Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
SUTTON
T he conversation with Ink in the parking lot of the motel took a turn I never saw coming.
Obviously, I picked up on the fact that he’s nosey. But all of the guys at the shop are. They moan and groan about how the women they’re seeing gossip and don’t stop talking, but they give them a run for their money.
I get this situation isn’t normal, but I wasn’t prepared for him to ask how I got here.
What a loaded question. My head is telling me to be smart and thank him for the ride, letting him be on his way.
But my heart is telling me the opposite.
There’s something swirling in his blue eyes that’s telling me I can trust him with my life.
Why can’t life be easy for once? My head and heart need to get on the same page and do it quick.
Now that I’ve had a few days to sit on his unwanted charity, I am grateful that he gave me my first check early in cash.
What I’m not okay with is him thinking he’s entitled to whatever he wants from me.
I promised myself the day I left Zach that I would never let a man have any sort of power over me again.
No more empty promises that are only there in the first place to manipulate me.
I’m no longer that stupid, naive girl.
That night made me wake up and what a freaking wake-up call it was.
Tonight, I decided to go with what my head is telling me and thank him for the ride. Madame’s Salem’s voice is in the back of my mind the entire time, making me regret my decision.
I’ve never been around a man like Ink before. Maybe the gruff exterior is his way of showing that he cares.
I’m counting down the days until I don’t have to walk into this gross motel again. Rushing past the front desk, I’m thankful that the nasty guy isn’t sitting at it as I make a beeline for my room.
I’m in such a panic to get the door to my room unlocked and inside before he, or worse, Zach, sees me that I didn’t notice the door is already propped open ever so slightly as I turned the handle.
I don’t bother turning the light on. This place is engrained in my brain and will probably continue to haunt me in my afterlife.
I toss my bag and hear it land softly on the bed as I make my way to the bathroom.
I need a long hot shower to ease some of the tension that feels like it’s taken up permanent residence in my shoulders.
Well, lukewarm is the best I’m going to get here.
A slow clap sounds from the other side of the room, making me freeze. A chill snakes down my spine, chilling my bones and making the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I don’t need the lights on to know who it is.
My nightmare always comes in the darkness.
“Well, well, well.” The slow clapping gets louder as he stands up and makes his way toward me. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
My heart pounds in my ears as I say nothing.
I can’t bring myself to face him. My hands are violently shaking at my sides.
The rest of my body follows suit with small, full body tremors.
This is how it always starts out. Soon, the panic will become too much to take, rendering me useless as I let the pressure in my chest and fear consume me.
“Did you think you could just leave me? And that I what? Would just let you be on your merry way like you didn’t make a fool out of me?”
My throat is closing in. Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to focus on my breathing, but the sound of his footsteps coming closer makes it nearly impossible. One, two, three, four. Exhale. One, two, three, four. Exhale. One, tw ? —
His large hand wraps around my throat, squeezing the breath I’m holding right out of me.
“Answer me,” he bites out. His breath smells like stale beer. Craft beers were always his thing.
A fresh wave of panic flushes my body as my oxygen supply is cut off, snapping me out of the anxiety consuming me as the need to survive wins. My hand dashes up, covering the one he has around my throat as I try to pull it off me without success.
“Did you think you would get away with humiliating me like that in front of our friends? In front of the firm? In front of the whole goddamn town?” His voice rises the longer he rants. The hand around my throat lightly jerks me around. My voice box feels like it’s going to be ripped out.
He’s always been one to talk with his hands.
“Answer me!” he yells inches from my face. Little specks of spit pepper my cheek and nose. The stench of his breath is embedded in my nose, making my brain short circuit as it tries to figure out how to gag while not being able to breathe.
“No,” I gasp the second he lets up slightly.
In the past, it was always best to give him the answer I knew he wanted to hear. Arguing never got me anywhere. In fact, it only made things a million times worse for me.
Not this time.
This time, I can feel the rage seeping out of his body, blanketing the room. It’s almost equally as suffocating as his hand around my throat.
“Don’t lie to me!” he roars, throwing me back into the wall behind me by my neck. My head cracks against the wall, snapping forward as it bounces off it. I don’t have the strength to pick my head up, nor do I want to. My head is swimming as I slump to the ground, waiting for the next blow to come.
He crouches down next to me, yanking my head up by my hair, so I have no choice but to look into those cold, brown eyes I never wanted to see again.
“You got here on your own. You can get home on your own.” My breathing is coming in short pants through my nose as I try to regain some control of myself.
“If you’re not back at the house in a week with your hair back to normal, I’m coming for you.
And trust me, you don’t want me coming for you again. ”
He gets off on seeing me desperate and scared. Thrives on it.
I don’t say anything as he releases my hair and throws my head back into the wall one last time. I can feel a knot already forming.
“I think it’s cute you got a little job. Found your cash stash when I was waiting for you to come back.”
My heart stops at what he just said.
This time, I lift my head on my own and meet his gaze. Tears pool in my eyes as I pray there’s one last string of hope in my life where he won’t take the money.
Hope has never been on my side.
I watch hopelessly from my spot on the floor as he lifts up the mattress and tucks the envelope of cash into the interior pocket of his suit jacket.
“You look as trashy as the biker that dropped you off with your hair like that.” He said the word biker with the same amount of disgust as someone would a serial killer.
“You’ll get rid of him, too. And Sutton?
” He stops with his hand on the door. “If I find out that you’ve fucked him, there will be hell to pay like you haven’t seen. I promise you that.”
My eyes close as the door to my room slams shut.
I never wanted to involve anyone else in this mess. All I wanted was a way out. My stomach rolls as all of the emotions catch up with me. I don’t have the strength to get up and make it the last few steps to the bathroom before I’m throwing up the contents of the day all down the of front of me.
Violent tremors are raking through my entire body. I can’t tell if it’s from seeing him again or vomiting up everything I’ve eaten and drank today. Probably a mixture of both.
And that’s how Ink found me.