by Gemma James
Later, the full magnitude of the decision I’d made would hit me, and I knew it would burn like hell. Needing a distraction, I headed in the direction of the bathroom, anxious to join Alex, but the spray of the shower was absent. Pushing the door open, I found her sitting on the toilet, hair a wet and tangled mess surrounding her face.
She glanced up, eyes red and leaking tears down her cheeks, and my world tilted off its axis as fear stole my breath. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m bleeding.”
I searched for the source of her despair, gaze roaming her skin for a sign of blood. “Where are you hurt?” I met her eyes again, the seconds passing in deafening silence.
Apprehension lined her gorgeous face. Her lips parted, closed, parted again.
“Alex, what is it?”
“I…I’m…pregnant.”
A single blink—that’s all the reaction I could give her. Because her words didn’t make sense, were incomprehensible.
A high-pitched wail launched from her throat, spiraling her pain into the bathroom left humid from the shower. Shoulders shaking from the force of her heartache, she buried her face in her hands.
“I mean was,” she said between broken sobs, words muffled into her palms. “I was pregnant.”
20. A Fate Worse Than Death
Alex
Zach was sleeping.
Sleeping so deeply that not even the sudden light, or my presence, roused him. I stood a foot away from the bars, clutching the remote to the shock collar. I wasn’t supposed to be down here, but the ache in my chest was an unbearable reality I couldn’t escape.
I needed to see Zach.
Needed to see him suffer.
Suffer like I was, trapped between numbness and burning despair.
Grief and rage.
I had no words to describe the emptiness inside me, and nothing else in my existence to compare it to…
Except for the time when I thought Rafe was dead.
The blood soaking the pad between my thighs left me hollow and a bit crazed. Giving Zach no warning, I activated the collar, and he shot off the cot and hit the ground, curling into the fetal position. In surreal detachment, I watched him writhe on the concrete, experiencing neither joy nor triumph. Torturing him wouldn’t make the miscarriage less real.
It wouldn’t bring my baby back.
I turned off the electricity streaming through his muscles. He groaned, eyes squeezed shut, and tried to push to his hands and knees. I remembered all too well the power of that electrical current, the way it incapacitated one’s limbs. The way it stole the hope for survival.
Zach had raped me at my weakest, thanks to that collar, and if not for all he’d done, I might still be pregnant.
“Look at me,” I demanded through gritted teeth, full of bitter rage.
He lifted his head, and our eyes met.
“You think you’re in pain now?” I crouched, coming face-to-face with him, prison bars the only barrier between us. “It’s nothing compared to the anguish I want to bring to you.”
“Lex, please…” His breath sawed in and out with too much effort, as if he’d just finished running a race. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted to love you.”
“You wanted to destroy me.”
“No,” he groaned, shaking his head. “Try to understand. You’re all I have.”
“You have nothing.” I spit in his face. “Nothing but this fucking prison, do you hear me?”
Zach didn’t display fear often, but his eyes widened with it now. “You can’t leave me in here.”
“It’s what you deserve,” I choked out, sickness rising in my throat at the thought of everything he’d cost me. “You killed my child.”
A heavy beat passed before comprehension dawned on his beaten face. “You’re pregnant?”
“Was pregnant!” I screamed at him, willing my eyes to remain dry as I wrapped myself in rage. I returned to my full height and glared down at him, chest heaving from the force of my hatred. “You fucked everything up.” I switched on the collar again, and the sound of his howls trilled through my veins.
This was what he’d turned me into.
A monster.
A monster without conscience.
The remote slipped from my grasp and thudded to the floor, and I didn’t move to pick it up. In that moment, I wanted to watch him writhe in agony for the rest of my life. I backed up, lost in a trance as Zach twitched with strangled grunts, and bumped into a warm body. Rafe stepped around me and picked up the controller. With a flick of his thumb, he turned it off.
“You shouldn’t be down here. Come back to bed. It’s late.”
By bed he meant the couch, because I still couldn’t bring myself to go upstairs.
“He needs to suffer.” A jab of my finger in Zach’s direction punctuated the wrath in my words.
“He will. I swear to you. He will suffer.” His hand slid along my cheek, searching for tears that weren’t there. “He’ll be gone soon, and you’ll never have to worry about him again.”
“It’s not enough.”
Rafe’s brows furrowed. “It’ll never be enough, baby.” He took me by the shoulder and ushered me up the stairs, and we left Zach alone in the dark.
“I don’t want him dead,” I said, yanking free of his grasp.
“We don’t have to talk about this right now. You’ve had nothing but trauma on top of trauma.”
Twelve hours had passed since I’d miscarried, but those hours had changed me in ways I never imagined time could change a person. I no longer recognized the survivor in the mirror.
I only saw a ghost.
“He doesn’t deserve death. He deserves to suffer every fucking day for the rest of his life for what he’s taken from us.”
My baby, Rafe’s son. The things on the list were endless.
“He should live the rest of his life in that prison, tortured by what he can’t have,” I said, holding Rafe’s gaze, finding bold courage for what I was about to say, because he wouldn’t like it. “I want you to fuck me in front of him.”
Rafe dragged a hand down his face. “Why would you want that?”
“Because watching the way it is between us…that will hurt him.”
“Think about what you’re asking of me.”
“I’m asking you to make him suffer. It’s what he deserves.”
“This isn’t the way to go about it, Alex.”
“I know him. It will destroy him to see what he’ll never have. I need him to see that we’ll go on living while he rots down there.”
“So let me get this straight. Instead of killing the sonofabitch, you want to keep him locked up in our cellar for the rest of his life?”
I crossed my arms, refusing to back down. “It’s a fate worse than death, and Zach deserves nothing less.”
“He does, babe. He deserves that and so much more. But you’re too upset right now to make such a huge decision. You’re not thinking this through.”
He wasn’t wrong. I was a mess, probably levels past the ability to think clearly. But the idea wouldn’t leave my mind. “Tell me you’ll consider it.”
Rafe gave a grim nod. And maybe he was placating me, being agreeable in hopes that I’d come to my senses.
I knew I wouldn’t.
21. Another Angle
Rafe
“What’s up with your woman?” Jax said, appearing in the kitchen. “She didn’t acknowledge my presence.” He nodded in the direction of the front porch where Alex had spent most of her free time for the last two days on the swing. “I swear she looked right through me out there.”
“You hungry?” I asked, dodging the inquiry in his eyes as I removed a baking dish from the oven. I hoped the homemade mac and cheese would give Alex a shred of comfort, because she sure as hell wasn’t getting any from me.
Not for a lack of trying, though. My wife had completely withdrawn into herself, and I couldn’t bring myself to use my normal methods of reaching her.
&nbs
p; “I could eat,” Jax said, pulling three plates down from the cupboard.
“Where’s Angel?”
“She’s not feeling well. She wanted to stay at the safe house today.”
“I didn’t realize you’d gone back there.” I spooned a decent helping onto each plate.
“We thought we’d give you guys some space. It’s temporary, anyway. I might have tracked down one of Angel’s relatives in Cali.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, man. A brother.”
We moved to the eat-in nook. “Give me a sec. I’m gonna see if I can talk Alex into coming inside.” As Jax slid onto the bench, I picked up my wife’s plate before leaving the kitchen.
She wouldn’t come inside. I already knew she wouldn’t, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying. Finding her where I’d seen her last, pushing the porch swing into motion with absent-minded calculation, I crouched in front of her, one hand stopping the swing to get her attention.
“Jax is here. Why don’t you come inside and join us for dinner?”
She blinked. “Have you decided yet?”
Fuck.
She wouldn’t let it go, and I was beginning to think she’d latched onto the idea of making Zach suffer in order to cope with the miscarriage. Truth was, neither of us were coping very well. I still hadn’t processed it, and though I hadn’t brought up the fact that she hadn’t told me, it was always on the forefront of my mind, question begging to be asked.
But I needed to find a way to ask it without accusing, because regardless of whether she should have told me, I recognized that she needed more from me than anger-flung accusations.
She needed my love.
And apparently, she needed Zach to witness just how intense my love could get.
“Zach’s fate can wait a few more days.” I set the plate next to her on the swing, and that’s when I spotted the fresh scratches on her forearm. Jesus. Something had to give because she sure as hell couldn’t keep hurting herself like this. “Try to eat, okay?”
With a muted nod, she picked up the plate, and I returned inside, leaving her to her self-imposed isolation.
“She’s still struggling with all of this, isn’t she?” Jax said as I took the seat across from him.
“A lot of shit’s happened.” Pushing my food around the plate, I raised my eyes. “She had a miscarriage the morning after we got back. I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”
Jax’s eyes grew big. “Holy shit. No wonder she’s rocking herself to sanity out there.”
“It gets worse. She wants me to fuck her in front of Zach.”
“Come again?”
“That was my initial reaction too.”
“What are her reasons for wanting to do this?”
“She thinks it’ll hurt him.” Considering the level of his obsession, she was probably right. I still didn’t like the idea of inviting the sick fuck into our marriage.
Jax seemed to mull it over. “I don’t know, man. Everyone handles grief in different ways. This could be her way of dealing with the trauma, of taking the power back from him.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “It’s not conventional, but nothing about your relationship falls into that category. This might be what she needs to start the healing process.”
His words hit me like a cold, physical blow. I’d never thought of it from that angle. Until now, I hadn’t been able to get past the elephant of Zach standing between Alex and me.
But maybe Jax was right. Maybe this was more about her moving on and less about the bastard who’d taken her to hell and back.
“Thanks, man.”
“For what?”
“For being my brother.”
“Anytime,” he said, voice thick. He forked up a bite of macaroni. “Speaking of brothers, what are we doing about the parasite in the cellar?”
“Alex wants him to rot down there.”
“Can’t blame her, though I figured she’d rather see him dead.”
“Me too.” Pushing my plate away, I frowned.
“It sounds like she’s just really messed up right now. Give her some time.”
“I’m trying, but I don’t like his presence under our feet. He’s gotten away too many times, and it always comes back to bite us in the ass.”
“Dude, he’s not going anywhere. I helped you design that prison.”
“That’s the only reason he’s still breathing.”
Jax raised a brow. “Sounds to me like Alex is the reason.”
I let out a derisive laugh. “I can’t believe this is our life.”
“It’s fucking stranger than fiction.” Jax shoveled in a bite, and I watched him chew, mind spinning.
“You think I should fuck her in front of him?”
“If it means that much to her, why the fuck not? Asshole’s got it coming.”
For the first time since she brought up this crazy idea, I envisioned it; saw Zach watching from the shadows, gnashing his teeth as I made her scream my name.
Maybe this idea wasn’t so horrible after all.
22. Tender Sting
Alex
A cool breeze stirred my tangles. A wayward curl blew into my eyes. I pushed off the planks with my toes, sending the swing into another easy glide. For the past three hours, I’d let the gentle lull of the rocking motion calm me. A train’s horn blared from the Oregon side of the Columbia River.
I couldn’t see it, but I heard it.
Just like one wouldn’t see the shattered pieces of my heart by looking at me. My baby was gone, just a traumatic memory down the toilet.
Six days had passed since that morning—the same amount of time I’d spent at Zach’s mercy. One day shy of a whole week.
Those days had changed everything…they’d changed nothing.
The front door opened, and I spied the heavy thump of Rafe’s boots on the deck. Rather than offer comfort, his presence sent my heartbeat into a dangerous spiral. Maybe it was the way I’d caught him studying me since he found me in the cellar unleashing my wrath on Zach, as if he were waiting for me to break apart and hurt myself.
With a start, I realized too late how my nails dug into my arm, gouging deep enough to draw blood. It wasn’t the first time I’d regressed into the habit since miscarrying, and it wouldn’t be the last. The fact that he hadn’t punished me for it said a lot. Too much, really. His inaction, so far removed from the norm for us, told me he was just as shaken by our loss.
The guilt splintered another crack in my armor, because I should have told him about the pregnancy before the wedding. He hadn’t thrown my duplicity in my face, but he had every right to.
Coming to a stop in front of the porch swing where I sat, he folded his arms. I risked a peek at his face and found his deep green gaze alight with resolve.
“Come inside,” he said, holding out a hand.
“Why?” Something about him was different today, and I swallowed past the lump of apprehension in my throat.
He was surer.
Harder.
Determined.
“Last time I checked I was still your husband.”
I lifted my chin. “And?”
“And that means you’ll put your hand in mine and follow my lead.”
“What if I don’t?” He still hadn’t made a decision on the Zach issue, and my irritation bled through the words.
He bent until we were face-to-face, taking me by the chin. “Unless you plan on swimming off the island to get away from me, you don’t have a choice.”
I’d known this moment was coming, the day of reckoning when he’d enable me no longer. Allow me to withdraw no more.
Rafe rose to his full height and waited for me to slide my hand into his. The instant his warm palm welcomed mine, I felt my breath hitch. Anxiety rose in my throat, and the burning tingle behind my eyelids threatened to ignite. I didn’t want to give him my tears. I never wanted to cry again. Crying meant feeling.
I never wanted to feel again.
The birds seem
ed to fall silent as he led me inside the cabin, and maybe it was an omen because he halted at the bottom of the stairs.
“It’s time to face it, sweetheart.”
I shook my head, yanking on my hand that refused to budge from his grip. “I don’t want to go up there.”
“We can’t sleep on the couch forever.”
“Please, Rafe. Don’t ask me to do this.”
“I’m not asking, babe.” Tugging on my arm, he all but dragged me up the stairs.
Light shone through the skylights, bathing the loft bedroom in natural light. The comforter had been changed, and so had the sheets. There was no evidence of Zach in this room anymore—no spilled clothing from the drawers, or his untied boots taking up space on the floor. My gaze settled on the gown hanging on the back of the bathroom door.
My wedding dress.
I failed to breathe. “Where did you find it?”
“In the bottom of the armoire.”
I blinked.
One, two, three…four times.
As many times as it took to ward off the burn of pain behind my eyeballs.
“Let it out,” Rafe said, squeezing my hand.
“I can’t.”
“You can.” Letting my fingers slip from his, he pulled his shirt over his head. As the muscled contours of his bare chest confronted me, the world fell away. The rest of the island faded, leaving him and me and the intimate space between us.
I lowered my attention to the outline of his cock behind the zipper of those stonewashed jeans I loved so much. When it came to me, it didn’t take much to turn him on.
“It’s too soon,” I whispered. “I just stopped spotting yesterday.”
“This isn’t about sex.” He stepped forward an inch, bringing us that much closer. “But you are going to take off your clothes.” The demand in his voice was unmistakable, but underneath it I detected an edge of gentleness reserved for the tender moments between us. It certainly wasn’t a tone he used for punishments. Even so, I was certain a punishment of some sort was coming. If not a punishment, then a snap-out-of-it session with his belt.
My attention lowered to his waist again, and I was dismayed to find the thick strap of leather I hated most sitting on his hips. That belt stung something fierce, and in my present state of mind, it would be the perfect amount of brutal to make me crack.