Chapter 49
AUDRA
Iwoke up to Donovan’s face between my legs, and it was freaking incredible. The night before, I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow, but now had a new favorite way to wake up. After a handful of orgasms for me and a huge one for him, we were both ready to take on the day.
I wanted to see the new windows that had been installed at my house while we were in New York, so I asked Donovan to drive me back.
Walking up, I loved how amazing they looked, and I was beyond grateful that my thoughtful, giving man had arranged for that to be taken care of. My man. That had a great sound to it.
When I opened the screen, a manila envelope fell out from between the doors. I looked at Donovan before I picked it up. When I saw my name on the front, my stomach dropped, and my hands started shaking immediately. It was Theo’s handwriting.
“Audra, what’s wrong?” Donovan asked as he noticed the change in my demeanor. Reaching out, he gently took it from my hands.
“Is this from him?”
I nodded my head.
“Listen to me. New York was a wonderful reprieve from this, but he will not win. He will not do this to you anymore.”
We shuffled inside the house. “Part of me hoped that he’d just drop it, ya know?”
“We were only gone three days, Audra. He’s been keeping tabs on you for years. But I assure you, he will stop posing a problem for us soon.”
I didn’t even want him to expand on what that could be. Taking the envelope back from Donovan, I started to open it.
“You sure you want to do that, Audra?” he questioned, as he put his hand over my shaking ones, looking at me with concerned eyes.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“How about I open it for you?” Donovan asked, wrapped his fingers around the envelope again. I could see him holding back from just snatching it from my hands.
“No, it’s fine,” I said as I opened the flap and pulled out a series of photos.
Each one had words scrawled out in capital letters in thick red marker; STUPID WHORE, YOU’RE MINE, GOLD DIGGER, BITCH.
The photos included one of Donovan and me from the gossip column in New York, one of us dancing last night at Grá, a photo of me at my car when the plugs had been intentionally disconnected, a photo of me leaving the hospital alone weeks ago, and a photo of Van and I getting into his car after my windows were broken.
He was there. He was always there. It wasn’t just my imagination; apparently, he had been everywhere.
My mouth dropped open. It was all so far across the line, so far removed from reality, that angry tears sprang in my eyes.
“How dare he?” I said through gritted teeth.
Donovan looked like he was hanging by a thread as rage came off of him in waves.
“We’re going to go to the police for an emergency restraining order. Then we’ll go to The Yard to have lunch, and I am going to let you know what we’re going to do with this situation because I have a plan.”
I just nodded at him. Donovan had the brilliant idea of bringing a sample of Theo’s handwriting to the station with us.
Hopefully, that was enough to prove that Theo had been behind everything.
In a box in my closet, I found some cards he had written to me, so I threw those in the envelope before we left.
The officers at the police station were incredibly kind, sympathetic, and helpful, but it felt, I don’t know, like not enough. I was sure the restraining order was going to go over brilliantly. Especially for a man like Theo, an entitled prick who felt like the world should bow down to him.
When we sat down at lunch, Murphy was behind the bar while Jules was on a barstool.
Even from afar, I could see the flirtation between them.
She was carrying on like someone else hadn’t been wrecking her body less than 24 hours ago.
What are you doing, Juliette? I wondered.
Donovan and I took a high boy farthest away from the bar because there was something on a TV he wanted to see.
We motioned for them to join us. Filling them in on the envelope, they were both seeing red, too.
“Let’s fucking run him out of town. Let’s publish his fucking antics in the paper and start spreading the word.
Even just making a couple of posters and hanging them around Main should do the trick.
I guarantee you some vigilante justice takes over,” Jules suggested. “Or I could meet him in a dark alley.”
“You’re not meeting anyone in an alley, you fool,” Murphy laughed.
Jules rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I am going to go to the bathroom,” she laughed indignantly as she got up.
“Your food should be ready, too. I’ll grab it, JuJu. Donovan, can you help with the drinks?” Everyone got up, leaving me at the table.
I was looking at my phone when Theo unexpectedly came storming up to me.
First, I looked to see if anyone had noticed, which they hadn’t, but when I looked him in his eyes, I lost my voice.
This wasn’t him. This wasn’t the man that I had loved and talked about my future with.
His eyes were dark, detached, and full of hatred.
Before I could shout for help or tell him he had to stay a hundred yards away from me, he grabbed me by the back of my neck and spoke with a low, menacing growl into my ear. Caught in a moment of terror, I froze.
“You’re mine, Audra. I’ll never let you be anyone else’s. Mine. The bricks were the final warning, and you didn’t listen. You chose New York instead, you whore. You could have been mine.”
And with that, he pulled out a knife from the waistband of his pants and plunged it into the side of my stomach.
I gasped as I heard the commotion of people shouting.
A shockwave of pain exploded in my body, while I tried to stand up from the table, gripping my side.
His hand moved from my neck to my hair to control me.
“Theo, please! You loved me. We were going to get married,” I begged, still reeling from shock. I tried to escape, but he yanked my hair so hard my head snapped back and tears burned in my eyes. He raised the knife, this time above his head, to come down on me.
“Stop, Theo!” I shouted finally finding my voice, but closed my eyes to brace for it, accepting the fate because I couldn’t break from his grasp.
The sound of stools falling and Donovan yelling opened my eyes.
I watched him tackle Theo and let out a roar, but the knife that was going to kill me went in and out of Donovan’s chest instead, as they tumbled to the floor.
Donovan ended up straddling Theo’s body and punched him with such force that he completely knocked him out.
Blood from Theo’s nose spurt everywhere.
Donovan tried to stand up with a heaving chest, but fell to his knees almost immediately, as his fingers touched his chest and he gasped for breath.
Murphy went over to flip Theo on his stomach and put a knee in his back, while he shouted for people to call 9-1-1.
Dropping down, I looked Donovan in his eyes.
He looked lost and stunned, like he couldn’t believe what had just happened.
Pulling him all the way down, I lay him so he would be on his back with his head in my lap, but he was struggling to breathe.
I looked at the blood coming from his chest. There wasn’t a lot, but I knew how bad it was.
My adrenaline took over completely, and I no longer felt my pain.
The location where he got stabbed could mean a multitude of different things, none of them good.
I tried covering the wound with my hand, but when I saw bubbles at the stab site, I realized it was even worse than I thought.
I’d only seen a sucking chest wound once, and that was when I was first starting out in the hospital.
“Help me!” I shouted into the bar as everyone stood, paralyzed. “Someone get towels! I need the first aid kit now!”
Juliette, who had been in the bathroom for less than three minutes, came out to the whole scene, and sprang right into action. The bartender met her, dumped the kit and a bunch of towels in her arms, and she ran back at breakneck speed.
“Put your hand over it. Stop the air,” I bumbled out as she knelt next to us. She put her hand over the top of the wound and tried to cover it. Although the blood wasn’t gushing, it was still seeping through her fingers.
Donovan's chest made a sickening hissing sound.
“It’s bubbling, Audra. What’s happening? What’s that sound?” Jules gasped with panic lacing her raising voice.
“Please, Jules. Just keep it there,” I begged as I dumped the contents of the kit on the floor and found what I was looking for—a chest seal.
The twins had asked for advice a year ago about what to stock that was above and beyond a standard first-aid, and I suggested having a few of these chest seals, a tourniquet, combat gauze, and an airway kit.
I remember telling them it’s worst-case scenario stuff, and they’d probably never have to use it, but that it was fine because these would never expire. Oh, the irony.
“I … I can’t do this,” she stuttered as the tears streamed down her face, and she pulled her hand up.
“Please help me, Juliette. Help Donovan,” my voice broke. “We need to save him,” I pleaded desperately as I worked to open the chest seal.
It was harder than it should have been because of all the blood on my hands. Her eyes met mine, and I saw the terror that had her frozen in fear. But Donovan’s shallow breaths pulled my attention away. This was too overwhelming. I couldn’t manage both of them.
“JuJu,” came another voice. It was Murphy who was still holding a mostly unconscious Theo down. “Juliette Juniper, look at me.”
She tore her gaze from me to look at him.
“You can. You can do this, love,” he spoke gently and nodded his head yes at her. “You can do anything. Just listen to what Audra says. Hold it like you hold your hand over my mouth when you want me to stop talking.”