Parole (The Vault)

by Kathy Coopmans

  She gulps down the rest of her wine. Pulls her cell out of her pocket and goes to turn it on. I told her to leave the Goddamn thing behind. Fuck, what the hell is she doing? My first instinct is to yell at her. I won’t. That’s the last thing she needs right now.

  “Damn it, Tara. Do not turn it on. Not until—”

  “Not until what? You fucking figure out a way to get me here? Well, here I am, you wife-stealing rapist. It wasn’t enough for you to try and take your own brother's wife, so you had to take mine? Tara, you little whore, I would never have guessed you had the guts to leave. Move away from him right the fuck now.” I blink from the sound of his voice. Go stock still when I hear the gun behind me click.

  I turn around, ignoring the fact he knows about my past. Every nerve in my body locks up except the one running straight to the fact he called her a whore. He followed her. This cannot be happening. How in the ever-loving fuck did he get in here? This place is wired tighter than a vault.

  “Fuck you. She isn’t coming anywhere near you, you rotten piece of shit. Do you have any idea the hell you put her through? Get the hell out of my house,” I snarl, shove Tara behind me, and hold my lethal stare.

  I didn’t alarm my house when I brought her in here. I didn’t do it because I was so drawn in on seeing her, thinking we were safe and secure until I figured this shit out. Fuck.

  He laughs. It’s callous and malicious. Sure as shit turns the happiest day of my life into one of the worst.

  “I’m warning you, Tara. You know the things I’m capable of. If you don’t get over here now, you’ll live to regret it. If I let you live at all.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” My fists clench, while Tara’s entire body shakes behind me.

  “I’m her Goddamn husband, that’s who I am. The question of the day is, who the fuck do you think you are? You’ve been writing to her for years. Stole her right out from under me. And the two of you didn’t think I knew? I know everything, Tara. Every Goddamn dirty little secret you tried to keep from me. You fucking bitch. You seriously are stupid. A piece of shit white trash little girl who doesn’t know her head from her ass. Christ. I should have sold you right along with our daughter.” Something inside of me splits in half over the names he’s calling her. HUsband or not, he will not come into my home and say jack shit to her.

  I lunge forward. My target is his throat. My hand has only just begun to squeeze when a gun clicks upside my temple.

  I freeze in place. Cock my head, barely letting go of him before I'm blindsided and knocked out. Black.

  Chapter 6

  TRENT

  I’ve never smelled flesh burn before. However, when I wake, the rancid smell causing the muscles in my stomach to tighten reminds me of just that. It’s a smell like no other. One that will cling to my nostrils for the rest of my life.

  I keep my head down. I don’t think I could lift it if I tried. Not out of fear of what I might see, but because I know if I move, the chains binding me down will squeeze harder against my chest.

  While we all would love to believe that you should make every day better than the last, I can honestly tell myself the day I laid my eyes on Tara was the best day of my life.

  I’m not giving up by any means; I simply have no clue where the hell I am or how long I’ve been out. One thing I do know is, I’m fucking freezing in this place.

  I open my eyes, my head throbbing like a Goddamn bitch, ready to explode. It’s dark as fuck, cold as ice, and if I had to guess, I’m in some sort of damp, musky underground cellar.

  How he found us and concocted all this beats the hell out of me. The guy is good, but once I find a way out of here, he’s as good as dead. Fuck my parole. Fuck everything else. I’ll give Tara up if it means this sick son of a bitch doesn’t get the chance to coerce his sick antics on her or her daughter. I’ll live in solitary confinement for the rest of my life as long as I know she’s safe.

  “Tara,” I groan, my throat dry and in desperate need of water. This is a fucking joke. It triggers shit deep in my mind that I’ve tried to bury. Memories flood. My chest heaves and the chains pull tight. I count back slowly from ten to control my breathing. My hands are tied, my legs are bound, and the smell has me choking down my vomit.

  “Goddamn it. You crazy motherfucker. Come untie me and face me like a man. You fucking pussy!” I roar.

  I’m slowly going mad. The walls are beginning to cave in around me. I feel as if I’m in prison all over again. Only this time I can’t escape my tormenting thoughts. My brother, my mother, all the abuse I endured from my own father.

  The way he would beat me. Leave me for days. Starving. Thirsty and so fucking scared of what he would do when he returned. I was a kid. A damn child who should have been loved, taken care of, and taught the difference between right and wrong. Instead, I was taught to hate, and eventually that hate led me to take away someone who wasn’t mine.

  Son of a bitch. I shifted in my chair again. A jolt shot straight down to my cock, which was constantly hard when it came to her. I’d been watching her for half an hour while she sat staring at the wall in front of her and frowning. Every few minutes, she glanced down at her daughter, then back up again.

  I would have given anything to say that precious, innocent baby girl was mine. Letting my father and Tina convince me to have a vasectomy was the dumbest thing I had ever done, even though it didn’t fucking matter. Clove had already been pregnant before I kidnapped my brother, anyway.

  I focused on her face. It was full of pain. It killed me to see her suffering the way she was. I would have given anything to be able to go in there and fuck her raw, to hear her scream my name. Not my brother’s. Mine.

  I watched her bend down and lift Journey. I wished I could see her beautiful face; the way she looked at her daughter with so much love in her eyes would have been a dream. I would have given anything to have her look at me and see even an ounce of it staring back at me. It would never happen. She wasn’t mine. It was a fantasy, a dream that would never come true.

  I still wanted her. I needed her so Goddamn bad, it hurt. I wanted it to be me making her fall apart every night, but I knew she would never love me the way I loved her. She hated me. I saw it in her eyes every time I looked at her. Did I blame her? Fuck, no. I was everything she thought I was. I was fucked up, a killer, and an asshole.

  I hated myself for all the pain I had caused her.

  Clove’s beauty was soul deep. She’s loving, caring, and put others before herself. If anyone were to ask me the definition of love, it would be her. I had never known what it was until I’d first laid my eyes on her. I envied the way her face would light up every damn time she would look at Turner, or the way she would look at her father and brother. I understood now why Clove let me do everything I wanted to do to her. It was out of love, the love she felt for my brother.

  I jolt. My body is shaking. I hate those fucking memories more than I hate myself. That’s the thing about memories, though. They are a part of you no matter how hard you try to escape them.

  I refuse to believe that Tara isn’t mine. That the love I feel for her isn’t some made-up infatuation in my troubled mine. Somehow, there has to be a way for me to get Tara to her daughter.

  My lids grow heavy again. I can’t seem to fight it.

  “Trent.”

  Jesus Christ. The sound of Clove’s mother's voice sickened me. This bitch had got to go.

  “We need to get the hell out of here, Tina,” I told her. God, I hated her.

  I took a long pull of my beer as she sipped on her glass of wine.

  “We leave when I say we leave. This isn’t your call,” she snarled at me.

  “You know, I have had just about enough of this horse shit. You have no fucking idea what it’s like to be a fucking prisoner here. Jesus Christ, woman, her family knows she’s alive. The fucking news stations are still talking about it. And your son will never give up trying to find her. I didn’t sign up for this shit. I’m
this close to saying fuck it all to hell, turning my ass in, and living in a Goddamn jail cell, because right now, that sounds like a hell of a lot more fun than being trapped in here.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Fuck, yes. I am. I want out.”

  “You want out? Out of what? All that money we’re going to get once they get that baby?” she spit, pointing her nasty-ass finger toward the stairs.

  “Guess what? I’m at the point where I really don’t give a shit about the money. How much do you think they will actually give you, anyway? Your son is a fucking cop, or have you forgotten that little bit of information? A cop you haven’t seen for years. Shit like this doesn’t go down in the real world like you think it will. Your son will slice you open from one end to the other.”

  “It’s not my son I’m going to go talk to. I’ve told you that at least a hundred times. Were you not listening to me? Or”—she stood up, eyes flaring like the whack job she was—“do you have some kind of plan with Clove? Is that where all this hostility is coming from?”

  I jerked back a bit, laughing.

  “Oh, you bet. Clove and I are just going to drive off and live happily ever after, aren’t we?”

  “In your mind, you probably are, but I will never allow that to happen. I told you, once you kill her, you can have your money.”

  “Then pick up the fucking phone, call my mother, and get this shit over with. You have two days. Two damn days, Tina, or I am out of here.”

  “You’re a fucking jerk. I have done everything for you; given you a place to stay, eat, and sleep, and now you come after me? You’re a selfish bastard.”

  “And you’re a fucking cunt.” She gasped.

  “What did you just call me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “That’s a low blow coming from you, Trent. The man who kidnapped his own identical twin brother, pretended to be him, and fell in love with his wife!” she screamed. “Oh, and let’s not forget the grand finale here. You want to stand there and call me vile names, then, by all means, go right ahead. I may be every name you want to dish out at me, but one thing I am not is a murderer. Oh, yes, that’s right. So, don’t stand there thinking you’re any better than I am. At least I didn’t kill my own father or shoot my brother.”

  Motherfucker. I would be lying if I said part of those words she just threw at me didn’t stab me in my gut. They did. I shot my own brother and left him for dead.

  “Fine, throw it in my face. I really don’t care anymore. I’m done.”

  “You’d better care, you son of a bitch.”

  “Care about what? You? I care about you about as much as you care about me.”

  “I do care about you, Trent,” she insisted in a low voice.

  She stepped my way cautiously. I held a hand up, and she instantly halted.

  “Not this time. Your little act of seduction isn’t going to work on me anymore.”

  I placed my beer on the table and went to move past her. Her hand reached out and grabbed my arm in the crook of my elbow. I looked down to where she was touching me, then backed up at her. A hard look crossed her face.

  “I swear to God, I will kill her myself if you ever talk to me like that again.”

  “And I swear to God, I will cut you up into a million pieces, starting with that hand you have on me, if you lay one finger on her.”

  “That will never happen.”

  “You don’t think so?” I sneered.

  “I know so.”

  We stood there, staring each other down. What kind of game was she playing with me here? Wait a damn minute. I brought my hand up and wrapped it around her slender throat as I walked her backward, slamming her angrily up against the wall.

  “You . . . fucking BITCH!” I roared.

  Her malicious smile widened.

  “Finally, he realizes,” she mocked.

  “You said I killed my father and shot my brother. You never said I killed Turner. What the hell are you hiding from me?”

  Our eyes locked, mine boring into hers.

  “Tell me, Tina. I want to hear you say it.”

  “Very well. Turner is alive.”

  “Tara, answer me!” I belt out. I need to keep my promise. Let go of my past and fucking find her.

  “Luciano, if you can hear me, you better listen. I’m the man you say I am. The one thing I’m not is the man who stole your wife. How could I be when she was never yours in the first place? I’m going to get out of here, and when I do, when I’m done with you, I’m going to find Tara’s daughter. She deserves to raise her. You selfish son of a bitch. If you touch her, I will make you realize that hell has nothing on the things I will do to you. Get in here, you cowardly motherfucker!” I scream so loud my throat burns.

  The door slowly opens. Footsteps fall on my ears. I hold my breath, lift my head, and exhale slowly. The chains pull, the chair I’m sitting in tilts back. What kind of tripped-up device does he have me in?

  “Fuck,” I retch out. My breathing is becoming short. My eyes are burning from the now violent light shining in my face.

  “Trent.” The sound of my name sends heat down my glacial spine. The frost in my veins thickens to a boiling, red-hot liquid as the lack of oxygen in my lungs increases.

  This is impossible. A downright fucking bloody nightmare. There is no Goddamn way. And I deserve it all. My name is spoken by someone I never thought I’d see again.

  What the hell is going on here?

  My chair tips forward. The chains loosen. I let out a deep, sharp breath as I stare in utter shock in the eyes of my brother.

  “Turner. What the fuck?”

  An infectious laugh hits my ears, and blackness engulfs me.

  I gulp, but not out of fear. It’s from the noises I hear as something scrapes across the floor and stops directly in front of me.

  “Watch, and if you take your eyes away, she dies.”

  Chapter 7

  TARA

  The tears sting my eyes when I try to blink, and my lungs hurt when I try to breathe. My eyelashes flutter and stick to my skin as I slowly try to open them.

  Either the dim light is clouding my vision, or I’m scared to open them for fear of what I’ll find.

  I close them again, repeating the same cycle until my tears dry up and my happy heart turns to one full of bitterness and anger. I refuse to cry any more.

  My recollection is vague, to say the least, but I know what happened, I know who has me, and I know I’m ready to fight for my life as well as Trent’s.

  Heat simmers on my skin, and the blood in my veins boils until my skin prickles with a blaze that doubles out of control. I am past the point of no return. Livid at the man who thinks can bring me to my knees.

  A glimmer of light catches my eye through the partially open curtains across the room as I wake. It must be the beginning of a new day, because the sky is a variety of shades. Pinks, reds, and oranges.

  As I stare blankly, the colors all blend together as if they’ve set the sky on fire, just like my body was the minute my skin connected with the man who loves me.

  The guilt that Luciano has hurt Trent will eat away at me if I let it. I’ve lived with it since the day he took my child away from me. I won’t let it or him destroy me anymore. I have to believe that fate has given me this chance, no matter what I have to do to reach up and grasp it.

  I know him and how he thrives on making those who cross him suffer. He will hurt Trent in ways he’s never imagined. I have to find a way to stop him before he kills Trent.

  I have to hold on to the power of our love and believe he’s still alive, or I’ll lose what little bit of my mind the devil I married has left me with.

  “I need to get out of here,” I mumble. Cringing as my stomach rolls when I sit up and realize I have no idea where I am. “Where the hell am I, and where is, Trent?” I gaze around the room to see if I recognize anything; the only I do is Luciano’s smell, which is enough to make me sick.

&nbs
p; Placing my hands on the sides of my head to help control the throbbing that’s holding me prisoner, I try focusing on figuring a way to get out of here, but the pain is excruciatingly violent; it throbs until I wish my head would crack wide open and bleed out all the memories that will forever torment me if I don’t pull my sorry ass together and dig into the strength Trent so unselfishly taught me I had.

  “Where is he? You sick son of a bitch! And I want to know where my daughter is, too. You’ve gone far enough with all of this!” I scream over and over until my throat turns hoarse and I dry heave from the drugs he obviously injected in me. There isn’t any other explanation as to how he could have gotten me out of that house.

  “I want you to die!” I yell.

  I won’t permit him to back me into a corner this time. I won’t. I’d rather die first before I show fear ever again. Regardless if it’s trickling down my arms and legs, sending chills everywhere until I swear I hear my bones rattle. I will stand my ground.

  I swing my legs off the bed, reach up, and touch the aching knot on the side of my head, rage building inside of me like deep water currents rising as it threatens to pull me under and drown me. I have never wanted to watch someone suffer as much as I do him in all my life.

  I did everything right, planned my escape with only one person knowing, and there is no way he would betray me, and yet he still found me. Oh God, I hope he didn’t find out, and my only ally is dead. It’s the only explanation there is; otherwise, he would have taken me home. He knows, and he’s running. Shit. This is worse than I thought.

  I want answers from the man who vowed to cherish me and lied, took my daughter away from me, and left me to die in my own inner turmoil of weakness. This is a fucking mess, and he better give me what I need before they find him, which I believe they will. I refuse to give up when we’ve worked so hard to bring him down.