Shattered King(15)

My breathing started coming in fast, uneven pants. His words cut me to the quick. Knowing how much I’d hurt him, it hurt me, and I was so damn sick of living in pain. I knew that he hated me. Of course I did. But hearing it . . . God, it killed me. The fact that I was still breathing was irrelevant. “So what happens next? Beating? Torture?”

He stilled, motionless for several seconds. “I may want to make you pay, but you know damn well I’d never lay a fucking finger on you, on any woman.”

I spun to face him. “You kidnapped me, cuffed me to your car, and locked me in a bathroom all night. What am I supposed to think?”

“Sweetheart, you can think whatever you want. I couldn’t give a fuck. You answer my questions, I cut you loose. Simple.”

Another stab of pain. I cut you loose. Then he’d leave, put me firmly in his past, and make a new life for himself, with someone else. Look at someone else the way he used to look at me.

“I don’t have the answers you want.”

He gripped my chin again roughly, forced me to look into his eyes. “You’re back in town, and you expect me to believe you’re not going to pay Pierce a visit? His precious little protégée?”

Oh God.

“Jesus, look at you.” He looked at me in disgust. “You’re still that cold, twisted little monster he created, aren’t you? Did you and Pierce laughed when they locked me away?” He shook his head. “Don’t even try and sit there and tell me you don’t know where that fucker is. I know you do.”

I froze, a violent shudder moving though me. “I don’t know!”

He kept that hard stare aimed on me. Waiting.

I shook my head. I didn’t know what to say. He wouldn’t believe me, anyway. I swallowed hard, close to hurling at his feet. The reality of the way he saw me, knowing that he thought it was all a lie, all of it, the love we’d had for each other . . . I couldn’t bear it. Josh’s precious face filled my mind and I turned away, staring out the window, at the morning sunlight shining in.

My mother would be awake now . . .

I jolted.

Oh God.

Had she called Pierce? Had she told him I was home?

Hunter’s eyes moved over my face. “What is it?”

I couldn’t answer.

Josh.

Pierce would find out about Josh.

There was no other way to describe what happened next. I just . . . freaked out. A switch flipped in my head, and I started to fight like a mad woman. I shot to my feet as best as I could, cuffed to a chair, and backed the heavy wood into the wall with all my strength. My body jarred painfully, but I kept at it, tugging at the cuffs around my wrists. “Let me go! Please, I have to get out of here.”

Strong arms came around me, holding me immobile. He went to work on the cuffs, releasing my raw throbbing wrists.

“Calm the fuck down.” Then he rasped against my ear, “You want to go, tell me what I want to know.”

His arms were locked around me, but the chair was gone, on its side on the floor.

“I don’t know anything!” I screamed in his face, all the fear and anger exploding from me. “I haven’t seen that asshole in three fucking years.”

Hunter shook me. “I don’t believe you.”

“Who do you think I’ve been hiding from? Why do you think I’ve lived in one dump after the next, only taking jobs that pay cash, moving all the time?” I wriggled and got some space, enough to shove at his chest. “Why?” Then I started punching and scratching, fighting as hard as I could.

I need to get to Josh before Pierce did. I needed to get to my son.

His hands came down on my waist. I was lifted off the ground then dumped on the couch. He came down on top of me, heavy legs tangling with mine, holding my hands immobile on either side of my head. “Lulu, calm the fuck down, now,” he barked in my face.

I couldn’t breathe, I was hyperventilating, his weight suffocating. “I need to call my aunt, please let me call my aunt Sara.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’ll find out. He’ll come after him.” The words were tumbling from my mouth. I was in a full panic, fear making it impossible to think clearly, to measure my words.

“Who’re you talking about?”

“Josh.” As soon as my son’s name exploded past my lips, I froze. Limbs turning to stone.

“Who’s Josh?”

I winced. Hearing Hunter say my son’s name was like a sucker-punch to the stomach. I didn’t answer.

His face twisted. “What the fuck are you talking about, Lulu?”

He moved his hips against mine, and I sucked in a breath. Oh God, he was hard.

I held his wild gaze, ignoring the way he affected me, and forced myself to calm down. “Please, let me call my aunt. Let me tell her I’m okay. She’ll be worried sick. She’ll call the cops if she doesn’t hear from me soon. Please. I’ll tell her I ran into some old friends, anything you want, but please let me call her.”