Chapter 51
“Cal,” I say, getting her attention from screaming at the back of Michael’s head. “I’ve got this.”
When I meet his dark brown eyes, my anxiety spikes. He has his officer uniform on but is strategically missing his name tag and badge. His hair hasn’t been shaved since the last I saw him; it’s grown a few inches from his head, uncombed, and the curls sprouting from several different places.
“Who’s your superior officer? I’m reporting you for this shit!” She rushes around toward me, her cellphone in hand.
It’s now I hear vibration and know by the rhythm that it’s my phone going off. Odds are it’s Britt updating me… Fuck.
I need to play this safe for Cal’s sake, so as badly as I want to go for it, I don’t.
“Hey, why don’t you head home? I’ll help this officer with whatever he needs, and then I’m going to shower.” Offering her a smile, I give her a nod. “You’ve done enough for me.”
Her brows pinch. “What? It’s fine. I’m not leaving.”
I place my hand over hers as she reaches to dial Ronan, stopping her before she can. “I’m fine. I’ll call you with any updates.”
“I’m just going to ask him some questions,” Michael says, breaking the conversation between us. “Then I’ll be on my way, miss.” I can hear him trying to hide his fury. For someone like Cal, she might not notice, but I can.
I’ve always been able to tell when he’s on the verge of losing his temper.
He’s seconds from it, if that.
“Are you sure?”
“Mhmm. Can you make sure the cat door is open for Clover to come back in? It’s on the back door.” I will thank whoever I need to another time that Keo decided to install one. “I just let her out. You can go out that way as well.”
The entire time, I keep my gaze fixed on hers. I know my act will crumble if I even glance at Michael. He can break me, but I can’t let him hurt Cal. I’m not sure I could live with myself if he did.
“Alright…” She places her hand onto my forearm and gives me a weary smile. “Please text me when he leaves.”
“After I take a shower, I will.”
Her head turns, eyes narrowing on the man I know I’ll have to face alone any moment now. My heart races, thrashing against my chest as if it wants to escape with Calista.
As she walks away, I take a deep breath and release it slowly.
The instant I hear the door open, I fix my attention on Michael. He stands in the middle of the living room, hands at his sides, looking far angrier than the last time I saw him, and that’s saying something. Keoni had just beaten his ass and literally thrown him out of the cabin.
As the door clicks shut, his nostrils flare. “You know…” I’m not sure what I expected this moment to feel like—him addressing me directly for the first time in months—but it’s like ants crawling across my body. “I’m pretty upset with you.”
An urge to be snarky rises, but I swallow it back down. I need to be strategic. “I’m sorry.”
He snorts his irritation. “Sure the fuck you are.”
“Michael, what’s going on? You could get in a lot of trouble being here.”
His anger seethes through his teeth as he spits out, “I don’t give a fuck, Ayden! I didn’t care a week ago when I arrived, and I don’t now.”
Sweat builds in my palms but the icy chill that rolls through me feels like I’ve been dipped into the lake outside.
“What?”
He begins pacing, between the couch and the fireplace, making sure to avoid hitting the coffee table. “All you had to do was come back home. None of this would’ve happened. I wouldn’t have had to do this!” He doesn’t quite scream, but his voice elevates slightly.
My guess is he’s worried that Calista might be standing outside, trying to listen. No. If she saw the note, which I know she would have, I’ve no doubt she’s far from this cabin, calling Ronan and Levi to come back.
“What do you want with me?” My words are more of a plea than a genuine question. “Why me? There are plenty of people out there for you…”
He throws his head back and lets out a ‘pfft’. “You don’t get to fucking tell me who I’m going to spend my life with.”
“I don’t want you. I never will.”
“You’d rather have your goddamn stepbrother. You’re sick in the head, Ayden.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I nod. “I am. Fine. But it doesn’t change anything.”
When he takes a step toward me, I take one back. His head tilts as he gives me a filthy, evil smile. “But with him out of the way, I can have you again.”
A sharp pain pierces my heart. “What do you mean? Out of the way?”
“He’s brainwashed you. You were happy with me before he started to mess with your fucking head. You’ll forget all about him in no—”
“What the fuck do you mean?!”
His nostrils flare in response to me screaming at him, but I don’t care. “I’ve taken care of our problem.”
No… Is that why he didn’t come home?
I shake my head. “You wouldn’t…”
“Oh, I did. I promise I’m capable of anything when it comes to getting you back, Ayden. You are mine, and I will not lose you to your family. Now. Let’s go. You can text your—”
“What did you do?!”
I’m not a violent person. It’s never been in my nature to swing first, but a sharp surge through my arms and legs has me doing exactly that.
Being violent.
I charge at him, swinging a closed fist into his face.
The shock of the hit leaves him unprepared to stay upright.
The instant he’s on his ass, I kneel beside him and strike again.
It takes only a second for him to fight back, and suddenly my wrists are in his grasp before I can land another good punch.
I shout through my rage. “You motherfucker, you better not have touched a single hair on his head or I’ll kill—”
He throws himself up, and while I fight, I’m not trained to take anyone down. I’m not an officer, not a firefighter. I wasn’t built for this life, to physically fight for a life that’s supposed to be mine without question.
Mine to share with Keoni.
My back hits the wooden floor, and I cough violently. One of his knees drives into my stomach, and I open my mouth to scream, but he clamps his hand over it. The sheer intensity of my agony vibrates against his palm.
I swing and kick, but he overpowers me at every turn. Attempting a physical fight was stupid, but I lost control. The thought of him hurting Keo…
“Such a fucking bitch, Ayden,” he breathes, pressing harder into my abdomen as he slides his knee across my hip to straddle me. The bruising pain sends a shudder through my entire body. “You’re…” he grits out, struggling to grab my wrists. “A fighter now, huh?!”
“Get the hell off me!” I drive my knee into the base of his spine, causing him to curse through his teeth.
“Fucking…”
I see the hit coming, but there’s little I can do. Blinding pain explodes through my head, and my body goes completely limp. Every muscle goes numb from the ache of that blow rattling through my skull.
My face feels tight, especially around my left eye, which refuses to open no matter how much I plead.
“There we go,” he says through heavy breaths. “Here I thought your stepbrother would be the problem for me.” He pauses; the clink of metal sounds deafening over the constant ringing in my ears.
As he lifts one of my wrists, he laughs. “I should’ve just killed you both at that fucking campsite.” My heart stutters. “Broke in here so when you or your sister came back, I could’ve just shot you both and been done with it. Blamed it on your sick stepbrother.”
Cold metal clamps around my wrist. As he moves for the other, I slowly pull it away.
“No…”
“Ayden, babe, stop fighting. You’ll make it worse for yourself.”
I’m still reeling from that hit because it doesn’t take long for him to get a grip on my other one and force it into the same metal binding.
The moment he throws my arms up over my head, my shoulders argue the movement. I try to separate my hands, but they’re bound too tightly by the handcuffs.
Opening my right eye, I watch him place his hands right on my shoulder joint and with a sharp thrust, he pushes down hard. The sickening pops are drowned out by my scream. Hot pain flares like fire, radiating to my fingertips as every muscle in my arm spasms.
“Shut the fuck up.” He grabs a folded blanket from a nearby basket and shoves it into my mouth. Before he can pull back his fingers, I bite down—little good it does. He just jerks them out.
Heat spikes in my temples as I push the fabric out with my tongue, but he covers my mouth with his palm.
“There we go. Quiet. Just like you used to be.”
He rolls his head around his shoulders before roughly sitting on my stomach. I groan as more of his weight presses down on me.
“As I was saying, that would’ve been too messy.
I hate cleaning up shit… You know…” He laughs.
“I had to miss the holidays with my family because you were being a fucking brat—a little princess. This hadn’t been the plan.
The moment your stepbrother went to work, I was going to come and convince you to come home with me. ”
Fucking delusional!
“But then I found out you had a PI following me. Tsk, tsk, tsk, babe.”
I jerk my hips, trying to buck him off, but just like all the times before, it’s no use.
“What really sealed this outcome was seeing your sister accepting your relationship with your stepbrother. Her stepbrother. A sick fucking family. Is she fucking him, too?” His demonic grin as he leans in toward me has me shivering. “Just like she’s fucking you?”
I scream through the gag and his palm, but he just tuts.
“I took photos of the three of you, planning to send them to my lawyer as proof…” He lets out a frustrated groan.
“I had to hike through these fucking woods, Ayden. Pissing me off, yet again.” His thumb and index finger pinch my nose, cutting off my oxygen.
He then leans over me slowly, a sadistic smile playing on his lips.
“I could kill you right now. It would be so fucking easy.”
For the first few seconds, I don’t react. He isn’t here to end my life… that would ruin his life. There’s evidence somewhere he is here in Colorado…
Right?
“You took advantage of me. Used me, and when you were done, you decided to leave.” He’s lost his fucking mind. “I put a roof over your head.”
Wrong!
“Helped you in your career.”
Liar.
“Gave you incredible sex. Yet you gave it all up for what? Family?! A relationship with someone that society won’t accept?!”
Heat spreads across my face, and panic begins to settle in. He doesn’t move his hand, and when I try to turn my head to the left, he keeps me pinned.
“It ends tonight. I’ve thrown out the problem, and now, you’ll have nothing but me.”
I can’t stop thrashing my body at this point. My shoulder blades lift from the floor as I heave, trying to throw him off.
Only when my eyes roll back does his hand finally leave, letting me suck in a deep breath through my nose. Tears stream down my temples as I draw in oxygen desperately.
“You’re going to come home with me.”
I shake my head. I’ll die before I ever go anywhere with him. The thought of death is less scary and permanent than stepping foot back into his life.
“Yes. Because, Ayden, if you don’t, I’m going to kill you.” I shake my head violently. “If I can’t have you, no one else can. That’s how this works.”
No. The answer is no. It will always be no. I’ve lived a life without Keoni, and it isn’t one I want. If it’s not him, it’s no one. If choosing him means death, then I can only hope we’ve taken the same path in life, so we meet again in the next.
He sighs. “I should’ve let you die that day. You’ve been nothing but a burden on me, and a strain on my heart. I would’ve already moved on, yet you strung me along.”
I open my good eye and watch him swipe something hard and black across my face. The hit is sharp, but I’m out cold before the pain even registers.