Page 143 of Delicate Escape

That push-pull, along with the manic feeling of the words themselves, had my heart beating faster. My palms dampened as I tried to grip the wheel tighter and attempted to stay in the here and now. “You want to help Shep?”

“I’m helping everyone. We’ll all be better off with you gone. You ruin good men. You ruineverything.”

My mouth went dry as memories slammed into me.“You ruineverything. You tear people’s lives apart, and you don’t even care.”The words echoed in my mind, the image of Brendan, bleary-eyed as he started to slur, right before he shattered a glass against the wall. The memory of how I’d curled into a ball on the bathroom floor and wished for it all to be over. The pain. The anxiety. Everything.

“Watch it!” Raina yelled, jabbing me with the gun again and hitting the tender spot she’d already abused.

I’d let the car drift into the lane for oncoming traffic on the road leading up to the Monarch Mountains. Thankfully, no one was opposite us, and I quickly righted my vehicle. I blinked, trying to clear my stinging eyes, along with the memories.

I adjusted my hold on the wheel, my gaze flicking up to the rearview mirror. Raina’s face filled it, but beyond that, I saw Deputy Allen’s squad car. He was close. I just had to find a way to give him a chance to help. Maybe I could crash my car?

The feeling of the gun’s barrel against my side told me that was a very bad idea. Raina’s finger was on the trigger. If we made any sort of impact, she’d likely shoot me for sure.

“What do you want?” I rasped.

Raina’s hazel eyes flashed a molten gold. It wasn’t the kind I found in Shep’s amber gaze; it was pure anger. Rage. Her grip on the gun tightened. “I told you. I want you gone.” She let out a shuddering breath. “I tried to warn you to leave, tostop, but you just wouldn’t listen. I slashed your tires, sent that photo, destroyed your stupid little greenhouse. But you’re too dumb to hear me!”

“Why?” It was the most simplistic of questions, but I didn’t understand Raina’s motives. I’d always been kind to her.

Those eyes flashed again. “You think I don’t know you’re trying to steal my husband? That you’re trying to break up our marriage? That you’re making him hurt me?”

Each sentence was a blow that had me spinning one way and then the other. They didn’t entirely make sense either.

“Raina, I don’t want Russ to hurt you. I want you to get away from him.”

She moved so fast I didn’t have a prayer of blocking the blow.She reared back the hand with the gun and clocked me in the side of my head. Spots danced in front of my vision as the car veered to the side, making Raina grip the seat to stay upright.

“You bitch!” she snarled. “All you want is for me to hurt. You tempt Russ. Tempt him to stray. He told me what happened at the bar. That you came on to him, touched him. And then played the victim. He was so mad when he came home.”

My stomach roiled. I didn’t want to hear what’d happened next because I knew it would be bad.

“He threw me into a wall so hard it knocked me out. Could barely move the next day. All because of you.”

My breaths came in quick pants, each inhale making my lungs burn where Raina had hit me with the gun. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

She grabbed the back of my hair so hard I saw stars. “You’re not. You’re a whore. Just like the rest of them. You try to fool everyone into thinking you’re so innocent and perfect. But you’re not. They’re going to see. Going to see it all now.”

Panic flared brighter.

“Turn right. The road up the mountain,” Raina ordered.

“No,” I whispered.

I couldn’t. Following her orders would only bring bad things. The worst of them.

Raina gripped my hair harder, shaking me. “You will listen to me. You will obey.”

“No.” It was all I could do. Quiet resistance.

Her other hand moved, and a deafening crack sounded next to my ear. The driver’s side window shattered, sending glass everywhere. I jerked the wheel to the side, nearly sending us down an embankment.

“The next one goes into your kneecap if you don’t listen.”

The lights on Allen’s squad car lit up as the siren pierced the air.

Raina swung around to look at it and then back to me. “Look what you did. You’re going to pay for that, too. All your failings.” She shook my head. “Turn the car, or I will kill you here and now.”

Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes—ones of frustration and fear. Because I didn’t know what to do. Listen or resist?

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