That’s when I saw a head poke out from behind a tree at the back of the driveway, one that belonged to Marcus’s best friend, Remy. Putting his finger up to his mouth, he pulled back again and disappeared.
That’s what they were providing a distraction for whatever he was doing.
Looking back at Orson, I asked, “How did you know where to find me?”
* * *
Taking a step closer to me, he looked proud of himself. “Well, a young girl contacted me when I saw you’d moved, and she told me where to find you. I sold Mum’s jewelry to that place near Bromley Station and got one of my new mates to help me get a passport. When I got to that awful place you were living at, though, the girl told me you’d disappeared, so she put out some feelers to find out where you were. She was such a whiny girl, but she was good at getting information.” Shonelle, he had to be talking about her. “Anyway, she found a photo on someone’s social media of the bloke you’ve been hanging around with,”—he leaned in closer to me—“an American, really?”
“Fuck you,” Marcus snorted. “You forget what country you’re standing in?”
“She messaged the person who’d posted it and found out the name of some people to contact, who said he had a house here.”
Not quite following the last part, I asked, “Who were the people you contacted?”
“Uh, the Catchers? Baxters? Maybe the Thatchers?”
Jesse made a choking noise beside me. “The Hatchers?”
“Yes,” Orson clicked the fingers of the hand not holding the gun. “That’s the ones, the Hatchers.”
“Who are they?” I asked Jesse, not taking my eyes off Orson.
“Cooper’s parents.” The words were said grimly, the weight of the implication suffocating.
It was possible that they didn’t know what was going on with Elijah and the problems I had, but it was also possible that they had. The fact they’d given out the location of the house to a random stranger, though, showed a lack of shits for Elijah’s safety regardless. It was spiteful, and it made my stomach burn.
“Anyway,” Orson sang, and a familiar snick sound followed it as he clicked the safety on his gun. “We’ve got to go. I really don’t want to hurt anyone, but I’ll have to if you don’t come with me.”
“You don’t want to hurt anyone?” I asked. “You assaulted me and knocked me out, raped numerous women, and terrorized countless others. The amount of hurt that you’ve already inflicted—including to Shonelle—is insane, and you’re saying you don’t want to hurt anyone now?”
“I was patient with you, Sadie. I waited for you to hit sixteen, so you can’t be upset that I had relations with other women.”
“You didn’t have relations, Orson, you raped and assaulted them. You were tried, convicted, and sentenced for those crimes, too.”
“But I didn’t touch you until you were sixteen,” he snapped back, like that one fact solved everything, but he was wrong.
“I was fifteen,” I whispered, taking great delight in throwing that information back in his face. “Fifteen when you attacked me and tried to rape me, and sixteen when I had to give evidence and listen to the stories of those poor women. The amount of evidence they found in your house showed you’d been stalking me since I was twelve.”
Elijah’s brothers stood silently, absorbing the information as the muscles in their jaws ticked, but none of them wanted to move in case he shot the weapon that was still pointed at me.
What I’d said pushed him over the edge because he leaned forward and screamed, “I said I was sorry!”
That’s when a fat, bald blur appeared out of nowhere, wrapping itself around his ankle, and started biting and scratching him through the thin material of the trousers he was wearing. Jesse and Marcus shot into action simultaneously, with Jesse tackling me down to the ground as Orson waved the gun around and yelled, and Marcus knocking him out with one punch to the side of the head.
Covering me with his body, Jesse looked over his shoulder to make sure his brothers had taken care of the threat and then looked down at me with concern. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”
“Jesus Christ,” Remy roared, running up to join Jackson at the doorway as Marcus stood up. Pulling some zip ties out of his pocket, he moved Orson onto his stomach and started securing his hands behind his back. “What part of don’t touch him in case he shoots you didn’t you understand?”
“The cat didn’t get your memo,” Jackson replied seriously, watching Dobby retreat to where his fiery pits of hell awaited.
I don’t know if it was the prospect of never having to worry about him again—hopefully—but I burst into tears and didn’t stop when Jesse picked me up off the ground and carried me over to a chair, rocking me like a kid.
Orson might not hold any power over me anymore, but I’d had nightmares for years. I’d been afraid for so long, and it was all because of him. I’d built him up in my head to be this huge imposing man, powerful and capable of doing anything to me, and it was all over.
Even the grunts and groans in the room didn’t cut through the feelings I was working through inside my mind and heart. It was like I was grieving for my childhood and the pressure that’d been building was suddenly free. Part of me was glad Elijah hadn’t been here for it because he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from protecting me, and he could’ve gotten hurt. The other part wished he had been here so that he could see for himself it was over.
Looking up at Jesse, who was glaring at something behind me, I rasped, “Elijah?”
“He’ll be back soon, honey, don’t worry. This guy hasn’t confessed to what he did to Shonelle fully, and with the stuff in the letter, they still have to follow protocol to eliminate him from the case. Remy’s just been saying that he called it in after he came back and saw the twins standing outside and Marcus signed out what was happening, so they’ll be here soon, and then they can question fuck face over there and clear Elijah’s name.”
Standing up shakily, I swiped my cheeks with my hands and walked over to where Orson was now sitting on a chair with his arms behind his back.
“Why? You took away so much from so many women, you ruined my childhood with nightmares and pure terror. Why?”
Marcus, Jackson, and Remy looked like they wanted to tear his head off after I asked the question, but Orson still didn’t have an ounce of remorse on his face.
“Because I love you.”
“That’s not love,” I spat, feeling the shaking and tears replaced by anger. “If you love someone, you don’t attack them and knock them out so you can rape them. You don’t terrorize them and make them afraid to sleep at night. You don’t kill a woman because of them. Elijah loves me, and thanks to him, I don’t have nightmares, I’m not afraid to shower in case someone walks up behind me, I don’t have panic attacks that I can’t manage anymore because he showed me how to get through them. He’s protected me and made me happier than I’ve been in years. That’s what you do when you love someone.”
His upper lip curled in a sneer. “I would’ve been able to do that for you, but I was in prison. They kept me away from you.”
When I’d first seen him, I’d worried that he was mentally incapacitated somehow and that whatever he did would have lighter consequences after a psychological evaluation. He had light in his eyes now, and I could see it was an act he’d perfected over the years.
Knowing that there was security in the house that would be recording it, I tested my theory.
“But it’s him I’m going to marry, not you. He’s a good man, not a rapist and murderer—”
“And pedophile,” Remy muttered loud enough for Orson to hear.
And that was when he lost his shit, thrashing around to get out of the chair he was tied to.
“You’re mine. You were always meant to be mine.”
“This is the guy who has Elijah so worried?” Webb muttered, scratching his head. The action wasn’t dramatic or sarcastic, he was genuinely perplexed.
/> “I’ve heard of crimes of passion, but this guy’s just obsessed,” Remy noted, squatting down in front of him but leaving enough distance between them that he wouldn’t get kicked or headbutted if Orson tipped over. “Yo, Riley, let me help you distinguish between possession and love. You can love someone, but they can’t become a possession of yours for you to keep for your own sick pleasure. You also can’t go around raping women, attacking them, and playing out your fantasies.”
Then, standing up, he leaned in closer to him. “I’ll also tell you what you can’t do—leave your country when you’re out on parole. The law doesn’t like that, and it really doesn’t like men killing women and preying on fifteen-year-old girls. If I were you, I’d hope I got extradited to England, but here’s where I become your worst nightmare. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen and that you get tried and sent to prison here. Then I’m going to get word to all of the inmates in the prison you’re sent to and let them know you tried to rape an adolescent.”
Orson was panting now, whether through fear or anger still, as he watched Remy wide-eyed.
“The British government won’t—”
“Do shit,” Marcus snapped, moving around to stand behind his friend. “Maybe if you hadn’t murdered someone they’d accept you back to do some more time there, but you fucked up killing Shonelle.”
Unaware that it was all being caught on camera, regardless of whether it would be admissible or not, Orson said clearly and with pure hatred, “I’d kill her again. She wasn’t good enough to breathe the same air as Sadie. All she did was say things about her and wish harm on her, so where was the crime?”
“In the murder,” Remy replied bluntly. “And in what you did the first time around. But whereas Sadie is now free of her nightmares that you caused, yours have just begun.”
Epilogue
Elijah
I’d hardly slept last night because my brain refused to switch off long enough to allow me even an hour.
After everything had gone down with Orson and he’d been arrested, Sadie had started therapy to help put the pieces that’d been left behind into perspective. He was in jail awaiting a trial date, but because he’d confessed to murdering Shonelle during his interview, the British authorities weren’t requesting his extradition back. He’d be serving out his sentence here, where Remy could make good on his promise to him, especially after the shit he found in his emails after he managed to get into them.
I’d attended a couple of sessions with Sadie, but I struggled to open up to a stranger who was analyzing everything I said, so now I was focusing on a technique called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to get me through it. The problem was, there was only so much distraction could do to get me through it. For the rest, I had to take action and resolve them, or they’d have continued to eat away at me.
That’s why I’d driven to Cooper’s parent’s house to tell them the consequences of the information they’d given away to a stranger. They’d seen the news reports on what’d happened, but they hadn’t put two and two together until I turned up and laid it all out for them.
I could understand lashing out at someone because of grief. I didn’t condone it, but I could understand it and had taken it from them. But giving out my address to someone, no matter who it was who’d called and how innocent she’d sounded—no one had the right to do that, and the consequences had almost been enormous. When they’d found out that Sadie was my fiancée and pregnant, they’d been devastated. I wasn’t giving them my forgiveness and acceptance this time, though. They’d willfully put her and the baby’s lives at risk, and there was no coming back from that.
I’d walked out of their house feeling like I was grieving Cooper all over again, but also feeling like I’d put their power over me to rest. I hadn’t stood up for myself, and they’d needed that power to heal. I’d tortured myself for almost two years with the belief that I could’ve done more to save him, even if I couldn’t have, because of them. It gave me no joy leaving his mom crying and his dad looking ill, but I’d never forgive them for what’d almost happened.
One of the things I’d picked up from the few therapy sessions I’d attended was that lack of control made people feel worse, and taking back that control hadn’t solved everything, but it’d made me feel stronger.
What also helped was Sadie. At night when I woke up because of a nightmare, it was Sadie who calmed me down. She was the yin to my yang, and I was marrying her in four hours.
That’d been one of the methods of distraction I’d used for both of us. After I’d gotten home and watched as the officers who’d just interviewed me led Orson Riley to their car, I’d decided we were getting married as soon as possible. Actually, I’d demanded it, but I liked to call it deciding because otherwise, Sadie got pissed at me.
She’d fallen in love with Sarasota Bay and Florida and wanted the wedding to happen at the house so that we were close to Cooper. I’d given in to all of her requests, loving a majority of them…
That was until she had an idea and refused to budge on it when I tried to talk some sense into her.
She wanted Gramps to do the ceremony, so he’d become ordained.
The captain of the fishing boat that Cooper had been on had moved from Alaskan waters to Florida ones, so he was also doing it with Gramps to make sure that there were no issues later on.
I had no idea how they’d worked out who was doing what part of the ceremony, but so long as it was legal and ended up with us being married, I didn’t care anymore. The closer we got to the wedding, the antsier I became about it.
Three months it’d taken to complete. In the grand scheme of life, it was nothing, but it’d felt like forever. Yesterday a truck had arrived with open-sided tents and an archway for us to stand under, and when they’d started to lay it all out, it became real.
Hearing a gentle tapping at the door, I grinned, knowing immediately who it was. Over the last three months, I’d gotten to know Cynthia and Wick, who’d visited us twice. The little boy was my shadow whenever he was here, and I found him freaking hilarious.
Not waiting for permission, he kicked open the door and walked in carrying an unimpressed looking Dobby.
“Uncle ‘Jah, we’ve got a problem,” he told me, sounding more serious than a four-year-old boy should. “Aunty Sa’dee said Dobby was a boy, but he’s got no pee-pee.”
Sitting up and swinging my legs over the edge, I held my hands out for Dobby and tried to calm him down.
There was something to be said about the cat—he never lashed out at kids. His tail would flick, and he’d look even more pissed off than usual, but that was it.
“He’s definitely a boy, Wick, even if you can’t see his d— pee-pee.”
“Is it stuck inside?” he asked, tilting his head.
“I can’t say I know the answer to that, kid. I do know the doctor confirmed he was a boy when your aunt took him to see him, though.”
“What ‘bout his bawz?”
Blinking, I tried to think of the best way to explain it. Well, the best way without scarring him for life.
“Well, see, with animals, you can get them neutered and spayed. It stops them from being angry, peeing everywhere, and feeling… uh, frustrated.”
“What’s that mean?”
Wincing, I started berating myself for even going near this avenue with him.
I should have sent him to his grandpa.
“Dobby was neutered, so the doctor had to remove his…”—Christ—“his balls.”
Lunging over, he spread the poor cat's legs and looked at the blank space between them. “Are they hiding, too?”
“No,” I chuckled, finding his reaction cute. Mistake, huge fucking mistake. “The doctor gave him medicine so he’d sleep, then he cut them off with—”
“Ma,” he screeched loud enough to get everyone’s attention.
After that, there were tears, a lot of snot, laughter from my family and Cynthia, and glares from Ned, as he
told them he was never sleeping again in case we cut his ‘bawz off.’
By the time Ned carried him out, I only had just over two hours to get ready for the wedding. It was ample time, but it meant I’d have to forego the bottle of whisky I felt like I needed to drink after going through that trauma.
Sadie
Even with Dad glaring at Elijah as he walked me down the aisle, today was the happiest day of my life. I hadn’t even been upset that they’d had to do an emergency job on my dress so my stomach would fit in it. No one told me it could grow so quickly in the space of two weeks, but consider me informed.
As we got to where Elijah was standing, looking handsome in a pair of gray slacks and a white shirt with the top three buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up, Dad leaned into me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Smiling at him, I rose onto my tiptoes—glad I’d decided to wear heels under my dress—and kissed him on the cheek. “Yes, I’m sure. And, yes, I know what he told Wick.”
Shooting him another scowl, Dad sighed and kissed me on the forehead. “Your mom’s watching down on you with the biggest smile on her face. Laugh, love, and live, sweetheart.” And then he held my hand out to Elijah, gave my bump a rub, and went and took his place standing behind me.
“You look beautiful,” Elijah whispered just as Hurst started talking.
“Townsends, Rossis, Brits, and fellow countrymen,” he began, getting groans from the people sitting down. “I dunno, they didn’t cover that part online,” he shrugged. “We’re gathered here today to witness the holy matrimony of Elijah and Sadie. Both myself and Captain Tosh are honored to be the ones who bind them, even if we agree Sadie’s making a mistake.”
There was a chorus of gasps and chuckles from our guests as Elijah dropped his head back and groaned.
Great Sass: Providence Family Ties Series Page 22