by Ashley Munoz
I felt fucking sick to my stomach.
“This was her idea. She even drew a few mockups for our business.” He pulled out the images Faith had traced of my business logo, the ones I’d found in her apartment and accused her about. “So, what do you think? Feel like getting rich today?” Bryan asked, shoving his hand out, like the devil ready to make a deal.
Thirty-Four
I tugged on a fresh pair of clothes, still eagerly waiting for a phone call from Jace. Worry began to gnaw away at my stomach. Had something happened to him? My mind was racing relentlessly about what it could mean that he wasn’t answering my calls.
A knock on my front door jolted me out of my thoughts and had me rushing to open it.
I jerked it open with a hopeful “Jace!” on my tongue. The tall, brooding man on my stoop pushed his way inside and shut the door behind him.
I inched my way backward toward the kitchen.
“Sorry to disappoint, but your boyfriend is probably off spending the million dollars he just accepted from me.” Bryan slid out of his suit jacket and laid it across the back of the lounge chair. He began rolling up his sleeves to his elbow, his signature move for when he was about to get his hands dirty.
I inhaled a sharp breath and tried to stay calm while I took inventory of my surroundings. I had access to weapons. I had a taser in the drawer next to my bed, pepper spray in my purse, and knives in the kitchen. I wasn’t going down without a fight. To distract him, I tried to entertain whatever game he was playing.
“He wouldn’t take any money from you.” I strategically shuffled closer to the counter.
Bryan walked away from me, turning his back and wandering around the room. “He would if he didn’t think there was any reason not to, especially if he thought you had betrayed him.”
My heart sank. What the hell does that mean?
“What did you do?” I held my hands behind my back, gripping a steak knife.
“Nothing you didn’t already start…I merely played on all the things he doubted in you to begin with.” He picked up a framed picture of me with Gemma from back in high school. “You never brought any photos with you after we got married,” he muttered, surveying the photograph closely.
“Are you really going to start complaining that I didn’t bring anything personal with me into our fake marriage?” I stayed rooted in place, terrified of what his goal was with his faux interest.
He snapped his head toward me. “It was real.” Putting the picture back carefully, he moved on to the books.
I bit back my retort about how it wasn’t real, not any of it. The love, the attraction—all of it was a lie fabricated by my father. I should have never met Bryan Vanderson.
“Quite the collection here.” He moved his finger across the spines of each of my books. “Would these be the books you paid the library to keep, to help amend for the vandalism inside?”
“How do you know about that?”
He smirked, taking out Of Mice and Men. “Same way I know about the logo you designed for your redneck boyfriend’s shop, and how I know about his house, and the Saturday market.” He cracked the spine and began reading out loud. “Fool: So we’re together now? Pip: Of course we are. How many other boys go around kissing you?” Bryan let out a scoff, shaking his head. “If only he knew.”
“So, you’ve been following me?” I glanced down briefly at my cell and pressed the record button, just in case he slipped and shared something incriminating.
“I paid a private investigator to follow you and lover boy. Quite boring intel, actually, but I loved the juicy bits about him sleeping over. Looks great for me, you sleeping around before we’re even divorced. Funny thing is, every time you’ve left your house, I’ve had one of my men come in and stage things so it looks like you’re an addict. They’ve also been collecting things for me.” He moved away from the books and toward other photos on my television stand.
Curiosity clawed its way out of my throat. “Why? You could give me a nice quiet divorce, start over, be free of me—why the dramatics?”
I had no idea why he was making this so ugly when it was really quite simple. I didn’t want anything from him, and I’d sacrifice whatever Gemma had requested in the divorce filing if he just left me the hell alone.
He let out a heavy sigh as he lifted his head, eyes cast upward toward the ceiling.
“Believe it or not, Faith, I’m a prideful man, and I loved you. In whatever fucked-up version of love was true for me, I did.” He laid his hand over his heart.
“Then why hit me? Why hurt me like you did? That’s not love.” I pushed my phone closer while tightening my grip on the blade at my back.
“Because you wore the necklace of a poor loser who’d once promised you a future. When I actually provided that future, you still couldn’t deign to give me enough respect to remove it and try with me. You were never in this all the way.” He shook his head back and forth, and the smallest twinge of shame flickered alive inside me.
He was right. I just hadn’t known I’d hurt him; I’d had no idea he even cared.
“Why not tell me in a loving fashion then? I would have stopped wearing it…I would have chosen us—”
“Because that’s not love.” He pointed at me.
Shit. He was right.
Releasing the knife, I stepped forward. “I’m sorry. For the record, I’m so sorry for ever hurting you. It wasn’t my intention.”
Shoving his hands deep into his pockets, he regarded me for a moment before stalking toward me. “I appreciate that, but as I mentioned, my pride was wounded more than my heart. So, I’ve hurt you back in a way you won’t recover from, and I had every intention of doing it. Buckle up, buttercup—we’re even now, and we aren’t getting a divorce.”
He came closer, which had me retreating, feeling weak, pathetic.
“Don’t come any closer to me,” I demanded, clearly enough for my recorder to pick up.
“You’re my wife, Faith. State law says I can do whatever I see fit with my property.” A wicked smirk twisted his cruel mouth. My heart sped up and beat frantically as I considered what to do. He was going to hurt me.
A generous smile broke out on his face as he began to loosen his tie.
“What are you doing?” Fear shook my voice, betraying how scared I was.
His blue eyes danced as he drew closer, undoing the top button of his shirt then moving farther down.
“You want to know my favorite thing about you, Faith?” He tilted his head to the side.
I didn’t answer, because I knew that look in his eye, and he wasn’t even drunk. The demon had come out to play.
“You were always so willing to please me. You were like clay, so perfectly moldable, so functional for everything I needed. You were so happy to be saved from your trainwreck of a life that you looked at everything with such awe and wonder.” He peeled his shirt off and tossed it to the floor. “Every time I fucked you, it was with this knowledge between us that you loved another man.” His belt went next, and he wrapped it around his knuckles.
I watched his feet as they drew closer; he was nearly to the refrigerator.
“I promised myself that when I made my move after all the sleuthing and discovery, once Jace was out of the picture for good, I would fuck you like you were truly mine, with you being aware of every evil piece of me. I’d fuck you like you were without any remnants of your old life. No locket from your ex, no promise of salvation hanging over your head—just me. Only mine.”
He stopped just as his hip brushed the counter. I was fixated on his closeness, and had missed how he was devouring me with his eyes.
I kept expecting adrenaline to kick in like they talk about in the movies, something to surge through me to protect me, to get me moving from this spot to doing anything else…like stabbing his chest with this knife, maybe? But nothing was coming. I was completely frozen in place.
“You ready to dance, baby?” His voice dripped with lust and promised torment.<
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I stepped forward and tried to prepare my soul to dance with the devil.
Bryan’s moves were mostly predictable, and while I hadn’t taken self-defense classes during my stretch of freedom like I should have, I could still mostly forecast what he was going to do next. I knew if he saw me hold the knife in front of myself, he’d dodge or do something to catch me off guard, maybe even take it and use it against me.
At present I’d backtracked enough to grab it, keeping it tightly held behind my back. He was still making his way toward me, in measured steps. I’d been holding him off with conversation, but it was wearing thin.
I had mentioned that Jace was coming for me, and Bryan had launched into an entire tirade.
“Do you know how fast he took that money? He finally gets a chance to break free from this shithole and you’re going to hold him back?” He laughed at me, pointing his finger like he was accusing me of something terrible. “That coward isn’t coming for you, Faith. No one is. Because I own everyone in your life who could or would ever come to your aid.” He flicked the black button of his slacks and slipped them off, now standing in just his black boxer briefs.
Gemma would come and she’d kick his ass, except she had a deposition this morning that would tie her up for hours. I was screwed, and my only hope was to surprise him with a knife to his chest…or stomach. Some resigned part of me didn’t want him to die. I just wanted to live.
I lowered my head and began to plead with him. “Please, Bryan…please just let me go.”
“Why? So you can charge me with more abuse allegations? Those went nowhere, by the way—fucking nowhere, because I own Tennessee.”
“You said you did love me in some capacity,” I reminded him through a stream of tears. The reality of what was about to happen to me was starting to sink in.
“Would a rough fuck really be that bad for you, baby? You’re going home with me either way. This part is just foreplay.” He took measured steps closer, now an arm’s length away. I could smell him. “You aren’t going to hate what I’m going to do you. I’m just going to remind you who we are together, who I am underneath this disguise. Then we’re going to start over. You’re going to come forward and admit to being in and out of rehab, we’re going to have a baby, and it’s going to be perfect.” He grabbed my chin and sucked my earlobe into his mouth while pressing his erection into my stomach.
My heart was thumping so hard I could feel it everywhere, my head, my throat, my hands. It was thrumming with fear and awareness. This was it, my chance.
My fingers felt numb from how hard they’d been gripping the wooden handle on the knife. I blinked and counted down in my head. Three. His lips traveled to mine as he tugged on them with his teeth. Two. More tears surged. One—
The front door burst open, wood splintering and shattering across the floor as my father barreled through. His tall frame was covered in pieces of wood, his shoulder jutted forward, and his eyes…those gentle eyes were wild.
My heart leapt into my throat.
“Daddy.” The word was a garbled sound coming from my mouth.
Bryan narrowed his eyes, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me to his chest. “Clark, this is a marital manner. I’ll kindly ask you to leave.”
“Get away from my daughter,” my father said, seething, stepping forward.
“You heard my side of this—you know what is really going on,” Bryan continued, pulling me closer.
My father shook his head, his jaw tightening. “We were trying to pay you a kindness, but don’t think for a second that we believed you.”
Bryan was distracted; his hands were still on me, but my wrist was free. I dropped the weapon at my back, realizing I didn’t need it. Instead, I used my free wrist to plant a hand on his chest, twist my body, and knee him in the groin.
Finally, Bryan released me, staggering against the counter. I ran toward my dad, letting him pull me away. Dad pulled out his cell phone and put it to his ear, rapidly talking to the cops about what was going on. I couldn’t catch my breath as I watched Bryan lean over, sliding against the lower cupboards until he was on the floor.
He groaned, veins protruding from his neck and forehead as he turned his head to look at me. “I loved you, Faith…how could you do this to us?”
“Just stay put now. The police will be here any second to sort this out,” my dad said, trying to calm the monster. I was amped up. I suddenly wanted to make him feel as pathetic and weak as he’d made me feel. I wanted to punish him as he’d punished me. I didn’t even realize I had started to surge forward until my dad laid a hand on my shoulder.
Moments later, the sound of sirens echoed loudly, and police and paramedics were running up the stairs and invading my apartment. I complied with the police and gave my statement. Then I passed along my phone as evidence so they could hear the entire conversation that had been recorded.
On the way out of the apartment, I saw a few paramedics hovering over a body in the hall. I couldn’t make out who it was until Dad spoke up from behind me. “It was that man on the ground…it’s how I knew something was wrong, why I barged in through the door.”
Gasping, I lurched toward them. “Is he okay? Tom?” I tried to get his attention, but my dad and two officers held me back.
“Let them help him, he’s okay.” We made our way outside, where I assumed I’d be able to leave, but because I’d married Bryan fucking Vanderson, I was put into the back of a cop car and taken in for questioning.
My dad called Gemma, who raced over to meet me. She ripped the police a new one for how they had treated an innocent victim. She demanded a few seconds alone with me, at which point I explained about the recording.
“Tennessee law,” Gemma said, smiling at me.
“Tennessee law,” I muttered back, proud that, for once, I had retained something useful from one of her lectures.
When the police came back in, we complied with their questions as there was no reason not to. Bryan’s attorneys showed up, demanding my recorded conversation not even be entered as evidence. But Gemma reminded them that in Tennessee, in order to be recorded, only one of the participating parties has to agree to said recording. Since I’d agreed, there wasn’t much more to fuss over.
Once we were finished with questioning, Gemma walked me out the station doors with her arm around me, and we found my father waiting for me in the courtyard. My back stiffened, remembering what he’d done. Gemma hugged me closer to her side, likely trying to gauge what I wanted to do. I had told her everything.
“Give me just a second, please.” I smiled at Gemma and turned toward my father.
He stood from the bench he’d been sitting on and hesitantly walked toward me.
“How are you holding up?” his soft voice inquired.
I hated this new existence we found ourselves in. He had always been my protector, my friend, but what he’d done to Jace was inexcusable.
“Dad, thank you for coming to my rescue.” I smiled up at him, and the hope in his eyes nearly drove me to my knees. I knew he’d acted out of love, but I couldn’t get past what he’d done.
“I’m going to stay with Gemma.” I held his hand, squeezed, and let it go.
His downcast gaze was quick, there and gone, replaced by a placating smile. “Okay, I understand. Just…come home or call me when you’re ready to talk.” He hesitated for a second. “I just…I need to tell you how sorry I am, about Jace and everything.”
“So, you’ve told him you’re sorry then? You’ve apologized?” I asked, daring him to contradict himself. He wasn’t sorry, because if he were, he would have made things right years ago.
Just as I expected, he winced.
“That’s what I thought.” I shook my head. “I love him. He would have been in my life if you hadn’t ruined that, and Bryan wouldn’t have been at all.”
My father stepped closer, his eyes brimming with tears. “Just remember, honey, if it was that easy for him to leave this time around, he wasn’t ever suppos
ed to stay in your life.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead, squeezed my shoulder, and walked away.
Thirty-Five
I drove toward McGrady’s tree farm, not really knowing where I was going. I knew Jace lived somewhere close to it, and after going to his trailer and seeing that it was gone, I knew he had to be up here. Jessie had given me the address, and I just hoped like hell my phone GPS wouldn’t get it wrong.
After the police station, Gemma had taken me to her house, but I was restless. I needed to talk to Jace. I needed to see him. All my calls and texts had gone unanswered, and I needed to know why.
Bryan’s words had been on repeat in my head for hours, causing me to get in my car and find him.
The faded streak of orange and purple scattered across the sky as dusk settled in. I was thankful I’d come in partial daylight as his place was going to be hard enough to find. Finally, after a few twists and turns, I found the road.
Minutes later, I was slowly making my way up a long drive, and the fifth wheel parked in the driveway told me I was in the right spot. My heart swelled.
Unbuckling, I slowly made my way toward the door. Nervousness had crawled in and lodged itself in my hands, forcing them to cramp into fists. Awkwardly, I knocked.
I could hear Trevor barking on the other side of the door. There were beautiful sconces on each side, illuminating the stoop. I knew if I were to walk around the side, I would see the porch wrap all the way around the house. This place was absolutely gorgeous.
Finally, the door swung open. Jace stood in a pair of white socks, faded blue jeans, and no shirt. My breath hitched at how striking he was.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, accusation rolling off his tongue.
I stepped forward, pushing past him into the house. He surprised me by letting it happen. I shut the door until it clicked behind me. Trevor calmed, his nails clicking against the floor, the sound echoing through the empty space. I could smell something cooking and the soft sounds of a television going.