Chapter Twenty-Four
Linden
Iend the call before it goes to Jack’s generic voicemail and send a text instead.
Linden: You told me to let you know if my ex was giving me trouble. He’s here at visitation. I don’t like it.
Linden: This is so stupid. I don’t know why I’m even telling you.
Linden: Ignore this, really. I need to rant.
Linden: Why can’t he just leave us alone? He doesn’t want to be Avery’s dad. He only wants to hurt me. I wish they would all just leave us alone.
Linden: I wish it weren’t so easy for you to ignore me.
I throw my phone into the passenger seat and dig my fingers into my forehead after minutes of phone silence. So stupid.
Jack acts like he wanted to be here for us but can’t even bother to text me back.
I’m pathetic. I knew that sleeping with him would only make me attached, but at the time, being attached to him seemed pretty appealing.
It still does. But now I’m the fool who fell for her hot, closed-off neighbor whom she barely knows anything about, and has barely seen for two weeks.
Just when I think my mood can’t get worse, Turner walks out of the mansion and starts strolling towards my car with a smug look on his face.
Just stay in your car. Leave the windows rolled up. Ignore him.
He taps on my window, and I fold my arms over my chest.
“I know you can hear me,” he says through the glass, and I pretend to ignore him. “We need to be civil for our daughter.”
“Civil?” I scoff and fling my door open, letting it smack him in the side. “You have ruined anything civil about this.”
He smirks like he got the reaction he was seeking—hook, line, and sinker.
“Don’t be so self-righteous. You’re not perfect either.”
“Me? I’ve never done anything to you but raise your child all alone. No, my child. You shouldn’t even bother claiming any type of fatherhood title.”
That statement makes him redden with anger, and even though he looks sober, I know that I’ve poked the bear.
I shouldn’t be worried about him attacking me when we’re at his parents’, surrounded by security guards, but I know better than that. No matter what he does, I’m the enemy here.
“I am her father, whether you like it or not.”
“Really? How many diapers did you change? How many nights did you stay up with her when she was going through sleep regressions, or sick? How many times have you gotten her dressed or done her hair? How many doctor appointments have you attended? Oh, right… Zero.”
“If you weren’t such a bitch, I’d feel worse about taking her from you.”
My blood runs so cold, goosebumps prickle at my skin. “You are not taking her from me.”
“We’ll see.” He turns to walk away, and I grab his shirt.
“What are you planning?”
“Let go, Linden. Or, I’ll call security to trespass you from the property. I’m sure a judge would love to see that on your record when we take you to court.”
“No,” I gasp.
“Avery will be out soon. I hope you spend as much quality time as you can while it lasts.” He saunters off without a care in the world as I strangle back the sob in my throat.
They can’t take her from me. They can’t.
I can’t breathe… Like I’m watching a clock tick on a bomb, and I’m running out of time… Each number counting down to zero is another second closer to my baby being stolen out of my arms.
I’m still standing in the same spot when she comes running across the pavement towards me, and I hold back tears when she jumps into my arms. “I missed you, Mommy.”
“I missed you, too, honey.” I kiss her head, squeezing my eyes shut to keep myself together.
All three of them are watching me as I buckle her into her car seat, and I flip them off when I round the front to my door.
“I hungry, Mommy.”
“I’ll make you some dinner when we get home.”
“Can Mr. Jack make me dinosaur food?”
I check my forgotten phone on the passenger seat and see zero notifications.
“I don’t think so, sweetheart. He’s busy.”
“Aw, man.”
“How about dinosaur chicken nuggets, instead?”
“Otayy.”
“Did you have fun spending time with your grandparents?”
“We played slime.”
“Yeah? I bet that was fun. What else?”
“Grandma got me dresses.”
“She did? I bet they will be so pretty on you.”
“Yeah. Grandma said I can wear them at her house.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“She hanged them in my room.”
I choke on my next breath. “Grandma showed you your room?”
“Yes.”
I’m going to be sick… They’re really going to try to take her from me. Those bastards.
She is my child. And they can’t even take her from my cold dead hands. I’ll be sure of it.
* * *
After Avery fell asleep for the night, I snuck out of the room to drown my sorrows in a pint of ice cream. I gave up any real drinking after I had her. It never seemed safe to be intoxicated in any way when I was the only one she had to depend on.
And, honestly, I haven’t missed it. Doing what’s best for her has always been the easiest decision for me, but sometimes I do miss the numbness that a drunken night could bring.
Instead, I’m sitting alone in the dark while tears stream down my cheeks.
I need to make a choice. Either stay here and wait for the Scotts to take me to court for custody, or take my daughter and run.
All I want to do is run, but the reality of that is scary. And it means thrusting my daughter into chaos again.
But losing her to her father’s family is an even scarier reality.
A light tap on my back door makes me jump, but it’s easy to see who it is with all the lights off in the kitchen. The moon illuminates his features so perfectly, you’d think its glow was painted on.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, opening the door just a crack.
Jack doesn’t say anything, but his haunted eyes tell me everything. He’s sorry for something, but he won’t be able to tell me anyway.
I open the door to let him in, mostly because I don’t have the heart to send him away when all I want is to be less alone.
I go back to my seat at the table and continue picking at my ice cream silently, though, because I can’t make myself admit that out loud. I don’t even bother wiping the tears off my face.
He kneels to one knee beside me, gripping the back of my chair. “I know I haven’t made it easy for you to trust me, but I need you to know that you can.”
I scoff, stabbing my spoon into the top of my Ben & Jerry’s. “Yeah, and where were you today? You wanted me to tell you when my ex showed back up, and I did. But you ghosted me.”
He flinches slightly at my words, and despite my frustrations, I exhale slowly, trying to rein myself in. Jack isn’t my boyfriend. He owes me nothing.
“I might not have responded, but I saw your text. I was–”
“Let me guess? Busy doing whatever the hell fills your time.”
He grabs the leg of my chair and pulls me closer, until my knees are kissing his chest. “You might not believe this, Linden, but all I think about is you and Avery. All I want is to be where you guys are. So, no, it’s not easy for me to ignore you.
It’s the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.
” His thumbs swipe at the moisture on my cheeks as if he’s been dying to do just that.
“Then why ignore us?” I lean in, gripping his shirt in my hands. “Why won’t you let me in?”
He shakes his head painfully. “I can’t…”
My hands drop from his chest, and I stare at them in my lap. “Please, just go, Jack. I have too much going on to be mind fucked by you.”
He nods solemnly, but stands and walks towards the door. “Pack your necessities, and keep them ready in a bag.”
“What did you just say?” I ask his back.
He doesn’t respond, standing stock still by the back door.
“Dammit, Jack.” I yank on his shoulder so he’s forced to face me, but I know that he wouldn’t have budged unless he was willingly letting me move him. “How can you just say something like that and not expect me to ask questions? What do you know?”
“I know that you and Avery aren’t safe near the Scotts,” he utters, looking at me sadly.
“They’re planning to take me to court.”
“I know.”
A sob escapes my throat, hearing him confirm my fears, and his hand cups the back of my neck, pulling me in until my forehead touches his.
“Baby, I’m afraid they’re trying to do a whole lot worse than take her from you.” His iron grip keeps me steady as I thrash instinctively against his words.
“What do you know? What are they going to do?”
“Nothing! You hear me? They are not going to touch her. I won’t let them.” The ferocity of his voice stills my animalistic fear until I’m wide-eyed and blinking up at him.
“I will not let them have either of you,” he insists more calmly, but even more serious if possible.
“Promise me,” I beg, clinging to his neck.
But instead of words, his lips crash down on mine, taking me with him until my back hits the wall. I’m too overwhelmed with relief to be kissing him to care that this might be a bad idea.
I want him too bad to remember how attached the last time made me.
His fingers go to my chest, ripping my old tank top right in half. It flutters to the floor, and then those warm hands are on me, cupping my breasts with an urgency that I feel deep in my soul.
His lips only leave mine briefly to attend to each of my nipples, leaving me squirming against the wall. “Please, Jack,” I plead, needing him inside of me.
Then his tongue is stroking mine, tasting my pleas as he rips my shorts down my legs. His fingers find my clit and his mouth silences my cries of relief as he drives me towards an orgasm.
I cling to his neck, and the muscles in my calves strain to their limit as I open to him fully. Two fingers enter me at once, and he curses in appreciation against my lips as he works them inside my pussy.
He’s desperate for my pleasure, stroking deeply against my inner walls, and swallowing all of my moans with his mouth while I grind against his thick fingers. I cum explosively, riding the tremors against his giant palm.
“Oh, fuck,” I utter breathlessly against his lips while he tugs my bottom lip gently between his.
“You never should have let me have a taste of you, Linden,” he whispers, raising his fingers to his mouth and sucking my essence from his skin.
My mouth falls agape, watching as he lowers them, penetrating me again, and making my already quaking muscles contract against him.
“I’ve never wanted anything, and it was easier that way. But now all I want is you, and I don’t care about anything else.”
“Jack,” I gasp as his second finger enters me. This time he fucks me with them, as if he’s imagining it’s his cock, digging his hard length against my hip.
“Say it again,” he begs.
“Jack… Jack…” He captures my pleas in his mouth, and my tongue dances across his. A feral, desperate moan escapes him, and the sound has me cumming again without warning. My knees turn to jello, but my body is pinned to the wall by his, keeping me upright.
Even as my body eases back down to reality, his large, hard body stays molded against mine. One hand branding my hip, and the other gently holding my throat.
I’m not someone who is opposed to the roughness of sex, and despite my history with domestic violence, the thought of Jack being able to overpower me doesn’t scare me at all…
But despite how safe I feel in his arms, his firm but non-suffocating grip on my trachea feels eerily familiar.
I blink up to his shadow-covered face, and in the safety of my kitchen, I see everything so much clearer.
He knows so much about my in-laws. He knows they want to take Avery from me.
He’s been watching me from the moment we got here, and yet he won’t tell me anything.
He has been inside that mansion. I know it. Which means he’s still lying to me.
Whatever high I was riding comes crashing down so fast my stomach rolls. “Get out.”
He searches my eyes that have gone dull right in front of him. “Linden, I–”
“Get out, Jack. Don’t come back.”
He’s working for them… Which means he isn’t on my side.