Chapter 22
Juliette
Gordon followed me into the kitchen when I got home, my chest heavy with guilt and regret and the fact that the last five years of my life had been some horrible dark mistake.
“I thought you were going grocery shopping,” Gordon asked.
“Hm?” was all I said, not able to find it in me to lock eyes with him.
“I thought you were getting groceries,” he said, voice getting a little firmer. “Where are they?”
“Oh…” I said, looking down at my hands. Not a single bag. Not even a bottle of milk to make it look believable. “Um… I don’t know.”
“You’re being dumber than usual.” Gordon huffed. “And I think I know why.”
My brows furrowed as I tried to clear my thoughts. “Hm?”
“You’ve been lying to me.”
Pressing my hands to the counter, I shook my head, barely able to focus on his voice.
It was all a lie. Every last bit of it. Bridger had been locked up in that cell, all on his own, wondering why I wanted nothing to do with him, why I wouldn’t even pay him a single visit.
He hadn’t hurt me. We could have been together.
We should have been together. I had been so ready and willing to spend the rest of my life with him. Money or not, here I come.
“I want to show you something,” Gordon said sharply.
Head still a mess, I barely managed to speak. “What?”
I peered over my shoulder to see Gordon leaning up against the other end of the too long counter.
My eyes ran along his body, seeing him shaking ever so slightly.
I had seen him like that far too many times before.
Jaw tight, dark eyes, lips curled into a snarl as his body trembled with rage, as he hit me and kicked me and choked me and made me wish I had the guts to run from him. I knew the reason for that anger.
In his hands was one of my paintings.
“What is this?” he asked, holding the canvas up. Bright blue sky, cascading waves, golden sand that looked soft enough to sleep on.
“I…” I needed a lie, but there wasn’t one sufficient enough, and my brain was already melting from my father’s confession. “I…”
“Well?” he asked. “What have you been doing up there? Where did you get all of that from? The paint, the brushes? Who gave it to you?”
“Gordon…” I took a step back from him, and he hobbled my way. “Wait… Just…”
It happened before I knew it. A backhand. Quick, sharp, but only stinging slightly. Thanks to the injury, it was probably one of the weakest hits Gordon had ever given me.
Tears still welled in my eyes, hot and burning. They weren’t from the hit. It was from the realization that I had wasted five years of my life away from the man I was always meant to be with. My eyes closed at the fact.
“I can barely walk and I can still manage to make you cry.” Gordon laughed, the sound cold and amused.
“Maybe this should be a wake up call, Juliette. I own you. You are my property. Useless property, but still my property. I told you I didn’t like it when you painted.
When you wasted your time on this stupid hobby of yours.
But you just like to disappoint me, don’t you? ”
When I said nothing, I heard his fist hit the counter.
“You can’t even talk,” he continued. “If it wasn’t for me being injured, you’d be on the floor, and that painting would be torn in half. Maybe I should make you do it yourself. Go get a knife.”
A choked breath escaped me, my eyes slowly opening. “What?”
“Get a knife.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
“I can’t.”
“Go get a knife.”
“I can’t be around you. I can’t. I don’t want to be around you. I’m tired of this and I know you are too, so we should both just—”
“Get a fucking knife,” he snapped. “Now.”
My head shook wildly as I took more steps away from him. “No. No. You don’t love me and I don’t love you, so let’s both just end this right now. Let’s just finish this and—”
“I get hurt and now you think you have the power here? You think you can do what you want?”
“That’s not why I’m doing this.”
His fingers were suddenly tangled in my hair, yanking me forwards before he turned me around.
I heard something clatter and hit the floor.
His crutches. His other hand grabbed my wrist, pulling it awkwardly and fiercely, the pain radiating all the way from the tips of my fingers to my shoulder.
I tried to push back, tried to nudge him off of me, but despite his injury, he still had so much more strength than me.
“You’ve turned into a little cunt these last few weeks,” he said.
“Stop!” I winced, but that just made him tug at my hand tighter, pulling it in a way that it definitely wasn’t meant to be pulled. I prepared myself to hear a harsh, loud snap in the air that signified him breaking my arm. “Gordon, stop!”
“This is what’s meant to happen, Juliette. I tell you what to do, and you listen, and when you don’t listen, I have to punish you, because how the hell else are you gonna learn?”
“Stop it! Get off me!” I kicked a leg out desperately, trying to find his, and I did for just a millisecond—but that just angered him further. His heavy foot slammed into my left ankle and I shrieked as he groaned, the action seemingly hurting both of us at the same time.
I was thrown to the tiles below me and I tried to get on my hands and knees so I could crawl away, so I could run, so I could find Bridger and feel his arms around me, because that was the safest place in the world to be.
Instead, I felt Gordon’s body pressed to mine as he flipped me over, my back to the tiles as he hurled himself on top of me.
My hands were up and flailing, trying to scratch, trying to poke, trying to pull, but Gordon was too fast and angry, because suddenly his hands were on my throat.
He squeezed hard and tight, thumbs digging into my skin as my eyes widened.
“I own you. You don’t get to disobey me.
You are my wife and I am the husband, and that means you follow all of my rules, and what’s my biggest rule?
” he asked, and when I didn’t reply—as if I could, anyway—he just pressed his hands against my neck harder.
“My biggest rule is that you don’t get to paint, but like the disobedient little cunt that you are, you go and ignore me. ”
My nails desperately clawed at his skin, hoping the scratches I was giving him were enough to get him to back off, but I saw nothing in his eyes.
Literally nothing. They were cold and dead.
This wasn’t just me annoying him. This was his property pissing him off and going against his most important order.
I was about to die. This was it for me. This was how it ended. Me on the kitchen floor with Gordon’s disgusting body on top of mine as he strangled me to death. He’d get away with it too. Of course he would. Gordon Cavendish most definitely had enough pull to get away with murder.
I was coughing wildly as I laid there on the floor, my hands slapping against Gordon’s shoulders. There was a ringing in my ears that let me know that the end was near. That in a minute or maybe two, it would be over.
I felt warm. Not good warm. Warm in a way that felt like a warning, like my brain was telling me to get out of there. It was like heat was wrapping around me, overpowering me, taking me out.
He squeezed tighter and tighter. As if he didn’t already have his fingers glued to my throat. I was sputtering out coughs, eyes and cheeks wet with tears, some strands of hair in my face.
I was a mess, and I was about to die, and I loved Bridger Underwood and wished he had chosen right now to sneak into my house and kill my husband. I loved Bridger Underwood and always had and always would.
“I’m gonna tear that fucking painting in half with my own hands,” he said, teeth gritted.
I heard it then. Footsteps. Heavy, slow, calm.
Me and Gordon both turned—me, just barely, just able to, and there he stood by the end of the counter, eyes dark, jaw tight, fists clenched. The man I had been hoping and praying for. The man I had been envisioning. The man I loved and never stopped loving.
I had never seen Bridger look so ready to kill.