I couldn’t find Dre. Thinking she might need help with a zipper or something I ascended the stairs two at a time but when I threw open the door of Max’s room I didn’t find her there. What I did find was her makeup case scattered around the floor, the dresser turned over on its side, and blood splattered across her white wedding gown which was crumpled in the center of the room.
“Dude, what the fuck is taking you guys so long? You got all night to fuck. I’ve got a toast all prepared and I’m gonna bring up some shit you haven’t even thought of since we were little punks running the streets...” Bear’s voice trailed off as he surveyed the room. “Fuck, I’ll go get King.” He took off down the stairs.
I ran behind him to search the place for Dre, but in my gut I knew she was already gone.
An eerie sense of controlled calm washed over me. There was no time to be angry. No time to be worried.
There was only time for revenge.
The rest I’d worry about when my wife was home safe, and the blood of whoever took her was dripping down my hands.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dre
We all have pasts.
Some good. Some bad.
For the longest time, my problem had been trying to keep the past behind me where it belonged. But when your past was pocked with scars, much like my arms were, it was hard to forget what I’d been through.
What I’d done.
But that’s the funny thing about pasts. No matter how far you think you are ahead, it’s always there, nipping at your heels, clawing its way forward until it is in your face, baring its teeth and you’re unable to ignore it.
As cheesy as it may sound, the thing that finally chased the past back where it belonged, was love.
The notion of romantic love was something I’d always thought belonging to prior and much older generations of people. My parents had it. So did my grandparents. But I believed it was something that had faded with time, each generation less and less capable of the kind of love found in romance novels.
Until Preppy.
Because of him I knew love wasn’t a myth because suddenly my heart felt so full it was going to break. Love wasn’t just a notion. Our love was practically tangible. I felt it moving around between us. A zing. A connection tethering us together even when I thought he was dead.
Preppy’s love wasn’t ‘romantic’. It was beautifully painful. It was the storming-the-castle, take-no-prisoners kind of love and I never wanted to escape from it.
From him.
I didn’t think I had any room left inside my heart but when Bo came along he taught me about an entirely different kind of love. One I thought I was never going to be able to experience.
The kind of love between mother and child.
Just when I thought we were beginning, it was all being taken away.
I was being taken away.
Again.
I’d been blindfolded. A sizzling pain continuously shot from the base of my spine, shocking me every thirty seconds or so. It caused my back muscles to spasm and go ramrod straight as if I’d been poked with a branding iron.
There would be no popping of the emergency latch this time. No escaping. I couldn’t feel my legs or arms. Couldn’t move.
Couldn’t scream.
Paralyzed in both fear and body.
Suddenly, I was ripped from the familiar trunk of the car I’d been shoved into by someone reeking of overly musky cologne. My adrenaline spiked and my heart started to beat a thousand miles a minute, sending alarms ringing throughout my body.
Alarms I couldn’t answer.
Unable to put up a fight, I was dragged until unceremoniously dropped. My head clanked against the hard floor, yet I still felt nothing.
Nothing but fear.
My blindfold fell down to the bridge of my nose. That was the very moment I knew I’d been wrong about finally leaving the past where it belonged because it wasn’t behind me at all. It was standing over me, glaring down at me, a sly grin on its cleanly shaven face.
East?
At first I didn’t understand. What reason would East have to want to hurt me. But then he cocked his head to the side and his grin turned upward into a full cruel smile. The smile was full of newer whiter teeth but there was no doubt in my mind that I’d seen that smile before.
Up close.
While he was raping me.
Recognition came barreling into me as he started to laugh. The same laugh that haunted my sleep night after night. The same laugh that filled the air the first time he ripped through my virginity while Conner held me down.
He ran a finger down my cheek, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t get away.
I was right. East, the realtor, had no reason to hurt me.
Eric did.
“And here I was afraid you wouldn’t remember me,” Eric said, clapping his hands together proudly. “I know I look a lot different now. It’s amazing what getting clean, body and soul can do for your appearance.”
Shit.
If I didn’t see my arms and hands with my own two eyes I wouldn’t have known they were still connected to my body because I couldn’t feel them. I couldn’t feel anything besides the shooting pain in my spine that left me seeing stars.
“I clean up good don’t I, Dre?” Eric asked, gesturing to his white button-down shirt and crisp pressed black dress pants. He lowered his voice to a suggestive tone, eyeing me up and down. “Not as good as you clean up, of course. I knew a little meat on your bones would do this ass good,” he said, a slapping sound echoed through the room and I was grateful I couldn’t feel his hand on my body. “I’ve been sober now for nearly three years.”
My jaw began to tingle. “Wha...why?” I managed to ask with a slur, my tongue hanging heavy and useless in my mouth. Unable to lift my neck, my lips moved against the dirty floor. Drool pooled out of the corner of my mouth.
“Oh good, you can talk again. This would be so dull if I couldn’t hear you scream.” Eric crouched down in front of me. His expensive gold watch gleamed as he smoothed a fallen strand of hair back over his head into his slicked-back do. “Why, you ask? Because I wasn’t done with you.”
“Noooo,” I said. My toes began to tingle and I hoped with everything I had that it was a sign my body was coming back to life. “What did you give me?” I groaned.
“You like that, huh? I had to make sure you couldn’t jump from the car this time, although kudos to you because I thought I’d planned for everything but you jumping from a moving car while tied in the trunk was not on that list. The drugs in your system are my own concoction. A little Ketamine, a little Chloroform. I shot that shit right into your spine too. You really can learn anything from YouTube,” Eric said proudly. “It’ll wear off in an hour or so, until then, we’re gonna have a little fun. Just like old times.” He giggled, covering his mouth with his fingers like a schoolgirl caught talking during class.