Page 39 of Abduction
I was going to kill them. I had never been so angry before in my entire life. I could hardly see straight. And yes, I knew I was hardly better, given what I had done with Josh, but still, this was on another level.
I grabbed the bracelet from the box and slid it over my wrist, not caring anymore if Aaron asked about it. Let him. I would tell him it had been given to me by a man who genuinely wanted the best for me, as opposed to someone like him who was willing to string me along for as long as it took. Was he intending for this to carry on after we got married? His little affair running long into our lives together? Did he really think I would never find out?
This bracelet was meant to be a reminder I was worth more than what Josh was giving me, and I needed to believe it more than ever in that moment. I didn’t deserve to have the two people who were supposed to be looking out for me fucking around behind my back, while they both told me I was insane for believing something was wrong.
I remembered the way I’d felt when Josh had locked it around my wrist, the way he had looked at me, as though I was genuinely the most important and precious thing he had ever seen in his entire life. I wanted to feel like that all the time. I wanted someone who thought of me the way I deserved, not someone who saw me as a status symbol with nothing else going for me. Someone who couldn’t even be bothered to cheat on me with someone discreet, instead of my own best friend.
Aaron had never loved me. If he had, he would never have done it. I was going to make sure he knew he wasn’t going to treat me like this for another moment. This pig was going to pay.
Just as I was about to throw open the bedroom door and storm toward him, I heard something downstairs. Breaking glass? I froze on the spot. Oh, shit. Oh shit, this was bad.
Aaron abruptly ended the call, and I heard his footsteps rushing down the stairs to the point the noise had come from. What was this? What was happening? My heart was slamming against my ribcage, and I dove back toward the bed, scrambling beneath it to get my hands on the World Series baseball bat Aaron had stashed under there a long time ago. I’d never thought we would need it, had rolled my eyes when he’d put it there, but now...
Voices. Angry, raised voices. Aaron was trying to talk, but whoever was there, they were speaking over the top of him, shutting him the hell up. I could hear multiple. Who the hell was here in the middle of the night?
I checked the time. Nearly two in the morning. Nobody stopping by the house at this time was doing it because they wanted a quick chat. No, they were here for something...something worse. I didn’t know if Aaron could take them alone. And much as I hated the bastard right now, as much as I wanted him to pay for what he had done to me—I wasn’t going to let someone else get there before I did.
I tested the bat in the air a couple of times, swinging it to get a feel for how it moved. I had played softball in high school; I could take on whoever was downstairs. They might have been able to take on Aaron, but they had no idea what they were dealing with when it came to me.
I pressed my ear to the door, trying to hear exactly what was happening down there, but it was a mess of voices. Aaron’s cut through it—pleading, asking them to go away for now.
But by the sounds of it, they weren’t going anywhere. Which meant it was up to me to get rid of them. I had just found out my fiancé was cheating on me with my best friend, and the man I really wanted hadn’t spoken to me in a week. If they thought they could walk in here and fuck up what remained of my life, they had a whole other think coming.
I pushed open the door, tightened my grip on the bat, and snuck to the top of the stairs so I could get a better look at what was going on. And, when I saw who was down there with Aaron, I froze.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Josh
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“SHUT THE FUCK UP,”I snarled at Ronald, our debtor. He was pathetic, practically on his knees in front of me as he begged for me to go.
“Please, my fiancée is upstairs,” he begged me, grabbing for my arm and hanging on tight. It looked like he was going to cry.
“You should have paid us back the money we owe already if you wanted us to stay out of your life,” I reminded him, doing my best to keep my voice steady. I was so mad at him, and all the anger in my life right was threatening to pour out of me and on to this guy.
