Brianna was left speechless by the turn of events. She wanted to chase after Abby and make her see they belonged together, but she felt as if her feet had been fused into the floor. When Abby swung the front door wide open, Brianna’s eyes flew to her brother Kyle standing in the hallway.
With his feet apart and his hands folded in front of him, Kyle glared at Brianna with a smug look on his face. Without making eye contact or speaking to him, Abby scurried past Kyle and made her way toward the elevator. Kyle shot Abby a quick glance as she walked by him, but his eyes immediately flew back to Brianna. A triumphant grin stretched his face as he savored the tears dribbling down Brianna’s cheeks.
Kyle was proud of himself for beating Brianna at the game he thought she was playing. He reveled in her misery for a few seconds before casually strolling inside her apartment.
A mixture of rage and fear coursed through Brianna’s body as she watched her brother walk toward her. She wanted to slap him, scream at him, and throw him out of her apartment for sneering at her pain, but she was too stunned and heartbroken to do any of those things. All she could do was glare at him through her tears as he got closer and closer to her.
When Kyle was standing inches away from Brianna, he leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“Stay away from my fucking girlfriend, or the next time I have my hands around your neck, I won’t hesitate to squeeze until I have wrung all the deviousness and perversion out of you.”
Kyle did not wait for Brianna to react to his threat. He turned on his heel and strolled out of the apartment with the same calmness and smugness with which he had walked in. He made his way to the elevators to join Abby who was waiting for him there. Kyle and Abby rode the elevator to the lobby and walked out of Brianna’s apartment building in complete silence. They didn’t say a word to each other until they were inside a cab on the way back to their apartment.
Inside the cab, Abby and Kyle sat as far apart from each other as they could while gazing out of their respective windows. Abby couldn’t look at Kyle because she felt guilty and ashamed for cheating on him and causing him a lot of humiliation and pain. Kyle couldn’t look at Abby because the sight of her revolted him, but Abby did not know that. She believed him when he said he was going to try and work things out with her. She thought his being distant and cold towards her was part of his healing process, so she accepted it.
“You betrayed my trust, and you must work to earn it back,” Kyle breathed, breaking the awkward silence.
Abby turned her face to look at Kyle, but Kyle kept gazing at the New York City streets through the cab window.
“I know. I will do whatever it takes to regain your trust,” Abby replied.
“Good. If this is going to work out, I need to know where you are every second of the day. You must always have your phone on you. It must always be turned on and connected to the internet so I can track your location through the GPS software in it.”
Abby closed her eyes and shook her head at herself. She had been racking her brain trying to figure out how Kyle knew about her and Brianna while being two thousand miles away in Montana. She wanted to be outraged at him for spying on her but realized she was not in a position to be self-righteous. “Is that how you figured it all out? You’ve been tracking my phone?”
“Yes. I’ve been tracking your movements ever since you lied about having to work last Sunday.” Kyle turned his gaze away from the window and towards Abby who was glaring at him wide eyed and with her mouth hanging open.
“Yes, Abby. I know about that too. I’m not as dumb as I look. When you wouldn’t answer your phone that afternoon, I called the bookstore because you said you were going to be there working. Victoria, who according to you was out sick, answered the phone. Not only was she not home sick, she also told me you had not shown up for work that day. That’s when I became suspicious and began to track your movements through your phone.”
Abby wanted to kick herself. If she had kept her phone charged that day, Kyle wouldn’t have called the bookstore and started to figure things out. She regretted the way Kyle found out about her affair. She felt she would have saved everyone involved a lot of unnecessary heartache and public humiliation if only she had remembered to charge that phone.
But none of that mattered to Abby anymore. Kyle was giving her a second chance, and she was willing to do anything to make things right again. Sure, his demands sounded a bit extreme, but Abby felt that was the price she had to pay for betraying him.
Kyle returned his gaze to the streets of New York City and continued to share with Abby his list of unreasonable conditions. “If your phone is dead or turned off I can’t track it. That’s why you must remember to keep it charged at all times. If your phone is ever not online, I will suspect you are up to something and end this relationship for good. So keep it connected to the internet all the time. And don’t even try to change your iCloud password either. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand.” Abby replied, and those were the last words they said to each other for the remainder of the cab ride.
****
Meanwhile, in her apartment, Brianna curled up on a leather chair and took large gulps of gin straight from the bottle laying on her lap. Tears and more tears kept rushing down her cheeks as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. She had been so excited about Abby moving in. She had already made room for her things in her drawers and closet. She was looking forward to them moving to California together. Brianna thought they were going to go all the way. In a matter of hours, she had gone from unadulterated bliss to utter despair, so she drank to drown the pain in her fragile heart.
Brianna couldn’t understand why Abby had accepted to go back to Kyle after telling her she loved her. Brianna wanted to be angry at Abby, but she couldn’t. It was not Abby’s fault that she got her heart broken again. It was her own fault for believing she could actually find happiness. But blaming herself and convincing herself she deserved to get her heart crushed didn’t make the pain any easier to bear.
Brianna wished she had someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on. But she didn’t know anyone in The City, except for her manager and agent, and she did not consider them close friends. The few close friends she had lived too far away in L.A. or in Montana. So alcohol became her confidant.
As the days passed, Brianna drank so much the alcohol began to affect her performance at work. She started to show up late and hung over for rehearsals. She rarely knew the routines and snapped at everyone who dared to point it out. One day, she and the musical’s choreographer got into such a heated shouting match, the producers of the show had to call an emergency meeting with Brianna’s manager and agent.
At the meeting, the producers of the show threatened to replace Brianna in the show if Brianna didn’t get her act together. That prompted Brianna’s manager and agent to stage an intervention. They were able to knock some sense into Brianna. They made her realize she was throwing away a huge opportunity, perhaps the biggest opportunity of her career, if she didn’t snap out of it and stop her alcohol binging.
After the intervention, Brianna swallowed her pain and lost herself in her work. The musical became her new addiction and her reason for living. She started to show up earlier than anyone else and stayed long after everyone else had gone home to rehearse by herself. She was determined to keep that job no matter what. All her life, she had fought to overcome great pain and succeeded. This time was not going to be any different.
Chapter X
A month had passed since the night Kyle discovered his girlfriend’s affair with his own sister. It was a late summer night in New York City, and Abby was ringing the last sale of the day before the bookstore closed. Lately, she had been volunteering to work extra shifts and close the store because she dreaded going home. A month after taking Abby back, Kyle was still nowhere close to forgiving her, and that was starting to take its toll on Abby.
Kyle and Abby were not spending much time together. Kyle had becom
e condescending and never missed an opportunity to embarrass Abby in public places and in front of coworkers and acquaintances. He was often cruel and dismissive and snapped at her over the smallest of things.
The phone thing had gotten ridiculous too. Tracking the location of her phone was not enough for Kyle. He was also calling Abby constantly, sometimes three or four times per hour. He was suspicious of any person, man or woman, Abby spoke to. Abby had become a hermit and avoided socializing with anyone in fear that Kyle would freak out.
Every night since they decided to give their relationship another try, Kyle had come home very late and smelling of alcohol and cheap female perfume. There were nights when he didn’t come home at all. Deep down Abby knew Kyle was sleeping with other women but chose to live in denial about it.
Abby never confronted Kyle about the drinking or the going out every night. She was afraid he’d snap at her. He had not hit her, but she felt he had been close to hitting her a couple of times. So she just tried to stay out of his way as much as possible.
They hadn’t had sex since they got back together either- not that Abby was craving it. She would not have enjoyed having sex with a man that was always cranky, hostile and drunk. Abby put up with Kyle’s attitude and behavior because she hoped he’d eventually get all that resentment out of his system and go back to being the Kyle of old.
Abby felt she deserved to be treated the way she was being treated. She cheated on Kyle and then hid it from him for days. She broke his heart and betrayed his trust. Abby took Kyle’s punishment without complaints because she wanted to show Kyle she was serious about working things out with him. She looked forward to the day Kyle would let her out of the doghouse. In the meantime, she tried to make the best out of a bad situation.
After closing the bookstore that night, Abby picked up some Chinese takeout and went home. She wasn’t expecting Kyle to get home early. He hadn’t come home early in weeks. When she walked into the apartment, she was surprised to find all the lights were on.
“Kyle?” she called, putting the takeout food down on a table along with her keys. The apartment was very quiet except for the sound of very faint moaning coming from the bedroom.
“Kyle?” Abby called again as she made her way to the bedroom. She shrieked when she pushed the bedroom door open and her eyes landed on the backside of a very naked redhead on her bed. Abby couldn’t see the woman’s face from where she was standing, but she could tell Kyle was the man she was straddling. The redhead was so lost in the moment, she didn’t even hear Abby shriek or enter the room.
“Oh yeah, baby. Give it to me,” The voluptuous girl panted and moaned as she rolled her hips and writhed on top of Kyle.
From where Abby was standing, she couldn’t see Kyle’s face. She could, however, hear him grunt while his hands cupped the girl’s butt cheeks and his fingernails sank into the two perfect globes. The girl didn’t notice someone had walked in, but Kyle did immediately. He had expected Abby to walk in on him. He had timed the little tryst to coincide with Abby’s arrival from work.
“Oh, hey there, Abby. You’re home early,” Kyle sneered after pushing the girl’s body slightly to the side so he could see Abby standing at the door. He smiled at Abby innocently and acted as if what he was doing was the most normal thing in the world.
The redhead twisted her head around and let out a blood curdling scream when she saw Abby standing in the doorway, staring at her with a mixture of shock and disgust on her face.
“Oh my God. Who is she?” The redhead shrieked, dismounting Kyle and holding a white sheet against her surgically enhanced, naked breasts. Scared and mortified, she searched Kyle’s face looking for answers. “Is she your wife? Are you married?” She asked Kyle. Kyle ignored the girl’s questions and kept smirking at Abby.
The redhead then turned her gaze back to Abby and shot her an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he was married. Please don’t make a scene.”
With his head propped on a couple of pillows, Kyle curled his arms behind his head. He stared up at Abby, grinning smugly, reveling in her humiliation. “Relax…umm… what’s your name, sweetheart?” He asked, turning briefly to look at the shaken up girl lying next to him on the bed.
“Ginger,” the redhead replied without taking her eyes off Abby. She wondered when Abby was going to explode and kick her ass.
“Right! Ginger! Relax, Ginger. Abby’s not my wife. Isn’t that so, Abby? You see Ginger, I was going to marry Abby, but she turned out to be nothing but a disgusting, filthy whore and a liar. It’s a good thing I figured it out before it was too late.” Kyle’s lips were still smiling, but his eyes were blazing with pure evil.
Abby’s eyes began to well with tears, and her lower lip began to quiver as she tried to suppress the sobs fighting to come out of her mouth. At that moment, Abby understood she was fighting a losing battle. Kyle had not forgiven her and was never going to forgive her no matter how much she apologized or how hard she tried to regain his trust.
Ginger glared at Kyle, horrified at his cruelty. She then turned her attention to Abby and shot her a sympathetic look.
Abby wouldn’t look at the girl. She was not angry at Ginger because what was happening was not her fault. Abby knew Kyle was just using that girl to teach her a lesson. Abby kept her gaze fixed on Kyle’s taunting eyes and cynical grin while a single tear leaked out of the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. She brought her shaky hand up to her face and made the tear disappear from her cheek with a forceful but restrained swipe. Holding on to what was left of her dignity, Abby turned on her heel and slowly walked away from the shameful scene.
Kyle’s vengeful smirk quickly turned into a disappointed scowl as he watched Abby walk away. That was not the reaction he was expecting Abby to have. He had planned that stunt for days and was looking forward to a distraught Abby screaming hysterically at him after finding him in bed with another woman. Kyle wanted Abby to feel the same humiliation and heartbreak he felt the night he discovered she was sleeping with his own sister. Even though he didn’t get the reaction he was expecting, Kyle was not giving up.
“Where are you going, love?” Kyle called after Abby, masking his disappointment behind a cheerful western drawl. “Why don’t you join us? Now that you play for both teams, I figured there’d be enough variety in this bed to satisfy all your disgusting urges.”
Abby didn’t react to Kyle’s taunting. She did not turn around. She kept walking down the hallway before turning the corner to step into the kitchen.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t want to be part of it,” Ginger protested while staring at Kyle like he was deranged. She had begun to scoot towards the edge of the bed to get off it when Kyle grabbed her forearm.
“Come on, Jeannie. Don’t leave yet.” Kyle began to paw at her and tried to kiss her neck.
“Get the fuck off me,” Ginger screeched, jerking her arm away and accidentally elbowing Kyle on the temple. “And the name is Ginger, asshole.” She went to get off the bed, but Kyle grabbed her by the hair and pulled hard, causing Ginger to stumble backwards on the bed.
“You fucking cunt,” Kyle growled as Ginger raised her hands behind her head and wrestled to loosen the grip Kyle had on her curls.
“Get off me you fucking psycho,” Ginger shrieked, struggling to get off the bed and away from Kyle.
Without loosening his grip on Ginger’s hair, Kyle got off the bed and tugged on Ginger’s hair to get her to drag herself across the bed and get on her feet too.
“Get out of my house. You too are nothing but a fucking whore,” Kyle yelled, tossing Ginger across the room. Ginger landed hard on her hands and knees but quickly turned around. When she saw Kyle charging towards her, she dragged herself away from him and towards the door.
“You are all whores. All of you. Get the fuck out of my apartment,” Kyle barked as he gathered Ginger’s clothes off the floor at tossed them at her.
“Gladly,” Ginger sn
eered after shooting to her feet. She slipped her mini skirt and tube top on in a hurry. She didn’t even bother to find her panties. She wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. “I’m so sorry I agreed to come here with you. You’re fucking demented. You need help man.”
“Get out,” Kyle roared, pointing at the door with his index finger.
The thunderous, menacing command made Ginger jump. After putting her pumps back on and grabbing her handbag, Ginger stepped towards the bedroom’s door. At the doorway, she turned around and glared at Kyle.
“By the way, you may be good looking and smart, but you’re a lousy lay. No wonder your girlfriend cheated on you.”
Ginger’s sneering pushed Kyle over the edge. He lunged at her and gripped her arm, squeezing it until Ginger cried in pain.
Ginger screamed at the top of her lungs, kicking and swinging her other arm around to jerk herself free from Kyle’s crushing grip. She called Kyle every nasty name in the book, but Kyle did not let her arm go until they were at the apartment’s front door.
After opening the door with one hand and tossing Ginger out with the other, Kyle slammed the door shut in her face. From the other side of the door, Ginger kept calling Kyle all sorts of colorful names and cursing him out while banging hysterically on the door. Kyle ignored her and waited for her to tire herself out and walk away.
After the banging on the door had stopped, Kyle strolled into the bedroom and slipped into his boxer briefs and jeans. He then walked out of the bedroom and went looking for Abby. He found her in the kitchen sitting at the kitchen table.
With her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes glassy and red from crying, Abby glared at Kyle.
Standing at the doorway of the kitchen, Kyle felt a pinch of remorse and pity for the former love of his life. He had never seen Abby as sad and broken as she did sitting at that table. He started to question whether he had gone too far in his quest for revenge. But then he remembered all the lies Abby had told. He remembered how excited he was about proposing to her and planning a life together with her while she rolled around in bed with his despicable sister. Pity quickly gave way to rage.
Betrayal: Kyle's Revenge (The Betrayal Series) Page 12
