Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
ATHENA
No. No, this has to be … this can’t be real. It’s not real.
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and I shook my head. Charlie wouldn’t do this to me. Charlie loved me. Charlie only wanted me. He wouldn’t betray me like this. He’d promised to love me forever.
But … it looked just like him.
Him and Nadia? Really?
I needed to get out of here. Now.
My legs moved toward the front, and I placed the wine on the counter, biting back a sob. My chest moved up and down quickly, heart racing faster than it ever had. My throat felt like it was closing up … like …
“Ma’am? Your license?” the cashier asked.
I snapped my gaze up to him, barely able to see him through my teary eyes, and fished my wallet out of my purse. With shaky hands, I grabbed my license and handed it to him.
When did this happen? Maybe before we got together?
Yeah, that has to be it, right? Maybe they made a film before we got together.
The cashier handed me back my license. “That’ll be twenty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents.”
After fumbling with the license, I gave the man my card and kept my head down. He swiped it and handed it back to me, bagging up my wine. My eyes burned with salty tears, and I quickly pushed a stray one off my cheek.
“Here you go.”
Once I grabbed my wine, I hurried out of the liquor store and toward my car down the street. The harsh wind did nothing to help me right now. I kept my gaze focused on the ground and then closed my eyes.
“Fuck,” I whispered. “Fuck!”
When I reopened my eyes, I had no time to stop myself before I slammed right into someone. He wrapped his hands around my elbows to stop me from falling backward, then steadied me.
“Athena,” he murmured. “What are you doing out here? Alone? Crying?”
I looked up and locked eyes with the one and only Derek Easton.
As soon as my gaze landed on Derek, I snapped back to my senses. It wasn’t Charlie in that video; it was Derek, trying to frame Charlie. It was Derek, trying to make me a mess of emotions. It was Derek, about to try to take advantage of the situation.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, wiping away my tears and stumbling back in my heels.
Derek stepped closer. “You’re crying.”
I moved back again, but my heel got caught on an uneven piece of sidewalk, and I tripped backward onto my ass. Derek did nothing to stop me this time as he stepped closer to me until he was at my feet.
My hands stung. They had to be scraped from the fall.
“Stay away from me,” I whispered.
A low chuckle left his mouth, and then he became quiet. “No.”
Before I could stop him, he scooped me up and slapped a hand over my mouth. I screamed into it, biting down on the skin and tasting blood, but he didn’t even react. I kicked and elbowed and punched, doing whatever the hell I could do to get out of the situation.
The more I struggled, the tighter his hold on me became.
One second, he was strutting down the sidewalk with me, and the next, he was throwing me into the trunk of his car. My dress was torn and dirty with brown slush, my hands covered in blood. I landed with a thud.
Almost immediately, I tried to scramble out of the trunk so he couldn’t close it on me. But it suddenly came down hard on my head, knocking me back. My head bounced against the bottom of the trunk, my vision blurring.
The trunk opened again, and I thought I could escape. So, I used all my strength and pushed myself forward toward the light. But the trunk came down on me again, hitting my head, my fingers getting caught.
I hissed in pain and yanked my fingers back, curling up in the back of the trunk and staring up at the darkness. Stars danced in my vision, and my eyes felt heavy. So heavy. They closed on their own.
I tried to open them back up, but I couldn’t. All I could think was that I was going to die.
Derek Easton, the sadistic asshole, was going to kill me.