Leave Me Breathless

by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  My nostrils flare, my head set to explode with the pressure building, as I swing my axe in a rage, sinking it into the plaster. Soon that’ll be Knight’s head.

  I turn and stride out, anger pumping through my veins. When I find him—and I will find him—I’m going to fucking kill him. I just get to the bottom step of the veranda when I hear something, and I still, lowering my foot gently on the brittle leaves, making them crack. My neck cricks as I look to my left into the trees, listening. I hear screeching tires in the distance.

  Adrenaline pumping, I run to my truck, throw my axe into the cab and jump in. My phone rings, and I answer. “He’s found her.” I race toward the main road, my eyes scanning high and low.

  “Fucking hell,” Lucinda all but whispers. “Ryan, don’t you do anything stupid, do you hear me? I know you. I know what idiotic shit you’ll pull.”

  “What, like kill him?” I ask frankly. “Because that is what I’m going to do, Luce. Slowly. Painfully.” I’m planning each and every torture tactic I’m going to adopt.

  “Ryan—”

  “Can you cover it up?”

  “What?”

  “If I kill him, can you cover it up?”

  She inhales, falling silent. She knows as well as I do that no matter what road I take here, Hannah will be exposed to the media and world, and could possibly even go to prison for faking her death. And even if she came out the other side a free woman, the trauma would set her back years. I refuse to do that to her. Not only that, I can’t put myself at risk of being sent down and leaving her alone.

  “Fucking hell, Ryan,” Lucinda eventually says.

  “Answer the question, Luce.” I need her to think quickly with me. Time is of the fucking essence. I get to the end of the track and turn right onto the main road out of town. The road that’ll take me north.

  “Only if you don’t leave marks.”

  I laugh. “Are you joking me?”

  “No, I mean it, Ryan. No marks on him whatsoever. He’s taken a leave of absence. He’s got connections with dealers to the rich and famous. His wife died tragically over five years ago, and his current wife is pregnant and currently taking refuge in another country. Things aren’t looking too rosy for Jarrad Knight, catch my drift?”

  It slams into me, so obvious, it’s almost beautiful. No marks. How the fuck I’m going to manage that, I have no idea. I look at the axe on the seat next to me, imagining it sunk into Knight’s head. “No marks,” I assure her, returning my focus to the road. “He’s in a Mitsubishi.” The fucker. He was the one who ran me and Alex off the road. It was him earlier today on the high street watching Hannah. Jesus, how long has he been playing with her, playing with me? “I need to go.” I hang up and call Darcy immediately, not giving her the chance to talk before I hit her with my order. “I need you to get Alex, get some things, and leave town.”

  She laughs. “Whatever are you talking about? Don’t be silly!”

  “Darcy, please, for once in your fucking life, do what I say, no questions asked.”

  She’s silent for a moment, probably registering my deadly tone. “What’s going on?”

  “I said no questions,” I snap, wincing as soon as I’ve bitten her head off. “I’m sorry. Just do it. Tell me you’ll do it.”

  She’s quiet again. But just for a beat. “I have a friend who lives an hour away. Alexandra is always nagging me about visiting. They have an assault course in the forest nearby.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “Ryan, are you okay?” she asks, a genuine concern in her tone that I’m not used to. It also speaks volumes for how I sound myself. Murderous? Worried? Dying on the inside?

  All?

  “You sound scared,” she follows up quietly.

  “You know me, Darcy.” I blink, realigning my focus. “Nothing scares me.” I hang up on that lie. Scared. That’s exactly what I am. I’m scared to fucking death of losing Hannah.

  My stiff hands loosen up around the wheel, my knuckles white. Scared and angry. So fucking angry.

  The road goes on forever, my speed dangerous. It matches my mood. “Come on,” I mutter, willing my truck to go faster, my eyes scanning the woods as I drive.

  And then I get something.

  As I’m swooping around a curve, I just catch sight of the back end of a truck off a concealed dirt track to my right, and I slam on my brakes. The stench of burning rubber is instant, and so is the smoke surrounding my truck. That was a Mitsubishi.

  I sling my arm over the passenger seat and look back, reversing up the road. My heart is going wild as I yank the wheel clockwise, the back end of my truck swinging out. I pull onto the track, the divots and bumps slowing me down, as does my instinct. I find myself following the mud trail, scanning the dense overgrowth as I let down all the windows and listen for anything that’ll lead me to her. A scream? I flinch, batting away the violent thoughts trying to worm their way into the deepest, darkest corners of my mind.

  Impossible.

  No marks? Lucinda will be lucky.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  HANNAH

  I’m restrained by terror.

  He’s slowed down now we’re on the dirt road, but I’m still jolting around in my seat. My solid muscles are aching, my mind being blitzed by flashbacks of every time I was punished. They got progressively worse over the years. But this punishment is going to put them all to shame.

  Jarrad is quiet in the seat beside me, but I’m not fooled by his silence. The few times I’ve dared look at him, I’ve sensed the storm building inside him, quietly contained until his temper explodes and he loses all control. I’ve seen it too many times. I gulp down my trepidation, glancing around the truck, frantically trying to think of a way out of this.

  “Be a good girl, Katrina,” he says finally, with a silkiness to his tone that makes my stomach turn. That voice. Always so smooth and calm, but loaded with threat. He reaches across to me as he negotiates the road, resting the handgun in his palm on my bare knee, his finger poised on the trigger. I sit back in my seat, my eyes fixed on it. “We wouldn’t want any accidents, would we?”

  “How did you find me?”

  He laughs. The sound makes my skin crawl. “The collector you sold your rings to died.” He sounds so angry, and I close my eyes on a gulp. “His wife put up much of his collection for auction.” His light laugh is loaded with evil intent. “Can you imagine my surprise when Curtis emailed me the lot details?” Yes, I can imagine. But it was a rhetorical question. “I knew that if you were really alive, you would find your way back to your mother somehow.” He casts a sick grin my way, and my jaw tics with anger. “You always were a mummy’s girl. Shame she still thinks you’re dead. And Pippa, who hasn’t changed a bit, but you know that, don’t you?” He laughs. “Two peas in a pod, isn’t that what your mum used to say? She was right. Because you’re as dumb as your sister.” His tone drops at the end, carrying disgust. “You always looked so lonely on your little bench in the park, Katrina. So sad and desperate to join your mother and stupid sister.”

  I swallow, feeling so violated. He was there, watching me. And I had no idea. One of Jarrad’s favorite pastimes was to tell me I was stupid or make me feel that way. He’s as good at it as ever. Next he’ll be giving me every reason why I need him and not them. Why he’s good for me. Why he loves me. No. “What are you going to do, Jarrad?”

  “Depends on you, beloved wife.” He drags the barrel of the gun up my thigh, pushing back the tail of Ryan’s shirt. My back pushes farther into the seat, my whole body racked by shakes. “This shirt doesn’t suit you.” He pulls the gun away and lifts it to my head, and my shakes intensify as I look out the corner of my eye at the tip of the gun sitting in my hair. “And this blond? I hate it.”

  “Then I’ll change it,” I say, forcing myself into the placating wife I used to naturally be. I’m in self-preservation mode. Buying myself time. “For you.”

  He pulls the gun away, but I don’t relax. “For me? You mea
n you’re coming back to me?”

  “Yes, I’ll come back to you,” I whisper, hating the sound of those words.

  Jarrad slowly casts his eyes to me. The glint in them is borderline evil. It’s also a sign of his intention. “But you’re dead, Katrina,” he says calmly, before propelling his arm toward me and cracking me across the head with the butt of the gun. I cry out, pain radiating through me as my head starts to spin. “You took me for a fucking fool, Katrina!” he bellows, his temper now unleashed and ready to destroy anything in its path. The monster can’t be contained anymore. This is it. “You of all people know I’m no fool.”

  My hand clenches the side of my head, the warmth of the blood soaking my palm. Everything is woozy, my head thumping. I can’t think. Can’t see. But I can hear.

  “You left me, you scheming little bitch. Everything I gave you. All the hard work I did to make the perfect life for us. And now I learn that you were feeding Brayfield information? He helped you run away from me?” He sniffs his disgust. “I should have killed him slowly. I fucking loved you!”

  Amid my chaos, I manage to believe that, yes, maybe Jarrad did think he loved me in his way—as long as I was the wife he wanted me to be. But when I disappointed him, nothing could contain his rage. Not me begging, not me promising to do better. I took what he dished out, and then I accepted the gift he would buy me to show his remorse. Every beautiful piece of jewelry I owned represented an injury I’d sustained at his hands. I would be holed up for weeks, unable to leave our mansion in case I was seen. Those weeks in solitary became more frequent. Until one day I stepped out to walk my beloved dog. I was careful. I wore huge shades to cover my black eyes. A hat pulled low to cover the graze on my forehead. A scarf pulled high to conceal my fat lip. No one saw me.

  Until I got home and found Jarrad had returned from work early. That time, he broke my arm and my nose. My dog defended me. Growled at Jarrad as she stood guard by my broken body on the floor.

  So he took her away.

  I feel a tear trail down my cheek, mixing with the blood there, and I look at the madman next to me, knowing beyond all doubt that he will kill me. He won’t risk me destroying him. He won’t risk anyone else discovering that I’m still alive. His status and power are too precious to him. Even more precious than I was as his possession. I’m being driven to my death.

  I look across to Jarrad, my fear mixing with hatred, and for the first time since he took me, I consider how rumpled he is. His hair isn’t slick and neat, the black waves more haphazard, and his suit has been replaced with a pair of trousers and a bomber jacket. It doesn’t suit him. This truck doesn’t suit him, either. This truck would suit Ryan.

  Ryan.

  “I wonder how your boyfriend would feel if I told him you were dead,” Jarrad says as if hearing my thoughts. He’s composed again. The storm has calmed. But not for long.

  He has my attention, and he knows it.

  “Would he feel how I felt?” Jarrad muses, as if having a discussion with himself, his attention fixed on the dirt road. “Does he love you as much as I love you?” He gasps. It’s over-the-top and intended to be. “Does he love you at all?” He flicks me a sick smirk. “I think he does.” Nodding to himself, he turns the steering wheel. “I think when I break the news, I’ll let it sink in for a while before I kill him.”

  “No!” I blurt, stupidly showing some emotion. I should have kept my mouth shut. I shouldn’t have showed my hand. I see the realization in him, and I see the tightening of his jaw quickly after. He stares forward for a few moments. He’s allowing the rage to take hold, and when he turns his eyes my way, I see the psychopath in him. The emotionless beast.

  His hand swings out again, catching me clean on the cheekbone, my hands coming up to defend me too late. The dizziness returns, the pain intensifying. “You cheating, lying, betraying whore,” he seethes. “You think I’m going to let—” He’s cut off abruptly. “Fuck!” he curses, and I jolt in my seat, being thrown against the door. Through my hampered vision, I just catch sight of something flying across our path and disappearing into the overgrowth on the opposite side of the road.

  Jarrad curses as the truck veers off into the bushes, shaking to a stop. I blink, fighting the blur and dizziness away, scanning the area, searching for…“Ryan,” I whisper without thinking. He knows these woods like the back of his hand. I’ve no doubt he’s gone off-road through the overgrowth to get ahead of us. No doubt at all.

  “Your boyfriend is one determined fucker,” Jarrad growls, grabbing me by the hair and yanking me across the cab of the truck. I hiss, scrambling as best I can, blood seeping into my eyes. I land on the ground with a thud, and he kicks me for my trouble, yanking me to my feet. I immediately feel the tip of his gun pushing into my temple, my back to his front.

  Sticks and twigs dig into the bottoms of my bare feet as he walks me backward, moving away from whatever ran us off the road. Ryan? Was it him? I frantically search for him, silently begging him to stay away. “Maybe I’ll kill him first,” Jarrad whispers in my ear, making my skin crawl. His forearm is wrapped around my neck, my whole body covering his front, shielding him, as he drags me backward. His breathing is heavy. He’s shaking against me. He’s nervous.

  I can barely see where we’re going, my vision clouded by blood trickling into my eyes. “You’ll have to kill him first,” I whisper quietly, feeling Ryan close by. My senses are alert to him. I can feel his presence. Smell his rage. My tangled mind seems to unravel as I gain my composure. Jarrad jerks me in his hold angrily, tightening his grip around my neck. It forces me to reach up and cling onto his arm, trying to relieve the pressure on my windpipe. He stops moving. The leaves and twigs stop crunching beneath our feet. The sun is struggling to break through the branches above us, keeping us shadowed.

  It’s deathly quiet. No sound, no movement, for such a very long time.

  Then Jarrad startles when a bird crows from behind, and he swings us around, his head snapping from side to side, searching. “Come on, where are you?” he whispers, turning us back the other way. “You want to watch me kill her?” he shouts to the trees. “You want to watch her bleed out?” The gun is wedged into my temple with force, and I whimper, my feet clumsily dragging against the ground as I’m hauled around again. Then he stills, and it falls eerily silent once more.

  And I realize: Jarrad won’t kill me first. It’ll leave him exposed and without bargaining power. Has he realized he’s out of his depth? Has he realized he’s made a grave mistake?

  Has he realized he’s about to die?

  A loud rustle sounds in the distance, and Jarrad spins us toward it, firing blindly into the trees. I flinch, the bang echoing around us. He’s breathing heavily. Sniffing constantly. And then he jerks on a pained yelp, and I just catch sight of something in my peripheral vision. “Duck, Hannah.” The sound of Ryan’s voice has me whimpering my relief, yet my fear for his safety rockets, too. But I have to keep it together. Jarrad’s hold of me loosens, and I wrench myself free, staggering a few paces before I land in the dirt a few feet away.

  I hear Jarrad yell, and then see him hit the ground with a thud. He loses control of his gun, a shot sounds, and Ryan lands on top of him, launching his fist into his face with a deafening crack. He doesn’t give his victim a moment to react.

  I scramble back on my arse until my back meets a tree trunk, watching as Jarrad has holy hell rained all over him, Ryan’s fists slamming into his face repeatedly as he straddles him. It goes on and on, pound after pound, and in this moment of complete, ferocious madness, I wonder if there are enough strikes being delivered to Jarrad’s face to match those I received over the years.

  Appallingly, probably not.

  I’m shocked by the violence pouring out of Ryan. He’s a machine, powered by a rage that doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon. Only when Jarrad stops moving does Ryan halt his assault.

  He leans back, his adrenaline ebbing. All I can see is blood. It’s covering Jar
rad’s face and Ryan’s fists, splattered on the ground around them. And now it’s quiet again, though the sound of silence is more eerie. Somehow more unnerving. I see Ryan’s muscles tense again, his arm drawing back. He’s not done.

  “Ryan!” I yell, my plea broken through a sob. I’ve seen enough. I can’t see Jarrad breathing, his body unmoving and limp, his head lolled to the side. Ryan stills, looking back at me. His eyes are empty of the laughter I’m so used to. Now there is only vengeance. “No more,” I plead, having to cling to the tree trunk to steady me as I pull myself up. I keep our eyes locked, make sure he sees only me. “No more.” My whisper is hardly audible, but he hears it. I see his eyes clear. I register his body engaging to move.

  And then I notice Jarrad jolt, catching Ryan off guard, and he’s suddenly free from under Ryan’s body, crawling through the dirt with urgency.

  He reaches for something.

  The gun.

  And it’s quickly aimed at Ryan.

  “No!” I scream, but my cry is drowned out by the sound of the gun firing.

  Ryan’s body catapults back, landing nearby in a heap. He’s still, lifeless, and I crumple to the ground again, watching as blood seeps through his jeans. “Oh my God,” I wheeze as Jarrad clambers to his feet, his expression of pure hatred perfectly clear through the blood on his face. He stares down at Ryan’s unmoving body, a sick smile ghosting his thin lips.

  My sobs come on relentlessly, my heart cracking. “What have you done?” I murmur, taking my hands to my hair and pulling, praying death will take me, too. I’ll never be able to live with myself. I’ll never forgive myself for this.

  Jarrad looks across at me with an abhorrence I feel for myself. My obvious grief seems to anger him further, the monster inside preparing to be unleashed again. He’s going to kill me. Good. I hope he makes it quick.