Chapter 6 Bell Winters
bell winters
BELL
Dennis was so angry. I thought he’d kill me for sure this time. And when the world went black, I welcomed the final release from this earthly pain.
Only to wake up the next day….
Sore. Swollen. Only able to see out of one eye. But still alive.
This time, both arms were handcuffed to the bed I’d thrifted from the local Ruth’s House domestic abuse shelter’s annual charity drive.
Back then, I’d felt like a grateful survivor of DV while buying it.
This morning, I felt…
Nothing at all, actually. There would be no double summer wedding for me. No grandbabies. No ever seeing my daughters again. Because I’d failed.
Vacant Little Thing.
All that hoping stuff was over. The emotional numb settled back over me like a familiar blanket.
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
I looked over from my uncomfortably prone position to find Dennis sitting in one of the dainty yellow chairs I had picked for my kitchen table.
Back when I had a job. When I had freedom and my daughters’ respect.
All three of those things were gone now.
And apparently, so was Dennis’s patience.
The gun he’d threatened me with when he first arrived rested on his thigh. Black. Sleek. With a silencer attached.
“You’re only alive because I’ve decided to let you live, even after you fucked me over.
” His voice took on a whiny, resentful note.
“I had to sit in a jail cell for ten years because of you. Ten years eating powdered eggs and showering with twenty guys in one dirty bathroom. You owe me! You owe me for that. And if you ever, ever try to run from me again, I’ll—”
“Do it.”
I stared at him dully, then said the four words I’d only thought before. “Just kill me already.”
“You think I won’t?” Dennis lurched up from the chair and stalked over to the bed to press the gun’s cold barrel into my temple. “You think I won’t do it?”
“No,” I answered without flinching, “I’m afraid you won’t.”
He blinked. Then sputtered, “Wha…What?”
“You’ve already taken everything from me,” I explained to him with the utter calm of someone who had no effs left to give. “Why would I care about keeping the life you’ve made worthless?”
Dennis’s jaw tightened. His chest rose and fell in sharp, quick breaths, openly seething.
But then… my new worst fear came true.
“No, I’m not going to kill you.” He lowered the gun. “I’m not letting you off that easy.”
He shook his head at me, eyes glittering with resentment. “No, Belly, I’m going to hurt you bad. Cut you. Show you what I learned in jail. Make you beg me to end your worthless—”
A knock at the front door cut him off.
Both Dennis and I froze.
This was a coded building. All deliveries were either buzzed in or left downstairs. The rent was paid electronically to a landlord I hadn’t seen since signing my lease.
No one had any reason to stop by. Much less knock on my actual door.
It occurred to me to scream. This might be my best—my only—chance to alert someone I was being held here against my will. I sucked in a breath—
“Oh no you don’t!” Dennis slapped a hand over my mouth before I could even get it open.
“Shut up,” he hissed. “Shut up until whoever it is goes away.”
But whoever it was didn’t go away. A minute passed. Then…
A second knock. Louder. Fist pounding the wood.
Dennis tensed.
The thought must have hit him at the same time it hit me.
Maybe it was his “associates.” The ones he’d been yes-manning on his burner phone since getting out of prison.
“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath. “The whole point of staying in this crappy apartment was so they wouldn’t know where I lived.”
He fiddled with something out of my sightline—something I realized was duct tape when he plastered it over my mouth, making it so I couldn’t scream for help.
I could only watch as Dennis grabbed the gun from where he’d laid it on the nightstand.
He tucked the weapon behind his back and stalked out to answer the front door, closing my bedroom one behind him.
I heard the faint creak of hinges as the door opened.
A pause.
Then a deep, rumbling voice said: “I’m here to talk to Bell Winters.”
“Bell Jordan.” Dennis corrected the stranger before his voice turned suspicious. “And what’s this about? What do you want with her?”
Even now, he wouldn’t use my real name, and his voice dripped with jealousy, as if I’d somehow invited this stranger over while being held hostage for six months.
“She here?” the gruff voice asked.
“No,” Dennis lied. “What did you say your name was again?”
“You don’t need that information. But I do need to talk to Bell Winters.”
My name.
My real name. The one I’d put in the paperwork to go back to as soon as they hauled Dennis out of that courtroom in handcuffs.
I was trapped, silenced, helpless. But still, my chest warmed at the way the stranger at the door refused to call me anything else.
Dennis doubled down.
“Like I said, she’s not—hey, what’re you doing? You can’t come in here!”
A heavy stomp of boots, followed by, “Where is she?”
Dennis lost it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, man, barging into my apartment, pushing me around? You better not mess with me! I know how to defend myself!”
I couldn’t see Dennis, but I could easily picture him pointing the gun at the stranger.
“Get out or I’ll—”
A distinct crack—followed directly by Dennis screaming. “My fingers! You broke my goddamn fingers!”
“You’re lucky I didn’t break your neck for pointing a fucking gun at me.”
More boot stomping. Then—
The bedroom door opened.
And there he was.
A hulk of a man with icy-blue eyes, messy silver hair, and a bushy white beard.
He stared at me. His nose flaring like a bull.
Something dark and dangerous flickered across his face when he saw the handcuffs. The tape. All the bruises.
I stared back at him through my one open eye, my heart thundering.
“Who the hell are you?!” Dennis’s voice came from somewhere behind him, shrill and pained. “If the Del Gottis sent you—”
That was as far as he got. The man disappeared from the doorway. The next thing I heard was Dennis’s voice, quaking with fear.
“What’re you doing? Wait, how did…?”
There came a strange growl—so deep it vibrated through the floor.
Then Dennis screamed, this time in what sounded like pure terror—only to abruptly cut off.
Grunting noises followed, strange and wet. Then... sudden quiet.
A few moments later, there came the sound of the silenced gun being discharged. Swoomp! Swoomp! Swoomp! Over and over again, until only clicks remained in the gun..
My racing heart jerked to a stop. Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no!
Guilty tears sprang to my eyes. Had Dennis shot the man who’d come looking for me? Was he dead now? Because of me?
In the next moment, I found out that most definitely was not the case.
The stranger returned to the doorway. This time completely naked. And splattered with blood—so much blood it dripped from his hands, streaked across his chest, and stained his beard.
His ice-blue eyes were even more intense. And completely focused on me.
But then he tipped his head down and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Hey, Bell. Your daughters’ mates sent me to see if maybe you wanted to go to their wedding. Joining Ceremony. Whatever they’re calling it.”