The second message I left was for my mom on her home phone.
The phone was going with me. Brock was tracking it. I didn’t think he would feel freaked if he saw it near the shore but it would definitely start raising some alarms if Brandon took me anywhere else.
I silenced the ringer.
The phone buzzed immediately. Sexy Beast Calling.
I let it go to voicemail. It buzzed three more times. I ignored all of them. I wanted to talk with him desperately. My heart felt like it was breaking, and it physically hurt not to answer, but I knew if I did, I would fold as soon as I heard his voice.
As much as I was trying to save Julia tonight, I was also saving Aiden. The thought of Brandon killing him was too much.
I looked up at the clock again. Thirty more minutes and I would take off.
My phone buzzed again. It was a text from Sexy Beast.
Sexy Beast: Why aren’t you answering your phone?
Sexy Beast: Got your message. You sound so sad. What do you mean no running?
Several minutes went by. I was worried that he would call one of the goons but all they could see was an upstairs light that was on. From the outside I was hoping they got the impression that I was either asleep, or in my room doing something.
My phone buzzed again.
Sexy Beast: Answer the phone, I’m worried. Brock just told me you got a call from Julia today. Pick up the fucking phone.
I decided it was time to go. Early was better than late and Aiden was about to start calling the troops if Brock had just told him about the calls. I knew he’d see the calls eventually. Leave it to Brock to figure out something was up.
The wine was in hand and the bottle opener was in my pocket. I went to the back door and stepped out on the dark side of the cabin. The only sound I could hear was the heavy wind through the trees. It looked like we were going to get a rough storm.
On a lake.
With a psycho ex-boyfriend.
Fuck I was cursed. No more gypsy jokes ever again if I lived through this.
One last text. I thumbed the message.
Olivia: I have to do this. He’ll kill everyone I love.
Sexy Beast: NO! You stay where you are!!
I was already walking into the woods when I felt two more buzzes in my back pocket.
The one thing I hadn’t thought of was a flashlight. I would save some time but I would have easily been spotted with it. There was enough light so far that, after my eyes adjusted, I could make my way slowly through the trees.
My main worry earlier in the day had been that I would be heard walking to the lake. My journey was making a lot of noise, but the wind in the trees was covering it. There were old branches everywhere, grabbing at my pant legs. Several times I nearly fell over some hidden uneven spot in the ground. I felt vine and bark grab at my shirt a couple of times, but kept moving.
I had been traveling fairly close to the shore path so I wouldn’t get lost. There were times when I would crouch down and look behind me to see if anyone was following. The only thing I saw was a deep and shadowed forest, alive with the natural forces of a windy night.
When I got close to the end of the trail I took one last look behind me. There were a few lights that had come on. I saw them through the trees. They were illuminating areas around the house but nothing stirred around the path.
I sighed and looked toward the dock.
The water was moving the planks around in a choppy, angry way. I wasn’t sure where Brandon would be so I walked out onto the sandy portion that divided the forest from the lake and looked around. The wind was whipping my hair back and forth around my shoulders as I stood there.
I saw a dim light on the edge of the forest to my right. If I was caught out here by one of the goons, then so be it. It came closer and I could see it was two people. One of which seemed to have a limp.
Walking toward them, the shapes in the circle of light became clearer.
The person with a limp was Julia.
The other, wearing a menacing grin, was Brandon.
“Oh, good you’re here,” he flashed his teeth in a smile. It was made all the more frightening in the darkness, backlit only by the small beam of light coming from his shirt pocket. He held one of Julia’s arms with one hand and I could see a knife in the other. She was slightly in front of him.
I shot a look at Julia. Her platinum blonde hair was disheveled, hands behind her back, and a gag was in her mouth. She had a gash on her leg and several bruises on her face. Her eyes were scared and wary. My heart clenched just looking at her.
“Brandon, you didn’t have to hurt her. You knew I was coming,” I said, turning my eyes back to him. My concentration had to remain on him if I was going to save Julia.
“I just knew you would. But I was going to show you the way first. I got lucky that you showed up at the house. Julia here,” he said while shaking her arm, “provided an easy way to get you. I wish I’d thought of it sooner.”
My eyes kept going back and forth between them. I needed to focus and play his game, but seeing Julia hurting was distracting.
I took a step forward and held up the wine bottle. “Look, I brought it to celebrate you and me. We can toast to a new beginning.”
He laughed. The same laugh I was so familiar with when he was being cruel, and the same one that he had made the morning after his assault. A shiver went up my spine.
“Yeah, we’ll celebrate alright. First we need to leave.”
I shook my head. “Just you and me, let Julia go Brandon.”
“Why would I do that? Let her go and what? She’ll run to that asshole’s house up the hill. No way. She’ll come with us.”
“Brandon, I thought it was going to be just us. I brought a gift. I don’t want Julia around. I’ll just get jealous. Don’t you want me?” I nearly gagged on the words coming out of my mouth.
He hesitated.
“I love you Brandon, let’s just leave.”
His jaw clenched.
A gust of wind came up from the lake and plowed into us. Not expecting it I stumbled to the right but kept the bottle in hand. Julia fell to her knees.
Brandon pointed to something on the ground with the knife. “What’s that? Pick it up and bring it to me bitch.”
I looked down to where he was pointing. My cell had fallen out of my pocket. It must have come loose with all my crouching and wandering through the woods.
Picking it up I noticed that there was a light flashing that indicated a message. I didn’t want him to see it.
He gestured me toward him with the knife. “Now Livvie. Bring it now.”
“It’s just my phone.”
“Bring it here Olivia!” His grinning mask had dissolved into a terrifying glare.
My stomach dropped as I handed it to him, hoping he wouldn’t look at it. He was worked up, and although he looked different than I remembered him, with a gaunt face and vacant eyes, he still radiated a powerful, arrogant attitude.
“We’ll go somewhere nice after this. Ditch the wine, it’s probably his and I’m already furious you’ve even been around him. You’re a whore you know. You had it great with me.”
He looked at the face of the screen. I knew it was locked. He couldn’t see anything.
“Numbers Livvie.”
Tears were forming at the edges of my eyes. I shook my head. I didn’t want him to have access to Aiden. To Aiden’s words and thoughts. The picture I had taken of him running shirtless with his guys was still on there. My messages to him.
Brandon took two steps forward and grabbed my hair, still holding his knife. He yanked it hard to the left.
He hissed in my ear. “Digits or I will kill Julia while you watch. I will saw off her pretty nose and slash her throat. I can imagine that’ll be so utterly painful she’ll take a while to die.”
Swallowing I said, “2536. Brandon let’s just leave. Now. Let’s go,”
He thumbed in the code and I saw the screen light up.
One of my hands went to the spot where he was holding my hair, trying to ease his grip. He jerked harder so I let it drop. A lightning strike lit up the sky and thunder clashed above us. It caused me to jump. Then rain started beating down on us seconds later.
He pulled my face close to mine. “You fucking bitch. I’ll teach you not to go anywhere else, and then I’ll kill him. I’ll kill you and I’ll kill him.”
Panicking I tried to think. “What’s wrong?”
He roared and the force of his angry voice hit my face. “HE SAYS HE LOVES YOU?! He has no idea who you are Livvie! No one does but me! I know you. He’ll NEVER love you! You’re MINE. You belong to me!”
I jerked back from his volume. Confusion settled over me. That’s not what it said. It said I loved him. Not the other way around.
“No, no, Brandon listen!”
“Fuck off Livvie!”
Brandon’s hand yanked hard at my head causing me to fall to my knees. The sand under me ground into my skin as he dragged me to Julia. He held my face up and pointed the knife to my eye.
“You watch.”
I cried out. Tears were freely falling down my face and mixing with the rain as it drenched me.
Julia was laying helpless and began screaming behind her gag when Brandon leaned over and cut her from her temple, across her cheek, all the way to her nose. It was a deep, raw gash. The blood started flowing the second he did it. It gaped open and streamed onto her face and the sand beneath her. He kicked her over into the ground and then spit on her.
I let out a loud scream. “NO! Stop please!”
He yanked me up by my hair and began half dragging me, half leading me toward the woods. I couldn’t turn around to look at Julia. I was struggling to keep up with him as it was. I stumbled several times when we reached the edge of the shore. There were slick rocks that we had to walk over to get to the dark forest.
I tried reasoning with him. “Please, Brandon, listen to me. It doesn’t have to be this way. Can we just talk about this?”
He drew back his hand and punched me in the face. My nose stung and my cheek felt numb. I blinked several times and my hand came up to feel the area.
Being this close to the water, the rain and wind were pummeling us even harder. The lightning kept illuminating the turbulent surface every few seconds, and the thunder was so loud I could barely hear anything else.
He turned toward the water and threw my phone. Any chance of Brock finding me, dead or alive, disappeared beneath the waves.
He turned back to me and let go of my hair. I was thrown off balance from the release and stumbled back several steps to the edge of the water. The rain beat at my face and the storm was raging so loudly that I barely caught the words he was saying.
He screamed into the wind. “You were MINE! You’ll always be mine Livvie. His filth will never touch you again!”
“Why are you doing this?!” I screamed.
His face was contorted into a mask of hatred. “Because I always win. Always Livvie! You don’t leave me. You can’t run away from me! I own you. I will always own a part of you deep down. I’ll always be there and you can’t deny it! No one will ever compare. That piece of shit that wants you can’t have the part I’ve already taken! You’re mine!”
Remembering the bottle opener, my fingers fumbled at the pocket in my wet jeans. My mouth was hanging open as I looked into his insane, hellish eyes. Hair was clinging to my face and I was blinking rapidly as the rain collected on my lashes.
I would only have one chance.
My fingers dug. I found my weapon and flipped it out as it cleared the pocket. I wedged the corkscrew between two fingers before he lunged.
It was like time slowed down. When he came at me he was screaming, but he misjudged the slickness of the rocks under his feet and stumbled slightly to my left. The knife he was carrying veered off from my chest and went toward my arm. He suddenly jerked back and his eyes got huge. His hand shot out and the blade clipped my left shoulder but didn’t penetrate. I felt the sting of it but didn’t flinch. I raised my right hand up and drove the corkscrew into the soft spot under his jaw.
It was the worst and most horrifying thing that I had ever experienced. I could feel the skin give and his hot blood poured over my hand. He fell backward and I let go of the handle. My eyes watched in silence as he grabbed his throat, and then, I saw a small bloody hole appear in his chest.
I looked up and saw what seemed like a huge black shape running toward me. I couldn’t tell what it was in the dark. Lightning flashed and I saw several large shapes that ran like men spreading out over the beach. I stepped back further into the water, holding my hand in front of me that had Brandon’s hot blood still dripping from it.
My mind was completely scattered. I felt myself fainting.
Chapter Twenty-One
Two weeks after the lake incident, I was lounging on my new couch eating chips and reading the latest trashy novel I had picked up at the store.
A lot had happened and I had enjoyed a nice quiet day indoors relaxing for once. It seemed like the last few weeks had been some strange adventure that hadn’t really happened. Unfortunately, for everyone involved it really had.
Last week, to my relief, and it seemed Aiden’s disappointment, I had started my cycle. Which just went to prove that there were actually things on the internet that were accurate. And that some psychics could really tell the future. The moment it started, I went and bought a box of condoms the size of a small city and stuck them in my bathroom.
I hadn’t seen them since.
On a different note, money, as it turned out, could actually buy some happiness.
An interior decorator had come sweeping through the house with a magic wand and done miracles. It was back to looking like my house and feeling like my safe space again within only three days. I could still smell the fresh paint on the walls.
Aiden loved the color in every room but Julia’s old one, which I painted a muted lavender. It was his temporary home office for the time being and he complained that it was too girly. My thought had been that it might calm him down a bit but he was still arguing for red seven days later.
The furniture had been replaced by pieces we both liked. Mostly that I liked, and that Aiden had compromised on. Nice leather, wooden and earthy pieces much like what Aiden had in his old house but with a more modern look.
Since I owned the house, I got to make the rules of the house. My new ragtag family which included Aiden’s friends and employees could now only enter my domain by knocking or ringing the doorbell. They were also blacklisted from all personal discussions and agreements between my boyfriend and I.
That was also Aiden compromising. For now.
Aiden had started the process of rebuilding his own home close to where the other house had been. He said he was going to make some improvements and add some bedrooms. It would take a while though so we were temporarily having a go at living together. It was a strange shift for both of us but one that we were both enjoying.
Brandon’s death had been ruled an “accident” by local authorities, even with four bullet holes and a corkscrew sticking out of his neck. I wasn’t entirely sure how someone could accidentally get shot and run into a corkscrew. Somewhere, something like that might have happened, but I hadn’t found proof on the internet yet. It helped to have Aiden’s connections.
Regardless, the case was closed and it had cleared me of any wrong-doing by default. It had also cleared Aiden, who, as it turned out, had been the one that had been shooting. He had just landed from New York and had been in route to the cabin when I had called that night. Then he had started panicking over my messages. Unfortunately, I had been correct about most of his security team being offsite that night when I had made my run for the shore.
My boyfriend had gone into crazy mode, an experience that had affected him deeply apparently. I felt lucky he had made it to me when he had. Otherwise things could have g
one much differently.
Julia was not doing well. Although I had been given the benefit of having therapy for two years after college, and had built a lot of coping skills as a result. Julia hadn’t. It wasn’t that I was unaffected. It would remain with me, I suspected, for a very long time. However, I had Aiden beside me, protecting me, and helping me process it. Julia had me, but she had told me it wasn’t quite the same and I agreed. The entire ordeal had left her more than shaken and she was now literally facing the truth of it in the mirror every day.
The recovery time for the stitches and wound on her face was going to be a long one. She wasn’t vain by any stretch of the imagination but seeing yourself with a huge scar every day to remind you of one of the most frightening events in your life, was mentally and emotionally very hard on her. It would be difficult for anyone and I hated seeing her go through it.
I wasn’t sure I knew the truth of everything that had happened while she was in Brandon’s hands but it had taken its toll. She had moved back in with her dad for a while claiming she needed some time away.
I still called her and texted her randomly though. She still laughed and teased me about things. But the lightness of her personality had faded slightly. I could feel our bonds of friendship slipping and that was the biggest tragedy of the entire experience.
Aiden’s heavy footfalls on the stairs woke me out of my thoughts. I was getting used to the familiar noises he made as he came and went daily. I stuffed my paperback between the couch cushions and picked a magazine up off the coffee table.
His head came sweeping down in front of me and I was treated with upside down kisses all over my face.
“Hey babe.”
“Hey yourself. What’s up?”
He looked at me funny, took my magazine and turned it right side up. “Hmm, trashy romance book?”
I rolled my eyes and dug the paperback I had hidden out. “Maybe.”
He took the book from me and read the back. He made a disgusted face and stuck out his tongue like he was going to gag.
“How can you read stuff like this? It’s terrible.”
“Oh, stop it!” I laughed.
Run (Lakefield Book 1) Page 20