Chapter 16
Elise
Ivaguely remember someone carrying me up the stairs and the bumpy ride in an ambulance, but most of the events of my rescue were a blur.
I was admitted to the hospital two days ago, and I’d been in, but mostly out, since I was admitted.
When I woke up this morning, Chuck was sitting in the chair beside the bed, reading something on his tablet.
Turning my head, I slowly blinked, realizing the swelling in my eyes was mostly gone. The blurry vision was gone and when I shifted in the bed, Chuck turned and jumped from his chair. Carefully, he took my hand and stroked the back.
“Hey,” he said and I turned my gaze to him.
“Hey,” I replied, and looked around the room. There were roses, cards, a balloon drifting up to the ceiling near the window, and what looked like a lunch tray in the rolling table near my feet. Glancing back at Chuck, I asked through a scratchy throat. “Where’s Devlin?”
Chuck cut his eyes to the side before he brought his worried gaze back to me. “He’s at the apartment but he’ll be back in a while.” He cleared his throat and asked, “Can I get you anything?”
“Something to drink,” I responded and pushed up in the bed, feeling my ribs pinch on my side. Placing my hand on them, I felt a tight bandage covering the area as I hissed out loud. “Damn that hurts.”
Chuck placed a cup of ice on the tray and pushed it closer to me as he looked where I was touching. “The doctor said you have a broken rib and two cracked ones. They should heal without a problem, but you’re going to have some pain from them for a while.”
I picked up the cup and tipped a few pieces of the ice into my mouth, feeling the cool sensation on my mouth and throat. Chuck sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to hurt me as I repeated the process with the ice a few times. Finally, I placed the cup down.
“Do you know what happened?” I asked him and he shook his head.
“All I know is they found you in a basement and brought you here,” Chuck responded.
Memories of the days I was locked in the basement, and the few times I was allowed upstairs began to play like a horrific kaleidoscope. Tears filled my eyes, and I tried to wipe my cheek with my hand, only for Chuck to hand me a tissue.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
Chuck had been the first person I’d opened up to in my life.
He saw something in me that he recognized, and with time, I felt comfortable enough to share some of my past. He’d never judged me, and when things were bad, he gave me the tools to save myself.
I had no reason not to trust time, so I began to speak.
“Devlin’s married,” I started and felt my bottom lip tremble as I added, “And they want to take my sons from me.” Chuck tried to speak, but I held up my hand and added, “He never loved me. I was just the means to an end for him.”
He took my hand and asked, “Who told you that Devlin’s married?”
“His wife,” I returned, and Chuck looked confused.
“Will you tell me what she told you?” he requested softly.
“She didn’t have to tell me anything. She showed me everything. Marriage certificate, pictures, I saw it all,” I explained. Panic shot through me as I rushed out, “Where are the boys?”
He patted the back of my hand and answered, “They are safe with Blaire at Gunner and Sadie’s house at the compound. Hawk and Stella are staying next door with the kids so they can all play.”
“We need to get them out of there and as far away, as possible,” I tried to warn as I flipped the covers off my legs and tried to get out of the bed.
Pain shot through my side, and I fought to catch my breath as I tried to stand, only to have Chuck rush around the bed and try to get me to sit down.
The only thought going through my head was if Chuck was here, then Devlin and Kendra were free to take my sins and disappear.
I’d never survive that, and no amount of pain was going to stop me.
“Elise, please stop. You’re going to hurt yourself,” Chuck pleaded, and I shook my head.
“Those assholes aren’t taking my sons from me,” I declared and attempted to push past him.
A curtain was pulled across the door and when I heard it open, I lifted my eyes as I attempted to straighten my back, only to be crippled by discomfort.
James stepped out from behind the curtain and gave Chuck a look I couldn’t understand.
My dad stepped to the side and James walked up to me, taking my hand and speaking calmly.
“Please get back in the bad, Elise. I promise everything is okay.”
“Why should I believe you? You helped cover up for those two. As far as I know, you’re in on it with them,” I groused, and his lips pinched tightly .
James took a deep breath and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Dialing a number, he waited for it to ring and when I heard Gunner’s voice, I perked up.
“Hey James. How’s Elise?” Gunner asked.
“I’m here with her and I need for you to tell her where DJ and Conner are at this very moment,” James requested.
“There in the living room with Hawk’s kids playing,” Gunner answered. “Blaire is sitting directly behind them.
“Are the boys safe with you?” James asked.
“There’s nowhere safer,” he returned.
“Will you, under any circumstances, allow anyone, including Devlin or a club brother, hurt, take, or remove the children from your protection?”
“Absolutely not. DJ and Conner are staying here until Elise picks them up from me,” Gunner almost declared. “They are family and under my protection.”
I felt my resolve slipping and James held onto my hand as I sat on the side of the bed and brought my legs up.
He was looking me straight in the eyes and I saw honesty, truth, and his inner protector staring back.
James had always been a rock for me, and I was starting to think there was more to this than I initially thought.
“Will you take a picture of them and send it to this number?” James asked.
“Incoming,” Gunner replied a moment later and when James’s phone dinged, he opened the message and turned the phone to let me see.
My vision was blurry from tears as I saw my sweet boys playing with Matthew and Anna, their cousins, and Hawk and Stella’s kids. Blaire, my mom, was sitting behind them, speaking with Stella. They were all smiling at something, and I suddenly began to feel stupid.
Swiping the tears from my cheeks, I whispered, “Thank you, Gunner.”
He lowered his voice and replied, “We just want you back home. The boys are safe, Elise. I promise.”
James disconnected the call and left the picture on the screen, handing me the phone so I could look at my boys, A noise drew my attention, and I looked to see Chuck slipping out behind the curtain and the sound of the door closing echoed into the hospital room.
The IV in my hand was uncomfortable and I hated the flimsy gown they had me in, so I pulled the covers up and pushed the button to raise the head of the bed. James stood beside the bed, watching me intently while I got as comfortable as I could before he sat on the edge.
“What did she say to you?” James asked and I crossed my arms, feeling the ache from my ribs. “You know she’s crazy, right? That everything she told you was a lie.”
“The marriage certificate and pictures of the ceremony told me everything I needed to know,” I reasoned. “And what they didn’t show me, the beating I took did.”
“Elise, I’m sorry that all of this happened to you, but I need to help untangle the lies and manipulations they played on you.”
Manipulations?
“Did she and Devlin have a relationship?” I asked and his eyes cast down briefly.
“They did, but not the kind you’re thinking,” James explained. “She got attached when he never did, and when she got clingy, he sent her away.”
“Well, she came back,” I tacked on.
“They were never married. None of what she told you about them was true.”
“I’m not stupid,” I angrily said. “I know what I saw.”
James lifted his blue eyes to mine and explained, “You saw Artificial Intelligence created documents and pictures.” He shook his head. “None of it was true.”
AI?
“I don’t understand,” I honestly replied.
James looked sad as he began to tell me what they had discovered.
“After we found you and made sure you were safe and okay, we went back to the house and began looking through everything she had left in the office.” Standing, he ran his hands through his brown hair and turned back to me.
“Kendra used an AI program and, I assume publicly accessible pictures, to create a fake past for her and Devlin. My guess is she was trying to wear you down mentally and thought by making you think he betrayed you, you’d leave, and she’d have another chance.
” He smiled and explained. “There was never anyone who held his heart, but you, and she always hated that. She tried to get him to choose her years ago, and he told her to leave. I guess she got tired of waiting and became desperate.”
“So, everything she showed me, everything she said about taking my boys, was a lie?”
“Yes,” he said with no uncertainty. “She used whatever means she could to try and get you to leave. She knew she could never win Devlin’s heart, so she tried to destroy you. And by doing that, she hurt in in the process.”
I didn’t know what to believe, but I didn’t feel like James was lying to me. But how could I be sure? He could be telling me what he thought I wanted to hear.
“I can prove it to you,” James said, and I snapped my gaze to him. I guess he knew me pretty well. Lifting his phone from the rolling table where I’d placed it, he pressed a few things on his phone and then turned the volume down before he looked back at me.
“I’m going to show you something and I think, even as upsetting as it is, it will show you that I’m telling the truth and everything she said was false.”
He turned his phone to face me and pressed the screen, starting a video playing.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It seemed to be a video of someone murdering me, intermixed with the beating Bradon gave me while Kendra watched.
When it was done playing, he tucked the phone into his pocket, and I just stared off into the distance.
If it wasn’t me on the screen, I would have believed it was a video of someone killing me. Only it was mostly AI, and it was truly disturbing.
James’s words broke through the haze I was locked in as the days with Bradon and Kendra played in my mind.
“Do you see how they manipulated everyone?”
I nodded, starting to realize that I’d been conned. The marriage, the claim to take my kids, the facade of their lives, was all created to support their narrative.
There was one more thing I needed from James. “Where’s my husband?”
James smiled the sinister smile I’d grown used to over the years as he answered, “He’s hunting.”
“Then take me home. I can rest there just as well as I can here, and I want to be home when he gets back,” I requested and saw some trepidation in his movements before he nodded and agreed.
I knew what hunting meant, and I hoped he brought Kendra and Bradon back to Pierce Bluff so I could face them before they died.
Because I had no doubt that my husband, the madman, was going to cut them into pieces and scatter the parts.
No one gets away with what they did to me when Devlin Callahan was around and lives.