Hudson was careless… probably because he didn’t think anyone would go looking for her and that played in our favor.
***
Ailani
I slowly woke up, stiff with cold, still tied and still inside his car’s trunk. I had lost track of time, so I had no idea how long I had been in the car if he had stopped for gas or was still driving away from Seattle.
I doubted he would drive me back to New York. That would take days, and he wasn’t exactly a patient man. At some point, he was going to hire a private plane to take us back to the city.
My eyes filled with tears at the thought of going back to hell, and this time he wouldn’t let me escape. This time, he would make sure I never left the house alone.
Time went by in a slow, painful way, and all I could think of was Jayden. Did he know I was missing? Did he care?
Chances were Jonathan would think I had escaped in the middle of the night, and though he would worry about it, about his painting, he wouldn’t do much to find out where I was. He didn’t even know my real name and didn’t have enough details to call the police and report me missing. The police wouldn’t listen to his claims. Not until it was too late for me.
The car finally stopped, and I braced myself for what would come next. Flashes of my life with him rushed through my mind, and I sobbed. I wasn’t ready to revisit hell. Not after having been taken to paradise so many times by Jayden.
The trunk opened, and Daniel grabbed me roughly dragging me out, ignoring my pain. He threw me over his shoulder and carried me along a narrow trail in the middle of the woods. It was morning now, and it was so cold my whole body trembled violently.
He opened a door and dropped me to the wooden floor so he could lock the door behind us.
“Did you have a nice trip?” he asked, mocking me.
I stayed still where he dropped me. Old habits die hard, right? I had quickly learned never to move unless told. That would only piss him off and hit me harder.
“Where are we?” I asked, in a low tone.
“Does it matter?” he retorted. “No one will ever find us here,” he assured me scornfully.
“Why did you bring me here? I thought you were taking me back to New York,” I persisted, keeping my tone low and plain.
“Why would I do that? People there think you’re dead,” he announced, and my heart stopped for a moment in sheer fear.
Dead? People thought I was dead? When the hell did that happen?
“How come?” I asked, struggling to keep my chaotic emotions out of my tone.
He knew I was frantic, but I would not give him the pleasure of seeing it.
“Did you really think I would allow people to think you had left me? What would people say? That I was such a bad husband my wife had chosen to disappear?” he ranted. “My company is run on my reputation. People need to trust me to hire me,” he added, and I can’t say I was surprised.
His company was all that mattered for him---that and his precious reputation. What other people thought of him weighed heavily on his decisions. I had lost count of how many times I was forced to put on a dress and attended a party, when my whole body ached after one of his beatings.
I should have exposed him. I should have told someone what was happening, but he had efficiently isolated me. I had no one I could trust, not even my mother.
“How did you pull that off?” I asked, sincerely intrigued.
How far was he willing to go to cover up his messed-up personality?
“It was quite easy, actually,” he bragged. “I staged a car accident… I even got a woman’s body to play your part. I dressed her up in your clothes, put on your jewelry, and one of your purses… no one suspected anything. I told the police you loved speeding to let off steam.”
“And they bought your story? Even when I never had a speeding ticket in my life?” I asked, surprised.
“They believed it all. I was a distressed husband whose wife’s body was so burned it would have been impossible to identify her if it wasn’t for your jewelry and your purse,” he said, in a mocking tone. “We were the perfect couple… no one suspected anything.”
“What about the reports on domestic violence?” I asked.
“I had those erased a long time ago,” he assured me, in his darkest tone, as he crouched next to me. “I was not about to let you ruin my life… not when I gave you everything you ever asked for… but you were always an ungrateful bitch,” he continued, fisting my hair and pulling me up to face him.
