“Okay, sweetheart,” Chappy said. He was disappointed, but if she needed more time, he’d give it to her. Because she’d finally confirmed that there was something going on in her life that wasn’t good. And she’d said she’d share with him. He just needed to be patient.
“Thank you. Riggs?”
“Yeah, honey?”
“Please don’t hurt me. I don’t think I could handle it. Not after everything else.”
“I won’t. Not physically, mentally, or emotionally. I promise.”
She sighed, then shifted so she was even closer. Her arms came out from between them, and she pushed one behind his back. The other went to the nape of his neck, where she caressed the hair there.
Goose bumps rose on his arms at her touch. This woman could break him, but he somehow knew she wouldn’t. She’d treat him with care, just as he’d treat her. He’d slay all her dragons, simply for the right to end each day exactly like this. With her in his arms, warm and trusting.
Clothes went flying across the room as they were flung out of dresser drawers. Next, the dresses and shirts hanging in Carlise’s closet were ripped off their hangers.
“Where are you, bitch? Where are you?”
Each word was accompanied by the thrust of a knife as Carlise’s clothes and bedding were slashed over and over again in frustration and rage.
Every nook and cranny in the apartment had been searched. All the mail opened, the papers in Carlise’s desk rifled through . . . and yet there was still no sign of where the cunt had gone! She’d truly up and disappeared without a trace.
Panting with exertion, the intruder stood in the middle of Carlise’s bedroom and stared at the dozens of ripped shirts and panties, broken pictures and knickknacks, mind racing to figure out what to do next. How to figure out where she might have gone.
This was unacceptable! Carlise obviously assumed leaving would make everything go away, but she was wrong. Dead wrong. When her location was discovered, she’d pay for vanishing without a word. Pay for getting that fucking restraining order. Pay for everything!
Then—a thought occurred.
Her mother.
Of course! She was the key.
Carlise had to have told her mom where she was going or, at the very least, called her by now. Her mother would know exactly where she went. And she’d spill the beans, especially if a little . . . persuasion was used to coax out the information. The old loser was weak. Just like her daughter.
The intruder smirked and headed for the front door of the apartment, ignoring all the destruction left behind.
“I’m gonna find you, bitch. And when I do, you’ll regret all the lies . . . all the pain you’ve caused. Mark my damn words.”
Chapter Ten
Thirty-six hours had passed since Riggs’s admission about the cameras, and Carlise was more than surprised that she wasn’t bothered by knowing he was taping every single thing they did or said inside the cabin.
If it had been Tommy, she would’ve completely freaked. It would’ve felt like a huge invasion of privacy, and she wouldn’t have been able to trust he’d keep the footage to himself. But since she and Riggs were together every minute of every day, both being filmed at all times—not to mention the important fact that she trusted him in a way she could never trust her ex—she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Another surprise in the last day and a half—Baxter had taken to being an inside dog super easily. It confirmed Carlise’s thought that he’d once been someone’s pet. He hadn’t had an accident in the house and even went to the door and scratched at it, letting her and Riggs know he wanted to go outside. He didn’t get close enough to be petted, preferring his spot near the fire in his blankets, but Carlise was confident that with time, he’d relax even more. He kept his gaze on them no matter where they went in the cabin, always on alert.
Carlise and Riggs had slept together almost every night since she’d arrived, and she had never felt safer or more content. When she and Tommy slept together, she was always tense. On alert, and therefore never fully able to rest.
She should’ve left him long before she did. She’d stayed partly because she was ashamed that she’d somehow found herself in the kind of relationship she swore she’d never get into after growing up in an abusive household. But also because she’d made excuses for him for so long. He worked too hard, he was stressed out, was worried about providing for her . . .
She’d kept what was happening from Susie and especially from her mom, not wanting them to worry. But when Tommy had finally gone from merely cruel or threatening to shoving her so hard she’d hit that counter and hurt herself, she’d finally opened her eyes.