Page 121 of Jax

The backboard of the pens slammed up against my spine, startling the breath from my lungs. I hadn’t even noticed I had been moving farther and farther away from him. “Please… no. Leave me alone,”I whispered, the boards rubbing up against my back as my legs slid beneath me. My side throbbed with a distant pain, one that robbed me of my strength, but felt numb and crippling under the emotional pain consuming my every thought.

“Did you think you were free?” He loosened his bolo with a thin hand that hadn’t seen a day of work in his life. “Did you think you could live a happy life out here? Withhim?”

“Jax…,” I whispered, the word like a bucket of cold water dousing over me.

Jax! He can help me. If I call him, he’ll come for sure! If only I could get to my phone or—

“He’s not coming,” Jacob interrupted.

My face spun toward him without hesitation this time. My eyes, for the first time, seeing his deep black irises, the unending cold radiating from them like a grip around my throat. But beyond that, his words rested on my heart.

“What have you done to him?” I lunged forward.

Surprised, Jacob dodged back, taking a clear step away from me as I righted myself to my feet. “If you’ve done something to him, Jacob, I sw—”

“Here I thought I’d tamed you well. But only a few months with him, and you’ve already reverted back to that wild, uncouth personality.” Jacob sneered, raking his eyes up and down me. “I had to admit, I had thought you’d just climbed onto the saddle of one of those biker retards, but I was surprised when I saw a familiar face. No matter how many years have passed, you still go running to him like a starving dog to meat.”

“Jaco—”

“DO NOT TALK BACK TO ME!” he roared, and my body swallowed down in instinct. I made myself as small as possible, and even Max had gone deathly quiet within her confines.

“You came begging at my feet like a worthless animal to let you protect the horses and the farm. That you’d give your everything to me. Even if it meant becoming my wife.” His feet paced back and forth around the barn, hay being kicked up around him. “What a poor excuse of wife you were. You were supposed to serve me at every moment. You were to do only what I told you. And you were to produce me an heir.” He shook his head. “You couldn’t even do the one thing of worth on that pathetic man-body of yours.”

“I—”

“You have turned out to be nothing but a whore in the end, after all,” he growled. “You were my wife, but the second you smelled his scent, you were already opening your legs. Why must Jackson have everything of mine?”

“The farm, the praise, the girls.” Jacob sneered. “I thought even if I could take one of his possessions away, that it’d be enough.” He took a step into my space, his leg fitting between mine. My hands shoved out, but I was too weak to budge him. He pressed against me harder until I was ground between the wall and his wide body.

“Jacob—”

“Fuckin’ whore,” His hands wound up around my neck, pinning me in place.

My hands snapped to his thick wrists, wanting to break free but not having the strength to do so. Even though he never worked on a farm, he worked at a fancy gym and kept his body fit for the sake of having all the praise that a man with a six-pack could have at thirty.

And just like that, with such falsified strength, he overwhelmed me in an instant.

“Jacob!” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Let me go!”

“If only you had died that night. Then I wouldn’t have had to chase you around like this. I could have been a grieving man and remarried under the stupid eyes of the church. Instead I had to face the gossip and rumors of an unfaithful wife leaving me for another man. I became pathetic in the eyes of every man, woman, and child I saw!” His grip tightened. Black dots danced around the edges of my vision and I could hear the faint whinnies and cries of Max growing more distant.

“But it’s fine.”

His grip released, and I slammed hard into the floor, my limp weak body panting in an effort to breathe. My throat burned like razor blades, the walls of my chest like they were collapsing in on top of me.

“You did that on purpose…,” I wheezed. “All because I couldn’t bear you a child?”

“It was the one thing you should have been useful for.” He turned and looked down on me, the shadow over his face unable to hide the piercing glare weighing down on top of me. “The one thing I could take away from Jackson.”

All of this… everything he put me… all the pressure for a child… just to get back at Jax…?

“When will your obsession with him end?”I wanted to cry, but the noise barely came out as a cracked whisper.

“Today,” he answered, simple and content. The calmness in his voice had my breath stopping. “Because today is both his and your last day.”

He reached down to me, and despite my attempt to resist, it was barely enough to swat him away as his thick paw of a hand came around my wrist and dragged me to my feet.

Max gave a shrieking whiney, but it wasn’t enough to deter Jacob as he all but dragged me across the barn floor.

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