by Rie Warren
“Delaney?” Sammy asked.
“We just thought she was sick.” Lourdes frowned.
“She’s been a little stressy lately,” Raquel confirmed.
Understatement of the fucking century.
“She’s fucking missing! Her husband’s been on the hunt for her.” Another hit of panic ripped through me, and I was close to freaking the fuck out.
“Wait. Delaney . . . she’s married?” Rafe shouldered beside me.
“He beat her. He’s been after her for three goddamn years.” I raked my hands through my hair. “I don’t know what he’ll do to her.”
Frankie turned up in front of me. “What’s the what?”
“I hope you enjoyed the fucking game!” I slammed my palms against his chest, and he stumbled back a few paces.
“Madon. What’s the problem?”
“Delaney.”
“About her.” Luke Buckley tugged on my arm. “I think you got some competition.”
“What?” I reeled the weasel closer with my fist in his jersey.
“Saw some guy lurking around Delaney right after halftime.”
I grabbed him to my face. “Why the hell didn’t you say something?”
“Keeping my mouth shut this time.”
“Wrong time to nail your trap shut.” Reining in the rage, I asked, “Blond dude? Dumpy looking?”
“Yeah.” Luke’s brows drew tight. “I think he could pass for a used car salesman.”
“Fuck!” I tossed him aside with a hard thrust, and Luke bounced into Calder.
I didn’t even realize I was causing a scene on the sideline until Coach D started making his way toward me. Didn’t give a shit either.
“How the hell are we gonna find her?” I turned dark eyes on Frankie.
“Got an idea.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ve got a buddy on the police force. He can run Eric’s license plate. Trace it. Maybe get a location if he searches traffic cameras.”
“You already know what happened last time the cops were involved.”
“Got any other bright ideas?” Frankie muttered, tapping into his phone. “’Sides, you can trust Detective Angelo. I’ve been through a few sticky situations with the man.” He looked me up and down, the serious expression changing to something completely different. “You maybe wanna put on some street clothes while I handle this? Because not for nothin’”—he whistled—“the uniform distracts me.”
I nodded, starting off at a fast clip to the locker room, weaving through teammates and cheerleaders and the Cougars.
“Wait up.” Rafe slapped a hand on my shoulder. “I’m coming too.”
“Count me in.” Bunyan rolled up on my other side.
“Some asshole messing with Delaney? Sign me up for the beat down.” Joining in, Calder gripped me on the back of my neck.
“Rafe?” Peyton called out as we raced past.
He slowed for a moment. “Sorry, baby. Delaney’s in trouble. Gotta help Brooks.”
“Be safe.” She popped up to kiss him quickly.
After the fastest clothing switch in history, we met up with Frankie at our cars.
“What’s the word?” Impatience, anger, worry shredded through me.
“Looks like he’s trying to leave the state. Travelling west on I-26.”
“And that detective?” I jumped into my truck, Rafe climbing in beside me.
“He’s giving us a ten-minute lead. So we better haul ass, and you better do what you gotta do before he gets there. Capiche?”
I nodded, yanking the truck door shut. Calder and Bunyan peeled out behind me with Frankie bringing up the rear as we tore out of the stadium.
“I’m gonna beat the ever-loving shit out of that motherfucking waste of space when we catch up to them.” I pounded on the steering wheel, nearly grinding my teeth to dust as I slammed into high gear.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Beaten
Delaney
AFTER SWEATING IT UP on the field during halftime—landing a win that time—I took hard fast glugs from my water bottle. I pulled up the rear as we headed to our locker room. Wondering if I could catch a quick glimpse of Brooklyn before he headed back out, I loitered outside the Crush team quarters for a minute as the hallway emptied around me.
I was just about to move on when a familiar—disturbingly familiar—figure came from one of the unused side rooms.
Not again. This can’t be happening again.
“Eric!” I yelled, but he was on me before I had a chance to strike first, my arms suddenly strangely sluggish.
He pivoted me around, wrenching my arm behind my back. “Shut the fuck up, Delaney, or this is gonna go a whole lot worse for you. And your boyfriend.”
“What about him?” I struggled to get away from Eric, but now he knew my moves and wasn’t letting up.
“Pretending you don’t know? You sicced your bearded bulldog on me.” He wrenched harder, and my shoulder socket cried out in pain.
Pain I wouldn’t let past my lips.
“What are you talking about?” Fear and shock gripped me, and something else.
My legs felt watery. My eyesight beginning to swim.
Pulling me down the empty corridor, Eric shoved me into a storage room. The door slammed, closing us in a tight space.
“Brooklyn Holt punched me out yesterday.” He let me go, rounding on me, that same face made ugly by all-consuming cruelty. “Downtown.”
“How’d it feel being the one on the run?” I spat in his face, but my shoulders hit the wall behind me, my balance completely off all of a sudden.
His fist flew at me, but I managed to duck in time.
Asshole was the only one feeling pain as his knuckles smashed against the concrete wall, and he shouted, “Son of a bitch!”
“You’re the only son of a bitch here,” I gnashed out even though a strange blackness started collapsing before my eyes.
“And you’re the bitch slut sleeping her way up the football chain.” A sneer hardened his lips.
I couldn’t believe I’d ever consented to marrying the fucker.
“At least he doesn’t have to knock women around to feel manly. You pussy.” I dragged in a long shaky inhale then I dove for his midsection.
I punched him left and right, the last of my strength in each blow. He wheezed and cursed before he grabbed a handful of my hair. With a stinging yank, he snapped my head back so hard I thought he’d rip my hair right out by the roots.
“Who fights like a girl now?” Tears sprang to my eyes, pressure mounting in my torqued neck.
I still waled on him, giving as good as I got. Eric kept his grip tight, his other hand making quick jabs at my belly. Exactly what he’d done when I was pregnant, when he beat me so hard I lost Katie.
Getting more and more woozy—not just from the strikes I could no longer protect myself from—I whispered, “What the hell did you do to me?”
It felt like all my motor responses were shutting down.
“Put a roofie or two in your water. Just a little wad of cash made it easy to get into the locker room. Figured it’d be a sure fire way to shut you up.”
Pain clutched me and terror began to overwhelm me. I couldn’t fight him off drugged up to my eyeballs, eyeballs I was having trouble keeping open. I started to wonder if he’d snap my neck in half under the pressure. I screamed as loud as I could. Not loud enough.
Screamed as the hits kept coming, trying to bat them away.
Screamed until my voice stopped and darkness began to descend.
“Lights out, cunt.” Eric held me as my body slumped. “Guess I can still overpower you, huh?”
****
When I came to, I didn’t know where I was. I could hardly remember what had happened.
Carolina Crush stadium.
The Crush were up at halftime, Brooklyn performing well.
Then . . . halftime. Winning. And Eric.
Fighting.
He drugged me.
I opened my
eyes, confronted by a kaleidoscope of starbursts and pinpricks of brightness. I blinked, blinked, blinked until my eyes cleared then all I saw was dense blackness.
I tried to shout but couldn’t. My mouth was . . . taped shut? I tried to move, but it was impossible. My wrists bound behind my back, ankles strapped together, and I lay on my side.
Shards of pain in my stomach, in my head. I felt sick. Woozy. Dizzy. Tears spun from my eyes and my nostrils flared and I wondered if I was having a panic attack. If I’d hyperventilate. I tried rolling around, but my knees hit against something hard, metal. Reaching behind, my fingers came in contact with . . . felt?
I was bounced, then jostled side to side.
We’re moving.
Then I heard it, the low whine of tires on asphalt. The whoosh of traffic on the road. He’d put me in the trunk of a car.
Panic rolled up inside me, and I screamed uselessly against the tape gagging my mouth. Thick fast breaths heaved from my tight chest, and the pain in my head, in my gut, amplified.
How long?
How long had it been? And how would Brooklyn ever find me?
No. No. I won’t do this again. I won’t let Eric beat me. Won’t let him have me. Won’t let him scare me.
Tucking my legs up behind me as far as they’d go, I inhaled longer deeper breaths into my lungs. I blinked my eyes free of tears, even though I couldn’t see anything in the thick blackness. Bending my shoulders back, I ignored the rippling agony in the arm he’d wrenched earlier.
My fingertips made contact with the binding at my ankles. Duct tape. Same thing must be covering my mouth. I concentrated, sweat popping out on my forehead. With every tiny tear I made in the sticky tape with my short fingernails, I wiggled my ankles. I finally made enough of an opening in the tape I just needed to shear through the rest of it. Wriggling, arching, blinking sweat from my eyes, I heard the ripping sound as my feet broke free.
Resting, I closed my eyes. Tried to settle my stomach. Thought of any possible way I could get away from Eric and to some sort of safety.
Now it was a game of possum. I was willing to bet he’d take a break soon—he was so compulsive, so obsessed, he’d have to check on me. Make sure his prize was still alive at least so he could torture me some more.
Miles and miles seemed to roll past, but I had no clue how far we’d traveled, where we were, or where he was headed. I kept working at my hands, but I was tired. Still sick. Aching. I could’ve closed my eyes and slept like the dead in an instant.
Then I heard the car’s blinker.
Just a few more minutes. A few more minutes and I can get free.
Hope gave me a new burst of energy.
The car veered, pushing me onto my back, then slowed. Stopped. The door opened. Shut. Eric’s footsteps crunching on . . . gravel.
The trunk popped open, very little light peeking in around my closed eyelids.
Stay still. Stay still. Let him take the bait.
“Finally got you to shut your mouth, whore. Should’ve started drugging you a long time ago.”
I opened my eyelids the merest slit. Eric licked his lips, looking down at me. He’d probably like to fuck me while I was unconscious. Less of a fight. The piece of filth.
He reached in to check my pulse, bending closer . . .
And I reared up, headbutting him with a wicked crack of our skulls.
He reeled back, hand to head, bleating and jumping from foot to foot. “Cunt!” He all but foamed at the mouth.
No more fear. Not even if he kills me.
I managed to stumble out, hands still tied and mouth still gagged, but I had my legs and feet free. And just enough time to see we were on the side of a road in the middle of Nowhere, South Carolina, with no help in sight.
So that just left me.
And my husband.
He made a quick grab at me, catching me around the torso because I was still so damn dizzy from the roofie.
“That’s it. I’m gonna fuck you now. I’d fuck your face with my cock, but you’d probably try to take a bite.” Dragging me to the car, he bent me forward.
Eric tugged down my shorts, my panties, until they dangled off one ankle. I heard him unzip, and my heart clenched inside my chest. I squeezed my thighs together.
Tears pinged to my eyes, and breaths clogged my throat, my nose. Every muscle in my body tightened as broken dry heaves clutched me as hard as his hands slapped my bared ass. On the side of the road.
He pushed my legs apart and held his penis against me. And I felt it. He was soft, limp . . . small. I laughed behind the gag, nearly hysterical.
He can’t get it up.
He tried futilely to push into me. “Goddamn you! See what you’ve done to me? You ruined me, Delaney.”
He hauled my face up to his then spun me around as he stuffed his impotent dick back into his pants.
Eyes blazing victoriously, I lowered my head and rammed right into his stomach.
He bent over as I backed off, yelling, “You ungrateful bitch! I gave you a life!”
Those words set me off like nothing else.
I let my stance, my glare, my no fear attitude goad him. Wasn’t too hard to get a rise out of Eric, except for his penis apparently. Everything was an insult to him, and the fact I’d gotten free of his trap when he least expected it had him off-kilter and more crazed than usual.
He came at me, but I blocked him with my aching shoulder. A fast spin, and I smashed my knee to his balls—what little he had in that area.
Bent over again, gasping for breath, he aimed a killer stare at me. “I will fucking end you once and for all. Not even woman enough to keep a baby in your belly.”
I kicked out, connecting with his torso. Eric splatted against the trunk, legs wobbly. Then he shook his head, straightened up, and bowled forward.
I held my ground, dodging his first blow.
But without my hands I was unbalanced. My panties and shorts tangled at my feet hobbled me.
His next hit made contact with my cheek, the punch spinning stars behind my eyelids.
“You wanna fucking fight? Think you got what it takes?” He punched me again—a crack that punished my right eye.
Blood trickled down my cheek.
“Gonna kill you, Delaney.” He grabbed my throat in an unyielding grip, almost drawing me off my feet. “If I can’t have you, no one can.”
I hunched forward, trying to gain slack. My blood turned cold. My sight swirly. I gasped, my lungs aching.
I couldn’t even claw at my throat for air. Defenseless. Just like all those other times.
I opened my eyes wide even though darkness began to shroud my vision. And I hoped he read in my undeviating glare I’d fucking haunt him for the rest of his life.
Going blank, drowning under, I heard a noise—something deeper than Eric’s voice. A growling thunder. A vehicle.
The road beneath us shook. I started struggling again, the tape over my mouth the only thing keeping my shouts inside.
Eric squeezed and squeezed, forcing every last breath from my body.
The Ford! Brooklyn’s truck!
Tears crashed into my eyes, and I prayed for one last moment of life so I could see him again.
“Get your fucking hands off her!” The next thing I knew Brooklyn was on Eric.
I collapsed, but someone caught me, laid me down with something soft beneath my head. My eyes rolled up. Rafe. He quickly checked me over, asking questions I couldn’t compute after he gently stripped the tape off my sore lips, from my numb hands.
I briefly heard Brooks’s voice—“Let that POS run. I’ll get back to him in a minute. He ain’t getting far”—then he was beside me.
He kneeled next to me, one quick glance taking in my shorts and panties. He gently pulled them up, but his eyes turned deadly black.
“Did he rape you?”
I shook my head, wanted to reassure Brooks he hadn’t. He’d tried, but he couldn’t.
My voice didn’t work. I coul
dn’t move my hands. My face hurt, my stomach, too, but I’d never seen anything so achingly wonderfully beautiful as the man beside me, concern and pain collapsing his expression.
“Goddamn.” His mouth curled down as he placed his palm against the side of my neck. “I was so fucking scared.” His forehead bent to mine. “Thought I’d lost you.”
He drew me against him, and I buried my face in his neck.
His warmth seeped into me. Feeling started coming back. Not pins or needles or pain, but the love and the hope overriding everything.
“You okay for a minute? Because I’ve got some business to attend to with your . . . I’m not calling him your husband anymore.” He pulled away, worry creasing his brow.
“I’m okay now.”
He swallowed hard before standing and motioning Rafe back.
Brooks covered me in his jacket, smothering me in his scent. “This is gonna end now, Delaney, one way or the other.”
The other men surrounded me. Men I knew. Trusted. Bunyan and Calder and Rafe.
“The cops’ll be here in a minute.” A massive man I didn’t recognize hovered over me. He smelled like smoky cigars and . . . expensive cologne.
“Who are you?” My voice rasped out.
“Guardian angel type?”
“Mafioso,” Rafe coughed out.
“Cops?” I asked, peering around at Rafe, Bunyan, Calder.
“Delaney, you don’t have to worry,” the mystery man assured. “I promise you. Ain’t gonna be a free pass this time, and if there is, well, let’s just say I got connections.”
“You’re Frankie, aren’t you.”
“One and the same.” He dropped down, taking my hand so he could rub circulation back into my wrist. “And trust me. I got no love lost with the law, but I give you my word these are good people.”
I nodded, grateful when Calder held a bottle of water at my lips.
“Any broken bones?” Rafe asked.
“Just bruises. The worst down here.” I motioned at my belly.
“The paramedics will check you over,” Frankie assured.
“Paramedics too?”
“Protocol.”
Then Brooklyn was back. Eric—looking worse for wear, fresh bruises battered across his swelling face—pretty much hung from the big hand at the scruff of his neck.