Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
CHASE
I was already annoyed about working late when I turned onto Elena’s street.
The resort maintenance gig in the summers wasn’t exactly thrilling, but at least it kept me busy.
And employed. I’d texted Elena I’d be late for pizza night, but she hadn’t responded.
Something was wrong. Elena always texted back.
Always. Even when she’d still been living under her bastard soon-to-be-ex-husband’s roof.
Then the sight of Andy’s cruiser in her driveway turned my annoyance to dread.
I killed the engine, eyes locked on her front door standing slightly ajar. I climbed out and slammed the door, boots slapping the driveway cement as I beelined to the porch. Through the window, I could see the pizza box on her coffee table, untouched.
“Elena?” The word came out rough as I stepped inside.
Andy emerged from the kitchen, face set in hard lines. “Chase—”
But I’d already seen her. Elena sat statue-still on her couch, hands folded in her lap like she was at some fancy Detroit hospital board meeting.
Everything about her screamed control, except for the split lip.
The darkening bruise on her cheekbone. The careful way she held herself, like moving too quickly might shatter something.
The need for a drink hit hard and fast. It would be so easy to numb this. To let the rage take over like it always did when things got too real.
But Elena needed me.
The real me, not the wasted me.
“He was here.” Not a question. I knew exactly who had done this.
Elena’s eyes finally met mine. “I have it on camera.”
My feet wouldn’t move. Couldn’t. Because if I got any closer to her right now, saw those bruises up close, I’d lose what little control I had. And Elena didn’t need that. She needed... Fuck, I didn’t know what she needed. I just knew I couldn’t be another man who lost his shit around her.
“What do you need?” My voice didn’t sound like mine.
“I’m almost done giving my statement.” Still using that careful tone. Like I was some wild animal she had to keep calm. Maybe I was. “Can you... can you just sit with me?”
I made myself walk slowly to the armchair across from her. Not the couch. Not close enough to touch her. My hands were shaking, but I shoved them in my pockets where she couldn’t see.
Andy cleared his throat. “Elena, you want to continue?”
She nodded, spine straight as a rod. “As I was saying, after the assault, he informed me I had three days to return to Detroit. He said...” She paused, swallowed. “He said next time he wouldn’t be so gentle.”
The arm of the chair creaked under my grip.
Elena’s eyes flicked to mine. “Chase.”
“I’m good.” I wasn’t. But I’d fucking die trying to be. “Keep going.”
“The camera captured everything.” Her doctor voice was back. Clinical. Detached. “Time-stamped footage of the assault, the threats. I can provide medical documentation of all injuries sustained.”
The way she said it—like she was reading off a grocery list instead of describing her own assault—made me want to hunt Peter down and tear him apart with my bare hands.
Elena’s hands remained perfectly still in her lap.
“I’ll need to go to Ashford Medical Center for a rape kit.
Document everything properly. Michigan’s a one-party consent state for recording, so the video will be admissible.
But I need the physical evidence documented, too.
I’ve done these exams for other women countless times. ”
The clinical distance in her voice made me want to throw up. Or put my fist through a wall. Or find the nearest dealer. All three, maybe.
“I’ll drive you,” I managed, though the words felt like glass in my throat.
“No.” Sharp. Certain. Then softer. “I need you to stay here. Make sure the footage uploads properly to the cloud server. The video is everything—it proves the assault, the threats, his admission of stalking me. I can’t risk losing it if he comes back.”
The thought of him coming back, of me not being here... But she was right. The evidence mattered more than my need to protect her right now.
Andy shifted his weight. “I’ll escort Dr. Stone to the hospital myself.”
“Elena,” I corrected. I hated that her name was still attached to his. “Her name is Elena.”
“Chase.” Her voice steadied me like it always did. “I need you to focus. The camera footage. Can you do that?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Watching her gather her coat, her keys, her professional mask. Knowing exactly what she’d face at the hospital. Knowing I couldn’t do a damn thing to help except sit here and make sure her asshole soon-to-be-ex couldn’t weasel out of this on a technicality.
I watched her walk out with Andy, each step measured and controlled like she was heading into surgery instead of.
.. I couldn’t even finish the thought. The door clicked shut behind them, leaving me alone with the untouched pizza and the spinning blue circle on her laptop where the footage was uploading.
It was taking fucking forever. I couldn’t just sit here staring at the progress bar, so I clicked back to the footage, telling myself I needed to verify it had captured everything.
Biggest fucking mistake of my life.
Elena’s voice came through clear as crystal. “I documented everything, Peter.” Strong. Defiant. Then his laugh—this hollow, cruel sound that made my stomach turn.
I should’ve stopped watching. Should’ve just let the upload finish.
But I couldn’t look away as he backed her toward the wall.
As Elena carefully, deliberately positioned herself in perfect view of the camera.
Even terrified, she was thinking ahead. Planning.
While I sat here useless, watching as it happened.
“Your fuck buddy at the resort?” Peter’s voice dripped contempt. “Did you really think you could just run away and play house with some jobless addict?”
My fingers curled into fists. Because he wasn’t wrong, was he? What the fuck could I offer her? I couldn’t even protect her from this.
When his hand grabbed her chin, I nearly put my fist through her laptop screen. But Elena’s face... god, her face. Complete clinical detachment, like she’d done this a thousand times before. Like she knew exactly how to survive it.
The sound of his belt buckle had me lunging for the bathroom. I barely made it before losing everything in my stomach.
When I came back, hands shaking, the footage was still playing. Elena’s voice, steady despite everything. “You can’t have me anymore.”
The crack of his hand across her face echoed in the empty cottage.
The footage kept playing, but I couldn’t move to turn it off.
I needed something stronger than booze. Something to make me forget the look on Elena’s face while her husband... while he...
A few three or six hours later, I slipped in the front door of the cottage as quietly as I could, but it didn’t fuckin’ matter. The alarm blared.
“Shit shit shit!”
I stumbled toward the keypad on the opposite side of the living room, trying to silence it before it woke Elena. The piercing screech made the pounding in my skull worse. When I punched in the wrong code, the damn thing only got louder.
“Fuck!” It was meant to be a whisper, but it definitely came out a shout. My vision blurred, and I swayed, losing my balance entirely before falling flat on my ass. Very manly giggles burst from my chest as I let myself fall backward, going full starfish on the living room floor.
“Chase?”
I looked up to see Elena entering the code that brought a quiet stillness to the cottage.
“Hey, you!” I reached up, arms stretching for her. “Care to join me?” I asked with a seductive waggle of my brows. Hers furrowed, which couldn’t be right. My girl loved my skills in seduction.
“You’re drunk.” She wrapped her thin cotton robe tighter around her sexy-as-hell body and crossed her arms.
“I’m not”—the glare she shot me was borderline lethal, and it had me rethinking my next words—“going to do it again.”
Elena shook her head and turned back toward the bedroom. I rolled to my stomach, planted my hands to the worn wood floors, and popped up to standing. I nearly crashed right into the damn wall, but I stuck the landing and stayed upright. Success!
When I made it to the bedroom, Elena was slipping off her robe and crawling back into bed in a pair of tiny sleep shorts and a cropped T-shirt that showed a sliver of her perfectly toned and bronzed stomach.
I ditched my shoes, shirt, and pants as fast as I could without taking a header into the dresser and climbed in behind her—big spoon to her little—but she rolled to her back and looked up at me.
She looked so fucking sad, and I hated that fucking bastard for putting this look on her face. I’d seen it for weeks now, and I couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand that there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
She’d barely let me touch her, but maybe that was what she needed. Maybe she just needed to be reminded what it was like you be touched with love.
“Let me take it away, Lane. I’ll erase that he was ever here. It’ll only be me.”
I moved over her and positioned myself between her legs. I pressed my lips to hers, and she kissed me back, but her heart wasn’t in it. Still, I slid my hand up her shirt.
Her voice cracked as she whispered against my lips, “Chase, please.”
I pressed closer, the whiskey making everything blur except her beautiful face beneath me. “Please what? What do you need, Sweetness?”
Her hands pushed against my chest, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “I need you to get off me. It’s too much.”
The rejection stung, but I ignored it, desperate to make her feel good, to erase that haunted look she’d worn for weeks. “Just let me take care of you. I’ll make you feel so much better.”
“Chase... get... off.”
Her palms slammed into my shoulders with enough force to knock me backward. Tears streamed down her face, leaving glistening trails on her caramel skin.
My fist connected with the pillow beside her head. “Fuck!”
Elena’s frightened cry pierced the air—a sound I’d never heard before, but one I imagined came with the terror of living with someone who could snap at any moment.
And now she was making that sound because of me.
The alcohol-induced haze shattered like glass, leaving razor-sharp clarity in its wake.
My stomach heaved as I saw myself through her eyes—another drunk man towering over her, another set of hands not listening to “no,” another fist punching near her head.
The room spun violently, but not from whiskey anymore. From pure, undiluted self-loathing.
I scrambled backward so fast I nearly fell off the bed, desperate to put distance between us. My hands shook as I watched her curl into herself, making her body smaller—a defensive posture that looked so wrong on this brave, strong woman who was a force of fucking nature.
Bile rose in my throat.
I did this. I put that look in her eyes.
I’d sworn to protect her, to be different, to be safe. Instead, I’d become just another man she had to survive.
“I’m so sorry.” The words felt inadequate, pathetic.
They tasted like ash in my mouth. “I’m sorry, Elena.
I didn’t mean to scare you, Sweetness. I just—fuck!
I’m fucking this all up.” Shame crashed over me in waves, threatening to drown me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the darkness, knowing it would never be enough.
Her voice came gentle but firm through the shadows. “I know this is hard for you.”
The tenderness in her tone only twisted the knife deeper. Here she was, comforting me, when I’d just... when I’d almost... “It shouldn’t fucking be about me!”
“No, it shouldn’t. I understand why you’re struggling, but I cannot be with you like this. This is not helping me.”
Ice spread through my veins as I twisted to look at her, dreading what came next. “What does that mean?”
“I think it means we need to take a little time...”
My stomach dropped. In that moment, I knew—with crystal fucking clarity that cut through every drop of alcohol in my system—that I was about to lose the best thing in my life. And I had no one to blame but myself. “I don’t want that, Elena.”
“I don’t either, but I think it will be for the best.” She wrapped her arms around herself, her next words striking deep. “I need you to focus on you right now. Enough with the drinking, Chase. Enough with the drugs.”
I nodded, head hung. It was either her or my addictions—the bottle, the powder, the constant need to numb everything.
Could I live without the high?