by Davis, Alexa
He threw his hands up in the air in a congratulatory gesture which gave me a minute to grab the cell phone I could see poking out his pocket. If he was the idiot I thought he was, then maybe the one copy of the video was stored on there. I scrolled desperately through it, but unfortunately, could not see anything there.
“Do you really think I’m that dumb?” Mark asked me smugly while sliding the phone away from me. “Do you honestly believe that I would keep my copy of the video here?”
I wasn’t sure what happened, I just saw red. I couldn’t control myself any longer. Without even thinking about it, I wrapped my hands tightly around his neck and squeezed, while slamming his body back against the wall. He scraped along it, wincing with pain. A sick part of me liked seeing him suffer because I knew how much he deserved it.
“You leave Elle alone now ,” I warned. “You leave Delaney alone from today forward. Do you understand? You delete that video, and you forget that either of them exists. Do you hear me?”
“What...” He was spluttering, grasping at my fingers desperately as if the air wasn’t quite getting into his lungs as he wanted. “What will you do if I don’t?”
I squeezed so tight; my knuckles went white. I could see the panic rise in his eyes. The feeling of power over this horrible man consumed me for just a moment, and I lost all control of myself.
“I will fucking kill you.”
“Alex!” All of a sudden, Elle’s voice burst through my brain, causing me to drop Alex to the ground with a thud. “What are you doing?”
I turned to face her, the shake in my body now for something else entirely. All the anger dissipated and all I felt was sheer disappointment in myself. I couldn’t believe that I’d been caught in the lowest moment in my life – and by the one person, I truly adored. It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Elle...” I started, but Mark had other ideas. He didn’t want to let me get a word in edgeways.
“You fucking bitch,” he hissed while pushing himself upright. “You send some fucking monkey down here to threaten me? Well, you aren’t ever going to keep your daughter now.” He dusted himself off, trying to look like the smooth poser he was before. “You will surely be seen as the unfit mother you are now.”
“Shut up,” I yelled at him. “Elle, I didn’t mean...” I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I didn’t mean it to get this far, but I knew that it would. I was so angry that it could have even gone further. “I’m sorry,” I finished lamely instead.”
“I was going to handle him,” she said through gritted teeth. “I came here to sort this out on my own, once and for all. This isn’t your issue. I never asked you to deal with it.”
“Not that a court will believe that,” Mark jumped in, twisting the knife around further. “I’ll easily make them see you set this all up.”
I waited for Elle to say something. I wanted her to defend herself, but she didn’t. Instead, she pursed her lips together, and she shook her head at me. She blamed me for this, which I understood.
I tried to follow her when she abruptly stormed off, but with Mark’s yells streaming along, his insistence that now she would lose her daughter forever, I knew I didn’t have much hope. It was hardly a surprise when she jumped into her car and slammed the door behind her; watching her speed off into the distance was exactly what I should have expected.
I’ve fucked up now, I thought sadly to myself. There’s no coming back from this one. Elle will never speak to me again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Elle
Tuesday
“I’m sorry, Katherine.” I did another fake cough, just for good measure. I needed her to buy my storyline, however crappy I felt for doing it. “I don’t like to let you down again. I just don’t want to come to your place sick. I wouldn’t want to pass anything onto you, especially not while you’re recovering with your leg.”
“No, I understand.” She sounded disappointed that I’d phoned her last minute for the second day in a row, and I felt terrible for letting her down. The house probably needed a whole lot of work since I’d had the week off in Florida, too, but I just couldn’t hack it. The idea of seeing him again was all too much with my head all over the place. “I hope you’re much better soon.”
“Yeah, me too.” I cradled the phone to my ear, desperately wishing that I didn’t have to lie to her. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Bye.”
“Why don’t you just tell her the truth?” Terran asked as I hung up the phone. “I’m sure she’d understand.”
“What, ‘I don’t want to come in because I can’t face your son again after he made such of an ass of himself threatening to kill my ex-husband?’ Yes, I’m sure that would go down really well.” I rolled my eyes and sat next to her. “I don’t want to complain about Alex to her, that just isn’t right. This way is so much easier. It might suck, but I have to do what I have to do.”
Terran glanced downwards and sighed deeply. “I know this isn’t easy, Elle, and believe me I totally understand, but I do think you’re overreacting a little bit to what Alex did. He only acted like that because he cares about you.”
“But it was dumb!” I threw my hands in the air in frustration. A tight snake of anger had been coiling through my body ever since I saw him with Mark pressed up against the wall, and it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. “I told him to leave it alone, I told him I would sort it out, but he went in like a bull in a china shop anyway. I saw him threatening to kill him; now Mark has, even more, to use against me in court. He’ll tell them that I hired someone to threaten him.”
“But that’s not true.”
“I know, but my lawyer is Alex’s friend. I’m sure that’s easy to find out. How will it look? Plus, Mark is respected; he seems like an upstanding citizen. I’m sure any judge will be more inclined to believe him than me.” A sickly hollow feeling encased my chest. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. Everything feels so hopeless. All I know for sure is I really can’t lose Delaney, no matter what. I don’t know if Alex understands that – what he did yesterday makes me think that he doesn’t.”
I paused for a second before revealing the idea that had been rolling around in the back of my brain. “Maybe I need to take off. Maybe Delaney and I should move further away, really start again. I know I can’t escape Mark completely, but if I’m out of sight and he actually has to make an effort, then maybe he’ll give up.”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave my job, my home, Delaney’s school, my friend, our lives... But Mark was leaving me with very little option. It would be horrible and really difficult, but if it was that or lose Delaney, I knew what I would do. Maybe we would be better with a fresh start. Maybe new scenery would suit us both perfectly...
“I was there,” Terran said softly. “I spoke to Alex when he came into the restaurant looking for Mark. He was angry, sure, but I could see how much he cares for you. You know better than anyone what a troublemaker Mark is. He probably riled Alex up until he just flipped.”
My heart yearned. I wanted to take everything that Terran was telling me to heart, I truly wanted to listen and believe it, but I couldn’t focus on what Alex was trying to do, all I could think about was the terrible effect it was about to have on my life. Maybe now, because of him, everything was ruined.
“Do you think maybe you’re reacting so strongly because you want to push Alex away?” she continued calmly. “Maybe you’re scared because you can remember how vulnerable you have to be in a relationship. Maybe you’re also freaked out because he now knows about the sex tape you made with Mark way back when. Maybe he’s getting too close, and this is a good excuse to get rid of him.”
I paused for a second, hating how familiar this sounded. Terran knew me better than anyone else in the world. If anyone could see through me, it was her. I didn’t want that to be the truth, but maybe it was...
No, I shook my head rapidly. I refuse to believe it. I wasn’t an irrational person. I knew tha
t my anger wasn’t misplaced. Alex didn’t listen to me, didn’t trust my judgment, and for that, I needed to hold up my end up being annoyed.
“You fucking bitch.”
“You send some fucking monkey down here to threaten me? Well, you aren’t ever going to keep your daughter now.”
“You will surely be seen as the unfit mother you are now.”
Mark’s evil sentences flooded my mind, making me wince with every evil word. He’d looked so pleased as he said them; he knew that he had me pushed into a corner. The smug smile, the glint in his eye...he was happy that Alex came to speak with him. It left me utterly terrified. That manipulative man would destroy me in any way that he could.
“Will you stop trying to analyze me and just be on my side?” I asked, probably irrationally. “I’m upset; I’m angry at everyone. I don’t care what Alex thought he was doing; I just care that he’s wrecked everything.”
My head fell into my hands, and I could feel the tears coming back. I hadn’t cried in such a long time, and now it felt like that was all I wanted to do. Every time things felt hopeless, I wanted to weep and weep until my entire body dried up.
Find some inner strength, I warned myself angrily. Stop letting Mark win.
“I know you don’t want Mark to win,” Terran started, as if she could see right into my brain. “But if you leave, isn’t that exactly what happens?”
She was right. If I ran away, he would know that I was scared. He would know that he was still capable of manipulating me. Then again, did it even matter if I was on the other side of the country? With Alex, I’d managed to forget for a short while. Maybe that could happen again with someone else. Someone more understanding...
“If he gets Delaney, that’s exactly what happens, too. He wins. He has my daughter, and I get nothing. I have to sit at home knowing that she’s living with a stranger who doesn’t give a shit about her.” I shook my head in sadness. “I have to do whatever I can to stop that from happening.”
“Yeah, of course, I know.” Terran sounded about as bewildered as I felt. She was starting to realize that this wasn’t as straightforward as it first seemed. “Do you want me to get Chris to talk to him?”
My heart lifted with hope for a moment at the idea of someone else to help me, but then I remembered that Chris didn’t much like Mark anymore. If they were on the verge of falling out, there was no way Mark would listen to what Chris had to say. He was pig-headed anyway; even a best friend probably couldn’t get through. I hadn’t had many looks at involving other people, so it was for the best for me to just deal with it alone.
“No, best not. I have a meeting with Ryan on Friday, so I suppose I’ll find out what’s going to happen then.”
“What does this lawyer think about the revenge porn thing?”
“I don’t think it counts as revenge porn when being used in court as evidence,” I sighed. “But I don’t know. He basically said I need to think things through carefully. I don’t know if he thinks I should just get back with Mark to make things easier for everyone.”
“That isn’t what you want, is it?” She sounded genuinely nervous. “You don’t want to end up back with him? You guys were not good together. I can still remember how toxic it was.”
She shuddered violently. It was never easy for Terran; she had spent far too much of her life stuck in this battle between Mark and me. I was her best friend, and her loyalties lay with me, but Mark was her boss. It was easier now that things were more separated, and I could see why she wouldn’t want to go back to it.
“I don’t intend to,” I told her honestly. “But I do need to think what I want if he gets custody of Delaney. At least if I’m there, it wouldn’t be too bad. She’d have me.”
“But you’d be miserable.”
“This isn’t about me. This is about Delaney. I cannot leave her in that man’s care alone.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, both stewing over that terrible thought. Even the idea of being in the same room as Mark sent chills right through my body. The idea of living in his house, being back in his life permanently, killed me. But for Delaney, I would do anything.
“Anyway, I shall just have to hope it doesn’t come down to that. I hope Ryan finds some way to make it alright again.” I gulped noisily as I steeled myself to say the next sentence. “Even if Mark decides to make the sex tape public, it’s better than the idea of living with him. Maybe I’ll have to let him do that.”
I didn’t want to; even if no one in my life saw it, the idea of strangers seeing that terrified me. I wasn’t the most confident woman anyway, so the idea of my naked body in the middle of sex being seen by anyone made me sick. Yes, I was younger then, but it still sucked. Maybe Mark would put it online for the whole world to see. Maybe Delaney would see it when she was older.
No, I had to stop worrying about things like that. I had enough issues that needed dealing with right now without adding more to it.
“Well, you never know, you might even get famous for it,” Terran teased, trying to make light of a horrifying situation. “You could be the newest reality star.”
“No, thank you! That will never be me.” I tried to force a smile on my face at the joke, but I couldn’t find any happiness inside. “I think I’ll just have to move to Outer Mongolia or something to escape it.” The running away idea was becoming preferable by the second. “They probably don’t have Internet there so that I can go completely off-grid. That’s the dream, right?”
“Maybe, but they don’t have Alex there, either,” Terran brought me back down to reality with a bump. “I know you’re mad at him now, but you do need to really consider what you want to do next. Once you realize he isn’t the bad guy, maybe you’ll change your mind.”
In a way, I knew that she was right, but in another, I didn’t want to accept that just yet. I wanted to stew in my own anger for a little while longer first.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Alexander
Thursday
“Hello, you have reached Elle Blanton. Please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
I’d heard that message so many times. I had left so many messages. Unfortunately, Elle was not true to her word. She was not getting back to me. No matter what I did. Still, I couldn’t give up. Yes, I fucked up, but it didn’t have to affect us forever, did it?
“Hi, Elle, it’s me again.” I sighed loudly. “I get that you aren’t talking to me at the moment, and to be honest, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t be talking to me, either.” I clapped my hand against my forehead and rubbed hard against my skin.
“I probably don’t deserve a chance to explain, but I would love to have one. I just want... I just want to talk to you. I miss you.” I felt a bit silly saying that last part of someone who so clearly didn’t want to speak to me, but I needed her to know how serious I was. “Please, please, give me a call back when you get this.”
I hung up and stared at the cell phone screen for a while, willing it to light up with a call back from Elle. I didn’t deserve one. What sort of man threatened to kill another man in the middle of a legal battle? She was right. She had told me to keep out of it, but surely she could see the reason I didn’t was that I liked her so much?
“Still nothing, huh?” Mom was over my shoulder, giving me a pitying look. “I know it might seem like she’s overreacting, but she’s doing what she thinks is right.”
“How can ignoring me be right?” The frustration bubbled in my stomach. “She won’t even let me explain.”
“Maybe she thinks that she needs to keep her distance because she doesn’t want to be associated with you right now. If Mark gets wind that you’re spending a lot of time together, doesn’t that give him a lot of leverage if it ends up in court?”
Typical Mom and her clinical, logical way of seeing things. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her about the incident in the alleyway; then she could be on my side.
“Yeah, maybe.” I stared glumly at th
e phone screen once more. If Mom were right, then it would never light up with her name again. I couldn’t stand that! “But what can I do? How can I make it right?”
“Go and speak to Mark again.”
I gave Mom a look. “Are you serious? That’s what got me into trouble in the first place! Surely delving right into the situation again will only make it worse? Shouldn’t I be spending less time getting involved?”
“Normally, I would agree with you on that one, but this time, I don’t. You meddled, you messed things up. Only you can make it right again.”
I narrowed my eyes at her and tried to work out exactly what was going on in my crazy mother’s mind. “What are you suggesting I do?”
“Nothing stupid.” Seemingly she picked up on the caution in my tone. “Just go and speak to this guy using a different approach.”
“I don’t think reasoning with him is going to work. He’s pretty much crazy.”
“No, but everyone has a price, don’t they?” Her lips curled up into a self-satisfied smile. “Maybe you could use the money you’ve earned for good use.”
I stroke my chin as I pondered this. Maybe this wasn’t the worst idea in the world. Maybe, with enough money, he would even delete the sex tape. That was the only part of this I hadn’t told Mom, and unless Elle came back to work and told her everything, it would be the one part she never knew.
“Do you think? Doesn’t that seem a little crazy?”
“Violence and money are the only things these obsessive men understand.” Mom gave me a knowing shrug. “Have you ever known anyone to drop a court case over anything else?”
Since Mark didn’t give a shit about Delaney – he had pretty much told me as much – maybe this was what he needed to leave Elle alone. Maybe enough cash would shut him up for life. As long as I got him to delete the tape, things would be just fine. Maybe I needed to get a tape of my own to ensure he never got to act out again.
