At around one, they were still waiting.
Lauren was half asleep, wearing a tank top and a pair of panties, laying on her back in the bed, her ears perked for the sound she knew was coming. With every passing second, she fell into a deeper sleep and she could only hope that Marc was more alert than she was. She could feel his pulse in his wrist. It was too quick for him to be asleep, but it had started to slow a bit. Every now and then, she felt him jump, waking himself up.
Her eyes closed on their own volition. She’d wanted to turn the lights on to keep herself awake, but it would have alerted him if he saw her waiting for him. She didn’t know what he thought she’d do. He knew she was helpless against him. He’d proven that much from the night they got married to the night he left these scars all over her body.
Still, they kept the lights off. Even if that made it harder to stay awake.
Her eyes popped open when she heard a click and she felt Marc rise from the bed, immediately, reaching for the gun in the bedside table and moving, quickly and quietly, to stand behind the door. She felt the floorboards in the living room creak and she reached under the bed for Emma, whose leash she had tied to the legs of the bed, keeping her there. The dog whined.
“Hush, Emma,” Lauren hissed and she was quiet. Lauren sat up against her pillows, folding her legs beneath her as she watched the door, waiting. She took a deep breath as she saw the knob turn and the door slowly creaked open, revealing a family profile.
It was him.
“Ah,” Jack said, in that deep, smooth voice she remembered with a chill down her spine. “There you are, sweetheart. I’ve missed you.” Lauren reached for the lamp on her bedside table and turned it on, illuminating the room.
Jack’s face appeared.
She could see his wolfish grin and those piercing blue eyes of his. They almost matched Marc’s eyes as he stood behind him. She forced her attention to remain on Jack, trying not to give the other man’s position or presence away.
“Did you miss me?” he asked, taking a step closer.
“No,” Lauren said, defiantly.
She prayed that Jack couldn’t hear the slight quiver in her voice that belied her confidence.
“Aww,” Jack said. “Too bad. I’ve missed you every day you’ve been away, just waiting for the day when I come and get you and bring you back with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Lauren hissed. “Just leave me alone, Jack. I’ve made a life here.”
“Oh, yes,” Jack laughed, bitterly. “And what a life you’ve made for yourself, huh? A town doctor in Vermont. So very different from the brilliant trauma surgeon you once were. Sad, really, how you decided to give all that up.”
“I didn’t decide anything!” Lauren growled. “You took it from me.”
“Oh, now, let’s not point fingers,” Jack tutted. “I’m not the one that called the cops and got my beloved husband arrested for nonsense.” He took another step toward her and Lauren forced her body to stay still, to not back away from him as he neared.
“It wasn’t nonsense!” she said. “You…you hurt me.”
“I punished you,” Jack retorted, looking bored. “And it was your own fault. You never listened to me, sweetheart. You were always so…defiant. You needed to be taught a lesson. A lesson which, by the way, I’m not done teaching.”
“Is that so?” she asked, though she was certain her voice shook that time. By the way he grinned, she was certain that Jack had heard it. “What… lesson?”
“How to behave,” Jack informed her, taking a seat on the bed. “How to be a good, loyal, obedient wife. That’s all I want. And then you can come back and live with me and we’ll be happy and in love, as we once were.”
“I have never loved you,” she hissed, getting back her composure. “I never will.”
Jack laughed, deep and almost hysterical.
“Oh dear, you are so naïve,” he said. “Of course, you will love me. Otherwise, I’ll have to hurt you again. And I don’t think either of us really wants that to happen again. It got so messy the last time.”
He reached out for her, but Lauren pulled away, hitting him with a glare. “How did you find me?” she asked. “That detective of yours?”
Jack shook his head. “Oh, heavens no!” he said. “Oliver was just a diversion. An actor, really. He was supposed to put up the red flags in your head; spook you a little, you know. Or excite you? Let you know that your beloved husband was coming back for you, to take you into his arms and—” He reached for her again, but Lauren boldly slapped his hands away.
“Oh, you’ve gotten tough, huh? Is that from shacking up with that disgusting biker of yours?”
“He’s not disgusting,” Lauren growled. “And he’s more of a man than you will ever be.”
“Is that so?” Jack laughed again. “You really think that?” She didn’t respond. “Oh dear, you really are stupider than I ever could have imagined, aren’t you?” He shook his head, chuckling. “You poor, poor, naïve child. You really think that you’ve found ‘the one,’ don’t you? You have no idea…”
“What … are you talking about?” Lauren asked, annoyed that she wasn’t in on some joke that he seemed to be having with himself.
“Who do you think sent Marc Kelly your way?”
At the sound of Marc’s full name on Jack’s lips, Lauren’s eyes widened.
“How … do you know his name?” she asked.
“Well, I tend to learn the name of a man,” Jack replied, “before I hire him.”
Lauren felt as if her entire world turned to rubble at her feet.
“Of course, I knew him as ‘Angelface’ when we met. Clever name for a man that will fuck anything in a skirt. He was in deep trouble with a friend of mine and I offered to bail him out for a little…favor. Watch over you, keep you safe, my dear little wife, and I would pay off all his debts and make sure that he lived like a king. It didn’t take much convincing for him to be on the road.” Jack grinned. “I’ve been tracking you since you left New York, you see, so all I had to do was give him an address and let him do the rest. I knew that you’d be helpless when it came to somebody in distress so I told dear Angelface to feign an accident with his motorcycle. I showed him how to fall in just the right way so that he wouldn’t break anything. I even replaced some of the parts on his Harley to older, more breakable ones. I, of course, had to promise to pay for the replacements after the deed was done.” He rolled his eyes. “But it was all worth it, because here you are. My little pet.”
Lauren swollowed the lump that had formed in her throat, after learning that the man she had just fallen in love with was not who she thought he was—not even close. No wonder he seemed to know when Jack would show up.
How could she have been so stupid.
Feeling the hot tears threatening to fall, she closed her eyes for a brief moment before realizing that Jack was still in front of her. Suddenly, her feelings of total dispair were replaced with a deep rage that she had never felt before.
“I’m not your anything,” Lauren growled, backing away. Jack just inched closer in response.
“I beg to differ,” he huffed. “You’re mine. Always have been; always will be. Though if I had known that you would open your legs for the first filthy mongrel that came along, I would have chosen much more wisely than I did. You really should get tested for STD’s once we get home, darling. You have no idea what that man is carrying below the belt.” Then, he laughed, suddenly. “Or, perhaps, you do.”
The slap across his face was altogether sudden and alarming, to the both of them. Marc even jumped in his spot in the corner, his eyes narrowing on Lauren as she continued to ignore his very presence. Jack’s head had barely moved with the force of the strike, but she could see a red handprint on his cheek where her skin had met his. He touched it with his own, checking for blood, before he lunged forward, wrapping his hands around her neck.
Lauren didn’t care at that point. She had nothing left to live for. Jack was going to kill her and Marc was in on it. He had been playing her the entire time, using her for a quick lay every time he felt like it. The truth was, as she knew all along, he felt nothing for her. He never would feel anything for her. She was just a job to him and anything he had told her otherwise had been a lie.
Her entire life was a lie…
Jack’s face invaded her line of vision. The psychotic anger that she had seen hundreds of times in her worst nightmares would be the last thing she ever saw. Perhaps this time he would actually go to prison instead of being let off with a slap on the wrist and a 500-foot restraining order. Perhaps this time he would see justice and her death would play a part in saving the next girl he would have chosen had he not found her. That was Lauren’s only comfort as she felt the world slipping away, as everything began to fade to black.
Then, suddenly, Jack’s entire body tensed and his hands loosened around her neck, falling away as his entire body slumped sideways onto the bed. As soon as she was free, Lauren began to gasp for breath, hurriedly taking each tiny bit of oxygen she could find into her lungs and trying to regain her consciousness as Marc ‘Angelface’ Kelly stood above her, the butt of his gun still held in the air. There was now blood dripping from it and hair stuck to the safety. Jack’s hair, she realized.
Marc Kelly had pistol-whipped her ex-husband, the same man that had offered him what was probably thousands of dollars to keep her still. To keep her from fleeing again.
But why?
“Lauren,” he said, but it sounded far away. The world was starting to fade again. “Lauren, are you okay?” He tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and shoved Jack’s body off of the bed, kneeling down in front of her. “Lauren! Say something! Can you hear me?” She couldn’t respond. She was getting sleepy; so, so sleepy. “Lauren! I’m gonna get you help. Just stay with me. Lauren…”
The world went black.
*****