CHAPTER TWENTY Mad Bell

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mad Bell

"Hold the fuck on!" I yelled as my doorbell went off for a third time, and now it was followed by a very heavy knock. That was one surefire way to set me off.

I was pissed that someone was bothering me. Work was less than an hour away and I'd been going over in my head all the things I was going to say to Maisy. She didn't deserve to think she was just a one night stand, and I was prepared to lay it all out there, even beg if I had to.

Despite telling myself for days now that I wasn't good for her, I couldn't seem to shake her from my thoughts. It was time to man the fuck up and tell her it wasn't just one night for me. It was more, and I wanted to see where this could go if she was willing to give me a chance.

Part of me felt like a fuckin' chump, but the other part— the part I was listening to— told me I needed to go for it. I had to put it all out there or I'd never know. Maybe Maisy saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. Maybe it was time to let someone in who would be as good to me as I would be to them. Hell, maybe it was time I just let everything go and opened myself up again.

All I knew, I'd never have answers if I didn't put myself out there.

My boots pounded over the hardwood of the floor in the hall.

"I fuckin' hear you!" I yelled as I got to the front of the house. Who the fuck was pounding on my door like a jackass? It was a good thing this house came on a decent-sized lot and my neighbors probably only faintly heard the ruckus. The last thing I needed was one of them getting their panties in a bunch and calling the damn cops.

I pulled the door open with a scowl on my face that would tell whoever was there to fuck right the hell off.

Shock took over my features.

I stood there frozen for… a long fuckin' time.

In front of me stood a damn ghost from my past.

My heart stopped.

Fuckin' stopped.

"Hey, Joe."

Her voice was a slap to the face. Same went for her fuckin' presence gracing my goddamn doorstep after all this time.

I sucked in a deep breath. The shock slipped from my face as the scowl took over once again, and this time, it was going to stay there.

"Rhonda," I said curtly.

She looked the same, and she didn't. I hated everything about the vision in front of me— the person in front of me. I wasn't sure which version of her I'd get, and I wasn't looking to find out. Only, I had a feeling that Fate wasn't giving me a fuckin' choice in the matter.

Fuckin' Fate. What the hell are you thinking?

"Long time no see, huh?" She sounded sweet. The smile she was flashing me was even sweeter. I was gonna need a trip to the dentist if this shit kept up. The thing was, I knew her too well to trust whatever kind of act she had going on right now.

"Don't be cute with me," I said gruffly. I dropped the death grip I had on the doorknob and cross my arms over my chest. With my feet planted wide, there was no way she was going to miss what my body language was saying. She wasn't gettin' inside. "The fuck are you doing here?"

"Thought it was about time to see my husband," she said. The lines around her eyes were tight. The hard life she lived showed on her face and it had doubled in the last six years since I'd seen her.

"The fuck you goin' on about?"

She held up her hand.

My eyes caught on the rock I'd once put there. It wasn't all that big, but it was the biggest thing I could afford when I'd given it to her. Fuck, we were just kids then. Wasn't like moppin' floors and workin' the counter at the local butcher in a small town would have gotten me anywhere. It was a wonder I could even afford that small thing.

I let myself get trapped in the past and almost missed the thin solid band that accompanied the engagement ring.

I never gave that to her.

Never went from engaged to married either.

That was something I sure as hell would have remembered.

She was never my wife, and I sure as hell was never her husband.

"We're married," she said as she took a step closer and slapped something against my chest. It nearly fell to the floor when I refused to grab it and she decided she was tired of holding it there. As I played grab-at while the folded-up sheet of paper danced through the air like a leaf in fall, Rhonda slipped past me and into the house. Into my house. My sanctuary that didn't have a damn thing to do with her.

Blood pumped in my ears as I unfolded the paper.

A marriage certificate.

A certificate of marriage .

Completed. Signed. Dated. The whole thing. There were even two witnesses, and I didn't have to try and decrypt the scribble of one of them to know that was my brother's name.

I lifted my gaze from the paper and checked my surroundings, half expecting some other crazy, life-altering surprise to pop up. Like… was she also hiding a kid I didn't know about?

Fuck.

That would have been the icing on this shit pile of a cake.

Luckily, the area was clear, except for my neighbor who was walking his corgi and staring at me like I'd lost my marbles.

I sent a tight smile and tried to wave. I wasn't a complete dick sometimes. This was also the neighborhood I lived in and I wasn't looking to move anytime soon. I didn't want to piss off the people who I had to share a street with, even if I didn't ever talk to them.

After he waved back, I quickly closed myself— and Rhonda— inside. No one needed to see what was about to go down. Hell, I didn't want to see it. Didn't want to know about it. Didn't want to have no damn part in it.

Where the hell did she go?

I stomped down the hall and found her in the living room, sitting on my couch like she belonged there.

Everything felt tainted already and she hadn't even been here five minutes.

I grunted, refusing to step into the room. If I kept the threshold between us then maybe I'd have the patience to deal with whatever this shit show was about to be.

"How'd you manage this?" I asked, waving the paper in the air. It had an official stamp and everything. Shit was as real as it could get. I also needed to know why she'd done it, but we'd get there. With Rhonda, it was better to take it one step at a time, and watch where you stepped because there would always be huge cracks.

"The right way. The legal way."

She crossed her legs and relaxed further on the couch. Her jeans were tight, but it was good to see that she had a little weight on her for once. Too many times…

I shook my head. I didn't need to go back there. Didn't need to get sucked into the tornado of Rhonda. I told myself that she looked well, so that had to mean she was healthy… at least for now.

"You remember that night your bother and his friends came over?" She pointedly raised a brow.

"The night I somehow got so drunk that I was out for the most of the next day?" That night never sat right with me. Funny how it wasn't long until—

"Yeah, that's the one." She smiled unapologetically. "Well, it was my idea, but your brother helped me out. Dusty knew you'd had a bad week and that you'd be down for drinking. Didn't take much. Three beers in and you didn't even stop to taste what you were tossing back."

I did remember that week. I'd been so tired of everything. Tired of fighting with Rhonda. Tired of trying to hold everyone up. Tired of my dead-end fuckin' job that made me miserable.

Tired of watching my dreams get watered down with piss then flushed down the shitter.

I'd had it that night. Been completely done with it all. I had been so close to breaking up with Rhonda, with my fiancée of over four years, with my on-and-off girlfriend of nearly ten years. Tired of the promises and lies. Tired of letting it eat away at me. I'd been so close to packing up and leaving.

But I didn't. Call it too stupid or too loyal, I had no clue. I stayed. I took my moment that night to let off some steam and reset. Something I rarely did.

"Did you drug me?" I asked point blank.

"No." She blinked at me. "I didn't have to."

Well, then that shit was on me.

"Bass was there—"

"You're supplier? You invited—" I seethed, only to have her ignore me and keep going.

"And he'd gotten ordained online. He really came through for me." She smiled sardonically as if she knew exactly all the ways what she was saying pissed me off.

I bit my tongue to hold back the retort about how her fuckin' dealer always seemed to come through for her and I was always the one cleaning up after.

"You married me when I was so intoxicated I don't even remember it? Who does that?!"

"Look," she said, dropping the act. "It's real. Deal with it. And I know I left—"

"Without a word. No call. No note. It's been six fuckin' years, Rhonda. Hell, I moved across the state to get away from all that shit. How much clearer do you need me to say I've moved on?"

"But have you?" She wrinkled her nose as she looked around the room. "There is hardly a woman's touch here. I bet you're lonely." She rose and sauntered over to me, swaying her hips in a way that once drove me wild, but now, I felt nothing. Not a damn thing. Well, maybe rage. I took a huge step back once she reached me. A clear message I wasn't playing her game. "I can be everything you need. We can be us again."

"Cut the shit," I stared at her coldly. "Why are you really here?"

"Fine," she said as her eyes turned dead. A look I knew too well. One I never wanted to see again. "I have nowhere to go. I need your help. You are my husband, after all. You can't just abandon me."

"What, I can't take a page from your book? Where the fuck have you been for the last six years?"

She averted her eyes. That stung more than I should have allowed it to. I knew the answer was going to piss me off.

"I don't have an answer you want to hear," she muttered as she turned her back on me.

"Get out," I said, tone cold and deadly.

My mind went wild. The same thoughts I had back when she left me were resurfacing. For a while, I'd hoped she'd checked herself into rehab. But it only took a few phone calls and a couple of weeks to realize that wasn't the case. Then I'd gone down the damn rabbit hole, imaging she was out there with her dealer, letting him do whatever he wanted to her. Using her in ways no one deserve to be used. Or she was living it up bouncing from place to place, finding someone new to support her habit, taking them for all they had before moving on. That was what I'd figured back then.

"I'm not going anywhere." She turned back to face me. "And if you call the cops…" Her eyes instantly filled with crocodile tears as she lifted her shirt to show several black and blue patches covering her stomach. My gut clenched. No matter how much I hated her, I never wished for her to go through a beating like that. "I'll tell them that you hurt me and I don't feel safe with you in our house."

My body was strung tight as I stared at the bruises.

"Did your dealer do that?" I asked. My fist clenched at my sides. "Someone else? Who, Rhonda? What the fuck kinda shit are you tangled up in now?"

"Does it matter?" She shrugged, seeming unaffected by it all.

My stomach turned. What the hell had happened to the girl I met in high school? The one with bright ideas and dreams of a simple future? There wasn't even a piece of her behind those dead eyes. Had I played a part of her destruction? Where did I go wrong? I tried, I had. I got her the help she needed every time she fell into that hole again. I was by her side even when she was puking all over me because the withdrawals were so bad.

Shit. It looked like I wasn't going to make it to work. I sure as hell wasn't leaving her alone in my house. I didn't have much, but I knew I'd come home to nothing at all if I walked out that door. Besides, I had to get to the bottom of this.

I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Roadkill saying I needed him to cover the kitchen. I gave nothing away because it was my shit to handle.

First thing first, I needed to figure out how the hell to deal with the fact that I had been married for six years and didn't have one single clue I was. There had to be a way out of this marriage. I wasn't going to let her use this against me.

Then I needed to figure out a way to get her out of my life for good.