Chapter Twenty-Eight
Artimus
I read her text twenty times before I could really believe she’d written it.
Julia Bengal had brought things out in me that I didn’t know existed. Her belief in something so extraordinary had just begun to seep into my mind. I’d been able to look into my future so many times since I’d met her, and it all revolved around her. So how could she be telling me that she was just crazy and that the future I had been planning for us would never happen?
Julia had a spirit about her that I had never witnessed before. Everything about her pulled me to her, and yet here she was, saying that she must be crazy.
Crazy for what? Believing in a love that could withstand time? Or just believing in love, period? Believing there was only one man for her and that I was that man?
If she was crazy, then I was crazy too.
The craziest thing about this was the 180 she’d pulled, going from promising me everything just that morning to saying she didn’t want anything anymore.
Someone must’ve told her that she was nuts for revealing her dreams and her feelings to me. Someone had to have told her that when I didn’t jump at the chance to take her, that meant I didn’t really want her.
That feeling nagged at me for a while before I decided I had to call her. But when I did, the call went straight to voicemail. That had me thinking that she’d blocked my number out of sheer embarrassment.
That wouldn’t stop me though, so I went to find the nearest member of my staff and found one of the maids. I used her phone to call Julia, and that call went right to voicemail too.
“She has the phone turned off, sir,” the maid informed me as she took her cell phone back and put it in her apron pocket.
“You’re right, I’m sure.” I headed back to my bedroom to think about what I should do.
It was nine at night. Not so late that she would be asleep. We did need to talk about things. I wasn’t willing to let her go. Especially after one single text message.
But was I willing to bet on us? I didn’t want to promise her something that I knew deep down she still wanted—no matter what that message said—and then end up disappointing her. If I was going to chase after her, I had to make sure I was ready for that huge commitment.
I had no idea what exactly was stopping me from giving into my feelings for her. Fear of what? Love? Passion? Honesty?
Falling back on my bed, I lay there looking at the ceiling. And that was where I found the answer.
Julia Bengal is too good to be true.
That was it, wrapped in a nutshell. Julia wasn’t normal. She was beyond compare. Intensely fresh and eager, all the while being subtle and classic. There was no one else like her in the world; I was sure of that.
And she wants me.
So why was I lying on my bed instead of getting my ass up and getting to her as fast as I could? I had to let her know that I wasn’t afraid anymore.
Then I realized why I was lying there, not moving a muscle. I needed to get a ring. I needed to make arrangements for us to get married as soon as possible. Because if I went to her with a proclamation of love and forever, I still wouldn’t be able to have her fully until I was married to her.
Or at least that’s what I assumed she wanted.
Her spirituality was still a bit of a mystery to me. Was her idea of being together conventional? Or was it unconventional?
Would simply being together be enough?
Again, I had no idea, and all that told me was that we didn’t know each other well enough to make such a huge decision like marriage just yet. And even as I thought that, my heart pumped harder in my chest, and I swore it screamed the word coward at me.
I smacked myself in the chest. “I am not a coward.”
Yes, you are, my heart pulsed back at me.
I had no idea a person could have a conversation with their own heart. But there I was, doing just that.
“Would a coward take the risks I have taken? Would a coward take on setting up a new network, using entirely new faces to man that network? I think not.” I pounded my chest the way Tarzan would. “I am not a coward.”
And my heart replied, Then take this risk. Give yourself entirely to that woman, and in return, she will give herself entirely to you. Have your happily ever after, Arty Farty.
I couldn’t believe my own heart would stoop to calling me names.
So, I got up off my bed, walked to my closet to get changed, and headed out to get my driver to take me to Julia.
I read that text all the way to her apartment building. When we stopped, I got out and went inside. It wasn’t until the elevator ride that I started to get worried.
What if she really thinks she’s crazy now? What if she really has given up on everything? What if I can’t get her to believe that I want her just the way she was—rules and conditions, dreams and all?
The elevator stopped on her floor and I got out. As I got to her door, I noticed that it had been left ajar. “Is she crazy? This is New York. No one leaves their doors partially open.” I walked in and closed and locked the door behind me. “Julia?”
There wasn’t a single light on in the apartment. I felt along the wall and finally found the light switch. It turned on a small lamp that sat on an end table at the other end of the sofa. But it gave me enough light to find my way to the small hallway that had three doors off it. The one in the middle, I assumed, was the bathroom door. So, one of the other two had to be Julia’s.
I heard a muffled sound coming from the room on the right. A deep voice came from that one too.
Was that her roommate’s bedroom? Did her roomie have a man over?
I opted not to open that one first and opened the door on the left. It wasn’t locked, so I pushed the door open and found a mound on top of the bed. “Julia?” I whispered.
When there was no reply, I made my way to the bed and touched the lump, feeling that it was too squishy to be a human. I turned on the bedside lamp and found out it wasn’t a person at all but a pile of laundry.
So, the other bedroom had to be Julia’s.
I felt a thud as my heart dropped, knowing that that was the room I had heard the male voice coming from.
If she was with someone, I had to know. Maybe Julia really was too good to be true. Maybe her wonderful personality was just an act. I had to know, one way or the other.
Quietly, I went back to that door, leaning on it and putting my ear against the door, trying to hear anything I could. And I did hear things. What I heard made chills flow through me and had my stomach tied up in knots.
“You whore, you know you want my fat cock buried deep in your pussy.” The sound of something smacking against flesh could be heard, and I couldn’t take anymore.
I threw the door open. “No!” I gasped at what I’d found.
Price Stone, wearing only a tight black pair of underwear, spun around to look at me. “What do you want?” he slurred, clearly drunk.
In his hand was a leather belt. And across Julia’s exposed left ass cheek was a long, raised welt. She was lying, face down, on the bed. Dark blue silk panties covered her. An oversized T-shirt, which she must’ve put on to go to sleep in, had been ripped open. Only shreds of white material covered parts of her torso. Her back had several red lash marks on it.
Wide eyes full of fear looked at me over her mouth, which had been stuffed with a ball-gag. Her hands were tied behind her back. Her ankles were tied to the bedposts, spreading her legs apart.
Price stumbled as he tried to stand up to me. “I’m not sharing, Wolfe. Get the fuck out of here.”
I had no idea if Julia was into this shit or not. How could she go from telling me she was a virgin, to this? Something didn’t seem right. “Julia, do you want this?”
Price looked back at her. “You shut your fucking mouth, you slut.” He raised the belt and made an attempt to hit her with it again.
My hand stopped him, catching his wrist before he hit her tender flesh again. “You will not hit her while I’m here, Price. Now I want to know exactly what’s going on.” I shoved him back, moving to take the gag out of Julia’s mouth so she could tell me what was happening.
But I didn’t make it to her before Price slammed something down on the back of my head. I fell to the floor, cursing as I went. “You fucking dick!”
Price was right there, holding a wooden chair up high over his head. “Get out of here. I’m going to take what’s mine, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I told her I would kill you if you tried to stop me, Artimus Wolfe. And I will do it too. I’ve put enough of my time into this prick tease. I’ve put myself out over this bitch. I will not lose what’s rightfully mine. I get her virginity, then you can have the bitch. I always get what I want, and I want that from her. I’ve earned it.”
“You’re insane, Price.” I put my hand on the bed to pull myself up, but he hit me with the chair again. This time stars filled my vision. I had never been hit so hard.
His foot connected with my ribs, knocking the air out of my lungs. I fell to my side in a breathless heap. Darkness was coming in from all sides of my vision.
I could hear Julia screaming and whimpering behind the gag.
She needed me, and I was lying helplessly on the floor, unable to do a damn thing. Price was a madman who was about to take the one thing she’d guarded her whole life.
His voice sounded evil as he growled, “Julia, prepare yourself, my little kumquat.”
The sound of material ripping followed by Julia’s muffled screams filled my ears and broke my heart into a million pieces. “Don’t,” I managed to get out. The air was finally coming back into my lungs.
“Shut the fuck up!” Price shouted, then I felt him kick me in the back three times. “I’m going to fuck this bitch, then she’s all yours, Moneybags.”
Pain radiated all through my body from the spot he’d kicked. It traveled up my spine, through my neck before going all over my head. I had no idea what was happening to me.
Am I about to die?