Page 3 of Bella's Dom (The Doms of Madison County)

Bella wanted to say she had to because no one else was, but she didn’t want to push him further. She knew her brother had always been lazy, but as time passed, he became more violent, leaving several bruises on her body from hitting, kicking, or throwing something at her. He also never used to talk to her like he was.

“What’s happened to you?” she whispered. “Where the hell did my brother go?”

He grunted. “Stop being dramatic,” he growled.

She tried to push him away, but it was impossible. “Let me go.”

“You don’t tell me what to do, bitch. You do what I tell you to do.”

The situation was getting out of control. Hell, her life was out of control, and she didn’t see a way out unless she fled. She’d been saving up for months, but it was taking longer than she thought.

Her own eyes narrowed. “Don’t push me too far.”

“Or what?” he asked with a smirk.

“I’ll call the cops and have you thrown out.”

He laughed. “I’m technically a tenant, so you have to go through the courts to get me thrown out or evicted. It takes months.”

She knew she didn’t have months.

She cried out when Randy yanked her purse from her shoulder.

“What are you doing? Give me that back.”

He pushed her away when she reached for it before dumping the contents of her purse on the floor. It scattered everywhere.

“I need money,” he said, going through the pile on the floor. “If you had brought home beer like I told you to, this wouldn’t be happening.”

She continued to fight to get her purse until he pushed her hard, making her fall and her forehead bash against the corner of the table. Blood immediately started gushing out. She pressed her hands over the gash but could feel the blood flow between her fingers, wetting her face and sliding down her neck.

“Fucking cunt. You can’t do anything right,” Randy said. He looked down on her with his hands full of her money and a hideous sneer on his face.

He turned to his friends. “Let’s get out of here. She’s got a few hundred, so we can party.”

The other men stood. Two of them were laughing as they looked down at her, and another looked angry about the situation but didn’t do anything.

Her brother kicked her one more time on the hip, making her cry out as they walked out of the apartment. She tried to stand, but the blood covering her face, the exhaustion, and the pain radiating through her made it nearly impossible. After a struggle, she finally got to her feet and walked into the bathroom.

The first look she got of herself made her angry. How did she let this happen? She grabbed a cloth and pressed it to the gash on her head, where the blood still seeped out. It wasn’t a big cut, but it was swollen and bleeding, and of course, a head wound will always bleed more.

It took five minutes to stop the blood, and then she stripped off her clothing, threw her shirt away because of all the blood, and stepped into the shower. She hadn’t wanted to wash her hair, but there was quite a bit of blood on it, so she had to.

After she scrubbed her body and hair quickly, she checked the wound to see it started to bleed a bit, so she pressed on it until it stopped again and then put on a Band-Aid. The kick he’d given her in the ribs was already starting to bruise. Her whole body was covered with them, and it was all because of her brother.

She blow-dried her hair and slipped into a pair of old gym shorts and a t-shirt. She didn’t glance at the bloodstained carpet as she passed on her way to pick up her purse and a glass of water.

Bella closed and locked her bedroom door. She never felt safe in her home because of all the people her brother brought with him. None of them looked like decent human beings.

Bella put the things she picked up on her mattress before opening the zippered compartment inside. It was partially hidden, so it was hard to see if you didn’t know it was there.

She pulled out the money she’d made at her different jobs. She always kept some in her wallet because her brother would look for it, and she learned from experience that if there was nothing there, he’d come down on her.

She also kept two different boxes of saved money. The one her brother could find had several hundred, while the one she had hidden under the floorboard held the thousands she’d saved. She divided up the money and put a hundred in the box her brother could find and the other in her hidden safe.

When she opened the closet door, she knew her brother had been in it because her clothing was messed up. Her heart felt like it would beat out of her chest as she looked to see if he’d gotten into her hidden safe. The floorboards looked fine, so she went into the box she kept at the back on the closet shelf. She wasn’t surprised that it was empty, but she was still devastated her brother could do this to her.

She set the ghost money in it and found another place to hide it so Randy didn’t get suspicious, which he would if she kept putting the box back where she knew he’d found it.

---