Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Grayson winced as he straightened his arm.
The cloth dragging over his raw flesh hurt like a bitch.
Setting the fire proved to be a stupid move.
Anger clawed inside, determined to be released.
Going back to her place had seemed like a rational thing.
He would force her to give him the money.
She would have to obey him because he was her leader. She should welcome his control.
Her not being inside the apartment had set off a storm inside.
How could he get the money if she wasn’t there?
Of course he’d looked for the money. Finding no evidence of where she’d put it, he’d done the only thing that made sense.
Maybe dragging her mattress up the stairs and lighting it on fire had been short-sighted and led to his current discomfort. But that money was his.
Once he had his hands on her again, he would put an end to her childish fit. She would marry him, and he would have control over the money. It had to be thousands of dollars that he could use to do whatever he wanted.
Blakely’s father giving her that money had been stupid.
No woman should ever have control of resources.
They didn’t know what men did, or how to make decisions.
That was the main issue, Blakely didn’t know how to decide between right and wrong.
She’d taken the wrong path after her father’s death, and she had to be brought back to The Faithful and retrained.
She was supposed to have married him years ago.
They should already have one kid, maybe two.
She wasn’t doing her part in producing. It was important that she supply him with children.
How the hell did she expect him to make money if he didn’t have children?
People outside The Faithful paid good money for time with kids.
He bumped his arm against the doorjamb and cried out as pain shot up and down his body.
The pain in his arm was getting worse. He needed some medication.
The salves which he called witches’ brew that he’d grown up with wouldn’t cut it.
He needed to go to a real hospital and get someone to give him some painkillers and maybe some antibiotics.
The Faithful was against the use of modern medicine, but the rules existed to keep the women and children in line.
He’d been watching the apartment complex, seeing there were still cops and firemen around.
But where was Blakely? She needed to get over whatever chip she had on her shoulder and come home.
She was his wife, and he sure as heck wasn’t going to let her get away with shirking her responsibilities. Women in The Faithful knew their place.
When Blakely had taken off, he’d lost the respect of other men.
He should have forced her to come live with him when she’d turned sixteen, but her father had put him off.
Said something about her needing to stick around for the younger kids.
Not wanting to disrupt his life which The Faithful would have seen as debauched, he’d allowed the old man to keep Blakely, so she learned how to run a household.
At the time, it served him just fine. He was doing his own thing and didn’t want anyone else in their religion to know what he was up to.
Keeping secrets was one key component to their faith, but he wasn’t sure how serious Blakely’s family had been about teaching her to secret keep.
Letting her stay with her father had been his biggest mistake. He should have told the old man to pound sand and to give up his daughter. Blakely might have been the oldest girl, but her siblings could have picked up the slack.
When he got her back, he would make her pay.
She deserved to be put through hell for what she’d done.
The last time he’d found her, he should have done more to get her under his control.
He’d responded emotionally and hit her. That group of people intervening had shocked him.
If he hadn’t run off, he would have been jailed.
At least he’d gotten in a few good shots on her, causing her pain.
He needed to keep an eye on her place, but he wanted to get something to eat and take a piss. There wasn’t any way she would come back right now. There were too many police around, and if there was one thing The Faithful hated it was the police.