Vile Emotion (The Emotionally Unavailable #1)

Prologue

Thwack!

The smack is unexpected and I drop to the ground hard. Instead of trying to talk back to Edwin, I made a run for it… this time, I was going to get away.

This time, I wasn’t going to let anything stop me.

I don’t want to die. I can’t die like this.

Edwin’s large arm wraps around my ankle pulling me back and my already bruised face slams into the wooden flooring.

My breathing is shallow, too shallow and I should be alarmed but I can’t give up. Not right now.

I refuse to.

Fight, Juli, fight!

Without losing a breath, Edwin flips me and delivers a blow made for a grown man to take not me, his fiancée, the woman he promised to marry in a couple of days.

At first, I didn’t think he would ever hit me again. He hit me once when we were dating and now, I don’t know what it is. I made excuses about him being stressed out but ultimately, I became a punching bag.

I swallow, choking on my own blood, as Edwin stops for a moment. “I’m going to get a drink and when I come back, stand up. Tell me to my face that you think I’m spending MY money too fast.”

I cough hard, not able to say anything else.

It’s not even his money, it’s mine.

It was my inheritance and he spent it all because I was too stupid to realize that I shouldn’t trust someone like him.

I thought I found my forever home but instead, I found someone who hated me enough to want to punch me six feet under.

I’m pretty sure he dislocated something, but I can’t feel anything as the adrenaline kicks in for me to run.

This time, I’ll run.

I don’t care, there’s no looking back. It’s now or never.

I choose me before all else.

I cannot do this for one more day. I won’t let this be me. Not today.

As soon as I hear Edwin’s feet retreat to the kitchen, I bear all the pain in my body and make a run for it grabbing the keys with trembling hands.

Opening the door feels like it won’t happen.

My hands won’t stop trembling and I hear Edwin’s footfall as he gets back to where he is most likely going to kill me if I don’t make a run for it. I shut my eyes and whisper to myself.

“Come on, Juliana, you can do this. You can. Do it for you.” I calm my hands long enough to yank the door open.

“Get back in here!” Edwin yells out, causing my spine to tingle in fear.

He screams his head off but I don’t care anymore. There’s no way that I’m going back to that house. He can have the rest of my stuff. My life and everything else but there’s nothing that will bring me back there.

I’d rather die.

I don’t look back, instead I jump in my car and drive off like a maniac.

I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

It begins to pour like crazy matching my feelings as the tears fall down my face.

I hear a honk behind me and I see Edwin’s car tailing me.

Instead of stopping for the red light, I run through it driving away from the maniac that lives to torture me.

Suddenly, another car comes from the opposite end and while fighting for control on the turn, my car skids causing me to spin around.

Everything is in slow motion for me and I pray that I die rather than return to this life again.

Letting go of the wheel is a mistake but I do it because I can’t control anything.

I scream out in both pain and fear of death.

A bigger car hits me and mine goes tumbling over making me feel like I’m floating in the air in the car.

There’s no retreat from this at all. I feel the impact of everything as my car tumbles flipping over and over, my seatbelt being the only thing that’s holding me in place yet hurting every part of my chest but the last tumble causes something to lodge into my neck.

I hold my neck hoping that this is the last breath I take.

I’m ready to die. I’m ready to face the devil. My eyes shut ready to meet my fate.

I didn’t end up meeting my fate, I woke up weeks later to handcuffs around my wrists in the hospital. Things happened so fast. My life was spinning faster than I was in that car. In the blink of an eye, I found myself behind bars for accidental killing. Involuntary Manslaughter.

Two years was my punishment.

I’ve never even killed a spider, how did this happen?

I cried my heart out when I was first told the news, I didn’t know how to handle it or how to apologize to anyone properly.

The guilt made my heart drop to my feet.

How could I take someone’s life, let alone three people’s lives?

I don’t deserve to live. It would’ve been better if I died instead of them.

I got into a fatal collision with one of the most powerful families in our country.

I should’ve known my luck ran out the second I met Edwin.

The victims who died in the collision were Alaric Crowne’s pregnant wife and child.

I was shit out of luck from that moment on.

“I promise you, Juliana Hart, I will make you regret the day you were born, you psychotic evil bitch.” I fear his dead looking eyes will haunt me for the rest of my life, no matter where I am.

So will the guilt.

I didn’t mean to kill her or their child, everyone knows that but I don’t think the late Carmen Crowne’s husband knows that. I tried to apologize, to plead with the Crowne family but all I saw were those cruel hazel eyes that let me know he would destroy me.

Those are the only words I could remember as they took me to my cell.

Alaric Crowne is going to kill me if I don’t end up getting killed in jail.

It doesn’t matter though, maybe it’s what I deserve.

No, it is what I deserve. I can’t change or forget that I have blood on my hands. I have to repay that.

The second the guards are gone, I turn to face my cell mate and it’s a woman that looks like she’d eat me for breakfast and spit me out way before lunch. She steps up to me and decks me in the face faster than I can react.

“That is a welcome party gift from Alaric Crowne. Welcome to the rest of your life, bitch. He says he misses you.”

She steps to me again and this time, I refuse to go down without a fight.

I stand, hitting her back just as hard. I don’t know how long we fight but when the guards pull us apart, a chunk of my hair is gone.

Seeing that makes me see red, I charge at her but the guard intercepts, dragging me kicking and screaming to what I now know as the box; Solitary confinement.

I did die and meet the devil.

His name is Alaric Crowne and I don’t think this is the last thing he’ll do to me.