Badboy Romance

by Lisa Simmons

  “Oh, yes, I can,” he said, his head tilting to the side slightly as he nodded assuredly at me. “I very easily can.”

  “Why?” I asked desperately for what felt like the thousandth time. No matter how many times it was explained to me, I would never understand. His mind seemed to have been warped in the time we’d spent apart and he was an absolute stranger to me now. “Because you’re mine,” he said angrily, the intermittent calm disappearing quickly now as rage showed through the cracks. His eyes were wide and bulging slightly as he leaned into the space between us. I took a shuddering breath, my entire body shaking now as I flinched away from him. My eyes squeezed shut in pure terror.

  Jack had lost it. The man I had once known and thought I had loved was completely gone. Something in him had snapped, shattering all the good parts that had once been inside him. Something had caused this change in his mind, making him think any of the things he was doing were justifiable. Whatever it was had taken him over, altering his mind, his reasoning, his judgment, even his body. The physical changes I had noticed seemed even more pronounced now that he was inches away from my face and I couldn’t help but wonder what could have possibly altered a person so much. Whoever this man was, he was dangerously unhinged, and I was terrified at the thought of what he was capable of.

  “Please don’t hurt him,” I begged, my strained voice cracking once again as the tears I had been fighting to suppress built up in my throat. I opened my eyes to look at him and noticed my head had turned subconsciously to the side in an attempt to create more space between us. I was practically clinging to the wall while he stood inches away, pressing me further into it. I took a deep breath before letting my eyes dart to his, the slightly cracked look that met me causing me to take another stutter of a breath. “It’s too late, Abigail,” he said with mock remorse. He shook his head slowly. “You had your chances and you blew it.”

  “Please,” I choked out, my eyes pleading desperately with his.

  “Do you want to know what we’re going to do to him?” he asked, ducking his head to force me to look fully at him. I drew a shaky breath and shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut once more in an attempt to block him out. “I’ve made some friends, Abigail,” he informed me slowly, his tone calm once again yet clearly holding a menacing threat as he spoke. “Some friends who have been involved in some stuff that way scare the hell out of you.”Funny he said that, because he was scaring the hell out of me right now. I opened my eyes to meet his, my terror choking me and stopping me from speaking as silent, shaky tears forced their way from my eyes. My breathing was ragged through my nose thanks to my clenched jaw and I couldn’t really feel the rest of my body because I was so scared of what he was about to say. I held back the squeak of fear that tried to escape my lips as he placed his hands suddenly on either side of my head, pinning me to the wall and preventing my escape. He ducked his head so it was inches from my face, his eyes burning into mine yet freezing the blood in my veins. “These people... these friends... they don’t fuck around, Abigail,” he explained further, his tone dangerously low. “They have some resources at their disposal and I think it’s come to the time where we access them.” I swallowed harshly, not liking the sound of that at all. When he said he’d hurt Reece before, I imagined another fight, perhaps more people this time, but just another fight. Now, however, I wasn’t so sure and grew more and more petrified with every word he spoke. “Wh-what do you mean?” I stuttered, the shaking of my body and the tears interfering with my ability to talk.

  “I think you know what I’m saying,” he said coldly. I felt like my heart actually stopped in my chest. My jaw clenched even tighter and my entire body seemed to be vibrating in terror.

  “You... you don’t mean... they don’t have weapons, do they?” I asked in horror, my eyes widening as I realized what he was implying these men were capable of.

  “Yes, they do. Guns that they are more than capable of using,” he said as he nodded slowly, confirming my statement and causing a hysterical sob to escape my lips before my hand clamped over my mouth to stifle it. A heavy gasp wracked my body as my eyes squeezed shut again. Pure, unadulterated terror flooded through me. This couldn’t be happening; it wasn’t possible. There was absolutely no way this deranged lunatic who I had, at one point in my life, been with, was actually threatening to have Reece shot. This was too much, too drastic and irrational and unrealistic but very much the reality in this moment. He was, without a doubt, absolutely insane.

  “No, no, no, no,” I muttered, my fear taking over completely. “You’re fucking crazy!”

  I couldn’t stop myself from saying it as he barked a derisive laugh at me, absorbing my blow as if I’d hardly insulted him. My vision blurred as his face swam before my eyes. I couldn’t feel any of my body, not even my surely pounding heart, as I rested my entire weight against the wall, my stiffly locked knees the only thing keeping me up.

  “You can’t, please, you can’t kill him, that’s fucking insane,” I said hysterically, tears flooding down my face now as I tried to gasp a breath.

  “I’m not insane, Abigail. This is your fault. You left me no choice,” he said coldly, his tone contradicting his words in every way as he sounded absolutely out of his mind.

  “You can’t do this, I’ll go to the police,” I threatened shakily.

  It was what I should have done a long time ago, but he had gone too far now. He had actually threatened Reece’s life, and there was no way I could let him. I would do anything.

  I jumped when he let out a derisive laugh. “You can’t, you fucking idiot. You go to the police, my boys take care of Reece. That’s it. You can try to take me down, but you can’t take them all down. All you’d manage to do is get your precious boyfriend hurt, if not killed. Is that what you want?”A choking sob strangled my throat again as my hand pressed over my face. I tried to draw a breath but couldn’t as I shook my head vigorously. “No, I don’t want that.”

  “That’s what I thought. Just think, if you had listened to me sooner we wouldn’t even be in this situation. This is all your fault,” he spit again, inching even closer. I could smell his putrid breath and it made me want to vomit. “You can’t...” I cried, my body and voice shaking uncontrollably. This entire thing was a nightmare that I felt trapped in, every single one of my worst fears coming true and haunting my existence.

  “You left me no choice, sweetheart,” he snarled at me. He had me pressed so far into the wall that I could hardly breathe. Despite my hazy mind and numb body, I knew what I had to do.

  “I’ll do it,” I said, my voice suddenly firm as I made up my mind. I had always said I would do anything for Reece, and right now was the biggest test I would probably ever face. I had no choice. “What?” he said sharply, his eyes blinking as he stared at me intently. My eyes locked with his.

  “I’ll do it,” I repeated brokenly. “If you leave him alone and don’t hurt him, I’ll do it.”

  My voice was hollow as I spoke, the absolute terror in me masked by the resignation. This was the only thing I could think of to do to keep him safe and it absolutely shattered me to do it.

  “You’ll do what? I want to hear you say it,” he growled, the unmistakable tone of victory ringing through his insane voice. I swallowed harshly, the movement of my throat painful as I struggled to take an even breath. It was no use- my body was fighting every single action I made as if trying to stop me from what I was about to do. It was too late.

  It had to be done.

  “If you promise Reece will be safe, I’ll do it. I’ll leave Reece and come back to you.”

  My words held no conviction and sounded even more hollow than I felt as I said them, the words physically painful as they spilled from my lips. A satisfied, victorious sneer pulled across his mouth, mocking me as I crumbled into a thousand shattered pieces on the floor. He had finally done it- he had gotten what he wanted, and absolutely broken me in the process.

  "Tell me, would you k
ill to save a life? Tell me, would you kill to prove you're right?"

  Chapter 61

  My chest felt hollow as I stared back into the cold eyes fixed so intently on my own. As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew it was what I had to do. My heart promptly shattered into an infinite number of pieces so small they seemed to absorb into my bloodstream. It was physically painful, the rest of my body numb as if all my nerves were too focused on delivering the pain that radiated from my heart to focus on anything else. I felt an odd detachment now, like my body was cut off from my brain as my lungs automatically drew short, shallow breaths. I knew this numb wouldn’t last long; the instant I began to even think about doing what was necessary, it would rip me in half. It would be, without a doubt, the most painful thing I’d ever done, but it had to be done to keep him safe.

  I had to keep him safe.

  “You’ll do it now,” Jack said, snapping me out of my head. A painful jolt stabbed through me at the thought of doing it so soon, my body physically rejecting his words. My head shook frantically before I found the strength to speak. “No, I can’t tonight,” I said stiffly. It was difficult to speak through my tight throat. He raised an eyebrow at me and opened his mouth, clearly about to snap at me again.

  “Just give me the night,” I begged. “Please.”

  He stared at me for a few seconds, the hard look in his eye hard to see past to decipher his thoughts. His lips were pulled into a frown.

  “One night. Then you’ll do it tomorrow whether you’re ready or not,” he said slowly. He was still only inches away from me and it was difficult not to cringe away from his every word. “You swear you won’t hurt him? You have to swear to me, Jack,” I said, my voice suddenly stern. Everything I was about to do was riding on the trust that he would keep his word, and I couldn’t help but feel extremely apprehensive about trusting him at all. It was downright insane.

  “I swear,” he said, rolling his eyes in annoyance. He clearly didn’t like that I was so concerned with Reece’s safety, but that was why we were in this situation in the first place. It was the reason he had finally managed to make me do what he’d been wanting for months now. He had figured out the one thing that could make me do it and used it against me: Reece. I watched him with narrowed eyes, my heart pounding as I decided what to do.

  “I’m serious! You leave him, I won’t touch him,” he said, raising his hands by his head in mock surrender. Funny how now that he’d gotten his way he was much calmer. My heart thudded painfully at his words, the strange numb that had settled over me momentarily quickly dissipating. “Okay. Now I need you to leave,” I said clearly. My eyes pleaded with him, silently begging him to have even a sliver of emotion and leave me alone with the painful thoughts I needed to sort through. “Fine,” he said. “But tomorrow, you’re mine. Like you should have been this entire time.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said, nodding slowly even though every muscle in my body was begging me to run away screaming. The only way I seemed to get through to him was to speak clearly and appease him. Fighting with him got me nowhere, reasoning got me nowhere, and standing up for myself only seemed to make him even madder. There was no way I could win. My entire body tightened as he ducked his head and pressed his lips along my jaw, letting them linger for a second too long before he pulled away. My cheek felt foreign where his lips touched my skin, like he had infected me with something rather than merely kissed me.

  I tried not to think about how Reece’s lips felt when he did that, but it was impossible not to.

  He didn’t say a word as he finally backed away from me, freeing me from the confines of his body and the wall after what felt like years. My lungs sucked in the first full breath since walking into the apartment as he exited, slamming the door behind him without so much as a goodbye. As soon as he was gone, air ripped violently through my lungs, the loud rasping sound that tore from my throat filling the room. I broke down immediately, the ragged breaths I took accompanied by heavy sobs that seemed to tear my throat to bits with every exhale. Tears flowed down my cheeks, stemmed for so long from the strange paralysis that had taken me over. My hands flew to my face as my knees buckled beneath me, my weight sinking down the wall and falling to the floor as I lost all control of myself. How was I supposed to do this? How was I supposed to break the person’s heart that I loved more than anything in this entire world? How could I even convince him that it was what I wanted? Surely he would never believe anything I told him; he knew how much I loved him and he knew that it wasn’t a normal kind of love. He would never believe that I wanted to end things with him no matter what I said. Except...

  Except his one insecurity, his one doubt that he’d held the entire extent of our relationship. He was finally accepting that it was unfounded, but it would easily be brought back. It was the one thing he’d doubted from the start, and it was the one thing that would maybe allow him to believe what I would inevitably say to him even if it was a complete, blatant lie. After everything I’d done to convince him otherwise, I would have to dig into his fear, his uncertainty, to make him believe what I never had: that he wasn’t good enough for me. It was in no way true, and I’d never even had a whisper of a thought about it, but it was what I would have to say to him if I wanted him to believe that I wanted to break up with him. He needed to believe me, because if he didn’t, he would go after Jack. If he suspected Jack had anything to do with this, he wouldn’t let it go. He’d hunt him down with absolutely no regard for his own safety to fight for me only to get himself hurt. Everything to do with his safety rode on my ability to convince him that I didn’t want him anymore; I didn’t know if I could do it. It would ruin him, I already knew. He loved me the way I loved him- completely, wholly, with everything he had and I knew if I went there, if I told him the lie I was considering, that he would believe me. He’d thought it all along, doubted it from the beginning, and all it would take was one word from me to confirm it for him to revert into the uncertain man he was in the beginning.

  If I said it, he would forget all I’d done to prove otherwise and believe me. His own self-doubt and belief that he didn’t deserve me would come flooding back and break him in half. The thought absolutely killed me. I hadn’t moved from my spot on the floor for what felt like ages, my body crumpled against the wall as my heart throbbed in my chest. Every time I thought of the words I would have to say, my organs seemed to clench painfully, rejecting the thoughts and fighting them off. I had no idea how I was supposed to manage to say the words and make them believable if I couldn’t even think them without physical pain. You have to keep him safe, Abigail.

  I repeated this over and over in my head; it was the only thing letting me cling to my sanity as the hours passed. If I didn’t do this, he would get hurt. I had to do it; I had no choice. My body grew stiff from my hunched position but I couldn’t even manage to drag myself off the floor. I deserved to be here, curled into a ball like the weak person that I was. I deserved to ache this way for what I was about to do to Reece. You’ll keep him safe.

  Rounds of tears came and went as the night wore on. My body would be racked with rounds of heaving sobs before I managed to calm them and take a shuddering breath. It was an endless cycle of tears, numbness, and devastating agony yet I did nothing to fight it. I might as well get used to feeling this way because I knew that’s all I would feel from now on- pain. Safe.

  I was hardly aware of the passing hours, but when I lifted my head from it’s position on my knees, I saw light leaking through the cracks in the curtains of my living room. Emily had never come home, and I suddenly felt guilty for never thinking of her once after my initial questioning of her absence. The guilt disappeared nearly as quickly as it arrived, however, when my mind returned to thoughts of what I had to do very soon. My muscles were tight as I attempted to get off the floor, the fibers screaming in protest after hours of inactivity. I felt sore as I finally managed to stand to my feet and my body wavered unsteadily as I moved down the hall. A
fter turning into my bathroom, I nearly jumped at my reflection in the mirror. The skin around my eyes was tinted a dark blue from my sleepless night and my eyes were extremely bloodshot from my hours of crying. I looked pale, the blood drained from my face from the anxiety I was starting to feel. It was early, very early, and I knew Reece wouldn’t be awake for several hours yet. The thought of waiting so long made me feel ill; it had already been a miserable night and I hated the thought of prolonging it even more. Even thought it was the last thing I wanted to do, I didn’t think I could wait. I needed to do this before I chickened out.