Chapter 11
My pacing back and forth outside of the prison walls is catching up to me. I blanked out when I started to hit that loser of a CO, the anger I hold in me is always ready to snap or bite someone’s head off.
Being mad didn’t start after my wife died… no way, it started a long time ago. My brother Dane would tell me to let that shit go but then I’d remind him if he wanted to spar like we used to, that could be arranged. He’d lose because we didn’t fight fair, not even when we spar.
It isn’t that I am fighting for her honor, no I’m letting both her and everyone around her know that no one is going to do a single thing without my approval or permission.
When they come out, I glare at Juliana.
“Why didn’t you do what he wanted you to do?” I ask her.
Juliana looks away, actually ashamed. I scoff.
“You think you even have the right to be ashamed in front of me? You don’t get emotions, Juliana. You give answers and you follow orders. Like a gorgeous trophy wife should.”
Juliana looks up at me with those big brown eyes and I can see where there could’ve been some innocence to them but I don’t see that. All I see are eyes that didn’t look where they were going and crashed into my wife’s car.
“He wanted…” she mumbles the last bit like a child.
“What?”
She does it again and I grab her chin.
“Speak.”
“Sex!” She yells out in my face like she’s lost her senses.
“He wanted sex. He pushed me on top of a desk with my back to him. He lifted my lower body up in the air and humped me saying he was showing me how good I could have it. Is that what you wanted to hear? He only stopped because the warden told him to get off me. He would have RAPED me!” She yells out even louder. “You TOLD HIM TO!”
My hand instinctively wraps around the nape of her neck and Juliana whimpers. I lay my forehead against hers making sure she can’t see anything past me.
“I don’t need such immoral things to be done to you. Raping you wouldn’t satisfy me nor would it make me feel better. Why would I ever tell someone to do such sick shit? The only thing I wanted you to do in there is rot. To perish and lose yourself like I lost myself when I heard the news.”
“I’m sorry.” She apologizes.
“Don’t apologize to me, Juliana. Nothing you ever say to me will be enough. You will learn what hate is. You will feel what I feel.”
I step back and my hand shifts to her throat but I don’t squeeze. I just stare into those soulless eyes that try their best to invoke emotions they know they no longer have.
Juliana isn’t some woman to me who has something worth saving. She’s a monster to me. An inhuman soul that says she feels regret for what happened but deep down, had I not bothered to attack her the way I am… she wouldn’t be putting on this act.
There's anger here. One that I can’t explain or shake.
That someone wanted her and even touched her.
That they see beauty in this empty vessel.
The CO wanted sex from her but she didn’t want it from him.
Juliana blames me for something that I would never advocate or ask someone to do. That bastard is low all by himself.
Cassius takes a step in my direction to stop me from killing Juliana but I slowly look his way.
“I’m not going to kill her.”
Cassius shrugs and pockets his hands. “If you say so, let’s go.”
After Cassius drops me off at the office, I tell him where to take Juliana. She needs to learn how to be my wife and the only way she can do that is with Ricky’s nanny.
Hours later, I got a phone call.
“Cassius.”
“She’s gone.”
“Who?”
“Juliana. She gave Marie the old slip. I told you about those jail birds.” He says with a chuckle.
There’s a certain headache that isn’t leaving me and I want to punch something.
“Yeah?” I say, gritting through my teeth. “Find her and while you do I have a jewelry store to visit. I need something done pronto.”
I hang up as Cassius laughs even louder.
I switch and dial my jeweler letting him know that I need a ring that can slip on permanently with a tracker in it. Juliana has only one chance to run away and she took her chance too early.
Once I make it to the house, I don’t say a word to anyone because they all know to leave me be, if I come back at this time of the day. I’m usually gone longer or done when Ricky comes back from school.
There’s only one place no one but the one who is allowed to clean it can come into; my room.
Without thinking of anything else, I climb into the bed that I never sleep in with the same sheets that my wife last slept on.
When I lay back and stare at the ceiling with my arms bent behind my head and my legs crossed at the ankles with my shoes on, there is a huge picture of a smiling Juliana with her family as they take a family portrait.
It’s focused on her more than anyone else and I stare at it like I’ve done for the past five years when I'm ready to end her.
This isn’t an admiration moment, this is a moment of self disgust mixed in with a deep hatred that makes me dizzy.
My loathing of her is deeper than the skin that I wear, further down my soul and embedded into my bones.
Juliana is everywhere but not for the reasons one thinks when they hear a confession like that.
No, Juliana’s claws aren’t shaking me apart… no, they’re refocusing me on one thing.
Juliana Hart doesn't deserve what she thinks she does. She deserves even more.
Hatred. Anger. Most of all, to be ripped apart; shredded to the point that her soul can’t properly ever be put together.