Page 1 of Hell of a Mess
Prologue
Her
I’d never thought about the sound of bones when they broke or if it was even something one could hear. However, the crunch of mine as they shattered echoed in my ears while I struggled to breathe. I pled as I held my wrist, which had been bent back abnormally, when the backhanded slap across my face, followed by a hard shove, sent me falling to the pavement below. There was a throbbing in my skull where I couldn’t catch myself due to my injured wrist and my head had hit something. The impact was making it hard to think, or maybe it was the pain.
The cracking noise, however, hadn’t been from the fall, but from when the expensive Italian loafer made contact with my ribs. Drawing in oxygen became as painful as my wrist, if not more so. My head was the least of my worries.
“Arun,” a voice I thought I knew but was struggling to place called out. “That’s enough.” There was amusement in the man’stone. As if this was entertaining. “She has learned her place. Come back inside.”
Yes, please go back inside.
I watched his feet, not daring to look up at his face and meet his eyes. I hadn’t wanted to come here. My father had made me. He’d said Arun and I needed to be seen together. The engagement had been announced.
Pain seared through me, and I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure I could survive much more. Something was wrong in my chest.
“You say anything,” Arun Al-Bahrani spat angrily, and I knew he was talking to me. “I will kill you. Go back to Texas. When I want you I will call for you.”
I nodded, keeping my head down. Terror crawled up my back as my future played out in front of me. Perhaps death would be better. A hot tear streaked down my cheek. Where the beating hadn’t brought me to tears, the thought of my life and the lack of those in it who would even care if I were dead did. The last time I’d known what it felt like to be loved, I’d been six years old.
“The blonde you were fond of has been taken back to a private room,” the voice I realized was Saeed, Arun’s very close friend, said.
“Send someone to deal with this one,” Arun ordered. “But first, leave her here to remember what it feels like when she shows me disrespect. It will be a lesson that serves her well.”
“Yes, sir.”
I’d come here on a flight my father had put me on and when I landed Arun hadn’t been at the airport to get me. I had called my father who had told me to find him then hung up. Arun’s father was behind my being here. My father would rather I never leave the house. But for both our fathers, appearance was everything. It had taken me hours to find Arun and he’d ignored all my calls and text until his father had contacted him. That had been the beginning of Arun’s wrath.
The sound of footsteps as he began to walk away sent relief through me. I didn’t want to die. There might not be anyone who would mourn my exit from this earth, but I still clung to the hope that, one day, I’d know happiness. The fairy tale my mother had once told me when she tucked me into bed at night, where a prince would come along and love me, remained a dream I clung to just as I held the memories of her close.
Short, labored breaths were all I could manage. With my good arm, I slowly tried to sit up, but the agony that came with it stopped any real movement. I couldn’t stay out here like this, and I couldn’t go back to the house that had been more prison than home for the past twenty-two years. If I was going to survive, I had to find the strength to get up, walk, and keep walking until I was so far away that no one could find me. I had a jump-start on getting lost. I was in Mississippi. Not Texas, where I could be recognized.
Staying here meant Saeed would come back like Arun had ordered him, and I’d be taken wherever it was he wanted me to be. My father wouldn’t question Arun. I was part of a business deal for my father and nothing more. I’d been raised to be the perfect wife, pure, obedient. The merger my father had been orchestrating the majority of my life. Texas oil wasn’t enough for him. He’d bought all the oil land in Texas that he could and wanted the wealth that would come from a connection to the oil in Abu Dhabi. Arun was his key to that power, and he’d sell his own soul for it. His daughter was an easy price to pay.
The heavy sound of more footsteps snapped me to attention, and I sucked in a breath, wincing as I did so. Those weren’t expensive Italian loafers. The way they hit the ground wasn’t light and polished. There was an aggressiveness to it instead. One that had me moving back in search of a shadow to hide in. I should have gotten up and run when I had the chance. If breathing wasn’t so hard, I would have.
Please, God, if you’re there, don’t let that be someone Arun sent for me,I prayed silently.
A deep chuckle felt like a warm breath brushing over my skin, although it wasn’t anywhere near me. Not yet. But the sound was appealing, which made me a fool because it was masculine and I’d known nothing but pain from men. Starting with my father.
“Better be a damn good reason,” a voice drawled, causing me to shiver. “I need a goddamn break.”
“Oz said it’s a debt collection,” another male voice said.
“Why the fuck am I needed for that?”
“Hell if I know. Linc sent the order.”
“Fucker just wants to piss me off. I bet your dad wasn’t called,” the deeper voice said.
“Actually, he was.”
They were getting closer. Scanning the parking lot from where I’d been left behind a dumpster, I tried to scoot back closer to the wall so I’d be completely out of sight.
Closing my eyes, I took the deepest breath I could manage and held it before using my good hand to push my body. The stabbing pain that shot up my chest seized my lungs and a cry I was unable to stop broke free.
The footsteps stopped, and I froze. Had they heard me? Oh God. No. What would I do if they had? The men who frequented places like this were wealthy and powerful enough to be dangerous. Finding a beaten female lurking outside would anger them. It would disrupt their privacy.
I waited, listening for the men to start walking again. But they’d gone eerily silent. Maybe they’d walked the other way. A tear dropped onto my hand, and I stared down at it. My wrist was no longer recognizable. Although I hadn’t heard it break like I had my ribs, there was no doubt it was just as damaged.
