by Terry Towers
Once we reached my table, Elijah parted the curtain for me and Josie to enter the little area and then followed behind. “You don’t have to hang out here, you can look around until I’m done signing,” I whispered to him as Josie took her seat and waited for me to sit.
“I’ve been away from you long enough. Even across the room is too far right now,” he whispered back.
“Oh, gag me. What did I start here?” Josie groaned.
Turning back to the crowd, I got an impulsive thought and climbed onto the table.
“Shit, Sid, what are you doing? You’re going to break your damned neck woman,” Elijah whispered up at me. I ignored him.
“Everybody, I’m so sorry to have made you all wait, but you’ll all be the first to hear the news,” I shouted out. People in my line as well as the lines of actors on either side of me began to stare up at me. I held my hand out so they could all see the ring. “Elijah proposed and I said YES!”
A roar emerged from the crowd and a rumble of claps and cheers sounded while thousands of flashes began to blind me. Virtually everyone in the vicinity was pointing, taking pictures and shouting their congratulations. Hell, even the other celebrities had stopped signing and were watching me with interest, with smiles on their faces. A couple of the reporters covering the convention began making their way to my table.
Turning, I waited for Elijah to scoop me up and lift me from the table. He obliged.
“You’re fucking crazy, Sid.”
“Because I love you.”
“My crazy diva,” he replied with laughter in his tone, seconds before his lips came crashing down onto mine.
~*~*~*~
I’ve never felt so good in my life. Of course, I’d just spent three months in misery, which made the joy feel even better. You know that saying that you don’t really know what you’ve had until you’ve lost it? That’s exactly how I’d felt. But now that we were back in each other’s lives there was nothing that could change that. Never again. The past was the past and I wanted to move forward.
“Come on in… now, I just want to warn you…”
Elijah didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence as I pushed past him and into the apartment. “Holy shit, have you been robbed?” I scanned the living room and bit back laughter. The poised, put together, neat freak Elijah had become a slob. Although I don’t think slob really was it, it was mostly toys all over the place. “It looks like a toy box threw up in here.”
He groaned, closing the door and coming to stand beside me in the living room. He thrust a hand into his hair and nodded. “Yeah. This dad thing is… difficult.” He walked into the center of the room and began to frantically pick up the toys and deposit them into the wooden toy chest. “I’m not used to this, and it drives me insane to have everything out of place. Cleaning after him feels like a full-time job. And I need to keep it tidy, a social worker shows up once a week to check in. But Chris, he’s dealing with stuff and maybe I’m not hard enough on him.”
I bit down on my lower lip to keep from laughing, but the smirk on my face was painfully evident. “I see.”
“I know I’m not supposed to be his friend, but be his parent, but it’s so hard not to spoil him, he’s been through so much. I’ve been taking parenting classes and watching Dr. Phil.”
I couldn’t keep the burst of laughter. It was too much. This just was a side of him that I never expected to see. Watching Dr. Phil? Going to mommy and me classes? Ohmygod, I never thought I’d ever see it.
With the last of the toys put into the box he straightened and cocked his brow at me. “Something amusing, Miss Lopez?”
“Little bit, yeah.”
“You’re enjoying my distress?” He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for a response.
Walking over to him, I slipped my arms up his chest and laced my fingers behind his neck. “I think it’s really cute. This soft, dishevelled, kinda kooky side of you.”
“Kooky?” He didn’t immediately wrap me into his arms, it wasn’t until I pressed myself flush against him that he pulled me tight. “You realize, this is going to be your life too. I’m a package deal now.”
“I know.”
“Are you really ready for that? I can’t travel with you anymore. Only weekends.”
I brushed my lips across his. “I know. I’m okay with that.”
A devilish grin spread across his lips. “And we’ll have to be really quiet during sex.”
I grinned and then shrugged. “Ohhh, that might be hard. But Chris is with his grandmom on weekends anyhow, so we have weekends to be very, very loud.”
Elijah brushed the back of his hand across my cheek and I closed my eyes, leaning my face into his hand. “I’m just saying, if you want to reconsider this I’ll understand. I’m sure marrying a single dad wasn’t on the top of your spouse ‘must have’ list.”
When I reopened my eyes he was looking down at me, his love shining in his eyes. I swear I fell in love with him all over again. “You’re on my ‘must have’ list. Chris is a wonderful kid. I couldn’t have asked for a better family.” I shrugged and gave him a lopsided grin. “Besides, I come with Josie now, so I’m bringing my own baggage and trust me, that girl is one handful.”
Cringing, Elijah released me and took a step back, giving his head a shake. “Oh yeah, you’re right. I don’t know, Sid, I’ve been in a car with that girl, I don’t think my sanity can handle her incessant chatter.”
Placing my fists on my hips, I rolled my eyes at him.
“Oh, come on, you haven’t noticed it?”
“She’s a little over the top,” I admitted with a laugh.
“That chick is looking over the top in the rearview mirror.”
“She’s been through a lot. And by the way you suck at sarcasm.”
Elijah wiggled his index finger at me, ignoring my slight insult. “I’m pretty sure that she was like that prior to the abduction.”
“She’s a good kid.” I took a step towards him and slid my hands around his waist. “And she’s the reason we’re back together.”
“Yeah, ya got me. I guess we’ll keep her.” He raked his fingers through my hair. “In all seriousness. I’m glad you two had each other to lean on…”
“Me too.” Pulling out of his arms, I grabbed his hand and began to lead him towards the bedroom. “And since we only have till Monday to be loud, I think we need to get to work on that make-up sex now.”
“Fuck Sid, I love you.”
Looking over my shoulder at him as I entered the bedroom, I gave him a wink. “Then let’s get working on you showing me. It’s been way too long.”
The End.
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Excerpt From
Secrets
By
Terry Towers
Available Now
Prologue
Anastasia
I could hardly believe what I’d just done. My entire body froze in a state of shock as I looked down at my husband’s limp body at my feet. It wasn’t until the remainder of the broken crystal vase slipped from my fingertips and the remaining glass shattered as it hit the floor that I was jolted from my state of horror.
“Please God, don’t let him be dead.” As I silently prayed he’d still be alive, a part of me wanted nothing more than to see him gone from this earth for good. I’d have done the world a service if he were. My husband, of just shy of two years, was a true monster of a man. Despite a part of me longing to see the earth rid of him for good, it couldn’t be by my hand. Admittedly, I was weak and didn’t have it in me to do it. I’d been a lot of things and done a lot of things to survive in my meager twenty-two years on this earth, but being a murderer wasn’t one of them.
Dropping to my knees beside him I pressed my fingers to the side of his neck and let out a sigh of relief; his pulse was strong.
I’d only knocked him out. However, the three-inch bleeding slash on his left cheek defiling his otherwise devilishly handsome face would no doubt scar, a lifetime reminder of his wife’s betrayal.
“Mamo, are you okay? Mamo!” I turned to see Ura, my beautiful five-year-old son, stepping into my bedroom, his blue eyes wide with concern as he looked at me and then down at the man he’d considered his father for the past couple of years. “What’s wrong with Daddy?”
He took a step into the bedroom and I raised my palm to him, stopping him in his tracks. “Go to your room, Ura. Go to your room and pack as much of your favourite toys in a bag as possible, okay, baby? And your clothes. All your favourite clothes.”
“Why, Mamo?” Ignoring my warning he took another step into the room. His brow furrowed as his eyes caught sight of my face and pointed at me. I could feel my lip beginning to swell and the tenderness around my right eye. “What happened? Daddy do that? Daddy hurt you again?”
Again. I cringed at his choice of the word.
“What happened to Daddy?” The look of concern and confusion in his expression deepened.
“We had a little accident, Ura, now do as you’re told and gather your toys, NOW!” I lowered my face, blocking his view of my injuries. I’d been trying so damned hard to keep the bruises and scars from my son, but they’d been becoming more frequent and more intense lately. It was becoming incredibly hard to hide them from the world – what little bit of the world my husband permitted me to see, that was. I went where I was told to go, when I was told to go there, and always under the supervision of my husband or one of his goons. I wasn’t a wife – I was a slave masquerading as a wife.
The blonde-haired boy hesitated, took one more look at my husband and nodded his head in agreement. “Da, Mamo.”
Surprised to hear him answer in Ukrainian, our mother tongue with a perfect accent, my head jerked back around to watch him exit the bedroom. He’d barely spoken a word of Ukrainian since we arrived in Miami. Ukrainian was forbidden to be spoken here; Russian and English were the only acceptable languages in Alexander Vetrov’s home.
I looked down at my husband and sighed. How long before he woke back up? I had no clue. He’d hit me so hard a couple of times recently that I’d been out cold for over a half an hour. But that was me, a hundred and twenty pound, 5’6 female after being struck by a large, muscular man. Not wanting to take any chances I rushed to the closet and pulled out the “pleasure trunk” as Alexander liked to refer to it as, filled to the brim with various BDSM toys. His pleasure, but certainly not mine and I had the scars – quite literally – to prove it. With Alexander there were no “safe words,” the games ended when he was ready to end them or I passed out and not a moment sooner.
Opening the trunk with trembling hands I found a couple of pairs of handcuffs and rushed back to him. With great effort I managed to pull his body close enough to the cast iron radiator that I was able to cuff him to it. He was a strong man, but there was no way he was breaking free from that radiator. The only way he was getting free was when the housekeeper came in in the morning and found him there.
I didn’t even want to consider the rage he’d be feeling when he was freed. But that would be fine, Ura and I would be long gone. If we stayed he’d kill us both, I was as certain of that as I was of taking my next breath.
Alexander Vetrov was never betrayed or humiliated by anyone without consequences and he sure as hell wouldn’t be by the person he considered his whore of a trophy wife, a wife he’d bought and brought to America for less than the price of a new Kia sedan.
Once Alexander was secure I grabbed a large suitcase and entered our massive walk-in closet. The closet was as big as the one-room apartment Ura and I had shared back in Ukraine before Alexander stepped into our lives. It was filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of luxury designer clothes, everything from Hermes to Chanel and Gucci.
Growing up poor I didn’t need nor ask for those things, but Alexander insisted on it. Not only did he have to have the most beautiful of trophy wives he could buy, but she had to be the best dressed in the most expensive of designers. He claimed he was buying me these things to make me happy, but I knew the truth. The only person Alexander cared about was himself and his image of wealth and perfection – the perfect over-the-top mansion, the perfect car, the perfect wife, the perfect family. The beauty and perfection helped to hide the darkness within him from the world.
Opening the case on the floor I began pulling clothes from the neatly stacked piles and from the hangers. Without even bothering to look at what I was grabbing I tossed several pairs of shoes on top of the clothing and zipped it closed. With the suitcase full I grabbed a duffle bag and began tossing some of my jewelry, makeup and toiletries inside. When it was almost full I rushed from the bedroom with the duffle bag on my shoulder and pulling the heavy suitcase behind me, and I made my way into Alexander’s den.
Pulling the painting from the back wall, I uncovered his den safe. I’d noticed the code he’d pressed into the safe one day a few months back and made a mental note of it – just in case. In the back of my mind, for well over a year now, I knew this day would come. Quickly I pressed in the code and with a soft beep the safe acknowledged it and the door swung open. I’d hoped to see my and Ura’s passports and identification inside, but neither were. Bastard. However, there were a couple of bundles of cash, marked five thousand on each and numerous bundles wrapped in brown paper the size of bricks – cocaine. I took the cash and left the cocaine.
Ten thousand would last us a while, but with no identification and no way to get a legitimate job without Alexander tracking us down it wouldn’t last forever. I paused; was this the right choice? I was putting myself and Ura on the run, possibly for the rest of our lives. A lifetime of looking over our shoulders was a very long time. Going to the police was pointless, he had half of the Miami police on his payroll and that was only the bottom level of his contacts. Men like Alexander didn’t get charged with domestic abuse.
Maybe if I begged Alexander’s forgiveness…
I huffed. There was no mercy or kindness within my husband. He’d kill me and Ura and just replace me with a fresh new girl; a girl who had dreams of escaping her life of destitution for that of white knights and a marriage full of love and happiness, to have her dreams shattered by the reality. Like I had been.
I’d been young and foolish, full of dreams when Alexander found me and brought me to America, but now, at twenty-two years of age, I wasn’t either of those things any longer. My life with Alexander added years to me well beyond my actual age.
~*~*~*~
“Where we going, Mamo?” Ura asked as we looked up at the board of departures at the bus terminal.
I don’t know, I silently answered him.
All I knew was that we needed out of Miami as soon as we could. We needed to put as much distance between us and Alexander as possible. We should have until morning before anyone rescued Alexander, but you could never know; his brother, a dirty cop taking money on the side from my husband, may show up at the house and let himself in. His bodyguard could show up and hear him screaming and break a window to rescue his boss. There were a thousand different scenarios that could play out. The quicker and the further we could get from Miami the better.
My eyes fell onto the listing for Bangor, Maine. It left in ten minutes. Would we be better off in a little city or in a large metropolis like New York City where a person could get lost in a sea of faces? But New York was expensive; we could live a lot better and for a lot longer in Maine with the cash I had stuffed in my duffle bag.
“Mamo?”
I looked down at my son and gave him a smile. “Bangor or New York, which one do you want to go to?”
Without hesitation he answered Bangor. Perhaps leaving him the decision of where we were going to run off to was a foolhardy choice, but it was as good as any. There were pros and cons to both cities.
“Then Bangor it is, любий.”
Ura beamed up at me, proud to be part of the decision-making process even though he was in the dark as to what was going on. To him this was just a fun adventure and I had no intention of enlightening him.
Chapter 1
Alexander
Fucking whore! I’m going to kill that fucking bitch when I get my hands on her.
“You need a hand, Sir?” After uncuffing me from the radiator my bodyguard, Boris, extended his hand to me to assist me up, fuelling my anger. What did he think? That I was a goddamned invalid!
“I don’t need your fucking help. Get the fuck away from me.” The anger flared through every muscle in my body, demanding I lash out. It was taking every ounce of restraint to stand and not use Boris as a punching bag. He’d take it – every blow. He was a good little minion.
My head throbbed like a jackhammer as if it were attempting to break through my skull and the feel of the dried blood on the side of my head, cheek and neck was a reminder of that bitch’s betrayal.
“Who did this?”
“My fucking cunt of a wife, that’s who.” I gave Boris a shove out of my way and made my way into the master bathroom to survey the damage, my ego stinging over the humiliation of allowing my wife to do this. My jaw clenched as I looked at my reflection in the mirror above the sink; there was a long inflamed cut along my cheek. It was deep, nearly slicing all the way through my cheek. No doubt it would scar. It was throbbing like a son of a whore.
BITCH!
The anger within intensified to deadly proportions. What I’d do to her when I got my hands on her, she’d feel more pain in the hours before her death than she’d ever felt in her life and I’d love every second of it. I’d been taking it easy on her, not wanting to mark her up too bad because she needed to be presentable. She needed to be perfect for all to see. But when I found her… A tight smile formed on my lips as images of her naked, screaming, begging for her life and for the pain to stop, raced through my mind.