30. Bridget
Bridget
Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Cole’s motionless body slumped over the steering wheel.
When the emergency services arrived at the crash site, his side of the car was so damaged that they’d had to use hydraulic rescue tools to get him out.
The only reason I knew he was still alive was because the paramedics relayed his condition out loud to each other as they wheeled him into the back of their ambulance.
Only once he was headed to the hospital did I agree to allow the EMTs to treat my minor injuries. It wasn’t fair that I’d walked away with only a few cuts and abrasions, while Cole had been seriously hurt.
The paramedics insisted that I get a full evaluation, and I consented to having them transport me to the hospital in the hope it would get me to Cole faster. But during the drive, they explained that they couldn’t guarantee we would end up at the same facility.
So after being poked and prodded and made to lie flat while I was inserted into some gigantic machine for scans, I was all but abandoned in a private room to await the doctor’s decision about my discharge.
I’d taken to counting the ceiling tiles to pass the time when the door opened, and a nurse entered.
My vitals were checked for what felt like the millionth time as she asked, “Are you in any pain?”
“It’s manageable.” I’d dealt with far worse.
She flashed me a kind smile, looping her stethoscope around her neck. “Good.”
“Um, would you happen to know if my boyfriend is here?”
With a nod, she replied, “He’s been waiting to see you.”
My head dropped back on the thin pillow, and I said on a relieved exhale, “Thank God.”
Cole was okay.
“If you want, I can send him in.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, and my voice came out watery. “Yes, please.”
The nurse quietly slipped out of the room. A few minutes later, the door reopened, and I held my breath expectantly, only for it to freeze in my lungs as my blood turned to ice when the man who walked in wasn’t Cole.
Aiden shut the door behind him; the quiet latching of it might as well have been the heavy thud of a prison door sliding into its locked position. Because I was trapped, and this time, I feared there would be no escape.
“Oh, Bridget. Thank God you’re okay.”
Though his eyes were filled with evil intent as they stared daggers at me, his voice contained the charm he used to fool everyone but me. And it came out loud enough that it could be heard through the thin wooden barrier.
He was putting on a show.
Too bad for him, I was done playing his co-star.
“Get out,” I seethed, pointing to the door at his back.
Moving closer, Aiden continued to perform. “Don’t worry, baby. He’s never going to get the chance to hurt you ever again.”
My jaw unhinged. “What did you do to him?”
Lips curving into a wicked grin, he leaned in to speak in my ear, “Lover boy is going away for a very, very long time.”
His hand gripped a fistful of my hair and wrenched my head back. My pained cry split the air.
Bringing his face an inch away from mine, Aiden snarled, “You’re going to pay for this. All of it. The birth control pills. The running act. Fucking another man behind my back.”
Fear gripped me in a chokehold, and though I detested showing any weakness in front of this man who thrived on it, my body shook uncontrollably.
This quiet rage was far more deadly than any of the hundreds of times he’d shouted the house down, the vein in his forehead pulsing; I’d learned that the night he threw me across the room and left me covered in bruises.
There was a very real chance I might not survive whatever “punishment” he had planned.
Aiden released me suddenly—scratch that, he didn’t so much release me as throw me against the gurney—and barked, “Get your shit. We’re going home.”
Then he was gone, and my eyes darted around the room, in desperate search of salvation. My gaze locked on my purse, and I leapt off the thin mattress to dig through it.
A plan—a Hail Mary of sorts—began to form in my mind.
Rushing into the attached bathroom, I pulled out my cellphone—the one Cole had bought for me that Aiden didn’t know about. With trembling hands, I opened the voice memo app and hit the button to start a new recording.
Voice hushed, I spoke into the microphone.
“My name is Bridget Russell, and I need help. I’ve been trapped in an abusive relationship with San Diego Police Department’s Officer Aiden Wheeler for the past three years.
Recently, I managed to escape, with the help of a friend, Cole Astor, who serves as the captain for the San Diego Surf.
I had planned to have Officer Wheeler served with a restraining order on Monday, but was in a car crash today, December 12th, which alerted him to my location.
He’s intent on forcing me to return to his residence at 731 Tideview Lane in Grant Hill.
In his agitated state, there’s no telling what he’s capable of, and I’m scared for my life. ”
Ending the recording, I created a group text chat and attached the file.
But I didn’t press Send.
Instead, I scheduled it to send in twenty minutes.
It was a terrible idea to let Aiden remove me from the hospital, but he was currently in uniform, and I was very aware that he was armed.
While I still didn’t know where Cole had ended up, there was a chance that people I cared about were on the premises.
If Aiden got backed into a corner, he might become unpredictable; I couldn’t risk an innocent person getting caught in the crossfire.
All I could do now was play along and pray that my plea for help reached the right people before it was too late.
A fist came down on the bathroom door, and I levitated about a foot off the ground with a frightened squeak.
“Bridget!” Aiden boomed.
“Just a minute.”
I quickly stuffed the cell phone behind the toilet, just in case Aiden decided to rifle through my bag and found not only the mobile device but the Mayday message, thus killing any hope of rescue.
Peeking back one more time to ensure my hiding job was sufficient, I opened the door.
Head cast down, I murmured, “I’m ready.”
Aiden gripped my elbow with bruising force, and I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste blood in an effort to stifle my whimper. “If you try anything stupid, I’ll have my contacts behind bars make your fuck buddy’s death look like an accident.”
I couldn’t suppress my audible swallow.
Aiden didn’t issue idle threats; I knew that from experience.
He released my arm, placing a palm on my lower back as he ushered me from the room.
I began to sweat when our departure was extended by his stopping to personally thank every doctor and nurse who had seen to my care, while also expressing his extreme gratitude that his missing fiancée—gag—had been returned to him.
After what felt like an eternity, we headed for the exit, but not before I heard Crew’s irate voice filtered from the far end of a hallway.
“The fuck do you mean he’s been arrested? The guy’s never so much as jaywalked!”
Aiden’s fingers flexed, warning me to keep my mouth shut.
By the time we made it to his car, thirteen minutes had passed. Only seven more, and my distress signal would go out. I just had to hold on a little while longer.
The anger radiating off Aiden filled the cabin. “Those pills should be out of your system by now, so there’s nothing stopping me from putting my baby in your belly.”
Weakly, I said, “I don’t want kids.”
“Well, too fucking bad!” he roared. “Because I do.”
All too soon, we were pulling up to his house. I dragged my feet up the walk, as if I were headed to the gallows and hoping that if I stalled, it would result in a stay of execution.
No such luck.
“Bedroom. Now,” Aiden gritted out through clenched teeth once we made it through the door.
Obeying, I moved in that direction.
As soon as I made it past the threshold, Aiden gripped the collar of my shirt and tugged, ripping the fabric clean off me.
Head held high, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me cower. This wasn’t the first time this man had forced himself on me, but if there was a God, it would be the last.
My leggings were wrenched off next, and a disgusted scoff sounded as he surveyed my nearly naked form. “Gone for two months and you managed to put on more weight.”
Actually, asshole, I’ve lost fifteen pounds. Thanks for noticing.
Aiden snapped his fingers as if he were commanding a dog rather than a person. “Bed.”
I didn’t put up a fight, walking to the mattress and positioning myself on my back.
Strong hands gripped my calves, hauling me to the edge. He’d just begun to work on his belt buckle when his cell rang.
With an annoyed huff, he reached into his pocket, checking the Caller ID.
“Don’t move. I need to take this.” He pressed a button on the smooth screen and brought the device to his ear. “Captain Phillips, what can I do for you, sir?”
As he listened to whatever his boss had to say, his face got redder and redder by the second. Then he tossed the cell across the room, and it hit the wall with a deafening crack.
“You fucking bitch!”
There wasn’t time to brace before he landed a punch to my face, my head snapping to the side as a brilliant bolt of agony burst across my cheekbone. The blow was strong enough that my vision darkened at the edges, and I became slightly disoriented.
I was vaguely aware of the repeated smack of skin against skin—the kind of sound you heard in the midst of sex, yet it was somehow different.
When I was able to focus my eyes again, I figured out why.
Aiden was frantically pulling on his flaccid dick, trying to stroke it to life.
I almost snorted. Of all the times to be unable to get it up.
Guess there was someone looking out for me after all.
“Problem?” I taunted, emboldened by the promise of rescue on the horizon.
“You think this is funny?” He snarled before his hand created an iron band around my throat, threatening to cut off my air supply. “How about now?”
Struggling would only aid in his pursuit to obtain an erection, so I remained motionless.
He brought his free hand to his mouth, the lewd sound of him spitting on it enough to turn my stomach, before he returned it to his cock.
From outside, someone spoke, amplified by what I could only assume was a loudspeaker. “Wheeler, we have the house surrounded. Let the girl go before you make this any worse for yourself.”
Maniacal laughter burst past Aiden’s lips.
“Worse? That’s a fucking joke. This ends one of two ways.
Option one, they pump me full of lead in my own home.
Option two, I get thrown in a cell where I’ll be shanked because criminals are eager to take revenge on cops who wind up in jail.
Either way, I’m dead. So I might as well get one last fuck in before I end up in the ground. ”
Yeah, didn’t love that plan.
Sometimes, the damsel in distress had to take matters into her own hands and rescue herself, a decision that was made easier by knowing I had backup.
Aiden’s pants were around his ankles now, the gun he carried while on duty down on the floor with them.
I pulled one of my legs up until the knee kissed my chest before using all the strength I could muster to nail him square in the balls. With a wounded cry, the man folded like a cheap lawn chair, and I didn’t waste a single second.
Springing to my feet, I grabbed the gun out of its holster, switched off the safety, and pointed it directly at Aiden’s chest as I walked backward out of the room, not stopping until I reached the front door.
Mindful of the police presence outside, I cracked the door open slowly, shouting through the opening, “I’m coming out! I have his firearm!”
“Miss Russell, listen to me very carefully,” a voice I recognized as Captain Phillips’s said from nearby. “I want you to put it on the ground and kick it over. Then you’re gonna run to the police cruisers lined up in the street. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
I kept one eye on the bedroom door, expecting an enraged Aiden to appear any second, then did as they said.
The second the gun was out of my hands, I bolted across the lawn on bare feet toward the flashing red and blue lights.
When I got there, someone wrapped me in a blanket, and I was suddenly thankful that Aiden hadn’t gotten around to tearing off my bra and panties before the situation took a turn in my favor. I wouldn’t have hesitated to escape completely naked—it was better than winding up dead—but it wasn’t ideal.
“Bridget!”
My ears perked up, and I spun around, eyes searching. “Cole?”
The man I loved came into view, and I didn’t think; I just ran, not stopping until I was safely secured in his arms—well, arm, since the left one was in a sling, encased in a cast.
“Fuck, beautiful.” Emotion leaked into his tone as he spoke against the top of my head. “I’ve never been more terrified.”
“Me too,” I whimpered into his chest.
He pulled back, scanning me from head to toe, his gaze pausing on every bump and bruise littering my skin. “How much of this is from the accident, and how much is from him?” His eyes lifted to where Aiden was being hauled out of the house, hands cuffed behind his back.
“He only got one good hit in.” I touched the tender spot above my cheekbone.
Cole growled. “That’s one too many.”
“It’s over now. For good this time.”
He hugged me tight. “He’ll never be able to hurt you ever again.”
I’d been granted the one wish I never dared to dream would come true—a life free of fear.
And I planned to make the most out of every second.