Chapter 37
Sutton
My heart thudded in my chest as I scanned the numbers on the apartment buildings. Cars drove by, horns honked, people carried about their day, but it all felt disconnected. Like I was underwater.
I’d had to go out through the service elevator to avoid Jagger’s security following me, but now I wished I’d brought them along.
What was I going to do when I got there?
I had no plan. Beat him up with my two fists?
I lost an arm wrestle to Miles’s eleven-year-old cousin a few months back, and I hadn’t even brought a weapon to protect myself.
Yet nothing could’ve stopped me from coming.
The front stoop was missing half its bricks, and only one crooked railing remained.
I took a deep breath and walked up to the door.
A collection of beat-up doorbells with an array of crossed-out names lined the inner doorway.
I scanned until I found S. Clive. Rather than ring, I reached for the door handle.
Not surprisingly, it wasn’t locked, and the door creaked open like something out of a horror movie.
The vestibule smelled like urine and mildew, with maybe some weed mixed in, too.
I knew what I was doing was stupid. Very stupid. I didn’t even understand why I wanted to see him. But it was like I was heading into an accident with no brakes, and all I could do was brace myself for impact.
I climbed the creaky wooden stairs up the first flight.
When I reached the landing, a teenage boy came out of nowhere and brushed past me, nearly giving me a heart attack.
I wasn’t winded, and it wasn’t hot, yet my forehead had a thick sheen of sweat and my palms were wet with perspiration.
But I kept going, rounding the landing, down the dimly lit hall, and up the next flight of stairs.
A cat meowed as I reached the top step, and I had to grab the railing to keep from falling backward.
This is dangerous.
No one knows I’m here.
Still, I kept going. My pace slowed as I reached the last stair of the third flight, and I took in a big deep breath as I stepped onto the floor where he lived. Silas. Silas Clive.
3A
3B
3C
3D
My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my ribcage, and I still hadn’t released my breath.
3E
3F
The door was slightly ajar. I turned my head and put my ear to the opening.
But there was nothing to hear except eerie silence.
Was he waiting for me right on the other side?
Did he somehow know I was coming? Was this a trap?
The answers to those questions didn’t really matter, though, because nothing could’ve stopped me from going in.
I pushed the door open ever so slightly, and it creaked as it scraped along the floor. I expected to find Silas Clive inside. But that wasn’t the man I saw first.
“Jagger!”
He had the barrel of a gun in Silas’s mouth, and Silas’s eyes widened when he saw me.
“Get the fuck out, Sutton!” Jagger yelled.
“No! Stop! Don’t do that!”
“Get out!”
I didn’t know what to do. The man who eight years ago had taken something I could never get back, looked at me with fear in his eyes. I knew the terror he felt, the helplessness, the nightmare of someone having control over you with ill intent. It drew me closer to them.
Jagger yelled again as I neared. “Sutton, leave, goddamnit! Now!”
“No. I want to see him up close.” An odd sense of calm washed over me. “I want to see the same fear in his eyes that he made me feel.”
Silas was bent backward, his head pressed against a plastic dish-drying rack, his mouth stretched around the width of the gun. His jaw trembled, and spit glistened at the corners of his mouth. He’d also pissed his pants.
I leaned in so our faces were close. “How does it feel? Not being able to move and someone else holding your life in their hands?”
Tears spilled from the corners of his eyes. I allowed myself a few more seconds of vengeance before turning my attention to Jagger. I rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Please don’t do this. He’s already taken so much from me. Don’t let him take you, too.”
***
“You put a gun in his mouth?” I heard Detective Wallace ask Jagger from the other side of the room. The police had separated us as soon as they’d put the cuffs on Silas and hauled him out of here.
“Am I under arrest?”
“No, not as of this moment. But Mr. Clive said you broke into his apartment and assaulted him.” Detective Wallace gestured to the door. “Front door has a busted lock. Story seems to check out.”
“You’re going to give me shit when you couldn’t catch the guy for eight damn years?”
Detective Wallace frowned. “Just answer my questions, Mr. Langston.”
Jagger looked over at me. “Can we please get her out of here? You’re making the victim sit in the apartment of the piece of shit who assaulted her. Don’t you think she’s been through enough?”
“We can do that. But then we’re going to have to go down to the police station so I can finish my questions.”
“Great.” Jagger lifted his cell. “I’ll tell my lawyer to meet us there.”
Detective Manning, whom I’d just met when he arrived with Detective Wallace, closed his notebook. “Sorry, Ms. Holland. We’re going to finish taking your statement down at the police station.”
I looked over, and my eyes met Jagger’s. “Okay. I’ll have my lawyer meet us there, too.”