“I’m trying to leave this relationship with both of our dignity intact, Blake. Could you try to do the same and not be a dick during our last ten minutes together? We have things we need to discuss and separate.”
“You see,darling fiancé, that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve said it before, and it seems that thick head of yours is so full of animal shit you didn’t understand the full meaning behind it.” Blake tosses a manila folder at my feet, dozens of photographs spilling out. My heart drops into the pit of my stomach, bile lurching forward.
Photo after photo of me and Rhys. Us at the shelter, standing much too close for it to be appropriate, us in my office, standing between his legs with his face in my hands, me in his truck, our first kiss—taken through the window of my living room, and more from inside, as if there are cameras in here I didn’t know about. These only happened two days ago.
“You’re having me followed? Who the fuck does that, Blake? Why would you do that?”
Blake whirls on me, his persona changing like a light switch being flicked on. The man standing in front of me isn’t the man I agreed to marry, the man I thought I loved at one point. Rage is palpable in the air, and for the first time since I met him, I’m afraid.
“Because I’m not going to have my future wife being a loose whore and fucking around on me with a piece of shit biker!” he screams, making me flinch and stumble back a few steps like he actually struck me.
“I never touched him like that! He’s just a friend!” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. Rhys is far from just a friend, but he isn’t the reason I’m leaving Blake.
“That’s not what it looks like from these photos, now, does it, Bristol? It looks like I’m engaged to a fucking whore! You expect me to believe you haven’t let him fuck your cunt? Look at the way you’re kissing him!”
“We kissed! It was one time, and it was after I decided to leave you! I’ve been done with this relationship for a long time, and you know it! I don’t need to explain myself to you! This is unhinged; this is fucking psychotic!”
I can’t believe what I’m looking at. Who does this? Who has cameras installed in their home without telling their partner? Who has someone stalked and followed? I’ve been privileged enough to never feel the true meaning of being violated before, until this very moment. I need to get far away from him, and I need a restraining order. I need out, now.
“I don’t believe you, Bristol, and I don’t care to! You don’t like me calling you my slut, but you have no problem behaving like a filthy whore for that pieceof shit?”
His words slash hard and deep, nearly taking the air from my lungs. I’ve never been spoken to like this in my life, and I can’t reconcile the words coming from the man I thought I knew. My hands shake uncontrollably as I struggle to suck air into my lungs.
“Fuck you, Blake! We’re done, you’re insane!” I turn to leave, but just as I reach the threshold, his hands close around my arm, jerking me back into his hard chest.
“You’re not going anywhere; do you understand me? You’re staying right fucking here. We’re going to get through this, we’re getting married, and you’re going to be the pretty little housewife who gives me lots of babies to come home to. You’ll realize your true happiness is at home. Where you belong.”
“Get your hands off me, Blake, or I swear to god.” He jerks my arm hard enough to leave bruises, pulling me further into his space as he grabs a fistful of my hair, dragging me back over to his desk. I scream, my fingers digging into his hands to free myself of his hold. His face is seething, a side of him I’ve never seen before. True fear slams into me for the first time in my life, and all I can think about is getting out and getting far away from him.
“Or what, Bristol? Are you going to call your boyfriend? Call Kira? Your parents? No one would fucking believe you! I’m untouchable. The men, the organization I work for? Untouchable. If you even try to leave me, I’ll have him killed. I’ll have your pathetic little shelter burned to the ground with all those filthy animals inside. Everything you love and hold dear will suffer because of your selfish decisions.” I gasp at his words, my heart rate pounding so hard the noise floods my ears. I feel unsteady on my feet, the worldspinning around me.
“Yo-you aren’t serious.”
“But I am,” he seethes, spilling the contents of a second folder onto his desk. It’s of Rhys, traveling alone in his truck, on his motorcycle with other bikers, in an industrial-looking kitchen, mid-punch to a man tied to a chair with other bikers behind him. Oh god. I squint my eyes closed, not wanting to see any of this. Incriminating photo after photo. My heart breaks, terrified of what the hell is happening, how any of this is possible.
“You know nothing about what I’m involved in. I can make it happen with a simple text message, a request they’d be glad to honor. His club is already going to meet its end. They fucked with the wrong people. Try me, I dare you. I’d love nothing more than to see that piece of shit’s brains blown out all over a wall.” Tears flow freely down my face as I gasp for needed air, my hands clutching my chest. The world starts to close in, the edges of my vision darkening.
“Oh, are you sad, Bristol?” he mocks. “Did you really think I’d let you leave me? I told you, you stupid whore. You’re mine, whether you want to be or not!” Blake’s expression takes on a more sinister feature, his eyes narrowing, the pupils darkening as he looks over my face, dipping low to my heaving chest. “You know what? Why don’t I remind you of that? He’s fucking tainted what’s mine, and it’s time I reclaim it.”
Blake shoves me hard against the desk, fighting to get me bent over, wrenching one of my arms hard behind my back, as he moves to unbuckle his belt. I can feel the hard outline of his dick against my ass, and the need to vomit comes on fast. He’s fucking hard. This is turning him on. I try to scramble away from him, kicking and screaming, when his cell phone rings.
He leans his body over mine, covering my mouth with his hand so forcefully that I almost puke. “Don’t say a fucking word, or I’ll make sure you regret it.” He quickly snatches it out of his pocket, huffing. “Hello? Yeah, let me call you right back. My future wife needs me for a moment. Of course, two minutes.” Who knew that his ignoring me for work would one day be the thing that saves me? Blake grabs my bicep, dragging me toward our bedroom as I try like hell to stop it. He shoves me inside, my feet tripping up, causing me to fall to the floor with a thud. He uses my position to his advantage, kicking me in the stomach. I immediately curl into a ball as I gasp for air, pain like I’ve never felt before spreading outward like wildfire.
“We’re done with this conversation. I meant what I said. You see him again, you tell him to stay away because he makes you uncomfortable. Think of something, we both know what a good liar you are, but don’t you dare give him a reason to think something’s wrong. If he comes sniffing around, Bristol, I mean what I said, I’ll make you watch as your precious shelter burns to nothing but ash and bone, then I’ll have him killed, and I’ll paste the fucking pictures all over the goddamn house, so you’re forced to know you’re the reason he’s dead. If you hadn’t been such a little slut, this wouldn’t have happened. We would have been so happy. But don’t worry, darling fiancé, you’ll learn to listen.”
Blake slams the door behind him, just as my stomach turns. I use the rest of my strength to race to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet as I violently purge the contents of my stomach. My throat and nose burn as I cry, retching over and over again until there’s nothing left, my stomach and ribs screaming in pain.
Fear coils tight in my stomach, a knot ready to snap. In the span of ten minutes, my entire life was turned inside out, and I don’t know how it’ll ever be the same again.
Chapter Twenty-One
RHYS
“Fuck, you’re so gorgeous, look at this sexy body,” I whisper, my voice deep and heavy with lust. Bristol lies sprawled out in front of me on my bed, her naked body on full display for me to worship. My eyes take their time to trace over every inch of her beautiful, sweet face, her heavy breasts, the fullness of her belly, her wide hips and thick thighs, all the way down to her sexy red-painted toes.
Her skin is smooth under my touch as I rub my hand up each leg from ankle to thigh, squeezing into the meaty flesh.
“I love your hands, Rhys. Please don’t stop,” she moans as her hands cup her large breasts, twisting and tweaking the nipples as she arches her pelvis upward.
