Parole

by Kathy Coopmans

  Just like everyone else he employs, I don’t really know the man very well. The bastard grabbed me the minute we ran through the front door, shoved us into the back of his car, pushed up the divider, and sped out like a bat fleeing hell.

  I wanted to scream and demand he tell me where we were going. A tiny sliver hoped he was going to help me get away. It was all short-lived when the city flew by, and we drove and drove for miles. Nothing but trees and winding roads for what felt like forever.

  It took a long time for me to get Nola to stop crying. She was shaking so bad, her color turning blue, that I thought she was going to pass out from holding her breath at one time. She didn’t stop until the car did. Bianchi didn’t say a word. He answered none of my questions. Just opened the door to this house, escorted me down a long hallway, and placed me in this room with a diaper bag full of enough formula, food, and diapers to last us a few days.

  I lay her on the bed, walk to the door, and twist the knob only to find it locked.

  “Someone, anyone, help me, please,” I whisper as I lean my head against the door and wish for a miracle.

  I slump to the floor, place my hand over my mouth, and start crying. I finally have my daughter back, and I’m trapped again. My own demons are eating away at me.

  “I wish I had killed her,” I say, my eyes wishing there was light instead of darkness coming through the window. I’m exhausted and yet afraid to sleep. Scared Luciano and his mother are behind the walls of this room, and one or both of them will barge in here and snatch her away from me.

  A strange sensation slips into my veins when I hear angered voices outside the door, one of them a woman, and that’s when dread settles in my stomach. “They’re coming.”

  “You kill that crazy slut, and I mean it, Luciano, and bring Bridget to me now.”

  In the grip of silent panic, I back up, sit on the bed, and pick up Nola. She stirs in my arms, turns her body toward me, and the tears start to flow hard and fast down my face. Before I know it, I am quietly sobbing, clinging onto her as if my life depends on it, and it does. He’s going to have to kill me this time before I’ll let him take her.

  I’d love nothing more than to sit here and memorize her tiny features. However, I’ll put her in harm’s way if I don’t lay her back down. I’ve had to withstand looking at Luciano enough in my short life, and if I’m going to die, seeing her at peace is the last vision I want to be stored in my memory.

  “Don’t force me to take her from you, Tara.” I won’t, Luciano. Unlike you and your mother, I would never purposely do anything to make her cry. My fingers stroke the smoothness of her round cheeks, grateful she is too young to comprehend the out-of-control world she lives in.

  I lay her back down and wait for him to make whatever move he’s going to do, and when he steps beside me, I shock him by shoving him back into the wall. He wasn’t expecting that from me at all. I watch him stumble to right himself, and that’s when I attack.

  My hatred unleashes, and I dig my nails into his eyes. My knee comes up and slams into his groin. I don’t let up. I keep pressing further and further into his eyes. I want to blind the bastard. Unrecognizable noises rip from deep within me. All the years of him abusing me and taking away every human right I’ve had let loose. My nails scrape down his cheeks and slash deep enough to break the skin. Blood drips on me, and I scream loud enough that it wakes the baby.

  He shoots off me cursing up a storm and straddles me. Blood is oozing from his eyes.

  “If dying means being away from you, then I welcome it. You won’t outrun them, Luciano; the authorities will eventually find you and your bitch of a mother. You will both die in prison, while Nola will be raised by someone who loves her.”

  Malice is what I feel for the man who fathered my daughter, although he’s not really a man at all. He moves down within an inch of my face. His damaged eyes skim over me unforgivingly.

  “Let me tell you something, Tara. You will breathe your last breath when I say, and not one second before.”

  “Right. You pathetic piece of shit. You are nothing but a little boy who obeys his mother. She’s warped your mind. You are a weakling. So weak that you can’t make a decision without her, can you?”

  “Don’t touch her!” I scream when his mother walks into the room and picks up Nola. She doesn’t say a word before she takes Nola and slams the door behind her. Her eyes said it all, though, when she glanced our way. She knows he will listen to her. She has him trained. This is a nightmare of the worst kind. One that haunts a person forever.

  There is no way in hell I am going to lie here without putting up a fight this time. I reach up and punch him in the face. He grunts, lifts his hand, and slaps me so hard I feel my brain rattle.

  I see my pitiful life flash before my eyes when he grabs my wrists, yanks them over my head, and stretches them to where I hear something snap in my upper arm as my eyes well up with tears.

  “My mother doesn’t rule me. I rule her. She only wants what’s best for me. At first, I thought that was you. I warned you. Loyalty, Tara. You’ve run away from me twice. I’m left with no choice but to kill you instead of taking you with me,” he declares, blood flying from his lips, eyes inflamed, and blood dribbling from his slack jaws. He now looks as repulsive as he should. As grotesque as the animal inside of him.

  I don’t want to give up and die. Unless someone bursts through these doors to save me, I don’t have a choice. I close my eyes and picture Trent raising Nola as a punch slams into my stomach. My already bruised ribs clatter in their cage.

  He throws his body weight with the next strike of his fist that edges at the corner of my temple; it lands with such force, blood pools in my mouth from biting my tongue. Pain erupts and shoots down my neck and arms.

  This is it. I’m going to die by the hands of my husband. I slant my head to the side, doing my best to try and muffle the sounds of my cries.

  My lungs burn with every breath I try to take. My entire life flashes before my eyes. All those happy memories Trent and I were going to make will never happen. The smile on Nola’s face when she wakes me up on Christmas morning is something I will never see. Watching her settle in the crook of Trent’s arm when he reads her a bedtime story. Watching her grow up, get married, and become the woman she wants to be.

  The pain that once burned like a fire slowly fades. Black fills the images Nola sleeping. My breath comes in shallow gasps, and the final blow to my face turns the darkness into light.

  Chapter 13

  TRENT

  Dear Trent,

  Talk dirty to you, huh? I can honestly say I’ve never talked dirty to a man before, and I definitely haven’t had a man tell me how much he wants to fuck me.

  Before I get down to telling you what I want you to do to me, I want you to know how much my love has grown for you since the first time I wrote it down.

  There are no words to express how I hold you sacredly in my heart.

  You’ve become my best friend, my true love, and every morning when I wake, I remind myself it’s one step closer to the day we meet.

  I want you, Trent Calloway. The ache that lingers between my legs has me using my fingers to relieve the desire for you whenever you cross my mind. My fingers have nothing on what I have imagined yours can do.

  Your thick, long fingers spread me wide and intensify the pressure in my pussy. I won’t stop throbbing until you touch me with your rough fingers and taste my want for you.

  Within seconds, you have me on edge, stroking me with your fingers and fucking me wildly with your tongue, and you don’t let up through my begging. You assault me until I’m limp in your arms, and then, like the promises you’ve made like the man true to your word you are, you flip me over and shift my world upside down when you drive your cock inside me the way you drove this hard bargain when you dared me to write this to you.

  “What the hell?” I bolt upright out of bed. My dick so fucking hard it hurts as badly as my torn-up skin. Christ, I nee
d to find her, and not for sex. I need her to balance out my life. Make me whole and let me take care of her.

  “Time to wake up, motherfucker.” I drag my eyes through the dark at the sound of that voice. The minute I swing my legs over the side, the room starts spinning. The bitch spins and spins until my stomach lurches in my throat. The ends calling to my mind to where I am fuzzy, and the horrendous pounding in my skull won’t let up to save my ass from hobbling through the darkness and barely making it into the bathroom to vomit.

  My breathing is crackling in my chest, my eyes piping hot, and my skin won’t cease from the flaming pokers that keep stabbing at my skin.

  “What the fuck did they give him? Jesus Christ.” That voice shoots like acid dripping down my throat. Fucking hell.

  “I don’t fucking know. Some kind of hallucinogen.” My rage doesn’t do a thing to attack the pain in my stomach, but it gives me the power to stand up and stumble back into the wall. Fuck me. Please tell me I’m having a nightmare or seeing shit again, because there is not a chance in hell this man is standing in the bathroom with me.

  “Do you know the consequences for breaking parole?” Zack Wright, Clove’s brother, leans up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, badge dangling around his neck, bulletproof vest on and a cocky smirk all rolled into an FBI agent.

  Talk about a nightmare from hell. It would be my luck that the person I was going to call for help would take a job with the FBI and no doubt keeping his eye on me. Son of a bitch.

  “Sure do. How the hell did you find me? Pretty damn ironic you’re here when I was going to call you for help.” Something eerily familiar flashes across his face when he connects his eyes with mine. At his command and my acceptance, I killed Zack and Clove’s mother, and he kept it quiet. The evil woman who played with her daughter’s life. The woman I helped shelter Clove away from my brother and her family, and now he’s here. The possibility that he could fuck me over pisses me off. That’s not what he’s here for, though. That gleam in his eye says it all. He’s here to watch me suffer.

  “What the hell are you up to, Zack? If you’ve been keeping tabs on me, then we wouldn’t be here right now. A man like you wouldn’t let a woman and an innocent child disappear.” I hate to cut him wide open and bring back memories. I’m not the type of man to tiptoe around the truth anymore. I say what I have to say, whether it wedges into someone’s soul or not.

  “I didn’t. One of my men did. His name was Eric. He’s dead, and the man who killed him needs to pay.” Zack remains casual as he moves out of the way in order for me to walk through. Out of the corner of my eye, I see every muscle in his face twitch and convulse as if each nerve is trying to fight against the other. He’s holding back his grief.

  “He does. I’m sorry for your loss, man. I really am.” I’m not going to address the way he died or cut Zack up any more than he already is.

  I grab my T-shirt from last night, pull it over my head, and make my way out into the living area.

  “Where is everyone?” I’ll help him all he wants, but not until he confirms he doesn’t have my friends locked up in a jail cell.

  “On a plane back home. This could get messy; we don’t want innocent people getting hurt. You, I couldn’t give a shit about. Start talking, or you're going back to prison and the redemption you think you deserve won’t ever fucking happen.”

  I’m not scared of what can happen to me anymore. I’m numb to it. Going back to prison, dying a little day at a time, doesn’t mean a damn thing when Zack’s words try tap dance their way into my skin.

  He sees the past. The man he once knew. And I understand. I would, too, if I were walking in his shoes. Hell, I’d probably have shot me in my sleep if I were him.

  My problem is, I can’t help him any more than he can help me right now, and that’s why he’s here. Zack is making sure I don’t do anything to mess up whatever plans they have to bring Luciano and his mother in.

  “He’s a rotten motherfucker like I am. That’s all I know. I think it’s you who needs to start explaining things. Like why in the fuck you let the shit he was doing to his wife go on this long. Did you know they had a kid? Did you know he took her from him?”

  I can see the remorse and guilt eating away at him. It mirrors my own. “Jesus Christ, you people knew all along and didn’t do a damn thing? She suffered, and you could have stopped it. Unbelievable.”

  “When Eric relayed her story about the man Tara fell in love with, the more my memories started to disturb me and I knew. Fuck, I knew she was talking about you. I had to bite back the hatred I have for you to save her from another man like you. You have no idea how many times I wanted Eric to bring her to me, so I could convince her you were nothing like the man she was describing. You don’t know a thing. Eric wanted her to leave straight away. It was her choice to stay. Does the kind of woman she is ring a bell to you? She suffered through every minute of her life with a man she hated in order to get to her daughter. It seems to me you have an addiction for strong women, or she has a thing for weak men.”

  For the first time in my life, it is quiet inside of my head. I’m not haunted by the scars and painful images of seeing Clove dying a little each time after she let me touch her. I can’t remember when I realized she knew I wasn’t my brother. My twisted mind kept going at her. Then one day, I snapped in half. The good man inside of me bared his strength and took over. By then, it was too late to save my soul, but I could save my brother from dying, I could get Clove back to the man she loved, and I did.

  “I’m not looking for forgiveness from you. I don’t deserve it. I won’t sit here and listen to you try and break me. I’ve come too far, learned too much, and my heart will be crippled for life by what I’ve done. The here and now is what we need to focus on.”

  “Yeah, well, what the here and now means for you is you’re stuck in this room with me.”

  “Look, you hate me, and I get it. Time is wasting, Zack. As you can see, I’m not fit to help you, so what is it you want from me? If you’re here to relive our pasts instead of doing your job, then maybe you should turn me in.”

  “I’m not here to take you in. I’m here to make sure you stay put until we have her.”

  “Do you know where she is?” I ask breathlessly.

  “Yes, we do.”

  Chapter 14

  TARA

  I stir suddenly in a mysterious position. I try to talk. I try to move. I can’t do either. My memory is chaotic; I begin to panic. The sweet sound of a girl’s voice hugs me. I can feel her head on my shoulder. “Mommy.”

  I try opening my eyes; they won’t open. I try lifting my hand; it won’t lift. “Nola.”

  Not a sound except the silence mocking me.

  Faint visuals jar my recollections. Handsome faces, protectors, and a little girl. I whimper over them being quite the opposite of what they should be. These ones I need to visit me more often, or they will fade away, along with the few people who belong to those faces. All of them have blessed my life. Nola, Trent, and Eric.

  Floating is quiet, peaceful, and startling. Those memories are fading. I need them to stay and soothe me if the horrible ones threaten to take over. What if they do and the little bit of time I had with each one of them are erased?

  I must be dead. It’s at this stage of death that I’m hit with a memory I can’t grasp hold of.

  Gunshots. Screaming. And Luciano scrambling toward the door. I was unable to move, yet the scuffle behind me filled my ears.

  “Tara, are you alright?” Trent. Oh, my God. Somehow, I craned my neck, eyes blinking as mine locked with his. He nodded, and his eyes went wide. The expression on his face assured me that everything was going to be okay.

  And then I watched him, his veins straining in his neck, his face turning red, and for the first time since I met Luciano, I watched him take a beating that was a hundred times worse than all the times his fists had met my flesh.

  “Kill him,” I hissed, astonished at my words.
When Luciano turned toward me with his eyes and face a bloodied mess, I let the final words I can remember speaking fall from my lips.

  “If I’m going to die by your hand, then you’re going to die by the hands of my lover.”

  I wake in unfamiliar surroundings. The smell of disinfectant burns my nose and drains down my throat.

  “Tara.” A deep voice I would recognize anywhere calls out to me from the corner of the dark room.

  “Trent.”

  “You must have a lot of questions. But I’ve been instructed by the FBI not to answer any of them. I’ll be right back.” I don’t want him out of my sight, yet I’m unable to speak as I welcome the warm tears hitting my burning eyes.

  “No, wait, please,” I find myself saying.

  I blink my eyes into focus, and when I do, I realize the room isn’t dark at all, and the man standing next to my bed on the left isn’t Trent, but the man on my right is, and he’s holding my daughter in his arms.

  “Oh, my God,” I cry out as the doctor and a nurse walk in. “Don’t leave, please,” I whisper when they move out of the way, and the woman who I think is the nurse pulls a curtain obstructing me from their view.

  “You need to take it easy for a few days. Your ribs are severely bruised on both sides. You have a pulled muscle in your shoulder. Contusions on your arms and face; some of them required stitches. You survived, Tara. You and your daughter are going to be fine. She’s healthy and waiting for you. The FBI will be in here as soon as I give them the go-ahead.”

  I nod, unable to think of anything except the people behind that curtain.

  Epilogue

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  TRENT

  It’s been six months since we were dragged through hell. The moment Zack got the call telling him that Tara and her daughter were safe and on the way to the hospital, I collapsed.

  Didn’t wake for two days, and when I did, I found out I had been admitted myself.