I walked with him the short distance to my front door, coffee cup still in my hands and watched him open the door and turn back around to face me.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I find out anything new.”
I nodded with a smile.
“Send me all the pictures you can get so I can start the insurance claim,” I added, and he gave me a captain’s salute before I closed the door, attached the security chain and returned to my kitchen to refill my coffee cup.
I may already be on my fourth cup, but I didn’t think there enough coffee in the world to help me deal with today.
As my espresso pod machine whirred to life, I stared at the miniature liquor bottles on the shelf above it but quickly dismissed the idea of turning my coffee Irish. I wasn’t one to abuse alcohol when things got tough and I wasn’t about to start now.
I added a spoon of sugar to my cup then carried it to the window where I stood for a moment watching the sky, which had turned a shade of cool gray as if sensing my mood. It even looked like it was going to rain. I breathed in and out and closed my eyes, steadying my emotions and my body. Feeling overwhelmed by dread and exhaustion wouldn’t fix anything.
Propping the window open slightly helped a bunch as the chilly fall air whooshed in and caressed my skin with a numbing cold that reached down to my very core.
“What am I going to do?” I sighed, my voice the steadiest it had ever been when asking myself the same question over the years.
My precious truck was gone, burned to ash, and Victor has found me. Those two simple statements should be enough to make me break down in tears, but I wasn’t going to let them fall. Not now. Not yet. I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.
My head throbbed threatening to give me a headache, my mind’s way of telling me to act, to go, to run away, get away from that man and every dreg of memory of him that had resurfaced in the past week since I caught wind of him. But my heart, it was a stubborn bitch. It refused to let him win again. Not when Mayberry Holm had become something I hadn’t had in a very long time: a home. But how could I stay after everything he put me through? How could I stay when he’d taken my dream business from me? How could I stay when I knew for a fact he’d be coming back for more?
“Enough,” I muttered and shut the window, having every intention of returning to the living room when I saw something outside.
Something that gave me chills even though there was no longer a breeze in the apartment.
Dark short hair, dark shades, dark clothes. Victor. It was him. There was no denying it. He was there, outside my apartment block, leaning against a wall, smoking. And what was worse, he was looking up at me.
I stepped back so fast I knocked myself against my dining table and the coffee spilled out my mug, wetting the floor in front of me, but I didn’t care. I put the cup down and ran to the door. Had I chained it shut? Had I locked it? I needed to check. Fuck.
He’s found me.
He found me at home.
I wasn’t safe here. Not anymore. I wasn’t safe.
I needed to go.
I needed to pack.
Yeah. Pack.
Pack up everything and go and hope to God I can run far away enough this time that I never had to see his face ever again as long as I lived and breathed.
I turned the key in my front door twice then took the key out and put it on the table next to the entrance then ran to my bedroom and opened my closet.
Too much stuff. I’d gathered too much. I’d gotten lax. I’d gotten too comfortable. Hence why my closet was full to the brim. I couldn’t make that mistake again. I couldn’t. For now, I’d have to make some sacrifices. Just pack what I could carry and leave everything behind. Maybe when I was far enough I could contact Teddy to ask him to donate the rest or something.
I was out of breath before I’d even opened the gym bag, but I couldn’t let that deter me.
No matter how my hands shook I put clothes inside, whatever I could fit. Whatever was light enough. I’d have to wear mythickest coat even though it wasn’t that cold yet because how the hell did I know when I’d get a chance to stop and regroup again?
“Fuck!”
I need to book a ferry ticket.
Shit.
What if he got on the same boat as me? What if he followed me to the port? What if he got to me before I’d even gotten the chance to taste freedom again?
