Chapter Four
Clove
It’s been three days now since I have seen or heard from either Trent or my mother. I am running out of bottled water and food. They have never gone this long without making sure I have everything I need. One of them has always brought in three freshly made meals a day.
This is her way of punishing me. Nice move, Tina. You won’t win though. Fucking bitch.
Journey sleeps peacefully in the bed while I stare out the window. Nothing but woods as far as I can see. I know this room is located in the back of the house. There’s nothing out there. No driveway, no signs of life anywhere.
Even though my memory is coming back, the one thing I cannot remember is how they got me here. I mean, I stabbed myself for God’s sake. There had to be a doctor, someone, who treated me medically. There is no way in hell those two treated me. No damn way. Tina’s too much of a selfish bitch.
I love that word ‘bitch.’ It fits her perfectly . . . a female dog. Or, a word to describe excess whining. Blech. How Trent can even look at her, let alone touch her, shows me the type of man he really is. Douchebag.
I’m running on a few hours of sleep a night now. Every time the baby moves or stirs, I am panicking, shooting straight up in bed to make sure she is still safe by my side.
I would give anything to be able to take her outside. To see her facial expressions as she takes in even the simplest of things like the sound of a bird chirping, the warmth of the sun on her skin, her eyes blinking to adjust to its brightness.
I know she’s too young to remember anything. It’s me who deserves to be able to enjoy all of her firsts. Every day I’m stuck in here, I miss more. This is the time that Turner and I should be enjoying watching our daughter grow, together, and it’s all being stripped away by two hateful, vindictive people.
The sun is shining so brightly outside. I adore the feeling of the sun warming my skin. My fingers graze my lips as I recall the feeling of the first kiss Turner and I shared when he dropped me off outside my apartment door after our second date. There was not a cloud in the sky, just like today.
“Oh my gosh, did you feel that?” I asked breathlessly.
“Feel what?”
His arms were still around my waist, holding me tightly against him. I pulled away to search his face, but his eyes stayed glued to my lips.
“That rush.”
He reached down and grabbed my hand.
“Yeah, beautiful. I felt it,” he murmured before pulling me in for a body-hugging, soul- searching, kiss. His mouth coaxed mine to open, sliding his tongue in, threading it perfectly with mine.
For the longest time after that kiss, we stood there with the hot sun beating down our backs, our foreheads pressed together. I knew then and there, he’d stolen my heart.
“I miss you so much, Turner,” I say to the sky above.
“I’m sure he misses you, too.”
I draw in a breath. In spite of the warmness from the sun, chills break out on my arms.
“What do you want, Trent?” I demand.
I twist my hands around the sheer of the drapes, wishing they were around either his or my mother’s neck, squeezing, sucking the life out of them slowly, like they’re trying to do to me.
“Your mother left to go get her nails done or some shit, so I brought you some food.”
He strides in, placing a plate on the small table. I want to lecture myself and refuse to eat it. Knowing I can’t, I curtly nod like a damn grateful fool, pull out one of the two chairs and sit, dragging the plate across the table in front of me.
Towing the other chair around the table, he sits close enough to me that his leg brushes up against mine. Shit, having him this close to me makes me want to regurgitate the bite of ham sandwich I just took.
“Look, I’m sorry about the other night. I knew better than to even come in here in the first place. It’s just . . .”
He breaks off as he gets a good look at me.
“Jesus Christ! Your face.”
He grazes the now slightly scabbed cut on my right cheek. I suppress my natural instinct to jerk away from his touch. Might as well take advantage and see if Trent really does care about me at all. I allow my crocodile tears begin to fall.
“You should have seen her. Sh-she threatened to take Journey away from me,” I sob.
“She did what?”
“She wants her! She’s going to take her from me.”
His next words startle me.
“She doesn’t want her.”
“She hates me, she always has. And she knows the only way she can ever hurt me is taking my daughter away from me! She’s already taken away my husband and my family. Journey’s all I have left.”
He doesn’t disagree with me immediately, which scares the living shit out of me. I swear I see a shadow of remorse cross his face. You took him away, too, I want to shout.
“She wants the money, not Journey.”
I sweep the hair out of my eyes, tucking it behind my ears. All the while he watches me, studying me to see if I’m lying, or faking my reaction.
“What are you implying?” I pull my brows together.
“She plans on giving Melody the baby in exchange for the twenty million dollars.”
What in the hell, Mother?
“That’s never going to happen. She’s lying to you. Melody can’t get that money. Inheritances don’t work like that. You don’t just call people up and say, ‘oh, hey, by the way, can I have my son’s twenty million dollars? I need to exchange it for his daughter.’” I throw my hands up in the air. “She’s smarter than that and you know it. I cannot believe you are falling for her bullshit!”
Suddenly I have lost my appetite. I need to eat though, so I force it all down without even looking back up at him. The entire time I can feel him observing me.
“I’m almost out of water,” I say, perturbed, standing up to retrieve a bottle of water out of the small fridge.
“I’ll bring some,” he quickly responds. “And I’m not falling for her lies. She knows she won’t get twenty million dollars. She also knows how much Melody would love to have Journey. She’s banking on it.”
My mouth drops open, taken aback by his callous talk.
“You mean she’s counting on the fact Melody will want Turner’s baby, because her father is dead, so she’s going to blackmail her, exchange my daughter for money?”
His mouth opens to say something then he looks to the floor. Fucker. I hope you honestly feel guilty about what you did and it’s slowly eating away at you from the inside out. Jesus Christ. I knew she was evil . . . but this, this proves just how inhuman she really is.
“What’s Mother of the Year’s plan for me after she takes Journey?”
My stomach is in knots because I know without a doubt what her plans are for me. I just want to hear him say it.
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit,” I call. “You may be able to pull the wool over her eyes for whatever fucking reason, but not mine. So there is no need for you to lie to me. I’m not dumb. I know exactly what she has arranged for me.”
I’m angry now. I have every right to be; this could and most likely will backfire right in my face if I don’t get control of my feelings. It’s hard to just sit here and look into the eyes of the man who killed my husband and not feel the hatred for him that I do.
“You want me to say it? Fine, I’ll say it. She wants you dead, and she wants me to be the one to pull the motherfucking trigger.”
“She hates me and wants you to be the one to kill me? Oh hell, this just keeps getting better and better.”
My mood becomes darker. I need answers, and if he is sitting here talking, I may as well see if I can get them. I have no idea when she plans on trying to take my daughter. The way I see it, I don’t have time to waste anymore. I need to push Trent for all I can get out of him. It seems she has him on a string like a fucking puppet. Well, I need him a hell of a lot more than she does. Her damn string is about to be cut.
“Are you going to do it?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’ll do anything she asks you to do, whether you really want to do it or not.”
His hand slithers across the table and he entwines our fingers. My stomach coils. What in the actual fuck does he think he is doing?
I stare at him in disbelief, then look over to Journey. My heart shatters for her. If something happens to me, this little girl has to grow up without ever knowing either one of her parents. The thought of that alone brings me back to look at Trent.
“You’re wrong. I don’t want to, and I won’t kill you.”
“Well, this is a definite surprise,” I say a little sarcastically.
His brows lift and his body jerks back in the chair as if I have actually shocked him. Asshole!
“You really do hate me, don’t you?”
“No, Trent,” I say, leaning forward. “I don’t hate you. I pity you.”
I retract my hand from his grip.
“I don’t know what that bitch has on you, or why you run around with your dick shoved up your ass when it comes to her, and frankly I really don’t care. What I do care about is the safety of my daughter. Your niece,” I remind him, even though it won’t do me any good. This fucker shot and killed his own brother. He doesn’t give a shit about Journey.
“She has nothing on me,” he practically shouts as he stands up. There’s the Trent I really do fucking hate. The one with the temper, the one who beat me, raped me, and stole my life away.
“That’s bullshit, and we both know it.”
I want to scream at him. Goad him, get him riled up. Make him angry at her. He needs to see how much of a selfish whore she really is.
“I can’t believe she left here without turning her fucking spy cameras back on. She doesn’t trust either one of us at all. She’s a smart one, my lovely mother.”
He looks at me strangely as he stiffens and takes a deep breath.
“The thing about the cameras is, they were never for her. They were for me.”
What the hell? I’m in a mild state of shock. He’s been watching me? Good God, this man is more unhinged than I thought. He gives a new meaning to assholeitis. And he’s wasting no time shoving more information my way. My head is spinning round and round, trying to swallow all of this new evidence. I feel like that chick from The Exorcist, except I’m not the one with the devil living inside of me. My mother and Trent are.
“Why would you do that? As you can tell, I have nowhere to go.”
I am seething mad. All I see sitting in front of me is the worst form of egotistical, sick, unstable person. Both he and my mother need to be locked away, confined in a room with nothing but white padded walls to bounce their fucked up heads off of. Or better yet, live the rest of their lives behind bars, tortured, as they both become someone’s personal bitch in prison. This shit is way past living in the Twilight Zone, it’s more like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . . . except there are two of them flying over it.
I continue to gape openly at Trent as he rakes his hands through his hair.
“At first, it was to monitor you after you tried to kill yourself. Even though I wanted to be by your side the entire time, there was no way Tina was going to let me. When I first found a pulse after you tried to kill yourself, I picked you up and cradled you in my arms, until she came in and saw me on the floor. When I told her we needed to get you some help, she wanted me to just finish you off. I threatened to fucking kill her if she didn’t get someone to help you.”
A shadow crosses his face.
“I don’t know if she was stunned that I had finally manned up to her or if she finally realized that I truly cared about you. I have watched you for so long now. I knew your daily routine, right down to the exact time you would leave for work, to what day you would go to the grocery store. I know everything about you. And after being with you, touching you, all the while in my mind I truly wished you were really mine. The thought of being without you destroyed me. That’s why I installed them. It was my way of being close to you.”
There’s a long pause as he searches my expression. I sit there in a daze of confusion. I don’t remember any of this. What I do know is that his confession is disturbing. Deep down, a part of me is essentially relieved knowing he has been keeping an eye on me. But seriously, his obsession with me has to stop.
Suddenly, Trent’s voice breaks into my thoughts with another revelation.
“She called Caleb.”
I nearly fall out of my seat in shock.
“Caleb? As in her ex-husband, Caleb?” I ask incredulously, my voice rising in spite of my determination to keep my composure.
Trent grabs my hand and leads me out into the hallway, softly closing the door behind me.
“You need to calm down before you wake her up.”
I jerk my hand out of his.
“Since when do you care if she wakes up or not?”
“Clove, just shut your mouth and listen to me. Jesus! You are so stubborn.”
“Fine. Continue.”
I want this over with as soon as possible, so I can get back in there and process all of this.
“To answer your question, yes, Caleb, her ex. He’s a doctor. He’s the one who saved your life, helped us stabilize you, and brought you here.”
I start to pace the hallway back and forth a few times. Finally, I stop a few feet away from him and rest my back up against the wall opposite him.
“So, tell me. How does Caleb play into all of this?”
I wait for his answer, losing my patience rapidly.
“Well, like I said, he’s a doctor. A doctor who doesn’t like to keep his dick in his pants, apparently. Tina threatened to expose him and all of his infidelities if he didn’t cooperate with her. He’s a very prestigious surgeon. He values his career. He went along with everything she wanted.” He shrugs.
“Jesus Christ.” I rub my temples, feeling a severe headache forming.
“He’s the one who gave you all the drugs to keep me incoherent during my pregnancy, isn’t he? Oh, my God. Journey! Did those drugs do anything to her? Oh, God, no. Please, God, no.”
I begin to cry, my legs giving out as I slump down to the floor.
“What the fuck?” Trent is right in front of me, his hands stroking my clammy arms.
“Do you know what drugs he gave me?” I plead, panic-stricken.
“I don’t.”
“Journey!” is all I manage to get out of my mouth before he has me cradled in his arms.
“Look at me, please?”
I really don’t want to have him holding me and consoling me, but he’s all I have right now, so I take comfort in his arms and look into his wet eyes. He’s crying too; but why?
“Clove, listen to me. He promised that whatever he was giving you for both your pain and your memory was not going to harm her. The minute we found out you were pregnant, she made him promise. I know you don’t believe a word I’m saying, but I truly believe both of them. I may be a lot of things, but this I can promise you, a baby killer I am not. If at any time I thought they were doing anything to harm you or Journey while she was growing inside of you, I swear I would have put a stop to it. If you have faith in anything, you have to be certain of that.”
God I want to, I really do. But I can’t trust him. I never have, and I never will.