Page 134 of Stone

Looking down into his eyes, blue but with a gold ring already forming around the edges, I swore I’d love my boy forever. See, I may have lost Elise, but I gained Xander, then later, Gage, and Kit. Love had many forms, and my kids were the purest ones. A few years later, God also blessed us with a daughter, Freya, my princess, and from the second she was born, a fire sparked to life inside my belly.

I remember holding my girl safe in my arms and walking her outside in the warm evening. It was a whole different love than I had for the boys. The protectiveness I hadn’t felt for anybody since Elise roared to life, and a soft voice I still dreamed of floated through my mind.

What decent woman would want to be a part of that hellhole? What decent woman would step foot inside those gates? What decent woman would raise a child, a daughter, amongst those demons?I wouldn’t let my dog live there, let alone a daughter. The only honorable person left is Iris and mark my words. It won’t take long for them to chew her up and spit her out.

My blood ran cold, ice filling my veins. I wasn’t a fearful man, but at that moment, I was terrified because years before, Elise’s prediction had come true.

Terrible, evil, demonic shit had gone down. Dad eventually gave up the gavel, and I became prez, but with that piece of carved, smooth wood came grave danger.

Years before, something life-destroying happened to the heartbeat of our club, back when Adele was pregnant with my middle boy, Gage.

And just like Elise said, Iris got chewed up and spat out until she was never the same again.

I needed to protect my Freya from the same, and I vowed I’d shield her from my lifestyle, even if it meant one day sending her away.

My baby girl would be clean and decent.

My baby girl would be more.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Elise ~ Eighteen Months Later

One week after John got married, Robert gave me free rein to leave the house. Maybe he thought there wasn’t a threat, now that John had a bride, and he held my baby as leverage.

He was wrong.

All the months he’d confined me to the house had given me nothing but time. I spent it watching, listening, learning, and planning. Getting the lay of the house, knowing where the creaks in the floorboards were, and all the blind spots became my obsession.

I knew one day there’d be a catalyst, a point where I needed to escape, so I learned my surroundings. Robert shouldn’t have left me to my own devices so often. I watched Julia Roberts inSleeping with the Enemy,and an idea was born.

Okay, so I didn’t have a mentor who could teach me self-defense, but I did have a gym I used twice a day to build my strength. The World Wide Web had begun to take off. Of course, Robert needed to have all the new gadgets as a status symbol, and so he installed computers in our home. I found some videos that gave fighting and boxing instructions.

I was probably still way out of my league, but I learned to pack a punch.

A lot had changed in the last year, except my heartbreak, that bitch never left me. Then, one day, Robert came home and took great pleasure in telling me John had gotten married and his wife was pregnant.

My beaten, shredded soul died that day.

Hope had kept me alive. Hope had got me out of bed in the mornings, and hope had kept me putting one foot in front of the other on the days I wanted to die.

But hope left me, and I didn’t get out of bed for a month. Robert brought a private nurse into the house and put me on a drip, so I didn’t die, but it wasn’t because he cared about me. It transpired his father was retiring, and Robert wanted to take his place as mayor. A dead wife would lose him votes, though personally, I thought at least he could command the pity vote.

The only thing that stopped me from taking a hundred pills was my Constance.

Her daddy may have given up on me, and me on him, but I would never give up on her.

Robert drip-fed me the occasional photograph, enough to keep me compliant. My daughter was beautiful, and in the pictures, she laughed and smiled and played, so I had to be grateful for that.

Constance looked just like John. She had dark hair and golden eyes, but her sweet face also contained a hint of me, especially around her eyes. She had a mole just below her bottom lip, a little larger than mine, a trait passed down from my mother’s side of the family. I also saw Connie in her, and that made me happy.

Robert began to get a little complacent—though he had me right where he wanted me, so why not? To help his election campaign, he arranged for me to volunteer at Baines Memorial.

Also, soon after we were married, Robert had begun to force himself on me—not often—but still, being at the hospital meant I had access to contraception. The thought of having a baby with him made me ill. I may have let my John down in lots of ways, but I was determined the only child I ever had would be by him.

For months, I’d tried to think of ways to get a coded message to John without being detected. Robert told me he had somebody in the clubhouse, so I couldn’t stroll in and demand a meeting. It was harder than I thought. My car was tracked, and Robert had given me a cell phone, which he called frequently to pinpoint my whereabouts, but I didn’t know if he’d planted a bug in it, so I only ever used it to pick up calls from him.

The fact was, I was still a prisoner. My cage was just bigger.

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