Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
kendra
It was still dark when I started my run. The plan was for fourteen miles today. While I never worried about safety, I could see Jonathan’s concern when I set out.
If he could pay for a car to follow me, I think he would. Newsflash, he could, in fact, pay for the car to follow me, but he seemed to understand that it would piss me off. Instead, we met in the middle, and I shared my location with him.
“No earbuds, right?”
“Just one, I’m listening to a book today.”
He had flipped the fuck out when he found out that I was running around the city with noise-cancellation headphones.
Since then, he’d continued to remind me it wasn’t safe.
If there was one thing I hated about training, it was that I had to constantly worry about where I ran, when I ran, and even if I had run the same path too predictably.
“When should I start to worry about you?”
“Umm, never?”
I smiled when I remembered his annoyance at how I responded to him.
Yes, it drove me nuts, but it had been a long time since anyone had worried about me.
My parents always joked that I was born a thirty-year-old woman, and they never had to worry about me.
It meant that I always had the independence I craved, but it might take days for someone to notice I was missing.
Jonathan would find me.
It took more than a mile to warm up, which is not where I wanted to be on my long run. I couldn’t get my breathing pattern right, and my head wasn’t in it. Fuck, it was going to be a long morning, and I blamed the wine from last night. But no, I’d run hungover before and had some of my best runs.
When I was about thirty seconds from giving up, I heard footsteps approach from my left.
“Well, well, well.” Ice ran down my spine as the voice from my nightmares became part of my current reality.
I stumbled and quickly recovered my step. “Tucker.” I bit out, harnessing every bit of strength I could to appear unbothered. He always thrived on my fear.
“You’ve moved up in the world. Billionaire team owners now, not just the star prospect on the college team. Nice work.”
“Stop.” His steps matched mine, and my eyes darted left and right, looking for someone on the street or for a place to escape.
The sun had only just broken on the horizon, and the city streets were silent.
My heart pumped, but I knew I couldn’t outrun him.
I also knew how much he loved to chase—and win.
“Oh, you always loved to pretend. God, you were fun. Stop, Tucker, stop.” His voice mocked and mimicked my cries when I was begging him to stop. “Man, it makes me wish I hadn’t written you off years ago.”
My breath shook, but I forced the words out that I had spent years holding in. “You mean when you raped me?”
His dark eyes turned molten just before a sinister laugh bit out of him. “Nice try. You know you wanted that.”
I picked up my pace, heart rate spiking again. Hoping that he would let go and leave me alone. I fought my fear and found that voice again. “No.”
My watch vibrated, warning that my heart rate had spiked higher than the planned training zone. My legs burned, lungs screamed, and his long legs loped alongside me as if he were taking a casual stroll through the park. Fuck him for this. Fuck him for taking my peace.
“All my favorite words. Damn, Kendra. You know, I’ve been watching our videos, and fuck, they were hot. You think that billionaire boyfriend of yours would like to see those?”
The ice that ran through my bloodstream, flowed into my muscles, and I could feel my body as it fought not to seize up.
My conversational pace from earlier had picked up to where I could no longer get the words out.
Fuck him for easily striding next to me, once again proving that he was in fucking control of my body.
His threat to share the videos we made with Jonathan was a reminder that I couldn’t escape him.
Even if he was no longer in my day-to-day life, he still had evidence that could destroy my peace.
“I’m not sure what ideas you’ve got in your head, Kendra. But just remember, I’ve got evidence, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
I halted my steps, and he was ten feet ahead of me when he realized I had stopped running. The coffee shop we were passing had just unlocked its door, and I had my eye on the door, ready to run into it for safety.
“You want to talk evidence?” My voice shook, and I swallowed it back before I forced myself to continue.
“There’s a rape kit in Hanover, New Hampshire, filled with your DNA and enough evidence to file charges.
If you so much as hint to Jonathan that you know me as anyone other than an employee for the team, if you push me to where I have nothing to lose, you don’t want to see that side of me. ”
His face clouded over, and then the mask he used to charm the press washed back over him.
“Oh, Kendra. You might remember some of my favorite games. But I never played my best one with you. Chess. I never lose. So, if you think you have me, fine. But I’d watch your back if I were you. Check. Your move.”
And then he ran off. Leaving me heaving on the sidewalk, miles from the end of my route, lungs burning, and every nerve firing with adrenaline from the terror that I had once again allowed him to force onto me.
I hated my past self for letting that man into my life, for trusting him, for giving him a part of my soul, and for not being strong enough to keep him from disturbing what peace I had recently found.
Miles from the end of my run, I was too far out to turn back, and far enough for the rest of my run to become an opportunity for me to replay the conversation with Tucker.
Run through my past. Remind myself of all the mistakes I made that brought Tucker into my life and forced me to face them repeatedly.
It also reminded me of why I had started running in the first place, making clear that I could never run fast enough, or far enough to escape my past.
When I arrived at the stadium, I flashed my badge at security and headed straight to the showers. The clothes and toiletries I left in the women’s locker room hung where I left them the day before as I swiped a towel and moved straight to the shower.
It was there that Jonathan found me almost an hour later, curled in a ball, fully clothed in my running gear, the water hitting my back as I shook with fear.