If I can just get to my purse on the counter.
It’s in sight when he circles my waist from behind and lifts me off the ground. My arms windmill and I flail, kicking at his legs, a dervish of flying, fighting limbs. He hurls me to the floor. I skid across the linoleum and land in front of the sink. I’m scrambling to my knees when he grabs a fistful of my hair and rams my head into the cabinet.
I haven’t felt this kind of pain in a long time, but you never forget it—the hurt that blossoms from one single spot and infects your whole body. The room tilts, and blood runs into my eyes.
“Caleb, please.” I force my tongue to move. “I can explain.”
“Explain!” he screams, squatting so his breath blows over my face. “Can you explain why you fucked him, Iris?”
Oh, God.
He wipes the blood from my face tenderly but then grips my jaw in one large hand until I’m afraid it will crack.
“And you gave my daughter to him,” he hisses.
“No, I—”
The back of his hand sends my head swiveling on my neck, a flower on a fragile stem. The swelling has already started. My forehead and my cheek throb to the familiar beat of my racing pulse. He touches my thigh, just below August’s shirt. I scuttle away from his touch, but he drags me back by my ankle, quickly pinning me to the floor and planting himself between my thighs. He gathers my wrists in one large hand.
“I’ve missed you, Iris.” He breathes the words into my neck, his dick pressing through my panties. I squirm my hips, trying to dislodge him.
“No. Caleb.” My breath heaves with fruitless exertion. “Don’t.”
“Is that what you say to West?” he screams in my ear. “Do you say don’t to West, Iris?”
“Mommy!” Sarai’s voice reaches us from behind the locked bedroom door.
“It’s okay, baby,” I call back, fighting the tears that would make her more anxious. “We’re playing a game, okay? Mommy will be there soon.”
“Is that what you think?” he asks. “That we’ll just go back to business as usual? After this?”
“If you get help,” I say in as reasonable a tone as I can manage with a man determined to take me by force, “you can see her. You can be part of her life. You may get back on the Stingers. Your dad’ll come around. There’s no telling what your father can accomplish.”
“And you’d come home?” he asks, his eyes almost sad, his mouth a wistful line drawn through the middle of his madness.
What do I say?
“Maybe,” I lie. “If you get the help you need, we could see, Caleb.”
His grip on my wrist relaxes just a little, just enough. I pounce. I shove him with all my strength. His bulk shifts. I surge to my feet and dive for my purse on the counter. It’s barely out of reach when he catches me, pressing my stomach painfully into the counter’s sharp edge.
“I’m done talking,” he rasps into my hair. One hand loosens his belt while his thickly muscled arm circles me, pinning my arms to my sides. His hand fumbles under my shirt, and I hear my panties rip.
“No!” I screech and struggle and fight with every ounce of resistance I have.
Sobs shake my shoulders, and my head droops forward helplessly. He’s nudging, hard and aroused, when he shifts and tries to get in. I wiggle one arm loose just enough for me to turn, and the edge of the counter digs into my back. I slap at his head and punch wildly. His fingers, thick and long and strong, manacle my neck, squeezing mercilessly, not budging even when I claw at them, desperate for air. My vision darkens and the stars come out, bright pins of light penetrating the velvet blanket falling over my eyes. With the last of my consciousness, I stretch to my purse, drag it toward me. I pull out MiMi’s jeweled knife. Angling down, I thrust blindly, sinking the blade into flesh.
He howls, jumping back to grab his leg gushing blood. I stumble past him out of the kitchen, gasping for breath, massaging my throat, tripping across the floor. If I can just get him outside, away from Sarai.
I’m almost at the front door when a sound fires behind me. Pain explodes in my shoulder with atomic force, sending me to my knees. I clutch my shoulder, blood running through my fingers.
He shot me.
In all those months he held me against my will with that gun, he never actually shot me.
He means to kill me.
“It’s useless to run, Iris.” He drags his injured leg behind him and over to the wall where I slump, so disoriented with pain, I can barely move.
