34

34

STACEY

“Stop fucking fighting me!”

I kick his shin as I try to get away from him, slapping his face and managing to headbutt him in the nose. Instead of pulling me by my wrist or arm, Chris gets a fistful of my hair and hauls me to my feet while backing us further into the forest – we can see more cars driving up to the house.

Possibly a second wave. They’ll hunt for me.

We get halfway through the forest next to Barry’s house before he chucks me onto the ground and pulls a bag from under a bush. He unzips it and grabs a rope, before ordering me to press my ankles and wrists together.

When he advances on me, I kick him in the face, hard enough to hear a crack, and try to run.

But it’s a lost cause. Chris is athletic and fast, so I only get a few steps before I’m tackled to the ground, his bloody nose dripping on my cheek as he backhands me, splitting the corner of my lip. I’m quickly bound and thrown over his shoulder for the rest of the walk.

His hands are still covered in blood. I have no idea what he did with it, but he was in Eva’s room while I packed.

I wriggle on his shoulder, elbowing the back of his head, but when he grabs my ass cheek, I go freeze. He chuckles and returns his hand to the back of my thighs. “So easily controlled. If you aren’t nice to me, I won’t be nice to you.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“And you don’t know the meaning of behaving, so why don’t you start doing it and stop pissing me off?”

My head shakes. “I hate you.”

My form is sliding down his body, and Chris pushes hair from my face when we reach the car – I guess stolen, with fake registration plates. He smiles at me as if I’m going to smile back and tells me that we’ve got a long drive ahead of us.

“Where are we going?” I ask as he shoves me into the car.

He gets into the driver’s seat and slams the door. “I have a friend who stays upstate. We’ll change there and fly from the airport nearby. I picked up your fake passport. We’re going back to Scotland, to stay at the lodge. We can hide there until we know their next move – they’ll never expect us to go somewhere so obvious. Just now, they’re looking for us at—” He checks his phone. “Well, Bernadette and your ex are together in a hotel room screwing, but the rest are at the coast.”

My eyes snap to him. “What?”

“You didn’t know they were fucking?”

“They’re not,” I snap, tugging my hands, needing the ropes off my wrists. “He wouldn’t sleep with a monster like her.”

Chris chews his lip, clicks on something on his phone then, his eyes still on the road, shows me the screen.

My blood runs cold, and I quickly look away. My eyes burn as I try to rid the image of them from my head.

“See?” Chris says, adding to the building scream. “He fucks her. He also fucks the daughter, from what I’ve witnessed.”

“Shut up,” I reply, a tear sliding down my cheek. “Just… shut up.”

Kade can do what he wants – we aren’t together. But I can’t believe for a second he’s willingly doing that. Or do they pay him to sleep with them?

I feel sick. Cassie is beautiful. She might be the daughter of a monster, but she’s drop-dead gorgeous. Kade would need to be blind to think otherwise.

The idea of sleeping with someone who isn’t Kade makes my skin crawl. The most contact I’ve had with anyone else is when I fell asleep on Tobias’s shoulder. And even then, he nudged me with annoyance and told me to stop drooling on his shirt.

Half an hour into the dreaded journey, I try to pull at the ropes, but I hiss as they cut into my flesh again. Skin raw and burning from my struggles, I give up and allow my tense body to sag in the passenger seat of the car.

My side smacks into the door as he swerves a corner, giving the middle finger to someone who honked their horn at him.

Chris seems to have road rage along with that ugly, tormenting, morbid fucking personality of his. I could also say he’s more of a psychopath than Tobias, but having their names in the same sentence and comparing them feels like a crime.

Tobias would be offended, to say the least.

Plus, he hasn’t driven a car in over twenty years, so maybe he doesn’t even remember how to. Come to think of it, I’m missing movie night with him, so he’s probably pacing the room and calling me every name under the sun in his very deep American accent.

When I get away from Chris – because I will – I’ll give him the puppy-dog eyes as an apology. They always work. Then he’ll hug me and talk to me about a book he read the night before, before commenting on how I need better sleep and food in my system.

The father I always wanted, needed and will keep forever, regardless of my position with his son.

However, I’ll never hear the end of missing a visit. I’ll probably have it carved into my tombstone.

“Your hair smells nice. I meant to mention it earlier. You know, before you hit me.”

I grit my teeth, clenching my fists as Chris taps his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the red light to change. There’s no point in me trying to run; I already did. The doors are locked, and only he can unlock them. And even if I did get out, my ankles are also bound together. I’m sure the skin is raw there too.

He really is a prick.

I glare at Chris. “I hate you.”

The corner of his mouth curls. “You said that already.”

He sighs and slouches in the seat, the red lights still glowing on his demonic, ugly, fucking annoying face. “You’ve been quite busy spending dirty money, haven’t you? If you needed cash, I would have given you endless amounts. You didn’t need to go fuck Kade Mitchell for it.”

“Don’t say his name,” I snap, turning my head to stare out the window. “You took everything from me, so you do not say his name.”

“You didn’t have anything to take,” he replies and pulls into the traffic as the lights turn green. “You were – are – mine, not his. So, technically, he tried to take everything from me and failed miserably. Was the baby his? I never got round to asking.”

“She was a girl and I was sixteen weeks pregnant. And you killed her.”

He laughs. “I saved you the hassle of raising a child so young. Really, Stacey, what were you thinking? Mum wouldn’t have ever stood for it. She would have told you to get an abortion. I just made it easier for you.”

“I hope Kade crushes your skull when he finds you.”

“So it was his.” Chris chuckles. “Would you still want him if he’s fucking everything with a pulse into next Sunday?”

I roll my eyes, even though a hint of hurt hits me. “Stop talking to me.”

“I wonder if he has any living children,” he says thoughtfully. “I should look into that.”

When I don’t grace him with a response, he keeps talking, zooming in and out of speeding traffic.

“I hacked their system and found Bernadette Sawyer’s plan. She’s been hunting you for months; that’s how I knew where you were and what you were doing.” His head turns to me. “Oh, yeah, while I remember. Please tell me you aren’t fucking the dad?”

“No,” I retort.

“Are you sure? Did he manipulate you into bed like he did Dr Aria Miller? Does he know about us?”

I huff and ignore him. There is no us, the psycho.

“That little girl you were living with – I thought she was his; that he managed to knock you up again. I was going to smother her in her sleep… Until I saw her with her real mother. Lucky, I was minutes from eliminating her from the equation with a quick snap of the neck.”

I feel myself pale. He’s not a monster – he’s the monster.

“I think I’d feel more comfortable with Bernadette.”

“Don’t be idiotic. Bernadette Sawyer was going to kill you,” he continues, tutting when someone cuts him off on the road. “I couldn’t have that. She was hunting for me and was going to use you as a bargaining chip, so now that I have you, we’re going to be the most-wanted pair in her books. How exciting?”

He’s insane. “And why would I be a bargaining chip to get to you?”

He smiles like he’s just been presented with The Biggest Asshole of the Year award. “I have a lot of incriminating evidence against her and her husband, and she wanted to trade it all for the video she found in my files when I first tried to hack them. I said no obviously.”

“What video?”

He gives me a look. “Over two hours of wank-bank material.” Then he frowns. “But I’m not too fond of watching others fuck you anymore. Especially that fucking brother. I shouldn’t have done any of it. That entire night was a blur, in my defence.”

I glare at him. “Is that your version of an apology for letting people gang-rape me?”

“I was also a participant, or did you forget?”

When I just look at him, my heart breathing heavily in my chest, he laughs. “You were a little out of it by the time I got to you. I’ll remind you soon.”

I snarl. “You’re not getting anywhere near me.”

“But you need to be taught a lesson, baby.”

“I’m not your baby.”

“No, you’re just mine. Now shut up, I like this song,” he says as “Feel So Close” by Calvin Harris plays on the radio.

I close my eyes and beg for someone to crash into the car and put me out of my misery as he turns onto an interstate. Maybe I’ll chew off my tongue and choke on my own blood, hold my breath until I pass out, or make sure my next bridge jump is successful.

I flinch as he lands his palm on my legs. “Let go.” A demand – an order I spit out through my teeth. “Now.”

“Admit one thing to me,” he says, licking his lips. “Who was a better shag? Me or Jason McElroy?”

“I’d rather stub my toe than think about that. Plus, if you remember rightly, you drugged me and I was unaware you even touched me, never mind violated me yourself with your pathetic excuse of a dick.”

I dig my nails into his hand, making him swerve the car. I don’t let go as I break the skin, blood gathering around my fingertips. He tries to pull his hand away, but I dig deeper.

“You’re a sick rapist who killed my daughter, and if you think for a second I’ll ever forgive you and play into this fantasy life where we’re together, you’ve got another think coming. I am not attracted to you, and I never will be. I think you’re ugly, with a personality to match. I will never love you.”

For good measure, I punctuate the last five words by digging my nails in even deeper and throwing his hand off my knee.

He flexes his hand in front of his face. “You’ve made me mad,” is all he says.

“The truth hurts, you psychotic dickhead.”

I’m allowing my mouth and rage to take over. After all, what else can possibly go wrong?

Bloody crescents decorate his hand, and I feel a touch pleased with my handiwork as he sucks the droplets and stays extremely quiet. I wait for a punch or a slap, maybe my head smashing into the car window, but he indicates left and drives on as if he didn’t hear my words.

After a few minutes, I groan. “Can you cut these ropes?”

“No,” he says, not looking at me.

“They’re hurting me,” I say, raising my hands to show him the raw, tender skin. “And extremely unnecessary. Where the fuck am I going to go? You jammed the lock and stole my shoes.”

Chris shakes his head once, emotionless, as if he’s trying to zone out and imagine I’m not here. He leans his elbow on the door and rests the side of his head on his fist, the other hand tight on the steering wheel.

I huff and slouch back in my seat again.