Chapter 25 #2
With my pulse pounding in my ears, I press my back against the wall, as if that will hide me if he were to walk out.
My brakes? What is he talking about? I had car trouble last week, but he told me it was nothing and his mechanic repaired whatever was needed. Besides Anna being inconvenienced by having to give me a ride home from work, it didn’t seem like a big deal.
His yelling makes me jump. “I swear to fucking god, you do not want to mess with me and the people I work for. My wife better be fucking dead by next week, or you will be.”
I press my hand to my chest as my mind tries to catch up to what I just heard. Movement within the office has me stumbling toward the kitchen, my battered body from last night making it even harder to get away quickly and quietly.
I thought getting beaten up by him last night was the worst thing that would happen this week, but how naive I was. I should’ve learned long ago that my husband’s brutality goes beyond anything I could have ever imagined.
When I get back to the kitchen, I place my palms on the cool tile of the counter, staring down at the ingredients I was prepping for dinner. Every muscle in my body tenses as heavy footsteps approach.
I swallow down my fear, knowing I need to feign ignorance.
“When the fuck is dinner going to be ready?” Blake barks.
I pick the knife back up and resume chopping vegetables. “Soon,” is all I can manage.
Blake apparently doesn’t like my answer because he barrels across the kitchen, and gripping my bicep, he spins me around violently.
The motion causes me to knock the cast-iron skillet off the stove with a clatter onto the floor.
It narrowly misses my foot, which I’m grateful for.
Thankfully, I hadn’t started cooking, or I definitely would’ve been burned.
My entire body trembles as I stare up into the face of the man I’m supposed to love.
There’s so much hatred and mania in his features that my blood runs cold.
Keeping a grip on my bicep, he raises his hand and backhands me across the cheek.
The bolt of pain has my legs giving out.
He lets go as my dead weight yanks on where he’s holding me, and I hit the ground with a moan of pain.
As he stalks toward me, I kick my leg out, catching him in the side of the knee.
With a yelp of pain, he bellows, “You fucking bitch.”
He makes a move to pin me to the ground, but I flip over and try to scramble away from him. For the first time ever, I truly fear for my life. What if he decides he doesn’t want to wait for whoever he was talking to?
My fingers fight for purchase for anything as Blake grabs my ankles and yanks me back toward him.
Panic floods my system until my fingers graze something metal.
Desperation has me grabbing for it as I’m pulled across the floor and flipped over onto my back.
Blake’s kneeling over me, a glint in his eyes as his hands move up toward my throat, as if he’s going to choke me.
Without another thought, I swing my arm up wildly, my eyes closed tight.
The heavy skillet connects with some part of him with a dull thud.
My eyes pop open, and I swing again. I watch as it smacks into Blake’s temple, his reflexes slowed from his dazed state.
His hand flies up to his head, and he collapses to the side with a grunt.
Grabbing the skillet, I bolt from the kitchen, locking myself in the guest bedroom for the rest of the night.
Chris blinks a few times as tears fall freely down my face.
“Why didn’t you call the police and tell them he was beating you?” Chris asks, his voice eerily calm, which tells me nothing about what he must be thinking.
Wishing I had a better answer, I shake my head.
“I didn’t even know he was dead until the next morning.
I thought I’d just knocked him unconscious.
But that morning, I didn’t have a good reason besides fear.
I didn’t trust the system to be on my side.
I reacted out of fear for my life, but I can’t prove he was going to kill me that night, since he clearly was waiting for someone else to do it.
At the moment, I didn’t know if getting physically abused would have been a good enough reason. ”
He opens his mouth, then closes it. Then opens it again and asks, “So you decided to cover it up?”
“Yes.” My lip trembles as a new wave of emotion engulfs me.
“Where’s the skillet?”
My eyes close again as my heart breaks. I know where this is leading. I’m going to tell Chris this, and he’s going to do the right thing and turn this information in to the police. Which is exactly what he should do. But that doesn’t mean it hurts any less.
“Lily…” Chris’s voice hits my ears as his fingertips gently grip my chin. My eyes open, and what greets me isn’t what I expect. My sob catches in my throat as his thumb runs over my cheek. “Baby, please. It’s going to be okay. But I need to know what you did with the skillet.”
I sniff, then tell him, “There’s this compartment hidden in the wine cellar.
It must have been something from the previous owners.
But it’s very hard to find if you don’t know about it.
I just happened to come across it by accident years ago.
I kept a lot of things in there that I wanted to hide from Blake.
And I know he never knew about it because if he had found them, he would’ve wasted no time in punishing me. ”
Chris stares out at the trees for a few moments before looking back at me. “So no one knows about it but you?”
“Just me.”
He cups my cheek, his eyes searching mine. “Lily, I’m so sorry you had to do that. You deserved so much better.”
“Do you hate me now?” I ask shakily.
With a sympathetic smile, he says, “It’s going to take a lot more than that to make me hate you.”
Shock and confusion compress my heart as I stare into his eyes, looking for the lie. But all I see is the man who showed me what it really feels like to be cared about.
“What are we going to do?” I’m uneasy about hearing his answer, but I need to know.
He presses his lips to my forehead. “Well, today, we’re going to try to forget about all of this and enjoy our last day in Gatlinburg. Then, we’ll go back to Nashville and figure out how to get past this.”
With a quick kiss to my lips, Chris leads me back to our bedroom and into the shower. We let the hot water wash away our traumas and our sins. At least for today, anyway.