Chapter 72
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Harper
Song- Drag Path, Twenty One Pilots
He didn't answer my call.
It took me two hours of pacing my room to work up the courage. Two hours of practicing what to say, rehearsing the words in the mirror.
And then I reached his voicemail. And then I cried until my ribs ached and my eyes swelled shut and the pillow was soaked through.
He's moved on. He said he was done, and he meant it. And I have to stop waiting for a rescue that isn't coming.
By the time I head downstairs, Hudson is already at the dining table. He looks more shattered than I feel.
Except that only one of us spent the night crying.
"Morning," he chirps.
He's in his workout gear, drinking his green smoothie. The kitchen stinks of kale and that nasty protein powder.
"I made you a smoothie. Good for our baby." He nods toward the counter.
I stop in my tracks. "Our?"
"Yeah. It's just there."
I don't move.
His eyes drop from my face to my chest. Land on the A necklace. The gold chain Ace gave me years ago, the one I've been wearing under my clothes, against my skin, the last physical piece of him I have left.
Hudson's jaw tightens.
"Take that off. In my house, that man doesn't exist. Do you understand? You saw how happy my mom was; I can’t take that away from her."
My hand closes over the necklace as my mouth drops open. I don't take it off. I can’t let this man hold power over me anymore, not when I have a baby to protect.
"I'm not doing this anymore, Hudson. I can't."
I take a step back. My voice is steady, but my hands aren't.
He stands. The chair screeches against the marble.
So, I take another step back.
"I'm going to pack my stuff, and then we're done. This whole arrangement is over."
Gianna's voice in my head. Take whatever he has and burn it. And then run. I'm taking her advice. Not the killing part. Not the accident. I’m not Gianna. So I do what I do best. I’m going to run.
Telling myself that whatever he has over me, it isn't worse than this.
Nothing is worse than this. I can survive embarrassment.
I can survive humiliation. I cannot survive another day in this house, in this marriage, with this man calling Ace's baby ours.
The Harper who was scared of him and what people thought of me died the second he called my baby ‘ours’.
"Do not take another step, Harper. Get your smoothie and sit down." He points at the chair, the same way you ask a dog to sit.
"No. I'm going, and you can’t stop me. Release the fucking videos. Do whatever you want because you can’t hold power over me if I’m not scared of it. And I’m not."
A growl erupts from him. He storms to the counter, grabs the smoothie, and strides toward me, shoving the glass in my face.
"Drink the smoothie and stop being a hormonal bitch. We both know you aren't going anywhere, because the second you walk out that door, your life is over. And Ace's. Remember that. You’ll ruin him and your child’s future. Your child will grow up and will know their mom is a whore and their father is a murdering psychopath. I’ll make sure Ace ends up in jail. That whole fucking family."
I take the glass. My hand is shaking. I take one small sip and force it down. It's vile.
He reaches for my neck. His fingers close around the A necklace, and he yanks hard enough to snap the chain. I let out a yelp as the clasp cuts into my skin. He throws it across the room. It hits the wall and clatters to the floor, the little gold A spinning on the floor.
Something inside me goes very still.
Not calm. Not numb. Still. Something I’ve never felt before.
That necklace is the last thing Ace ever gave me. The last thread connecting me to the girl I was before all of this. And this man just ripped it off my body and threw it at a wall.
"You don't get to wear another man's name in my—"
"Don't touch me."
My voice doesn't sound like mine. "Don't you ever fucking touch me again."
He steps closer. Into my space. Looking down at me the way he does.
"Or what, Harper? What are you going to do?"
His hand reaches for my arm. My wrist. The way he always grabs when he wants to steer me somewhere.
Not today.
I throw the smoothie in his face.
The green liquid explodes across his eyes, his mouth, his white T-shirt. He stumbles back, sputtering, clawing at his face.
"You fucking—"
He lunges at me and grabs my shoulders, shoving me backward. My spine hits the kitchen counter, and pain shoots up my back, and my hands fly to my belly. And the stillness inside me ignites.
On the counter behind me, displayed on its own little marble stand, is his Forbes 30 Under 30 crystal award. A big slab of engraved crystal with his name etched into the front in gold.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve rolled my eyes at this award when I’ve made my morning coffee.
I grab it.
He's still wiping smoothie from his eyes when I swing.
The award connects with the side of his head. His own name hits his own skull.
The sound is sickening. A crack that reverberates through my arm and into my chest. His eyes roll. His grip on my shoulders goes slack. His knees buckle.
He drops straight down with a thud.
He hits the kitchen floor and doesn't move.
The award falls from my hand, and the crystal fractures against the tile, splitting clean through his engraved name. Hudson Blake is cracked in half on the floor beside his bleeding head.
Poetic. If I weren't about to have a heart attack, I might actually appreciate it.
Green smoothie is everywhere: the counter, the floor, his face, my shirt. The kitchen is silent except for my breathing. I stare down at him. At what I’ve done.
Hudson Blake. CEO. Blackmailer. Forbes 30 Under 30.
The man who trapped me in a marriage and called my baby his.
He's on his kitchen floor, eyes closed, a wound on his temple bleeding, a trickle of red running down his cheek and pooling on the white tile beside the shattered remains of his own legacy.
He's breathing. His chest is rising and falling.
My hands start shaking. Then my arms. Then my whole body, vibrating so hard my teeth chatter. I take a step back. Then another. My heel crunches on a shard of crystal.
Oh God.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
I look at my hands. At him. At the blood on the floor. At the necklace across the room, the little gold A glinting under the kitchen light.
He shoved me. He grabbed me. He put his hands on me while I'm carrying Ace's baby, and I cracked him over the head with his own goddamn award. That's what happened. That's the truth.
But I'm standing in a billionaire's kitchen, in a city where his name is on buildings, with his blood on the floor and a marriage certificate that says I'm his wife.
Who's going to believe me?
He groans as his fingers twitch against the tile.
He's going to wake up. And when he does, whatever power he held over me before is nothing compared to what he'll do now.
I just tried to kill him.
I have minutes. Maybe less. And there is only one hope I have of fixing this. I launch myself up the stairs, running on pure adrenaline, and get my phone.
One more call. One last chance to survive.