The Wright Mistake

by K. A. Linde

  “No! God, can’t you see what he’s trying to do? He’s trying to turn you against me.”

  “I’m not against you, Austin! I just wanted the truth. I wanted honesty. I thought we were doing all of this together. I know he’s not reliable, but we wouldn’t be fighting about this if you’d told me. Have you been hiding your drinking?”

  He opened and then closed his mouth. “You knew I was weaning off of alcohol.”

  “Yeah. It sure looks like it.”

  “What do you want me to say, Jules?”

  I closed my eyes against the frustrations and tried to clear my thoughts. I could feel Dillon infecting us, seeping his poisonous words and toxic personality into my life again. He was Loki, the trickster god. Preying on our fears and using the weeks he’d spent watching us to sow that seed of doubt. To splinter the fragile relationship we had been building into solid stone.

  “This is all your doing!” Austin cried.

  He turned his undivided, drunk attention to Dillon. And then, before I could do a single thing, Austin threw himself at Dillon. He swung wildly, sliding his fist against Dillon’s cheekbone.

  “Austin, no!” I shouted.

  But he wasn’t listening to me. There was nothing I could do.

  I knew Dillon had let Austin take that first swing. He’d been waiting for it. Knowing that anything that came next would be self-defense. He’d used the excuse before.

  Dillon had been boxing since he could walk. It was the only thing his deadbeat dad had ever given him. He was quick on his feet and could throw a punch that I knew all too well hurt like a motherfucker.

  Dillon’s eyes analyzed Austin’s drunk form before striking with the precision of someone who had been doing this for a very long time. I screamed as he battered Austin’s face, jabbed into his ribs, and knocked him off his feet. Austin stood no chance. Maybe, if he’d been sober, he would have had a weight advantage. Austin was solidly built, but Dillon had years of experience. It wasn’t a fair fight.

  “No, no, no,” I said. I grabbed on to Dillon’s shoulder and tried to pull him off of Austin.

  He shoved me backward with one hand, throwing me into the gravel. I skidded across the blacktop and felt the top layer of my forearm take the brunt of the hit. My hip connected next, and gravel buried like shrapnel into my knee.

  I winced as I tried to stand, but I had to. I had to stop this fucking nightmare. Dillon could not do this.

  He’d kill Austin.

  Fuck, he’d kill him.

  Blood spewed from Austin’s face. He was curled in on himself. The alcohol in his system must at least be keeping him from the majority of the pain. God, I hoped so.

  “Dillon, baby,” I whispered hoarsely, “I’ll go with you. I’ll…I’ll go with you.”

  He stopped assaulting Austin and turned to look at me. “What’d you say?”

  “You heard me. I’ll go. We…we can be together again. That’s what you want, right?”

  “What’s the catch, Jules?”

  “No catch. I left Austin anyway. He was trying to change my mind, but he can’t. Let’s just…let’s just go,” I said, my voice shaky. I needed an ounce of his bravado.

  Austin groaned. I thought I heard him say no, but I had to do this. I wouldn’t let Austin die because Dillon had found me again.

  Dillon seemed to take in the situation and then nodded. He’d won. He was done. If Austin was a threat again, he’d kill him. I saw the knowledge of that flash in his eyes.

  He reached a hand out to me. “Got to get you cleaned up.”

  I nodded. No mention that he was the one who had done this to me.

  “I’m ready to get back to the way things should be.”

  “Me, too,” I lied.

  Then, I followed him, trembling, as I tried hard not to look at Austin. As I followed the man I’d sworn I’d never let rule me again. As I entered my own personal hell and prayed I’d be able to come out on the other side.

  Twenty-Eight

  Austin

  “Austin! Austin!” a voice shouted over me.

  “Fuck!” someone else cried.

  My mind was fuzzy. Everything fucking hurt. My ribs, my face, my head. God, I felt like my head was about to rip in fucking two.

  “Whaaaa…” I slurred.

  “Oh, fuck, he’s okay,” the voice said.

  I opened a puffy eye and saw the person standing over me. “Heidi?”

  “Yeah, Austin, I’m here. We’re all here. We called the cops and an ambulance. They should be here soon. What the fuck happened to you?”

  “Jules,” I got out. Then, I spat, and blood landed in a wad on the floor.

  Floor? Hadn’t I been on the pavement? I looked around and saw that I was back inside Flips, lying on top of the bar. They must have carried me in here without me knowing. That meant, I must have blacked out.

  “What happened with Julia?” Heidi asked frantically. “Is she okay?”

  “Austin, man, take it slow. Tell us everything you know.”

  I looked up into the face of my brother. “Landon.”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Patrick and Emery are here, too. Jensen and Morgan are on their way.”

  “Don’t tell Sutton,” I muttered. She’d been through enough.

  “Okay,” Landon said hesitantly. Guilt swept his features. “Why don’t you tell us what happened. Is Julia okay?”

  I winced and tried to sit up. But everything ached, and I crashed back onto the top of the bar.

  “Whoa. Take it easy,” Heidi said.

  I could see she was worried. Everything felt so far away. I tried to grasp on to what had happened outside, but it kept slipping through my fingertips. Suddenly, nausea hit me over the head. I turned my head and threw up all over the bar floor.

  “Fuck,” Heidi groaned, turning away.

  “That looks like a concussion. Fuck,” Landon said. “Sorry, Peter.”

  “Not the first time. Not the last.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember all the details. I didn’t know why everything kept slipping away. Is it the alcohol? Did I have a concussion? Fuck!

  Then, it hit me.

  And my blood chilled.

  “Dillon,” I spat.

  Heidi froze. “Julia’s ex-boyfriend?”

  “He’s Evan.”

  “Um, what?” Heidi asked.

  “Evan is Dillon, and Dillon is Evan. Evan’s been my friend, but he’s not. He’s—” I cut off as a wave of disorientation hit me.

  “Isn’t Evan the guy you go to the gym with?” Landon filled in for me.

  “He’s Dillon. He took her.”

  “Evan or Dillon?” Landon asked, clearly confused.

  “Oh no,” Heidi gasped. “I think I get it. Dillon has been pretending to be Evan. And he took Julia tonight?”

  “Who is Dillon?” Landon asked.

  “Long story. We need to be out there, looking for her. We need the cops out there, looking for her. She’s in a lot of trouble.”

  Heidi rushed off to go talk to Emery and Patrick. I slowly eased into a sitting position against Landon’s better judgment.

  “Did this Dillon-slash-Evan guy do this to you?” Landon asked.

  I nodded and regretted it. I cradled my head and winced at the pain. “Yeah, he did. He beat the shit out of me, and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t get to Julia. And she left with him. I don’t know what she was thinking. We need to find her, man.”

  “We will,” Landon assured me.

  But I could see that he had no clue how to do that. For once, the Wrights didn’t have a plan. We didn’t know how to fix this. My girlfriend, the love of my life, was out there, somewhere, with a psychopath, and I couldn’t do a damn thing. I couldn’t even walk yet.

  If I hadn’t been drunk, then none of this would have happened. If I’d told Julia everything, then she wouldn’t have been pissed at me. If she could have trusted me with her story, maybe I never would have fallen for Evan’s bullshit.

&n
bsp; Instead, I’d stepped right into his trap. We’d done exactly what he wanted. And, now, he had Julia.

  I couldn’t stand for that.

  I might have messed up, but she hadn’t left of her own free will. She’d done it to save me. After what she had told me about Dillon, I knew that she wouldn’t have gone willingly. She hated him. And that wasn’t about to change in a matter of hours. Even if we weren’t together, she wasn’t going to run back to the guy she’d run from in the first place.

  That meant, there was only one course of action. I had to get out of this fucking bar, and I had to get my girl back.

  Twenty-Nine

  Julia

  I’d saved Austin’s life.

  That was what was important here.

  If I hadn’t left, Dillon would not have stopped. He would have left Austin a bloody, dead pulp on the pavement. It had been bad enough, witnessing Dillon fuck him up, but dead? No, I couldn’t even fathom that.

  We were in a nondescript pickup truck that I was sure he’d stolen. Adding grand theft auto to his record was nothing. I’d seen him jack a car he needed for the business. He never got caught. Not before I’d ratted him out at least.

  And, if it wasn’t stolen, then he’d really gone to extreme lengths in setting up this Evan personality. That was even more terrifying. The premeditation. He’d planned this all out. Weaseled his way into my life and Austin’s life and Lubbock life so seamlessly. Instead of approaching me as soon as he’d gotten here, he’d subsumed himself into a whole new identity.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, picking gravel out of my arm with a wince.

  “Your apartment.”

  I startled. “Why?”

  “Got to pack up your shit. I know you want that jacket.”

  I held back my shudder at the violation. In his twisted mind, he probably didn’t even think that he had done anything wrong. I was his. And that was all that mattered. It was all that had ever mattered to him. Not how I felt or what I wanted. Only his desires and obsessions. I just happened to be the person who had gotten stuck in the middle of his insanity.

  So, I needed to tread very carefully around him. He thought I wanted to be here. I’d left freely. And I needed him to think that was the truth.

  “I love that jacket.”

  “I know,” he said.

  We pulled up to my apartment. He hopped out first and met me on the other side. “Come on. Let’s make this quick.”

  I nodded and then hurried for the front door. Okay, I could do this. I could figure out a way around this. A stop at my apartment meant that I had a chance to escape this. A chance to get away. I needed to focus on that now. I’d saved Austin. No one was coming to save me. I had to save myself. As always.

  Dillon grabbed my purse before I could dig through it, and he removed my keys. I longingly looked at my purse for a second before turning away. My phone was in that purse. He had to know that I wanted it. Maybe he even guessed I’d been planning to call the cops.

  He slid the key into the lock and opened each of them individually. Not that they had done me much good in the end. Nothing had kept Dillon out of my life.

  He snagged my wrist hard enough that bones ground together. I was careful not to cry out. He hated that, and it set him off. Most things did. Then, he tugged me inside and closed and locked the door behind us.

  “Nice flowers,” he said, grinning at the lilies he’d sent me, still on the counter.

  I hadn’t been home since I realized they weren’t from Austin.

  “Do you know how long I’ve been thinking about this moment?”

  “No,” I whispered, stepping back once.

  “Years. But planning? I’ve been planning for months. I had to find you first, of course. Changing your name?” He laughed, but it held only madness. “Changing your name was smart. It made my game a little harder. But I found you. I thought, when you dumped that first guy, that it was our time. I knew it was coming to that, so I snuck over and took your jacket. I thought I’d surprise you. But then…then it didn’t go as planned. You started with the alcoholic.”

  “Dillon,” I pleaded. I knew he liked to hear himself talk. The mastermind behind all of his plots. But I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t want to know how he’d infiltrated my life so easily.

  “Right. Packing.”

  He turned to face me, and I swallowed. The full weight of his attention was never a good place to be.

  “Come here.”

  I took a step forward, toward him. His blue eyes critically assessed me. He gently slipped my red hair off my shoulders. I tensed. When he was gentle, I knew it was going to be worse. Much worse. He grabbed my hair at the bottom and then wound it around his hand until it was in a tight fist.

  “You could never be with anyone else but me, Jules.”

  “I know,” I said hoarsely.

  His grip on my hair tightened, angling my head backward so that I stared up at him.

  “Ever.”

  “Yes.”

  Harder. I felt some of the hair pulling from the roots. Tears came to my eyes. He was hurting me. All that time I’d spent learning to protect myself, and still, he was hurting me.

  “Don’t forget it again,” he said.

  “I won’t,” I gasped out.

  Then, he smiled a chilling smile and firmly pressed his lips against mine. I knew resisting him would only mean something bad for me, and he already had the control. Swallowing back the bile rising in my throat, I opened my lips to him. He kissed me with the ferocity that came from a three-year absence. I felt nothing. Not a thing in his lips. Once, he’d been my world. I would have given anything for any kind of reaction from him.

  But, now, I hated him. Fuck, I hate him! For everything he’d done to me and all the pain he’d caused. For the fear I couldn’t escape. For forcing me…into everything.

  “Let’s go,” he said, shoving me off of him.

  My hand went to my head. I winced at the tender touch. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  Dillon nodded his head toward the bedroom, and I anxiously entered ahead of him. He shoved me into the closet and pulled out a suitcase. He knew exactly where it was.

  “Pack,” he said.

  “Dillon?” I said in that soft, submissive voice I knew he loved. “Do you think you could get me something to clean up my cuts and maybe some ibuprofen?” I carefully met his eyes.

  “On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Let me see it,” he said.

  I was frozen. “See what?”

  “My name.”

  Fuck. Oh, fuck.

  When I was twenty, Dillon had convinced me to get his name tattooed on my body. He’d said it was more permanent than marriage. A fucking piece of paper didn’t mean shit to him. He’d already owned me. Putting a permanent reminder on me had just sealed the deal.

  But the first thing I’d done when I got out was, I’d found the best fucking tattoo artist in the state of Ohio to tattoo over it. Dillon was right. It had been a constant fucking reminder of him. And I’d wanted it gone.

  My hands were shaking when I slid up the front of my dress and showed him the navy-blue thong I wore underneath. I tugged the material down just an inch and showed him the delicate flowers and vines that covered up his name and wrapped around my hip. He could only see half of the masterpiece that started at my hip, snaked up my ribs, across the outside of my breast, and up to my shoulder.

  He knelt before me and traced his finger over the sensitive skin where he’d insisted I get tattooed.

  “We’ll have to fix this,” he said. He leaned forward and nipped at the skin.

  “We’ll do it when we get home,” I said, forcing excitement into my voice.

  He grinned. “Finish packing.”

  I nodded and started haphazardly throwing clothes into the suitcase. But, as soon as he left the closet, I bolted for my safe. It was my only chance. I had to try for it. I didn’t know how much time I had or how familiar he was
with my bathroom and where the medical supplies were. But I had at least a minute, maybe two if I was lucky.

  I typed in the combination on the lock. I held my breath as it clicked open, and then I was in a race against time. I would not be a victim. Not with all the time I had spent at the shooting range. Not with all the time I had spent becoming a new person and getting away from Dillon. I was not going back to Ohio, to that life and that person. No way in hell.

  I grabbed my Glock out of the case. My fingers didn’t fumble. I didn’t hesitate. I ejected the empty magazine, loaded bullets as efficiently as I had practiced time and time again at the range, reinserted the magazine, and pulled the slide back to chamber a round.

  “Jules, I didn’t find the ibuprofen,” Dillon said as he entered the closet.

  I whirled around and held the gun level with his chest. Bigger target. I could hit his head, but if I only got off one shot, I wanted to make sure I didn’t fucking miss.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

  He was angry. Fiery fucking angry. Ballistic, going-to-kill-me kind of crazy angry.

  “Dillon, why don’t you back the fuck up right the fuck now?”

  “Jules,” he said, as if he could reason with me.

  “Now! Out of my closet, out of my bedroom, out of my fucking apartment.”

  “Think about what you’re doing.”

  “Don’t give me a reason to use this.”

  “You’re making a huge mistake,” he growled low and deadly.

  But I was the one with the gun.

  “You were the one who made a mistake when you came here.”

  “Jules, just put the gun down. Don’t do anything fucking stupid.” Dillon took a step toward me.

  “Don’t come any closer,” I snarled.

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” he said, taking another step forward.

  “I have every right to shoot you right now, Dillon. And, if you’ve been watching me as closely as it seems, then you know I know how. I won’t miss. Now, step back!”

  He took one more step toward me. He was almost close enough to grab the gun if he wanted to. I couldn’t let that happen. This was my only fucking chance. I aimed and fired at his foot. He jumped backward just in time to miss me shooting him.