Page 95 of Empowered
“Remember when I told you that I was pregnant?” Sarah’s fingers wrapped around the handle of his wheelchair. Didn’t take long to turn off the break and spin the monster around. The wheelchair was such high quality that it didn’t make a single sound, even though Sarah had been far from gentle. “Remember when you told me to come up for some drinks?” Her voice dropped to a hideous whisper as she braced her hands near his and kept her teeth only a few inches away from his wrinkled nose. “Remember when you drugged me and made your old bodyguard give me the ol’ Miscarriage Special? Huh? Do you remember?”
His expression did not change. Of course it didn’t. It couldn’t. This man had a team of male and female nurses who bathed him, fed him, changed his fucking diaper and moved him around the house based on where they felt like sticking him. The only agency he had was throughblink once for yes and twice for no!
He blinked once.
Sarah’s grip on his hand rests intensified. The expression beneath her plainly read,“Do whatever you want. Kill me, for all I care.”
How easy would it be? To smother this man until he could no longer breathe? To slit his throat with her pocketknife? To put a bullet in his head, like he hired someone to put a bullet in Alice Monroe’s head the moment he heard she was pregnant? This man hired a freak to light his ex-wife on fire because she dared to seek custody of her son.
Nobody would miss him. Natsuko might be pissed she didn’t have the chance to marry him yet, but nobody wouldmisshim. Not even Damon Monroe. Sarah was one of the few who had a front row seat to that dying illusion.
“I only want to ask you one thing, Russell.” No, she wasn’t going to ask himwhy.She knew why. That was a waste of her one question she got to ask before the bodyguard peeked in and saw the volatile situation unfolding. While nobody would miss Russell, they would likewise not be pleased to deal with a murder. “Were you there when he did that to me? Or were you such a coward you left the room while your goon beat the shit out of me and killed our son?”
He didn’t blink at all.
Sarah shoved his chair back with a frustrated grunt. Russell rolled back a few inches before coming to a sudden stop.Stupid fucking expensive wheelchairs.The automatic break must have kicked in. Why? Was it too much to ask for his chair to simply tip over and cave his head in? Better than he deserved, honestly.
“Fuck you, Russell.”
She had managed to contain her anger since leaving her apartment. Channeling that anger through Angel meant she could act how she pleased without the unfortunate repercussions. Now, though? She couldn’t take it anymore. Here she stood, facing the man who had effectively ruined her life and taken away the one thing she hadn’t even known she wanted until it was too late.I didn’t have the chance to let it sink in that I was having a baby. I didn’t have the chance to pick out a name.Baby Boy Clayborn would forever be remembered as such. Sometimes Sarah thought about picking a name all this time later, but what was the point? It wouldn’t bring him back. It wouldn’t send her back in time, when she could go into hiding and hope Russell never came looking for her as long as she left him alone.
Giving a name to him wouldn’t do anything other than rip open the wounds again.
But they were opening right now!
“You fucking monster.” Sarah turned away, hives rippling across her skin – or at least threatening to. Anger manifested until she could barely function. Trembling, incredible anger that this was her life, these were the choices she had made, and now?
What the fuck was there to do about them?
She ruined lives, like Russell Monroe ruined lives. Sarah couldn’t ride any high horses when she had sex tapes out there of her unknowingly sleeping with husbands and breaking apart well-to-do families. Her mother was ashamed of her. Elizabeth would never say it out loud, but Sarah could tell from the way her mother regarded her with tense looks and careful words.
The Monroes thought she was a degenerate. One they couldn’t fire because they had already shown her so much pity for what this shitstain of a patriarch had done to her.
Lucas…
God, Lucas would suffer the most. Sarah’s carelessness meant her beloved Lucas, the man she couldn’t even bring herself to say she loved, would lose custody of his son forever.
Sarah would take the brunt of the blame. She had, after all, created Angel. She had made decisions she would never be able to revoke. She had doomed her physical and mental health to an endless cycle of self-flagellation, because blaming herself was easier than facing this broken man and realizing that they both were as powerless now.
How was anything but death justice?
You killed my son. You should die too.Sarah wasn’t even thinking of his ex-wife, the woman who took his beatings until she gave birth to a son doomed to such a short life that his birth certificate was barely dry before they had to create a death certificate to follow. She didn’t think of that same woman desperately trying to yank her other son away from a terrible father who might turn him into a spitting-image of hate and prejudices – only to suffer a horrible punishment that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
She was only thinking of herself.
“If I could,” she spat in his face, “I would choke you right here, right now. I would put a bullet between your eyes. I would beat the fucking shit out of you so you can feel the misery I still feel to this day. I’d light you on fire so you know the same horrors your first wife did.”
His pupils grew in size. Beyond that, however, there was no way to gauge his reactions.
“You should feel it, you fucking bastard.” Sarah pulled out her pocketknife. With one boot on his armrest, she unfolded her knife and held the blade to Russell Monroe’s pale cheek. “You should feel that same terror and pain we all felt.”
The horrorIfelt!
Nobody would be able to save her from it. Nigel couldn’t make back-alley deals to protect his sister. Elizabeth couldn’t pull her connections and scrounge together money from her well-off family and pay someone to leave her alone, or make problems go away. The Monroes couldn’t show enough pity to change her life. Lucas? He couldn’t ruin his life for her, a woman he met at a sex club when she was on a self-destructive kick.
Empowered… I thought it would make me empowered if the choices were in my hands.
She only had herself to rely on. Only Sarah could take the power back and stand up for herself.
