Drake simply nodded and sat back down with his coffee to listen.
“Where had I stopped?”
“You and your ex, this Brian, eloped.”
“That’s right.”
She began filling the sink with warm soapy water to wash the dishes in. “I didn’t notice much at first. What I did notice was his temper was quicker to fire than before we got married. He would get mad and blow up over the smallest of things,”
she started scrubbing the bowls and plates in the sink as if her life depended on it. “It sounds ridiculous when I listen to myself talk about it now. They say hindsight is crystal clear, and they are right. All of the signs were there before they escalated.”
She shrugged, “Anyhow, as I was saying, it started with small things igniting his temper. I learned pretty quickly to walk on eggshells around him, and to keep my thoughts and opinions to myself. Anything would set him off: work, money, me. How I looked. How I acted. What I did or what I said. What I ate.”
She gave a quiet snort. “Nothing mattered. No matter how hard I tried, I could never make him happy.”
While she was talking, Drake sat quietly, watching and listening to her. He was certain he knew where this was headed, and was giving her the steam to say what she needed to say now. He knew he loosened the lid on this last night with his question. He learned long ago in his career that the more intel you had going in, the better the odds at the outcome.
“The verbal and emotional abuse? Yeah, I recognize it now; it became more constant, continuous, really, between our second and third anniversary. I began to lose sight of who I was, my identity was slowly and effectively being taken from me, along with any choices I had in everyday living.”
Kaylie paused, took a deep breath, and rested her palms on the counter top before wiping them down as if she were preparing for a general’s inspection. “The first time he hit me, really hit me, was on our tenth anniversary. Before that it was ‘playing around’
or ‘wrestling’
that would always go too far. I had bruises, big purple and black ones, but I rationalized it as playing.”
Shaking her head as if to erase that line of thinking, she barreled on, “But that first time? I don’t remember what the catalyst was, not sure it really mattered at that point. It was my fault, whatever it was, and he punched me, here.”
She turned and faced Drake with tears in her eyes, rubbing her sternum.
Drake knew that he had to keep his face neutral, keep his own emotions in check while she was talking. He already knew that if he ever had the pleasure of coming face to face with her ex, he’d take great joy in making certain that he got what was due to him, even if it happened while in jail.
“I remember being so stunned and scared that I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to do, who I could call. By this point, business and money had turned around for us, and Brian was now a man of wealth and power. I was just his wife, a nobody, in the grand scheme of things. He, Brian, walked out that night, took the keys to both cars and sped off. He left me home, blessedly alone. I fell asleep in a spare bedroom that night. He didn’t bother me when he got home. The next morning he was all about the apology. How sorry he was. How he’d never do it again. Blah blah blah. Stupid me! I believed him.”
Kaylie shook her head, before continuing, “It got better for a little while. Then, after a few weeks, he was suddenly,”
she held up her hands and made air quotes with them before lowering them again “busy with work, staying late or working on projects. But he was more like the man I had fallen in love with so many years before, and so I overlooked a lot. It was the nights he came in early that I learned to be wary. Those were the nights that I couldn't do anything right, I couldn’t move out of his way fast enough.”
She angrily wiped her cheek where a tear had fallen.
“I tried talking to some of my friends about what was going on, but no one believed me. A man of Brian’s means could never do what I was accusing him of. I was a lying bitch who was just unhappy in my marriage and only wanted a large alimony check. I started taking pictures of myself on a disposable camera that we had never used from some vacation. Those pictures were very compelling when I finally had enough courage to go to the police. And then he threatened me with a gun…” Rubbing her arms to ward off the chill that crawled over her, “It was after that, during the trial, that I found out my husband had been sleeping with other women, blaming me for his affairs. I never saw it. Or never wanted to? I’m still not sure of which yet.”
Drake kept his eyes on hers, his arms crossed on the table in front of him, his coffee forgotten. His hands in tight fists, and he wished he had an outlet for the rage that was engulfing him on her behalf. He could not let her see the anger he was swallowing down He wanted her to remember that she was safe while she was with him. That was, at this moment in time, paramount.
“Eighteen months, a
fucking
year and a half is all he got for what he did to me! Oh, wait, I’m sorry, eighteen months should be enough, right?”
she spun toward Drake. “He beat and threatened my life and gets next to nothing? I wanted to scream when I heard that. Now his time is almost up and I had to leave. I
had
to leave, do you understand? I was getting messages,
threats
about what he will do when he gets out. But no one will listen to me; he’s a perfect prisoner. I had to get away today, my instincts were telling me I was almost out of time and I am so terrified…“
She cut off, sobbing into her hands now that she had unloaded everything.
Drake got up slowly and cautiously and walked over to her, relaxing his hands and his anger, carefully gathering her in his arms, holding her like a fragile object against his chest. He felt her stiffen as he gathered her in close, but she finally started to relax in his arms.
Chapter 6
Brian
“What, exactly, do you mean ‘She’s not there’?”
Brian Peterson asked the man sitting across the table from him. “How can she be ‘not there’? You were supposed to be keeping eyes on that bitch while I’m in here. I want to know where she is when I walk out. She has already cost both me and Caesar too much time and inconveniences in our business dealings, not to mention my time in here.”
The expression on his handsome face never changed, never raising an alert to the guards in the comers of the room, nor the ones monitoring the room on the close circuit cameras, not unless you looked in his eyes, and Manuel Acosta was looking into eyes that had gone as flat and deadly as a sharks.
To anyone looking on, it appeared to be a conversation between friends, but the two men knew better. Brian had changed little during his time in jail, a tall man with a strong build, he held his own during his first days in there, days when everyone was trying to prove their standing as the biggest and baddest. He knew how to fight, and fight dirty, but he also knew that he held a power in there because of his wealth, and he wielded that power like a king to uphold his status behind the jails walls.
Manuel Acosta was a little man, an underling working for Brian as his go between, a middle-man between himself and men who Brian needed to keep in contact with. Brian knew about men that were far more dangerous, more deadly, than Manuel, but Manuel had his uses. He could get around virtually unnoticed because he was average in every way. Average height, average build, nondescript brown hair, plain brown eyes. Yes, Manuel was a very useful tool for him to have at his disposal.
Swallowing audibly, Manuel maintained his eye contact and said, “We were. It was a mistake, a miscommunication between men. She took off before the storm came in yesterday, stupid
puta
. We have the tracker on the car and another in her phone, and we were following it until the roads got bad. The men figured she would stop and wait out the storm and we could grab her if we needed to, but the roads got too bad real fast, and they had to stop. She kept going and finally stopped up ahead of us. We know where her car is, and we’ll get her as soon as we can.”
“You’d better. She has no clue what she has done. I do not want her getting away before I even the score.”
“We could call the cops and give an anonymous tip…“
Manuel started before Brian cut him off.
“Are you fucking stupid? If you do that, we could lose everything! No, we need to keep lying low right now. We have been undetectable by the feds so far, and you want to hand ourselves over to the cops? What the fuck would Caesar say to you, or better yet, do to you? I bet your family would really love your severed head as a Christmas present from
El Cuchillo Grande
. I don’t think
The Big Knife
would take it easy on you, or them, at all.”
Brian’s hazel eyes flashed with his fury, his normally tanned face with strong cheekbones and jaw turned red with restrained violence, the cords in his neck visible with the rage he was trying desperately to conceal. Leaning forward over the table, “I have less than a week left in here and I want the bitch that was my wife to know what real fear is
before she pays, do you understand?”
He leaned back in his chair and smiled as a guard approached. Relaxing his voice for the guard’s
benefit he continued, “I appreciate you coming in and I hope you keep me informed? Let me know when you have everything ready.”
After Manuel left, Brian was being escorted to his cell by a guard, another one in the stream of guards he held in his palm, a palm lined with money that made it easy for him to make them his pawns. This guard had a gambling problem that he hoped Brian would be able to clear up for him, and that Brian used to his own personal advantage.
“There’s a disposable phone waiting for your message. If you tell me what you want it to say, I’ll take care of it, keep you in the clear.”
The guard grabbed hold of Brian’s arm while they waited for his cell door to slide open. “I’ll be back by in a few minutes for that message.”
Brian acknowledged this with a nod of his head as he turned to face the guard while the door slid shut. Putting his hands out so the guard could remove his handcuffs, he just looked at the guard, his face giving away nothing to any others who might be watching them.
A few minutes later, as the guard was making another pass, Brian was ready and slipped a folded note to the guard with instructions. “You make sure this gets through, and I’ll help take care of that little gambling problem of yours.”
Palming the paper, the guard turned and kept walking down the corridor toward the break room where he could stash the message until he could send it.
Chapter 7
The Cabin
Drake reached his hand up to Kaylie’s cheek, his fingers gentle as he stroked her face and the dark bruise that marred her forehead.
His gaze held hers and he could see the mixture of colors in her eyes, the green and the blues, and some interesting flecks of gold in them. Intrigued, his gaze drifted lower to her mouth, to those soft looking full lips, and felt the front of his jeans tighten when he saw the tip of her tongue peek out and lick her lips.
His eyes flicked back up to hers and he could see the longing in them and he couldn’t resist it anymore, he had to see if she tasted as sweet as he thought she would. Still looking into her eyes, he leaned down and gently brushed his mouth across hers, a soft caressing of lips.
Kaylies body responded slowly, gradually warming to Drakes kiss; the gentleness of it was almost hesitant. When they separated, Kaylie had to know if she’d imagined that touch and her tongue slipped past her own lips to seek and savor the taste of him.
When he leaned back, he watched her eyes flutter open and her tongue licking her lips again. Mesmerized by that small action, he leaned back in and took her mouth with his again, his tongue licking the seam of her lips until she opened her mouth and met his tongue with her own. With a groan, he turned her in his arms as their tongues dueled and caressed each other’s. She made a small sound in her throat and her hands went to his chest, fisting in the fabric of his shirt, while he took her mouth hungrily.
They were both breathing hard when they separated, looking into one another’s eyes. Drake took a deep breath and stepped back from her, not wanting to frighten her. “I’ll finish this, why don’t you go shower and relax.”
Nodding, Kaylie turned and walked into her room to get what she needed for her shower.
She closed the bathroom door behind her and looked in the mirror, the bruising a dark combination of black and purple marring her forehead. She kept looking critically at her face, noticing the small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and the bags underneath them. Age, she thought, combined with stress had already begun taking their toll on her. She reached up and traced her fingers across her lips, thinking of how Drakes lips had felt against her own, feeling a tingling and a clenching low in her belly.
Turning away from the mirror she turned on the water and stepped under the spray of the shower, letting the wet heat and the steam sooth her muscles as she stood there. Her head dropped down, stretching her neck as she tried to persuade her muscles to relax. Kaylie stood there for a few minutes, just letting the water run down her body,
watching as the water ran toward the drain and
wishing it could take her past along with it. She finally opened her eyes, picked up the soap and lathered up her hands. She smiled when she smelled the same clean scent that she had noticed on Drake.