Page 83 of Make Me Whole

“I have those,” Ella said.

Aiden nodded. “Me too.”

I kissed both their foreheads. “Alright, then. You guys pick a movie while I go bake the cookies.”

They fussed with the TV as I got up and left the room. I was almost at the kitchen when a knock came from the front door. Relieved to have Molly’s calming presence and help, I jogged to the front door. That relief, however, vanished as soon as I saw my ex.

“What are you going here, Eli?” I hissed, heart pounding so hard it could be heard on the outside.

“What kind of question is that?” The SOB actually looked offended. “I’m here checking on my two favorite girls. Only God knows the trauma you and Ella have endured in this kidnapping. But you two are safe now. I took care of it.”

Anger burned so hot within me I felt like an open fire was lit on top of my head. Suddenly, Pixar’s character made a lot more sense to me.

“Kidnapping?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Are those the charges against Max?”

Eli gave me a lopsided smile. Once upon a time, that smile got me naked and pregnant in the laundry room of a random kid’s house. But I was no longer drunk and stupid, thank goodness, and his effect on me was explosive in a very different way.

“You asshole,” I grunted and punched him in the chest. “You know well enough that he didn’t kidnap us.”

The bastard looked amused by my outburst. His smile widened. “Do I? He took my wife and child from the last address I knew where to find them and moved them to a shady house under construction. It took me a long time to locate them, and when I did he took them out of town. That seems like a creep kidnapper to me.”

In another flare of anger, I punched him again. This time, his eye twitched.No good,that old voice inside my head whispered.

“If you do that again, darling, I’ll do it too.” The coldness of his voice sent a chill down my spine.

Disgusted and afraid, I forced my clenched mouth to speak. “He has a kid. An orphan. I know you’re a jerk, but don’t be a devil.”

“I’m not, darling. You are the devil.” At my confusion, he explained, “The orphan’s fate is in your hands, Skylar. I’ll be happy to call the sheriff and tell him it was all a misunderstanding as soon as you and Ella come home. But if you choose to continue defying me, your lover will stay in jail and his boy will go into the system. Maybe he’ll be lucky and stay at an orphanage or in a good foster home. Only God knows the horror stories we hear.”

I wanted to punch him again but knew better than to test his warnings. I also thought about saying he wasn't crazy enough to do that, but I swallowed back my words knowing he was crazy enough to do much worse.

Tears prickled my eyes, but letting them fall wasn't an option. This man would never see me cry again.

"We have good lawyers from Seattle now. They'll fight your claims. If it comes to that, I'll go on the stand to testify that I left town with Max of my own free will. And I'm sure that Ella will do the same. You can't win with a lie, Eli."

His face darkened in a way I was all too familiar with. He tsked his tongue. "Perhaps, but even if you get your senior lover off the hook, I'll still win."

My brows tugged as he pulled his arms from behind his back and offered me an envelope. The last time he handed me an envelope, it was filled with bad news, but I suspected this time would be even worse.

With shaking hands, I opened it and took the contents out. I felt my heart stop as I looked at the short stack of photos in my hands.

"How did you get these?" I mumbled in shock at the photographic evidence of my award-winning fuck with Max by the fire pit.

"A photographer with long lenses, but who cares. The only important thing is that, unless I'm mistaken, public indecency and this kind of vile promiscuity around children is even more frowned upon by custody judges than a small bruise on the arm. Therefore, one way or another, I get Ella."

The tears that I had refused to shed finally broke through the barrier of my will and rolled down my face. “Why are you doing this to me? You don’t love me, Eli. You probably never did. Why can’t you let me be?”

He huffed as if my words were an inconvenience. “I’ve told you already. I want to be president before I’m fifty, and getting divorced so young will tarnish my reputation. I need my family to be together.” He looked at his ridiculous flashy watch and sighed. “I have somewhere to be, so I gotta go. I expect you and Ella home by the time I wake up tomorrow or Lover-senior will stay in jail and these pictures will go into our custody case.”

With that threat hanging in the air, he turned around and walked to his car. The tears kept rolling down my face as I watched him go. As soon as he was out of sight, I fell to the ground and my silent tears turned to sobs.

Rage and despair had me in a heap. On top of being humiliated by those photographs and scared out of my mind because of Max, I now had a choice to make, and the consequences of that choice went far beyond my relationship with Max.

I knew that Max and I would never be together again no matter which option I chose. That alone was a hard reality to swallow, but it was one I could stomach knowing that if I returned to Eli, Max would be free and with Aiden again.

But Max wasn’t the only variable I had to consider. It wasn’t even the hardest because each choice required me to sacrifice one of my children.

With Eli’s influence and those pictures, it was a guarantee that by choosing to stand up to him, I would lose Ella’s custody. The thought of her living alone with him made my stomach turn and my limbs shake in terror. However, choosing to give in and go back to his home as his wife would automatically condemn the innocent life growing inside me not only to live in Eli’s hell but to never know whose child they really were.

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