Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“No,” I said. “I want nothing from you. You can keep everything. I just want my daughter.”
“My daughter,” he corrected. “Not yours.”
He was blocking the door, my way out. I tried to stay calm because I knew if he saw a moment of fear in me, he’d lean into that even more.
I grimaced as I tried to casually walk past him. “We can talk later. I’m sure you had a long flight and—”
He gripped my wrist and shoved me against the doorframe. I yipped from the pain of my back hitting the door so hard.
“Ouch, Henry!” I murmured, trying to untwist his grip from my wrist. “Let me go.”
“You’re trying to ruin me,” he said, his brown eyes packed with hatred and fear. He smelled like whiskey, and it was becoming clear that his trip to China hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped. Now I was the one who was trying to ruin him. Now I was his enemy because he couldn’t attack those who truly let him down. He could only try to hurt me in the shadows.
“Henry. You’re tired. Please, let me go,” I whispered.
He pulled me closer to him and pressed his forehead to mine. I closed my eyes, feeling the level of danger building in my chest from his tight embrace. He rubbed his cheek against mine and brushed his mouth over my lips. “I fucking hate you,” he whispered. He said the words as if they were soaked in love, in such a passionate way. “Do you hear me, Kierra? I fucking hate you.”
I hate you, too.
I couldn’t say that, though.
Because I was certain that would make him spiral more.
He forced a kiss on me, gripping my neck, and I didn’t move. I was too nervous to do so. His kisses tasted like hatred. He kissed me like I was his greatest enemy and he was marking me with his disgusting taste.
Then he grabbed my cheeks with one hand and shoved me backward to the floor. I fell with a hard thump. He smirked down at me and shook his head. “Get up, Kierra. Stop being so weak,” he said as he chuckled.
As I went to stand up, he whipped his leg out in front of my feet, making me fall back to the floor. My heart pounded rapidly as the panic began to grow in my chest. I began to crawl toward the front of the house. His laughter as he watched me crawl made me nauseous. I wanted to just make it to the front door. To get out before he could hurt me. Before he could do something to me that couldn’t be undone.
As I made it near the kitchen, I gripped the doorframe and began to stand up. As I stood, Henry shoved me from behind, making me trip forward. My head slammed against the kitchen island, and I felt the blood begin to trickle down from my forehead. I felt dizzy, sick, embarrassed. Weak.
He kept snickering behind me.
“Get your footing, Kierra. You’re so damn embarrassing,” he hissed as he walked over to me. He grabbed my arm and began to yank me in his direction. “Let’s go up to our room to talk,” he said. “We should sit and have a heart-to-heart.”
“Please, Henry. Stop this,” I begged as tears began falling down my cheeks, mixing with the blood from my forehead.
He slapped me. Hard. Then he punched me in the face, splitting my lip open with his wedding ring. The ring I’d given to him all those years prior. Then he laughed again. “Be strong, Kierra. Stop sounding like a weak bitch.” He then dragged me by my arms toward the stairs, forcing me up each one to our bedroom.
He kept dragging me until he shoved me against our wall.
I curled up into a ball, uncertain of when his next hit might come. I covered my head as my heart began beating faster and faster, reality beginning to settle in. ’Til death do us part. He was going to kill me. He was going to kill me, and Ava would have no one. He was going to kill me, and Ava would get the message that her mother was gone. He was going to kill me, and I’d never see my daughter again.
“Please stop.” I sobbed into my hands as my body shook violently from fear of his unhinged actions. “Just leave me alone,” I begged.
I didn’t look up at him. I couldn’t. Because if I did, the joy in his eyes would terrify me even more than I already was.
He began ripping up the divorce paperwork, and he threw the pieces at me. He then picked up the vase with the dead roses I hadn’t gotten around to throwing away and dumped it over my head, soaking me and the paperwork. He bent down and cupped my face in his hand once more. “Before you even made it to court, I would drain you of every cent you had. Then I would ruin you in the courtroom, you crazy bitch. Don’t test me,” he ordered. He took a few steps back with the vase in his hand and threw it just over my head, where it hit the wall. Pieces of glass shattered all over me as my body trembled nonstop from the terrifying fact that I was stuck in a house alone with a complete madman.