Chapter 14
When I step outside, I crack my neck at the type of madness that I’m feeling at this moment. Something tells me to go back in there and grab her by the back of her neck, drag her out with me whether she’s kicking and screaming but another part of me sees that as some weird type of possession.
I don’t want to own her in that way. I don’t want my hands on her in an intimate way but I had a point to prove. I needed her to see that and for her manager to know that she had a husband. There was this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when he had his arm over her shoulder.
It wasn’t the feeling of a person touching my wife but rather someone trying to water my plants for me when I said I already took care of it.
I’ve never been the type to extend gratitude when someone did something for me so with this bastard of a manager… everything in me called to me to go inside and destroy him.
To smash his head against the counter and pour the hot black liquid over his face. Let it be scalding hot so that it could teach him to not touch other women who work for him.
Juliana thought that she really ran away from me but she didn’t realize something… when she was in that damn prison, in a place where she treated it like a vacation sometimes with making friends or even smiling there, I had her injected with a tracker that was embedded into her bloodstream.
There was no way of getting away from me and that ring, would cause her more pain rather than pleasure,
Instead of heading into my car, I growl out trying not to fully release it so it sounds like a very disrupted jaguar that’s lurking on the outside of the mom and pop diner.
Slowly, I track every movement that Juliana is making as she continues to serve others while I sit back on the hood of my car.
She isn’t looking at me because she’s avoiding them but I know she can feel my anger, she can feel it because she almost drops the next table’s order and when she hands them the food, her eyes find mine.
I tilt my head watching her like an animal watching their prey tracking their fear to see what they will do in the next minute.
“Stop looking at me.” I mouth to her.
My eyes won’t move from hers and there’s no way that I can. I have to watch her every move. Track it all; every breath, every sigh, hell every single time the air conditioning blows those loose tendrils out of her face.
My eyes should move. They have to yet they don’t. I glare at her waiting for her to turn away yet she has the gall, the gumption to maintain eye contact with me.
How dare she?
While Juliana has looked away, I’m still stalking outside, lurking but not in the shadows. She hasn’t dared to look at me directly but she’s taken glances.
Glances at the crazy man that’s sitting on the hood of his car watching her. I’m sure by now I’ve tanned a little.
My cell goes off and I don’t have to look down to know who is calling me.
“Little Ric.” I answer.
“Big Ric!” My son exclaims in my ear. “Still getting Juli?” He asks.
I don’t lie to my son much about what I want to do but there are things I keep from him. Such as why Juliana is in the home that he lives in and that she’s his mother.
“What did we discuss about her getting a nickname?”
“You said you didn’t like it and I said I did.”
I know he’s smiling at himself right now because he just gave me the ultimate Crowne answer.
“Alright then, miniature Crowne. I’ll give you this but not another.”
“Yes, Big Ric.”
“Ricky…” I call his name out and finally look away. I cover my face trying to hide the anguish on my face because of my next words. “I’ll be gone a few days or a couple of weeks, I’m sorry.”
It’s quiet for a moment. I haven’t been away from him since he was born. Not outside of working or him going to school.
I nearly homeschooled him, that’s how much I didn’t want to be away from him.
“S’okay, Big Ric. It’s to bring Juli home, right?” He asks in such a small voice, I almost break my resolve and leave.
“Yes, know that I would never leave you for any other reason.”
“I know. I love you. Uncle Cas is here to pick me up.”
“Alright. I love you, buddy. Call me later so we can do your homework together.”
“Alright bye, daddy.” He hangs up before I can say it back.
A delicate hand that belongs to Juliana’s, slides a styrofoam box and a water bottle with a coffee cup.
“And this is?” I raise a brow.
“I thought you’d be hungry and thirsty.” I glare at her for a good minute before I speak, dismissing her.
“See you when your shift is over.”