Chapter 41
Chapter
Forty-One
ANABELLE
When we arrived home last night, the doctor was there to meet us. He didn’t think I had a concussion, but I did need stitches on my forehead. My injuries gutted Asher. The expression on his face as the doctor sewed up the gash on my forehead was so tortured it’s embedded into my memory.
Asher undressed me, helping me into a silk nightgown, pulling back the covers and tucking me in.
Sleep came quickly, but for how long I’m not sure.
I wake up stiff and achy, darkness descending.
Confused, I roll over to feel the bed empty beside me.
Searching the room, I find him sitting in the same chair he was the night he found me in the basement.
“What are you doing all the way over there?” I ask, my hand stretched out for him to take.
“I didn’t want to wake you.” His voice is gravelly and heavy bags sit under his eyes showing he hasn’t slept at all.
“What time is it?” I yawn even though I slept the day away.
“Just after seven in the evening.”
I nod and stretch but wince from the bruise on my arm. Asher cringes and glances away from me.
“Are you hungry? I can have Mrs. Potter make you something.” There’s no love in his voice. It’s monotone and devoid of emotion.
“A little maybe.”
He stands and starts for the door without a word. What has happened to the man I love?
“Asher, wait.” My own voice barely a whisper in the big room.
He stops but doesn’t turn around.
Having no choice, I ask his back, “What’s going on? Why are you being different?”
At first, he doesn’t look like he’s going to respond, but he slowly circles around, and I gasp seeing the water filling his eyes. “You could have died, Anabelle,” he croaks.
I frown. “But I didn’t. You made sure of that.”
His face transforms to wrath, all hard lines and sharp edges, and he strides toward the bed. Resembling nothing like the man I know. “You would have died because of me!” His fingers jam into his chest, his eyes lighting with fury.
My head rocks back. “I have you to thank for still being alive.”
“Thank me?” He spits the words out with disgust. “You wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for me.” He pushes a hand through his hair, his calming mechanism.
I stand from the bed and pad over to him. “Asher…” I gently pull his hand out from his hair. “Preston made the decision to take me, not you. That’s on him.”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s on me because I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I had to stick it to him and embarrass and shame him publicly. If I hadn’t taken his company away from him, he never would have kidnapped you.”
“That’s not true.” I shake my head, attempting at every angle for him to look at me. See the truth in my eyes.
“It is!” he bellows.
I step back from his anger, and he sighs.
“It is,” he says softer this time and places each of his hands on either side of my face, cradling it. “I can’t do this to you. I can’t let your fate end up like my mother’s.” Then he releases me and turns his back to me.
I still, my stomach drops, and my body shakes. Tears well up threatening to fall. “What do you mean?”
“You need to leave.”
“What?” I place my hands on his back, lowering my head to lie at the strength that lies underneath. “You can’t mean that.”
He turns, taking my wrists in his, holding them suspended in the air. “Now. Tonight. Your estate is yours. I’ve wiped the debt clean. You need to get far away from me.”
Tears sting my eyes, and I shake my head, wringing my wrists to get free. “No. No, I’m not going anywhere. You’re just upset—”
“You’re leaving, Anabelle.” He releases my wrists and the voice that comes out of his mouth is the same cold, calculating one he used when we first met.
“Grab your things and leave. It’s for the best. This was never going to be a happy ever after anyway, and if you thought it was, you were as delusional as I was. ”
My mouth opens and closes like hungry fish in a pond. “You don’t mean it.”
“Every word.”
Despite my best effort to not show emotion, a single tear tracks down my cheek. “I thought you cared about me.” If he did, there’s no way he could send me packing just because he’s scared, right?
“It doesn’t matter how I feel. The fact is I will not let you pay for my sins.” His voice is hard and unwavering.
“So you’re just going to push me away? And what, go back to fucking random women in the basement?” The thought of him with someone else makes me sick, and I press my hand against my stomach praying I don’t throw up all over him.
“I’ll go on with my life, and you’ll go on with yours.
Move back to Nashville, the further away from me the better.
Go do whatever it is you want to with your life.
You’re young, you still have lots of time to figure it out.
I made arrangements for your mother to be checked into the Briarwood Mental Health Facility.
All the costs have been taken care of. You just have to call them up. ”
I shake my head still lost on how we got to this place. We were so happy. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I whisper.
“It’s what has to be done. I’ll get out of your hair so you can gather your things. I expect you not to be here when I return.” He stalks toward the door.
The agony of heartbreak is replaced with a vengeance of anger roaring inside of me. How dare he cast me away like this? Did he never care for me? Was I not enough for him?
“I hate you!” I shout, grabbing the first thing off the nightstand and throwing it as hard as I can at him.
The item shatters, and I see the necklace he gave me only two nights ago in a million pieces.
Asher pauses with his hand on the door and takes one last look over his shoulder. He looks resolved, which somehow only makes me feel worse. I crumple to the floor, sobbing, not knowing what to do with myself until my anguish gives way to anger.
Screw this. If he wants to toss me aside like I’m nothing to him, I can do the same. I rush out of his room and into my own, grabbing my purse, and taking only that with me. I don’t want to take anything that garners any memories of him with me.
Within minutes, I’m driving through the iron gates of Midnight Manor for the last time. I’m sobbing again, the anger dissipating now that I’m off the property.
Where am I going to go? I don’t want to go home, not yet. Not until I have a handle on my emotions. I don’t want to have to explain to my brother and grandmother why I have stitches on my head and why I’m home for good.
I find myself in town and park in the lot beside Black Magic Bar. Numbing myself with alcohol sounds good. I’ll worry about how to make it home later. Maybe if I call my brother from the bar phone, he’ll pick me up. Asher never did return my cell phone.
Sawyer is bartending when I go in, which is a bit of a bummer. I was hoping it would be Cinder. Surely some guy has screwed her over in the past, and we could commiserate together.
“Two tequila shots and three fingers of bourbon,” I tell him as soon as I sit at the bar.
“Going a little heavy to kick things off, don’t you think?” Sawyer says, eyeing the bruises and the stitches on my face.
“Shut up and just get me the drinks.”
He raises his hands in a placating gesture and goes about putting my order together. I knock back the first shot without a chaser, then the second and slide the empty shot glasses his way before taking a hefty sip of bourbon.
An hour later, I have a good buzz on. While I’m still wallowing, the pain has dulled somewhat.
That is, until the biggest pain in the ass known to man pulls up the stool beside me.
“Can’t believe he let you out for the night,” Galen says.
I turn my head to glare at him, ready to give him the what for when the shock on his face registers. It takes me a moment to understand what it’s about, but when he opens his mouth to speak, I know.
“Did Asher Voss do this?” He stands, towering over me, his eyes and finger pointed to my forehead.
“Of course not.” I roll my eyes at Galen and take another sip of my drink.
“What happened then?” Anger rolls off him like a tumbleweed.
I press my lips together. I can’t tell him what happened to Preston. That Asher killed him. I might be pissed as hell at Asher right now, but I would never let him go down for protecting me from a predator like Preston Wallace.
Time runs too short, and my mind too occupied with what just happened that I’m unable to come up with a convincing lie.
“That’s what I thought.” He slams his hand on the bar top, and I flinch.
“I’ve had enough of the Vosses thinking they can do whatever the hell they want around here.
One little call from Asher to my boss, and I’m shut down from pursuing anything against them.
They’re not above the law. But this.” He stares at my forehead again.
“This is where their privilege ends.” He stalks toward the door.
I grab my purse off the bar top and race after him. “Galen! Galen, wait!”
He ignores me and pushes the door open. He’s not in uniform, but he has his police cruiser with him, parked at the side of the building.
“Wait!”
“I should’ve done this a long time ago,” he says as he whips open the driver’s door. “All those mystery cars coming and going. The parties that no one knows what’s happening up there. I’m done letting them take what’s mine—my authority, my town, my woman.”
“Galen, wait!” I come up behind him, pulling on his arm to get him to turn around. “Asher didn’t do this to me, I swear.”
“Sure he didn’t.” He wrenches his arm out from my grip.
“I promise you it’s the truth.” I grow frantic, and panic courses through me.
Galen pats my shoulder. “Okay, okay, Anabelle. Relax, okay?”
Thankfully, he seems calmer, so I shake my head, ready to convince him further.
“You’ve been drinking. Do you want me to drop you off back at Oak Haven?” he asks.
If it means getting him to give up on going up to Midnight Manor, then yeah, I do. “That would be great.”
“No problem. You’ll have to sit in the back though. I’m not allowed to have anyone ride up front with me.”
“Sure, whatever.” I mindlessly wait for him to open the back door. As long as I get him to my estate, he’ll forget this whole thing with Asher.
He opens the back door for me, and I slide in. Once both feet are in, Galen rips my purse from my hand and slams the door shut. I lunge for the door handle, but there isn’t one, and the locks click into place in the front.
“What the hell?” I bang on the window with my fists.
Galen bends down so his face is on the other side of the glass. “I won’t let you screw this up for me.” He fishes my keys out of my purse and stalks over to my car. He gets in and drives away.
No, no, no!
I bang on the window until my hand aches and try unsuccessfully to get the door open, but there’s no way to unlock it from back here. Standing between the front seats and me is a black metal cage-like partition.
I have to stop Galen. He’s on a mission, and I just know it’s not going to end well.
After banging some more on the window and getting nothing but an aching hand, I lie down on my back and start kicking the glass. It doesn’t budge, but I keep trying.
After about a minute or so, I hear, “Anabelle?”
I whip up to see Cinder staring at me with wide eyes. She must be coming in to start her shift.
“Cinder! Oh thank god. You have to get me out of here.”
“What are you doing back there?” She tries the door, but it won’t open from the outside either.
“Galen trapped me back here. He’s off to hurt Asher!” At least that’s what I’m assuming. He definitely seemed like he was in a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ mood.
“Okay, hang on.” Cinder disappears from view and returns a few minutes later with a car jack in her hands. “Back up!”
I move to the far side of the car and tuck my head down with my hands over my head, then hear bang, bang and finally the splintering of glass. Two days and two broken windows.
“Thank you!”
She helps me out through the window, and I narrowly miss face-planting in the dirt parking lot.
“Are you okay?” Her gaze snags on the cut on my forehead.
“Yes! I just have to get up to Midnight Manor.”
“Here, take my car.” She shoves her keys at me and points in the direction she’s parked. “The blue Toyota.”
I give her a quick hug. “Thank you, I promise I’ll bring it back in one piece.”
Without waiting for her to say anything, I rush over to the car, start it, and race out of the parking lot.