Chapter 20
Sierra
I was going to die.
I knew it.
Unfortunately, there was absolutely nothing I could do to change my fate.
A loud gasp filled the bathroom, my pathetic attempt to draw a breath when my head was yanked out of a bathtub full of water.
I spewed water before I could get any air, the water I’d swallowed before he’d dunked my head again.
I opened my eyes to see the maniacal look in my husband’s eyes.
He’d tilted heavily into insanity, and there was no reasoning with him.
“Tell me the truth, Sierra!” he insisted loudly as his grip on my wet hair tightened until I thought the hair would be detached from my head.
I said nothing.
We’d been through this for so long that I wasn’t sure how long he’d been taking me to the brink of death in this bathroom.
I’d lost consciousness twice, certain I was never going to open my eyes again.
Jordan knew the truth.
I’d given it to him over and over again.
He wanted me to lie, to die groveling, begging him not to kill me.
I refused to give him what he wanted.
He was going to kill me anyway.
At least I could die with a modicum of dignity.
Maybe that wasn’t much since I was probably blue and I’d spilled a sea of red onto the bathroom floor, bleeding heavily from the injuries he’d given me before this endless drowning attempt. But I refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing me lie before he ended my life.
“Tell me!” he bellowed.
“I told you the truth,” I said, panting because my body was low on oxygen.
“Bitch!” he screamed and slammed my head under the water again.
I tried my best to hold my breath, but I knew the wait for air was going to be long.
I was going to take my last breath soon.
I just wasn’t sure how it was going to happen.
I sucked in a breath sooner than I had planned as Jordan jerked my head out of the water and threw me violently to the floor.
My head hit the bathtub on the way to the floor, and I struggled not to lose consciousness.
“I’m done with this shit,” he grunted as he reached for something on the bathroom counter. “It’s time to die, Sierra.”
Even though I knew what was going to happen, terror flooded through my soul.
I wanted to get up.
I wanted to flee.
I wanted to get out of this tiny bathroom that was about to become a crime scene.
I just…couldn’t.
I tried, but I couldn’t move a muscle.
My beating earlier had been so bad that I probably had broken bones, and I was utterly exhausted from fighting for so long to stay alive.
I needed to live!
I had one very good reason to keep breathing.
I couldn’t die here!
Panic flooded me, and I could only watch as Jordan lifted the handgun from the counter and took aim at my stomach.
Adrenaline coursed through my body, and that energy gave me the strength to cover my belly and jerk onto my side.
He simply stood and kicked me onto my back again.
Oh, God, no!
“Jordan!” I exclaimed as I tried to meet his eyes.
I wanted to appeal to his better nature, to reach something vaguely human inside him.
When I looked into his black eyes, I knew it was over.
There was nothing human inside him anymore.
The loud explosion of the gunshot rang out in the room.
No! No! No!
“Please, God! No!” I called out as I opened my eyes and shot up into a sitting position.
“Sierra!” Asher said in an urgent voice as he wrapped his strong arms around my trembling body. “It’s a nightmare. You’re okay. I promise you that you’re safe!”
Safe?
Was I safe?
Was it really just a nightmare?
I shivered in Asher’s arms.
Asher?
Asher was with me?
Asher Remington.
Not Jordan.
Reality finally dawned on me, and I wrapped my arms around the man who was trying to comfort me.
I wasn’t in Houston.
I was in Crystal Fork, Montana with a man who would never hurt me.
“Asher?” I whimpered.
“I’m here, sweetheart. You’re safe,” he crooned as he held my head tightly against his shoulder with one hand and stroked my back with the other. “I’ve got you, Sierra.”
I was alive.
I hadn’t died that day.
I tried to slow the desperate beating of my heart and my rapid breaths.
I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.
I hadn’t experienced that particular nightmare in so long that I’d apparently forgotten how to slowly shake off the night terror.
I started to sob against Asher’s shoulder.
He simply held me tight and muttered reassurances into my ear until the tears began to subside.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a tremulous voice. “That hasn’t happened in a long time.”
Three years ago, the dreams had come almost nightly, but they’d stopped about a year after I’d started treatment.
This nightmare had been particularly bad.
It had been so damn vivid that I’d felt like I was in that bathroom all over again.
Jordan had been on my mind lately, probably because I was in a relationship for the first time after my horrific marriage.
I probably should have told Asher everything, but I’d delayed talking about those years because I was so happy just to be with a man like Asher.
That had probably been foolish on my part.
Yes, I’d recovered.
Yes, I had moved on.
Yes, I was slowly putting my life back together.
But regardless of my extensive treatment for nearly three years, there were some things about my past that would probably always haunt me just a little.
“Don’t ever apologize for something that isn’t your fault,” Asher said huskily. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t, but I think there are things you need to know, and I think I need to get it all out there.”
I didn’t want to talk about it, but I needed to talk about it.
I didn’t ever want to feel vulnerable again, but I trusted Asher.
Now that I had calmed down a little, I was seeing the nightmare as a sign that it was time for me to talk about my past with Asher.
Honestly, I’d thought about telling him when we’d first come home from Millie’s family dinner earlier, but the moment we’d stepped inside the door of his house, he’d kissed me.
We’d gotten so wrapped up into each other after that kiss that any thoughts of having a serious discussion had completely slipped from my mind.
“Then tell me, sweetheart,” he said huskily. “Maybe I can help you chase the nightmares away.”
Tears filled my eyes.
He probably had no idea how much it meant to me that he actually wanted to help me fight my demons, but it was everything to me.
I’d spent most of my adult life feeling guilty, inept, and alone.
I shifted to try to get into a more comfortable position, knowing it was going to be a long discussion.
Asher pulled me between his legs as he leaned back against the headboard. When my back was rested against his front, he wrapped his arms tightly around my waist.
We’d fallen asleep nude, so I was comforted by the way we were together skin-to-skin.
I thought about turning on the bedside lamp, but this was a story that would probably be easier to tell in the darkness.
I took a deep breath. “Before you, I only had one man in my life, Asher. I was married for twelve years. We dated for two years before that. Three years ago, he tried to kill me, and he almost succeeded.”
I felt Asher’s body tense, but I continued.
“For most of my marriage, I felt like everything bad that happened was my fault. After a while, I’d been gaslighted for so long that I almost eagerly took the blame for everything.
He couldn’t keep a job, he said horrible things to me, and he was never kind.
The physical abuse started about a year before he tried to kill me.
He told me that I drove him to abuse, and sometimes I even believed that, too.
I went through a cycle of guilt and anger until I couldn’t take it anymore.
I knew I had to get out, but on the day I finally tried to escape for good, he beat me so badly that I couldn’t get out. ”
“Fuck!” Asher cursed. “The police?”
“I couldn’t get to my phone,” I told him. “That beating went on for a long time. He broke my ribs, my arm, and some of my facial bones that day before he filled the bathtub and started to hold my head under the water for long periods of time. I lost consciousness twice, but I didn’t die.”
“What the fuck?” he rasped in a furious voice.
“He wanted me to lie, and I wouldn’t. I knew he was going to kill me, Asher. I didn’t want to go out groveling. I’d done that for long enough. When he finally grabbed the gun, he shot me in the stomach first. He wanted to see me suffer.”
“What did he want you to say?” he growled.
“He wanted me to tell him that the child I was carrying wasn’t his. He wanted to feel like he was justified in killing both of us,” I said in a rush, the pain and anguish of that day flooding over me.
“He killed my baby boy first,” I choked out as I placed my hands on Asher’s forearms and squeezed.
The agony of losing my child still hit me hard.
“I was six months pregnant. That was what finally motivated me to get out. I didn’t want to raise my child in a marriage like ours.
The rational part of my brain knew that I had to get out of my marriage and straighten my head out for the sake of my child.
Jordan knew I was done. He killed my baby first, and then shot me in the chest. It was a miracle I didn’t die that day, Asher, but for a while, I really wished that I had. ”
It had been a very long physical and mental recovery for me before I’d decided that I wanted to live.
“What happened to him?” he asked tightly.
I took a deep breath and let it out. “He’s dead,” I told him. “After he shot his child and then me, he shot himself in the head.”
I kept a tight grip on Asher’s forearms, but I felt a few of my muscles relax.
Now that I’d gotten the horrific facts out, the details would be easier, and I didn’t plan on holding anything back from Asher.
Before the night was over, he’d know about everything that had happened during those dark years of my past.