That was what was important here.
If I hadn’t left, Dillon would not have stopped. He would have left Austin a bloody, dead pulp on the pavement. It had been bad enough, witnessing Dillon fuck him up, but dead? No, I couldn’t even fathom that.
We were in a nondescript pickup truck that I was sure he’d stolen. Adding grand theft auto to his record was nothing. I’d seen him jack a car he needed for the business. He never got caught. Not before I’d ratted him out at least.
And, if it wasn’t stolen, then he’d really gone to extreme lengths in setting up this Evan personality. That was even more terrifying. The premeditation. He’d planned this all out. Weaseled his way into my life and Austin’s life and Lubbock life so seamlessly. Instead of approaching me as soon as he’d gotten here, he’d subsumed himself into a whole new identity.
“Where are we going?” I asked, picking gravel out of my arm with a wince.
“Your apartment.”
I startled. “Why?”
“Got to pack up your shit. I know you want that jacket.”
I held back my shudder at the violation. In his twisted mind, he probably didn’t even think that he had done anything wrong. I was his. And that was all that mattered. It was all that had ever mattered to him. Not how I felt or what I wanted. Only his desires and obsessions. I just happened to be the person who had gotten stuck in the middle of his insanity.
So, I needed to tread very carefully around him. He thought I wanted to be here. I’d left freely. And I needed him to think that was the truth.
“I love that jacket.”
“I know,” he said.
We pulled up to my apartment. He hopped out first and met me on the other side. “Come on. Let’s make this quick.”
I nodded and then hurried for the front door. Okay, I could do this. I could figure out a way around this. A stop at my apartment meant that I had a chance to escape this. A chance to get away. I needed to focus on that now. I’d saved Austin. No one was coming to save me. I had to save myself. As always.
Dillon grabbed my purse before I could dig through it, and he removed my keys. I longingly looked at my purse for a second before turning away. My phone was in that purse. He had to know that I wanted it. Maybe he even guessed I’d been planning to call the cops.
He slid the key into the lock and opened each of them individually. Not that they had done me much good in the end. Nothing had kept Dillon out of my life.
He snagged my wrist hard enough that bones ground together. I was careful not to cry out. He hated that, and it set him off. Most things did. Then, he tugged me inside and closed and locked the door behind us.
“Nice flowers,” he said, grinning at the lilies he’d sent me, still on the counter.
I hadn’t been home since I realized they weren’t from Austin.
“Do you know how long I’ve been thinking about this moment?”
“No,” I whispered, stepping back once.
“Years. But planning? I’ve been planning for months. I had to find you first, of course. Changing your name?” He laughed, but it held only madness. “Changing your name was smart. It made my game a little harder. But I found you. I thought, when you dumped that first guy, that it was our time. I knew it was coming to that, so I snuck over and took your jacket. I thought I’d surprise you. But then…then it didn’t go as planned. You started with the alcoholic.”
“Dillon,” I pleaded. I knew he liked to hear himself talk. The mastermind behind all of his plots. But I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t want to know how he’d infiltrated my life so easily.
“Right. Packing.”
He turned to face me, and I swallowed. The full weight of his attention was never a good place to be.
“Come here.”
I took a step forward, toward him. His blue eyes critically assessed me. He gently slipped my red hair off my shoulders. I tensed. When he was gentle, I knew it was going to be worse. Much worse. He grabbed my hair at the bottom and then wound it around his hand until it was in a tight fist.
“You could never be with anyone else but me, Jules.”
“I know,” I said hoarsely.
His grip on my hair tightened, angling my head backward so that I stared up at him.
“Ever.”
“Yes.”
Harder. I felt some of the hair pulling from the roots. Tears came to my eyes. He was hurting me. All that time I’d spent learning to protect myself, and still, he was hurting me.
“Don’t forget it again,” he said.
“I won’t,” I gasped out.
Then, he smiled a chilling smile and firmly pressed his lips against mine. I knew resisting him would only mean something bad for me, and he already had the control. Swallowing back the bile rising in my throat, I opened my lips to him. He kissed me with the ferocity that came from a three-year absence. I felt nothing. Not a thing in his lips. Once, he’d been my world. I would have given anything for any kind of reaction from him.