The Danger You Know

by Lily White

  His mouth comes to my ear, hand sliding to my throat. “I think you’re lying.”

  Grant’s fingers flex, the gentle grip tighter. He’s holding back, though. I can feel it in the way his hand shakes just slightly.

  He’s only trying to scare you. Don’t panic...

  “I think you’re going to tell me everything you know about Harrison Nash. And then you’re going to explain to me what the point of your little game is.”

  “I don’t know who he is.”

  It’s not a lie. If Harrison Nash doesn’t exist, then I have no idea who the man is that managed to seduce me into breaking my vows. It terrifies me to think I’d been so stupid. He could have been anybody, and I’d willfully been alone with him.

  Maybe this is why I’d known better than to ask for his help. He’s not the person he pretended to be.

  What the fuck happened to my life?

  Fingers grip harder, but I hold my breath, wait it out. Green eyes pin mine, a warning rolling behind them that causes my pulse to thud, to race, to skip.

  Then Grant smiles, the line of it hard.

  “Is that so?”

  He lets me go, and I draw in a breath as he crosses the room to his dresser to open the top drawer. What he pulls out causes my pulse to race even more, my breath to catch again. I can feel my heart pounding everywhere, the tendons in my neck pulling painfully tight as Grant turns to me fully and holds up all the proof he needs that I’ve done something wrong.

  How the hell did he find it?

  “While you were out running errands the other day, I had Gloria come to the house and take a look around.”

  His thumb presses a button on the cheap phone, eyes narrowing, just before he cocks his arm and throws the phone at me so hard, it cracks against my face.

  My hand flies to where it struck, pain radiating out from my cheekbone until tears are leaking from my eye.

  “Pick it the fuck up and read me what the texts say, Adeline.”

  I shake my head, knowing what he’ll do to me.

  A low growl. “Pick it up. I’d like to hear it in my wife’s voice. The proof that she’s been fucking another man behind my back and using him to play a game on me.”

  He takes a step forward, and I scrabble for the phone, my body sliding off the bed to the floor where my fingertips touch it and it spins away farther. Diving for it again, I pretend I’m doing what he says, my thumb moving over the screen as if scrolling to the top. Really, I’m going against instinct and reaching out for help.

  Help me.

  I type the message as fast as I can, delete it before Grant can cross the room and grab the phone from me. His fist swings down and catches me on the side of my head, my body falling to the ground from the force of it.

  Grabbing me by the hair he pulls my body up, slams me against the side of the bed and shoves the phone to my chest.

  “Read the fucking texts, Adeline, and for every fucking one you two sent, I’ll show you exactly what I think of them.”

  He’s going to kill me before this is over. I can sense it, can feel the loss of control that rolls off him in waves.

  And I can’t fight. Not drugged like I am. Not while blood is already leaking from where my skin was split when he threw the phone at my face.

  Lips shaking, I beg. “Please, don’t do this.”

  Wrapping my fingers over the phone, I take it from him.

  “Read them. One by one. From the beginning.”

  Grant’s voice is so cold it freezes me to the bone.

  I don’t want to die...

  I haven’t even lived yet...

  Scrolling to the first text, I clench my eyes shut as tears roll down my face. Grant crouches in front of me, waiting.

  His fist tightens in my hair, and I cry out from the pain, my eyes snapping open again, the tears obstructing the words that glare from the screen. I blink them away and open my mouth, the knot in my throat so large I can barely talk around it.

  “What will it take for me to convince you to leave me alone and stop toying with my fucking life?”

  The last word isn’t fully out as Grant backhands me, his knuckles cracking against my jaw, my body falling as the phone flies from my hand.

  It spins where it lands, the room so quiet that I can hear the plastic scraping over the marble floors.

  And then Grant’s footsteps as he moves to grab it. He brings it back to me. “Read his response.”

  One after the other, I read the texts, only for Grant to hit me again after each one. I make it through the first day I bought the phone, my eyes swelling almost shut by the time I’m done, my lip split, blood dripping down to dot the floor beneath me.

  Grant looks at me calmly, not an ounce of guilt for what he’s doing.

  “You know, I would have believed my wife was being blackmailed if the conversation had ended there. I would still hate you, but I would have hated him more.”

  He pauses, rubs a thumb over one of the areas where my skin is split, wipes the blood on his dark pants before gripping my face so hard the inside of my cheeks are being shredded by my teeth.

  “But it didn’t end there, did it, Adeline? Give me his fucking name.”

  “I don’t know it,” I whisper, unable to add any strength to my voice.

  “Liar.” Another punch, this one to the center of my chest, my head snapping forward and back against the side of the mattress. “Read the rest.”

  Sucking in a breath, I try to focus on the screen, but it keeps fading out. My body can’t take much more, and the drugs are dragging me into sleep.

  Oh, God. I don’t want to read this one, my mouth opening and closing as Grant stares down at me with flared nostrils and bloodshot eyes. The tendons in his neck push out white against his skin, his fingers curling slowly into a fist as he waits for me to read aloud the proof I’d worked with Ari to deceive him.

  After several attempts, I’m barely able to get the words out, my voice shaking, skin bleeding, my head pounding where it swells.

  “The coast is clear. Y-Your husband is as a-annoying as ever and d-doesn’t notice you’re gone. I would have noticed. Just so you know.”

  His hand wraps around my throat to drag me to my knees, his other backhanding me so hard, my neck wrenches left. I hear the bones in my spine crack, feel the skin over my cheekbones split wider.

  He doesn’t drop me this time, doesn’t stop to pick the phone up that fell from my hand to clatter to the floor. He squeezes instead, and my air is cut off, white spots bursting in front of my open eyes as I reach up to scrabble at his hand with my fingers.

  Grant is too strong. Too angry. He’s beyond reason after hearing me read what Ari said about him.

  “I’ll tell you once more to give me his real name.”

  Face lowering to mine, his breath is hot against my skin as he watches me struggle to breathe. “I suggest you don’t lie to me this time.”

  Dropping me, he crouches at my side, completely still while my mouth opens, and my lungs drag in the first breath. I have nothing I can give him. I don’t know who Ari is.

  The knowledge of that forces so much panic through me that I attempt to crawl away. All Grant has to do is grip down on my ankle, his fingers digging into the tendons until pain shoots up my leg.

  He drags me to him, wraps his hand in my hair and lifts my head up until my neck is bent back.

  “Tell me his name.”

  “I don’t know it,” I cry, wishing like hell there was something else I could tell him.

  “And I don’t believe you, Adeline.”

  Slamming my forehead against the floor, he almost knocks me unconscious. My head is swimming, the room coming in and out of focus as my ears ring.

  I only had another day to go before I could escape this man.

  And unlike what I believed a short while ago, I now know I won’t survive it.

  Ari

  My phone vibrates over the surface of a table from across the room, the sound drawing my attention
as I strip off the black fitted t-shirt I’d worn all day while navigating a city I wasn’t familiar with.

  Outside the window, a parking lot sits half filled, neon lights flashing above a small, hole-in-the-wall bar that caters to the dregs of society.

  I never stay in luxury when I take jobs, not unless it’s absolutely called for. It’s easier to rent cheap motel rooms that accept cash and don’t ask for names. Five star accommodations want credit cards and identification, which I have, but prefer not to use too much. Even aliases can be tracked if they keep showing up in places where powerful men are found dead.

  The added benefit of cheaper places is the lack of cameras. Nobody gives a damn to record the crimes and activities of its customers. Would be bad for business.

  My flight home doesn’t leave for another six hours, and while I could have gone directly to the airport, I chose this place instead so I could take a shower after introducing hotshot playboy and millionaire, Kennedy Porter, to the afterlife.

  Not that anybody would suspect he was murdered. The man had a slight drug problem that wasn’t well hidden and the fatal overdose he took would soon be slapped all over the numerous news and social media outlets with lengthy articles mourning his loss while also discussing the dangers of addiction.

  Sometimes this job is just too easy.

  My phone vibrates again as I drop the t-shirt into the small bag I’d brought with me, and I ignore it to strip off my jeans on the way to the shower.

  You couldn’t pay me enough to sit on the bed in this place, but the small chair in the room will do while I wait the short amount of time that’s left before my flight.

  I brought my own towel, so I pull it from the bag, flinging it over my shoulder to walk to the bathroom, the phone vibrating once again.

  Blowing out a breath, I turn to look at it, my dark mood not made better by the disturbance.

  Ignoring it again, I take a shower, and I’m towel drying my hair as I step back into the room, finally grabbing the phone from the table and sliding my thumb over the screen.

  Lincoln: You being a good boy?

  I already knew it would be him. I didn’t bring my actual phone with me for this job, and Lincoln is the only person who has this number.

  Fucker must have seen read on the message because the phone lights up in my hand when he calls.

  I hit the green button and trap the phone between my shoulder and ear as I walk back to my bag to grab clothes.

  “Where do you want me to put all these prints?”

  Lincoln never bothers to wait for me to say a damn word before jumping on me with a question, accusation or taunt. But he was good for one thing today. He’d gone to the gallery for me to pick up Adeline’s photographs.

  I’d paid for them before leaving on this trip, knowing I’d be gone for a few days.

  “Just set them against a wall in the living room. I’ll figure out what to do with them later.”

  A low whistle across the line.

  “These are something else, Ari. How does it make you feel to know she sees you as someone tearing apart her life?”

  Of course, he would go there. But I’m not sure that was the point of the photos. Adeline is cleverer than that.

  “Fuck off,” I say as I grab my laptop and drop my weight into the chair. “I’ve stayed away from her for the past week.”

  “Only because you’re distancing yourself so as not to be a suspect.”

  My jaw ticks. The asshole knows me far too well.

  After the gallery event, I realized just how close I was getting to Adeline, and just how badly I was hiding the obsession I had with her. Given Grant’s comment, and those of the gallery owners, I knew it was time to back off and put distance between Adeline and myself.

  Not because I was giving up on her, but because if drastic action is required later on, the last person I want people to think about is me.

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  He laughs. “Says the man we both know is still watching her.”

  Flipping the computer open, I log into one of my bank accounts to ensure the transfer went through to the gallery. Seeing that it did, I log out of that and click on the software I use to monitor Grant’s security system.

  The house is locked down for the night, alarm set, which means Grant has returned home from work. His usual pattern is to take a shower and force drugs down Adeline’s throat, not physically, but I’m sure through manipulation.

  Following that, he tends to linger, eventually following her into the bathroom later on to coax her into bed.

  I stop watching at that point, only because the slow torture is driving me mad. Although the temptation to text her and ask how it feels to take such a boring fuck to bed every night is one I can barely resist.

  But then, that would clue her in to the view I have into her bedroom...which is a problem.

  Flipping through the different views, I finally came to the bedroom.

  And freeze.

  Only for a second.

  Only for enough time that my mind can catch up and understand what the fuck I’m seeing.

  Rage tears through me with the need for violence, a fucking beast snapping its jaws inside me.

  “Lincoln, you need to get in your car right fucking now.”

  The sound of the elevator door dinging open is in the backdrop. “I’m on my way home now-“

  “Go to Adeline’s. Take your gun. And break into the fucking house if you have to.”

  “Ari-“

  “He’s killing her,” I roar, “right this fucking second.”

  Lincoln asks me something, but static distorts his voice because of the elevator.

  My eyes are locked on the screen, my entire body rigid with the need to execute the son of bitch I can’t fucking get to right now because I’m three states away.

  Adeline is on the ground next to the bed, her back against the mattress as Grant crouches in front of her. Already, blood is seeping from a small cut across her cheek, swelling on the other side. She’s reading something from the phone she holds, and he backhands her when she’s done.

  Understanding sinks in at that moment. The fucking burner phone.

  “I’m in my car,” Lincoln says, the engine starting as his voice finally clears up. “Where do you need me to go?”

  He doesn’t need the address, but I quickly run him through how to access the neighborhood. While directing him to go to the back bedroom where French doors open onto a large patio, I rack my brain with how to stop the beating Adeline is taking.

  For every hit, I’ll break one of his fucking bones. For every mark, I’ll cut out a pound of flesh. For every fucking word he speaks to her that I can’t hear, I’ll cut out his tongue and feed it to him before removing his eyes next.

  “How fast are you going?”

  “Traffic’s light. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  It’s too much time. Grant won’t stop hitting her. She looks like a rag doll with each blow, her face swinging left only for him to yank her up by the hair to hit her again.

  I have to stop this. Stop him. Do something that will give Lincoln time to get to the house. Telling Lincoln shoot to kill if Grant comes after him, I grit my teeth together that it won’t be my hands ripping the asshole apart slowly for what he’s doing to Adeline.

  My first thought is to call the burner phone, to tempt him to answer, but it will only enrage him more. There is too much of a chance he’ll take it out on her. I have to find something else, anything that will distract him.

  And then it occurs to me.

  Every door and window in his place are wired to a panic alarm, the wall panels in every room large enough to have lights indicating where in the house an alarm was tripped.

  Opening another computer tab, I access the system, punch a few buttons that set off the house alarms, a light blinking to indicate a window near the indoor gym has been opened.

  Grant’s head snaps up and he releases his grip on
Adeline’s throat, her body slumping to the floor where she attempts to crawl away from him.

  “I’m going through the back gate now.”

  “Do you have your gun?”

  A low laugh. “Are you fucking kidding me? Of course, I do.”

  While I listen to his engine rev in the background, I watch Grant push up to his feet, his hand bloody, knuckles busted. He grabs a shirt and pulls it on before storming out of the room.

  Adeline’s not moving.

  “I’m coming up on their street.”

  “Park a distance away. Go in through the side yard, their bedroom takes up the entire left hand side. You’ll find a patio and French doors. They’re likely locked, so break them down if you need to. I’ll shut off the cameras in that area.”

  Lincoln breathes heavy over the phone as he moves, and I track Grant as he crosses his house to investigate. The alarms are still blaring.

  “Please tell me you set those off.”

  “It was the only way to get him away from her. Let me know when you get to the bedroom. And Lincoln, if she’s dead, haul ass and leave Grant alive. He’s mine.”

  Grant reaches the gym to check the window, his jaw ticking wildly when he confirms it’s still closed. I set off another alarm near the billiards room upstairs, keeping him away from her and keeping him moving.

  “I’m near the bedroom.”

  I wait until Grant is in the billiards room before killing the camera to the bedroom. “You’re good. Go get her.”

  A door breaks, wood splintering and then I hear Lincoln curse under his breath. Meanwhile, I’m tripping another alarm on the third floor. Grant will figure this out eventually, so Lincoln needs to move quick.

  “Jesus Christ, she’s bad.”

  I’m in business mode. No emotion. Only a laser focus on the task at hand. “Is she breathing?”

  He pauses for a second, then answers. “Yeah.”

  “Take her and haul ass.”

  “I’ll call you when I get her to the car.”

  The line goes dead, and I continue monitoring Grant’s progress through the house.

  When he finds that the third alarm tripped for no explainable reason, his eyes narrow and he turns to run downstairs. Unsure whether Lincoln is out of view yet, I refrain from turning the bedroom camera back on, my breath held as Grant runs down the long hallway to return to Adeline.