistake, on so many levels.
“Fuck you, Shane.” Tears well in my eyes, then spill down my face.
Shane stops pacing and strides over to me.
Without a word, he raises his arm and brings the back of his hand down hard across my face, his knuckles digging into my cheek, my head whipping to one side.
I can’t breathe and panic as I struggle to take in air.
Shane’s never hit me before. Something’s changed. He’s changed.
He bends down in front of me, a hand on each of my thighs, leaning with his full body weight and squeezing hard. I can’t help the tremor in my body, from fear and anger and cold.
“I’m not even mad that you fucked another man. Not really.”
“You cheated on me all the time. You don’t even like me.” I turn my head and try not to sob. “Just let me go.”
He squeezes harder and harder until fresh tears stream down my cheeks. Rage flames on his face, but also excitement. He’s been waiting for me to fight back for years. Starting now is not my best decision.
“You don’t get to be happy.” He spits out happy like it’s a dirty word. “Not on my watch.”
“What do you want from me?” My brain is starting to clear from his hit. I gave him the money to get rid of him. To meet his divorce blackmail. So what more does he want from me?
“Oh, I want all the money, Cals.”
I scrunch my face up as I try to comprehend. He thinks I’m going to give him all the money?
But then he leans in close to my ear, and for a second I’m afraid he’s going to bite me. Instead, he whispers, “You see, I owed that money to Jones. Now he has it. But he wants interest. More money, more time, more of my fucking soul.”
Shane stands and resumes pacing.
“What? Owed him for what?” My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. Small and meek and inconsequential. Actually, that’s an accurate description of me.
Shane spins around and steps back to me, grabbing my chin with one hand. I whimper and shut my eyes.
“You don’t know anything, Calliope.” He squeezes my chin when I try to turn away. Hatred flares inside me. How dare he use my name the way Wes does? “Jones blames me for that cocaine shipment getting seized. I owed him a whole fucking lot of money.”
Oh, damn. I open my eyes. It’s hard to meet Shane’s intense, rage-filled gaze, but I do.
“But you gave it to him?”
“Yes! I gave him some money when I first left Portland.”
“The money from our account,” I say, but I don’t think Shane hears me. Probably for the better.
Shane releases my chin and turns, taking long, aggressive strides, shaking his hands, scrunching his face.
“And he sent me to New York City to work off the rest of my fucking debt.” Shane spits out those words, like he doesn’t believe it was really his debt at all.
“When he heard that your father’s estate had cleared, he fucked me up.
Told me I needed to be ready to get it from you when you showed up with those fuck boys of yours. ”
I let out a ragged breath. I am so, utterly, completely screwed.
“And then I gave him the money from your father. But was that enough? No. It fucking wasn’t.”
“Shane—”
He rounds on me and gets right in my face.
“Shut the fuck up, Cals.” Spittle flies out of his mouth and onto my cheek.
I keep my eyes focused on a spot behind him, the dark entrance to the barn. I don’t respond. I try to sink into the chair, disappear into the dark shadows behind me. But there’s no way for me to move.
“This is your fault. This is all your fault.” His voice is dangerous, and then Shane raises his hand and slaps me across the face on the other cheek. The contact stings, and for a moment I can’t breathe, can’t comprehend what just happened. Shane must’ve been holding back all these years.
“You don’t understand anything. All you’ve done your whole life is hide from who your family is. Who you really are. And now look at you. Pathetic. Weak. Fragile like your fucking rabbit.”