Shards of My Heart (The Forgotten Ones Book 2)

by Nellie K Neves

  Shards of

  my Heart

  The Forgotten Ones Series-Book 2

  Nellie K. Neves

  Shards of My Heart Copyright © 2020 by Nellie K. Neves. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Nellie K. Neves

  Photography Credit :

  Tim Mossholder &

  Orane Thomas

  via Unsplash

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Nellie K. Neves

  Visit my website at www.nellieknevesauthor.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: November 2020

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

  —Neil Gaiman, Coraline

  Chapter 1

  The cut above my eye mocks me. The bruises, those I can cover. At this point, it’s not even a challenge. But that cut, the way it gapes, it probably needs stitches. In the past, I would have said it was my fault. I would have told people I tripped, or Oliver threw his toy truck at me and caught me at the right angle.

  The trick to a good cover-up is the details.

  It’s as true for lies as it is for makeup.

  If I stretch out the words, play with the volume and tone and scrunch my nose at the end with a little smile, then the blame will fall on my infant son. My audience would make jokes about his future with The Cubs, a starting pitcher who will tell how he gave his mom that scar as an infant. Didn’t know his own strength, that’s what they’ll say. Todd will beam with pride, and I’ll think for a second or two that we’ll be safe now.

  But that’s the old me.

  The new me saw Todd, my husband and Oliver’s father, draw his arm back as if he might strike our child.

  Oli spilled his milk.

  That’s all.

  That hand came back like a baseball bat, and I screamed, “No!” before my self-preservation kicked in.

  The fury found me instead.

  Who am I to question his parenting?

  Who am I to speak out against him?

  Who am I?

  To him, I’m trash, I’ve seen that for years, but it hasn’t been enough to make me leave. I’ve been punished for my stupid mistakes.

  Didn’t take out the garbage.

  Left my shoes by the wrong door.

  The day I forgot I’d tracked mud into the garage. I planned to go back and clean it up before Todd got home, but Oli needed lunch, and Todd surprised me.

  For whatever reason, my broken mind believed I deserved those punishments, and I stayed.

  But Oliver?

  Oliver isn’t a year yet.

  Oliver barely brushed the cup, and the milk toppled over the edge of his highchair. Oliver didn’t deserve punishment.

  In that moment, during my brief inhale before his palm caught my jaw and flung me to the floor, it clicked.

  I didn’t deserve it either.

  Todd said it would help me become better.

  He’d help me understand why I’d failed.

  As if by beating me, next time I’d remember what I’d done wrong.

  You’ll never learn if I don’t teach you, his voice is still there in my mind, along with the broken glass, the taste of blood in my mouth, and Oliver’s wailing cries shredding the atmosphere.

  Help me?

  Teach me?

  Why not love me?

  I tighten my grip on the suitcase handle. Mona sent a ride share, so we don’t have to use my car. We’re going for a visit. The visit just happens to correspond with Todd’s business trip.

  By the time he comes back, we’ll be gone.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Three loud bangs echo against the front door. Mona’s eyes widen and flash, but she takes a breath and steels her nerves. I clutch Oliver against me, pressing his cheek to my bare skin where the v-line leaves me exposed.

  It’s been two days.

  Todd came home a half-hour ago.

  I don’t have to be there to know it.

  He’s a machine.

  I was his cog.

  Dinner wasn’t waiting.

  The bed wasn’t made.

  A martini wasn’t sitting on the counter, chilled and ready.

  The machine must have lurched to a screeching, tumultuous halt.

  Maybe if I weren’t so terrified I could smile at that thought, a grown man throwing a fit like a toddler because his sippy cup wasn’t full of juice, but as it is I’m hiding in the hallway because it allows a shielded view of the front door. Oliver’s heavy body brings an ache to my arms. If only my heart would let me put him down.

  The door groans as Mona pulls it open. Much more pounding from his fists, and he might splinter the old wood to bits.

  “Todd,” Mona’s voice is firm as she speaks to my husband, “we weren’t expecting you.”

  Her audacity earns her a string of cursing. “You think I’ll believe that? Where is he? Where’s my son?”

  “Sleeping. It’s late. He had a busy day here at Grandma’s house. Would you like to speak to your wife instead?”

  I clench my eyes closed. Mona’s always been stronger than I could ever dream to be. She wants me to stand up for myself, tell him off, send him packing, but the best I do is cower in the shadows.

  “She’s dead to me. I’ll have her in handcuffs by the end of the day. She kidnapped my son—”

  “Kidnapped?” Mona gasps as if this is all news to her. “I should say not, she’s come to visit her mother while you were away. Of course, Oliver came with her. After all, she left you a note.”

  “A note? Gee, I never found a note, Mona,” Todd says as the door slams shut behind him. His steps echo against the wood floor. The maniac is in the house with us now. “When I testify in court, there won’t be a note in evidence.”

  Mona is steel and fire, never one to back down. “Well that’s odd. I have a timestamped photo of the note saved on my phone, Todd. I guess we can enter that into evidence instead.”

  Oliver shifts in my arms. With all this shouting, he won’t stay asleep much longer. Mona needs me. She doesn’t deserve what I know is coming. Tears well in my eyes and splatter into my son’s downy hair. I can’t hide forever. This was my plan after all. She’ll throw herself on the pyre if I’m not there.

  “Get me my son, and I’ll leave before anyone gets hurt,” Todd says.

  “Like I said, he’s sleeping.”

  In six steps, I’ve set Oliver in the crib I keep at Mona’s. My fin
gers rub over his cheek, petal soft skin, not a bruise in sight. I plan to keep it that way.

  “This is for you, Oli.” With a kiss pressed to my fingers, I set them against his cheek and dig for the courage I once had, long before Todd, even before Mona.

  “Todd,” I say, stepping into the front room. I wish my voice could be stronger, but this is all I have. He’s beaten me down too many times to have much more than a tremble.

  Like a predator catching scent of prey, he turns to face me. His jaw shifts as the anger adjusts to a new target.

  “How dare you,” he spits the words at me, “how dare you steal my son from me and think you can get away with it.”

  “No one stole anything.” My feet reverse without my permission. “I’m here at Mona’s. I left you a note.”

  There’s a flicker in his eye, as if he’s computing things for the first time. He’s considering the idea that he might have overreacted. The muscles beneath his eye twitch as they narrow with scrutiny. “Are you coming home?”

  Over his shoulder Mona clutches her phone, eyes wide but mouthing words to reassure me that I can do this, I can say what I need to. And yet here I stand, on the edge of a proverbial cliff with a freight train bearing down on me.

  Either way, I’m dead.

  If I tell him that I’m staying here, that I’m never coming home. He’s going to kill me.

  If I go home with him, the retribution for this mistake will be my demise.

  How did we get here?

  That’s what I want to ask him.

  Contemplating how we started, how did we ever get here to this place where he’s considering whether or not to break me because I’ve sinned against him, and I’m weighing my chances for survival on either scale?

  He’s Todd Lewiston. He breezed into this town four years ago, a knight in shining Mercedes. The first man to ever call me princess. The dresses, the jewelry, the promises that I’d never work a day in my life if I’d agree to be his girl. No one makes my heart race like Todd does. No one has ever touched my soul like he has. I have his features memorized. From his sloped nose, to his thick but trimmed beard. His green eyes remind me of hikes in the forest, and his gentle jaw lied and told me he wasn’t capable of violence. Todd is the one who told me he’d be my family. He’s the one who bought my ranch, promised me he’d commute if it meant his queen had her dream castle. He was supposed to make all my ambitions come true.

  He was supposed to be my fairy tale.

  But it’s not that Todd facing me.

  This Todd keeps his fists balled tight and his teeth clenched. He’s the Todd who demands perfection and punishes anything less. It’s this Todd who taught me fairy tales are lies, and there is no happily ever after.

  That’s why we never hear an epilogue in those stories, because no one wants to know what happens after the curtain call. This is the Todd who taught me that nothing in life is forever, and that’s the same lesson I need to teach him right now.

  “No,” I say, “I’m not coming home. Not ever.”

  I draw in a breath to scream as he lunges forward, but his open palm catches me in the temple. I collide with the hardwood floor. Curling into a ball, I shield my head as his boot cracks against my ribs. Fingers tangle into my hair. Words swirl around me, one blurred mess of anger and rage. I can’t focus on the words. The world turns to watercolor in its whirling. Fear blinds me.

  I won’t survive this again.

  White flashes behind my clenched eyes. My skull cracks against the hardwood as he tightens his grip to slam my head. I lash out with my fingers to scratch at his face, but his other hand catches me and crushes my small hand in his. Pain cuts the air as I scream in response to the abuse. Filthy insults fly, the kind that rattle around in my head long after the ache subsides. The kind that stick to my skin like tattoos until I worry that everyone knows what I really am.

  Todd can see how broken I am, why not the rest of them?

  I open my eyes in time to watch in horror as Todd’s fingers lock around a copper statue Mona keeps on a side table. He draws back, statue high overhead.

  He’s going to kill me.

  In desperation, I fling my arms over my head once more and brace for the final blow.

  “Wait!” Mona screams. “Wait!”

  The statue doesn’t fall. My ragged breaths wheeze in and out of my lungs. Pulling an arm away from my head, I spy the reason I’m still alive.

  Mona’s camera on her phone.

  “I’ve got you on assault, possibly attempted murder. Do you really want to be charged with murder?” she asks Todd.

  “What?” He rises to his feet as if none of this happened. “What are you talking about?”

  “Candid camera.” She waggles the phone in her hand. “Not to mention the other pictures I’ve collected over the years. Suspicious bruising. That broken arm from two years ago. My daughter doesn’t ice skate, though I suppose it made a good cover story, didn’t it?”

  Todd lunges toward her, but Mona reverses and flashes the screen. “911 is queued up. If I press this button the boys in blue will come even if you end the call. I know that most of them are your buddies, but your wife dripping blood from her mouth and nose won’t be great for your reputation. They’ll look just as guilty if they try to cover it up for you.” Her thumb hovers over the call button like a dead man’s switch. “Shall I take the chance?”

  “You think you’re smart, Mona? What’s stopping me from smashing your phone, destroying that movie you made?”

  “Oh please, Todd,” Mona says. “It’s the twentieth century. The video is already in the cloud. Ester has a copy and so does Cecilia. They’re making extra duplicates right now, per my request.”

  For once, Todd backs up. The plan is airtight. He’s been backed into a corner. Todd, the lawyer, resurfaces.

  “What do you want, Mona?”

  “I want you to leave. I want you to divorce my daughter, and I never want to see your face in this state again.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then the local law legend Todd Lewiston is going to have a new file in his unblemished record marked ‘Domestic abuser’. I’m sure the local channels would love it for the six o’clock news.”

  I feel his stare on me again. Sweat beads between my palms and the floor. Muscles tremble as I try to push myself to my feet. Exhaustion pulls me down again in defeat.

  Even if he’s lost, he can’t leave without trying to hurt me one more time. Fear grips my heart as his footfalls move closer. Todd stops shy of me, close enough to bend down and stare at me with disgust. Strands of my blonde hair are still tangled around his fingers. A whimper escapes my throat as he brushes his hand over my hair once more.

  “You’re not even worth it. A disappointment from the start.” Todd spits at the floor in front of me and specks of saliva splatter across my knuckles. “Goodbye, Finley.”

  I count eight footfalls before the door closes, then five more seconds before Mona rushes in to take me in her arms. Two breaths rise and fall before the tears tumble over my cheeks.

  “Oh Finn,” she says, “I’m sorry I didn’t stop him sooner. This plan was crazy. I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” I say between gasping breaths. From past experience, I know I must have at least two broken ribs. “You got the video.”

  “At what cost?” Mona asks. I don’t try to answer that question. It’s not worth the air or the pain of breathing.

  “And also,” I say while using her body to pull myself upright, “it’s the twenty-first century. I’m surprised he didn’t correct you.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t, or ask me what a cloud is.” Mona waves me off and tucks my hair behind my ear like she always has. “Please don’t tell me there’s some digital haze floating over my house right now. It’s no wonder we’re all getting cancer these days. All these phones everywhere, we might as well be living in a microwave and licking the a-bomb.”

  Despit
e the pain I’m in, she has me cracking a grin.

  “What now, dear?” she asks. “Turn it over to the cops? Lock him away for good?”

  I shake my head. “He’s too connected. It’d get buried. I have to play it smart. We’ve got just enough to buy my freedom, but anything more than that, and he’ll fight back.”

  “We have the video. I have other pictures,” Mona starts, but I stop her in her tracks.

  “He has the chief of police playing golf on the weekends. He’s got the DA and half the town council. I have an old lady, her two best friends, and a baby three weeks away from his first birthday. No, I’m letting this die right after I get what I want from him.”

  It’s impossible to miss the disappointment on her face. “And what’s that, dear?”

  I look over my shoulder to where my boy is still fast asleep. “The only thing that’s ever mattered to me.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Making a deal with the devil.

  That phrase has never made sense to me.

  He’s obviously going to screw you.

  He’s obviously going to do what’s best for him.

  There is no upper hand. There is nothing strong enough to keep him honest in his dealings. Why would anyone ever make a deal with the devil?

  I never understood it.

  Until now.

  You need a secret, a secret so horrible that even the devil is ashamed. And even then, you can’t ask for too much. This is no time to get greedy. Not when your devil is a lawyer, and he could hang you out on the line by your ear and let you blow in the wind like week-old laundry.

  No. I have enough space for one request. Maybe two.

  I have to be smart.

  Oliver is all that matters.

  Full custody.

  No visitation.

  No connection.

  No father.

  The devil signs away his rights without taking a breath.

  “What else?” Todd asks me as he stares over the table. His knuckles are still split from the impact with my teeth. Strange to see dried blood on him. I was beginning to think he wasn’t capable.

  Do demons have blood?

  “Finley,” his voice catches me and my heart races in response. Usually pain follows that tone. Rationally, I know he won’t, not with my lawyer standing next to me, and his against the wall. They both know what he’s done, but they’re paid for their silence on the matter. Even if they’re both on his payroll, I’ve always wondered if they actually saw him in action if it’d change their opinion of him.