4. AVERY
AVERY
The front door slams closed, a sign that Carl is finally home. It’s dark with the exception of my screen. I’ve sat here for hours staring at it blankly, hoping that it would give me answers to questions I don’t even know how to ask.
The low clack of his shoes on the hardwood gets louder as he nears, and I close the file in front of me, my gaze going to the flip phone beside my MacBook.
Call me. Anytime.
The words echo in my head while I watch Carl drag his feet to the fridge. He takes out the milk and pours himself a small glass—something he does after he’s had a few too many drinks.
“How was work, babe?” I ask, watching as he gulps down the entire glass in one.
It’s a stupid move on my part. Nevertheless, I flick the switch, turning on the light above the breakfast bar as I shut my laptop and stare at the file on the counter. The feel of his stare on me makes me shudder, and it’s an odd moment to realize that I don’t care about him at all.
In a way it’s a relief; in another, it angers me that I’ve sat here all evening wondering what to do with all the information when I should’ve packed a bag and left with my daughter.
“What did you say?” He stands on the other side of the breakfast bar, looking at me with his brow all kinds of scrunched up with incredulity.
“How was work?” My bravery tucks its tail between its legs when he leans forward, his hands flattening on the file. “Good day?”
“It would have been if my fucking wife wasn’t entertaining other men.”
I freeze. My pulse skitters icily through me as it dawns on me that he knows Rafe was here. He knows and his anger is bordering on rage as he rounds the counter and comes to stand in front of me.
“What the fuck did I tell you? Are you fucking stupid?”
His dark plum lipstick–smeared collar peeks from beneath his suit jacket. All his late nights at the office, the slew of days he’s spent away from home boil down to the stain on his shirt. The proof of my suspicions right in front of my eyes cuts deeper than it should. I’m done.
“Is this true?” I take the file and hand it to him, before taking the cell that Rafe left and slipping it into my pocket. “Did you do it?”
Without looking, he rips it in two and throws it in my face as I manage to get down from the stool and put some distance between us, but he’s faster than me even in his half-drunken state.
“That’s why my father stopped working with you, isn’t it?”
It makes sense now. He wasn’t shunning Carl at all—he knew, and even when we fought about it, he tried to protect me from the truth.
The copper tint of his mussed hair glints in the dim light as he hulks over me. He’s tall and broad, and there is nothing about him that’s warm. Even his anger is cold.
It’s only when we’re like this that I realize how much bigger he is than me. How easily he can overpower me.
In a panic I try to push him away, and before I can get away, he slaps me so hard that I collapse into the corner of the wall and kitchen cabinet. The pain rings loudly, echoing around my head in a daze that leaves me incapable of finding my feet.
“All you had to do was stay the fuck away from him,” he spits in my face while his hand winds in my hair and he drags me down to the stone floor.
His hand goes down to his belt, and my heart begins to hammer frantically. So hard that it physically hurts. Breath after desperate breath congeals in my lungs.
“Why is it so hard for you to listen. Just do as you’re told?” He lifts my chin with the tip of his shoe, examining the damage he caused, no doubt. “I swear to God, Avery, you’re a waste. You’re nothing but a spoilt daddy’s girl, and now he’s gone…”
I don’t let him finish, pushing away from him as fast as I can to crawl to the doorway. I almost make it. Almost. Only almost isn’t enough.
Grabbing me by my nape, he hauls me to my feet, spinning me to face him in such a way that I trip over his feet and face-plant into the breakfast bar.
The sharp burst of pain from my cheek and the side of my head is a reminder of what’s already happened as blood runs down the back of my throat and pours from my nose as I turn to be greeted by Carl’s darkened features.
His thin lips look sinister with his scowl, his skin ghostly.
“You honestly think Congressman Morgan cares? About you?” Taking a step back, he looks down on me. “You’re nothing, and now that Robert’s gone, you’re worthless.”
The space between us offers me an escape and a sliver of hopeful relief as I slip away from him.
“We’re not done!” He grabs me by the crook of my elbow. His grasp is lax enough that I manage to pull away.
“Yeah, we are.” Pushing through the pounding in my head, I head for the stairs.
I have to get me and Iris out of here. Away from him. Away from his mess. Each step turns my gut with how my head is still spinning. Now that the blood is crusting over my nose, it’s getting harder to breathe too.
“It’s always the same with you, Avery. Need, want, whine…whine…whine. You’re thirty years old, for God’s sake!”
“Actually, I’m thirty-one!” I blurt behind me. Carl wouldn’t know, though, because he’s missed my birthdays the last few years. He would’ve missed our daughter’s birthdays if I wasn’t the one organizing the cakes and buying the presents.
I’m halfway up the stairs when he catches me through a gap in the woodwork. My socked feet slip on the wooden steps, and I crash down. The entire right side of my body scrapes down the edge of the steps. The sound is louder than my garbled cry.
There’s no remorse at the sight of the damage he’s caused. Not a shudder or grimace as he stands over me, coming to crouch so that our faces are level with me hunched on the step, only indifference.
A tear burns through my resistance and skates down my pulsing cheek to his audible swallow. A sick, stupid part of me feels sorry for him.
His freckled hand cups my jaw, and he studies my face before he stands.
“You ever walk away from me again…ever…I’ll break your fucking legs.
” His navy suit jacket strains over his thick arms with his hands braced on his hips.
Carl is a striking man. Breathtaking with his rusty hair and porcelain skin.
Amber eyes and sharp, high cheekbones. “You go near that prick again and I’ll kill you.
And believe me, nobody, not a single fucking soul in this world, will give a shit if you’re gone. ”
I almost believe him as he stands over me, watching as I breathe through the burning pain consuming every inch of me. He’s right—I’m on my own now. But I’d rather be on my own than with him.
“Mommy?” I look up to find Iris standing at the top of the stairs, staring with wide eyes between us, terrified.
“Go back to bed,” he barks at her coldly.
Her eyes focus on mine. I know they’re teary by the way her chin is quivering and she’s blinking.
“I’m thirsty, Mommy.”
My legs wobble when I stand, and it takes me far too long to right myself, because he’s standing right in front of me. Alcohol-sweetened breath coats my face as he tells me, “Put your daughter to bed. We need to go over the ground rules.”
Taking the momentary out he’s given me, I head upstairs one slow step at a time. Fully aware that our only escape is back there, I need to find another way of getting us out of here.
“Come on, baby,” I coo as steadily as I can, taking Iris’s hand and guiding her back to her room.
“I’m not thirsty,” she tells me when I walk her through her closet to her bathroom and start running the cold water to make her a glass.
Wiping her eyes, she hugs me tightly. It takes everything to hold in the pain that throbs up my side.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing. Mommy had an accident.”
“I don’t like it when Daddy’s angry,” she whispers when I take her back through the closet.
“I need you to get dressed, okay?”
Iris does as she’s told, putting on the pink leggings and sweater I hand her.
“I’m scared.” She’s sobbing as she watches me pull out handfuls of clothes and throw them into one of her swimming bags.
“It’s okay, baby.” I manage a smile that curdles my insides with every second I hold it in place for her. “Go get your toothbrush.”
The entire time I’m throwing essentials in the bag, I’m asking myself why I didn’t do this earlier. Why did I wait? Why didn’t I pack our bags and leave before he got home?
Why? Why? Why?
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am useless. Stupid. Worthless.
Maybe no one cares, not even Rafe, but right now he’s my only option. I pull the phone from my pocket, cringing at the crack on the front as I flip it open and call the only number stored on it.
“Avery?”
I drag in a breath about to ask for help when Carl appears in the doorway, hands tucked in the pockets of his slacks as he comes closer.
“Put the phone down.”
Carl’s whacks the phone out of my grasp before his hand molds to the curve of my neck, guiding me out to the bedroom silently.
“You always got to fucking ruin everything,” he says with disgust, pushing me back onto the ottoman at the bottom of Iris’s bed.
My awkward fall lands me on the floor. My mouth connects with the leg of the furniture, and all I can taste is the metallic tang of my blood as it seeps into my mouth and dribbles down my chin.
“All you had to do was be a good little wife…a good mother… I didn’t want much.”
His foot connects with my side. Again and again, the hard soles force the air from my lungs, busting down the floodgates behind my eyes.
All I can do is curl up as he falls to his knees in front of me. A hand knots in my hair while the other squeezes around my throat, dragging up to my jaw as he spits words that ring in my muffled ears. “Why do you have to make me do this?”
I can only hold his blurred stare.
Why did I stay?
Silence freezes the stagnant air. My bladder threatens to go, my stomach turns, and all my extremities fuzz.
Why is he silent? I ask myself just as he chuckles darkly.
“We’re not quitters, are we, Avery?” The low rumble of his voice is soft. “Quitting is losing. I don’t lose. Never have, never will.”
The hand on my face squeezes, the tip of his thumb pressing to my sore flesh.
“I didn’t marry a whore, did I, Avery?” He pats my face roughly. “You ever talk to him again and I’ll kill you.”
His words are silk, smooth and easy, but the threat is undeniably real. He means it. The glint in his eyes assures me that he’ll follow through. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I have Iris to think about, I would scream at him to do it.
Carl stands and drags me to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. It takes me too long to get back up onto my feet and show Iris that I’m okay. She’s in a full-blown panic when I try to calm her down.
I manage to get her to stop crying in time to hear the door of the office down the hall slam closed.
It’s now or never. If I don’t get us out of here now, I don’t know what will happen.
“We’ve got to be quiet, okay?” I take her little hand in mine; it feels so small. Smaller than I realized as we walk through the closet, picking up her bag on the way out.
Blood is still trickling down my chin, and at this point I’m certain that the only thing keeping me going is adrenaline. The only thing silencing me is fear and sheer determination to get us out of here.
I don’t bother searching for my car key. Instead, I grab the bowl as I pull the door open slowly. My heart pounds mercilessly in my chest when the doorbell rings, alerting us of our movement.
“Come on, baby!” I rush to my car, helping Iris into her car seat. “Buckle up, okay?”
I’m still clutching the bowl as Carl comes running up the side of the house, straight at me, while I get into the car as quickly as I can and lock the doors. Keys spill onto the passenger seat as I throw the bowl and start the engine.
“Get out!” He pounds on the window hard enough that it cracks as I start to reverse out of the drive. “I’m going to slit your fucking throat.”
That’s the last thing I hear as I hit the gas, watching him fade into the night behind us.
He can’t kill me if he can’t find us.