Keep My Heart (Top Shelf Romance Book 7)

by Lex Martin

  “Is that what you think?” he asks. “That we’ll just go back to business as usual? After this?”

  “If you get help,” I say in as reasonable a tone as I can manage with a man determined to take me by force, “you can see her. You can be part of her life. You may get back on the Stingers. Your dad’ll come around. There’s no telling what your father can accomplish.”

  “And you’d come home?” he asks, his eyes almost sad, his mouth a wistful line drawn through the middle of his madness.

  What do I say?

  “Maybe,” I lie. “If you get the help you need, we could see, Caleb.”

  His grip on my wrist relaxes just a little, just enough. I pounce. I shove him with all my strength. His bulk shifts. I surge to my feet and dive for my purse on the counter. It’s barely out of reach when he catches me, pressing my stomach painfully into the counter’s sharp edge.

  “I’m done talking,” he rasps into my hair. One hand loosens his belt while his thickly muscled arm circles me, pinning my arms to my sides. His hand fumbles under my shirt, and I hear my panties rip.

  “No!” I screech and struggle and fight with every ounce of resistance I have.

  Sobs shake my shoulders, and my head droops forward helplessly. He’s nudging, hard and aroused, when he shifts and tries to get in. I wiggle one arm loose just enough for me to turn, and the edge of the counter digs into my back. I slap at his head and punch wildly. His fingers, thick and long and strong, manacle my neck, squeezing mercilessly, not budging even when I claw at them, desperate for air. My vision darkens and the stars come out, bright pins of light penetrating the velvet blanket falling over my eyes. With the last of my consciousness, I stretch to my purse, drag it toward me. I pull out MiMi’s jeweled knife. Angling down, I thrust blindly, sinking the blade into flesh.

  He howls, jumping back to grab his leg gushing blood. I stumble past him out of the kitchen, gasping for breath, massaging my throat, tripping across the floor. If I can just get him outside, away from Sarai.

  I’m almost at the front door when a sound fires behind me. Pain explodes in my shoulder with atomic force, sending me to my knees. I clutch my shoulder, blood running through my fingers.

  He shot me.

  In all those months he held me against my will with that gun, he never actually shot me.

  He means to kill me.

  “It’s useless to run, Iris.” He drags his injured leg behind him and over to the wall where I slump, so disoriented with pain, I can barely move.

  “I never wanted to hurt you, baby.” He pushes my hair back with the barrel of the gun, making me shudder. “I only wanted to love you, but you messed that up.”

  A bitter laugh cracks my lips. “You lying piece of shit,” I whisper. “I can’t even count all the ways you’ve hurt me.”

  I don’t wait for him to answer, but go on, ignoring the seething crater in my shoulder.

  “I have a cracked tooth.” I tap a molar on the side. “Right here. I lost twenty percent of the hearing in my right ear when you busted my eardrum. You fractured my wrist, and it never healed properly. It aches all the time.”

  I ache all the time.

  “You’ve done nothing but hurt me.” Tears and blood from my head wound mingle on my face.

  August.

  His name whispers through my thoughts. I say a silent prayer that Sarai will make it through this, that August will take care of her. That he and Lo will make sure she doesn’t forget me. Sorrow, wide and deep, swallows me, for all the lost moments with her and August I’ll never have. My stolen second chance.

  “New rules,” Caleb says, pushing the gun into my side. “We either live together, or we don’t live at all. Those are the rules. I do have one gift for you, though.”

  He pulls something small from the pocket of his jeans, opening his hand to reveal MiMi’s gris-gris ring. It glints against his palm, so unassuming, so powerful.

  I know I can’t actually hear her voice, but the sight of the ring MiMi crafted to protect me brings her words, spoken to me in this very house, back to mind.

  You are pure. You are enough. You are strong.

  He can’t hurt you.

  Strong enough to fight back. Strong enough to win.

  Strength. Dignity. Courage. All these things belong to you. Take them back.

  “I only wanted us to be together,” Caleb says, his sorrow, his madness and ruthlessness twisting in his voice. “And one way or another, we will be. It all ends tonight.”

  The hell it does.

  His rules. His dictatorship. His girl. For too long, he’s acted like he owned me, but I’m not his. He doesn’t get the last word. It’s my life. My body. My spirit.

  Yours to keep and yours to share.

  There is a reservoir in my soul. A pool of strength, lying in wait. Like MiMi’s Mississippi, it surges through my veins, cleansing me, renewing me, imbuing me with the power of a thousand priestesses. Lending me ancient courage born a thousand years before.

  I slam my fist into his injured leg, scrambling out of the way when he grabs at the wound. I push against him, shifting our bodies until the gun flies from his hand. We both dive for it, blood leaking from my shoulder and gushing from his leg. Our hands wrap around the barrel and the handle. He presses me to the floor, and we fight and fumble until our fingers overlap on the trigger, the gun wedged between our bellies. It’s him or me.

  Or maybe it’s both of us, because together we pull the trigger.

  August

  Every horror movie on the bayou I’ve ever seen comes to mind while I drive the long road to MiMi’s place. “Secluded” was the word Iris used. That’s a daytime word. At night, “scary as hell” seems more appropriate.

  When I finally pull into the driveway, the rental car is the first thing I see. Iris was adamant that security not stay. I can’t even think about her reasons without nearly busting a blood vessel. Caleb has so much to answer for, and I plan to personally see to it that he does. Not his money, or his family’s power, or the rug we like to sweep shit under will save him this time.

  The car makes no sense, and the closer I get to the house, my duffle bag in tow, the more cautious I become. The door is cracked open, an eerie invitation to come inside.

  The house is so tiny, making the scene in the front room unavoidable. It’s the first thing I see, and I’m sure it will haunt me until I die.

  “Iris.” I say her name out loud, but I don’t hear it. I don’t hear anything. The words are muffled. I’m underwater and drowning, burning lungs, weighted limbs, struggling to the top, fighting for air.

  My Iris.

  Lying in a pool of blood—still. And that monster on top of her—still. There’s so much blood, and I can’t tell where he ends and she begins, and whose blood is coming from where. For a second, I’m immobile at the door, trapped in a tragic snapshot, but then all the sounds rush in and I’m in motion, desperate and frenzied. I push the dead weight of Caleb’s body aside.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  Iris lies on the floor, wearing one of my shirts. It’s shoved up past the top of her thighs. Blood blossoms across her torso, dousing the shirt from belly to shoulder.

  “Iris?” I touch her arm, gentle and hesitant and desperate. “Baby?”

  I search for signs of life. I don’t breathe while my heart waits to know if it’s irreparably broken.

  When her eyes slowly open, it’s daybreak. It’s dawn. This moment puts everything in perspective because despite all the things I have, if Iris is gone, I’ve got nothing.

  “August!” She tries to sit up, and I scoot my body under her so her head can rest on my knee. “Sarai. Where is she?”

  My heart seizes when I don’t see Sarai. Did he do something to her? But then a sound from the back of the house filters into my consciousness, insistent, but faint.

  “I hear her in the back. She’s calling you.”

  Iris releases a long breath out and nods. “I locked her room. She must still b
e in there,” she rasps, her voice hoarse. She squints, focusing on the prone man a few feet away. “Is he dead?”

  Her lips tremble. She’s shaking in my arms. Her cheekbone is swollen, and blood streaks down her face. Black marks stripe her throat.

  God, I hope he’s dead.

  “I . . . baby, I don’t know,” I say. “I need to call nine-one-one. There’s so much blood.”

  “Not my blood.” She grimaces and lifts her hand, painstakingly slow, to touch her shoulder. “Some of it is. He shot me in the shoulder.”

  Motherfucker.

  I squeeze my forehead and claw my hair to keep myself focused on her and not tearing his arms out of their sockets. The desire to kill him is an ache in my bones. It makes my heart contract.

  “He’s shot, though,” she says weakly. “We fought, and I shot him.” Pride sparks in her eyes, dulled to brown.

  “You did good, Iris.” I run a shaky palm over her hair, and my fingers come away red and sticky with blood. “Jesus, baby. Are you sure you’re—”

  “Is he dead?” she cuts in, her grip on my arm tight. Her eyes are wide, urgent. “I need to know, August. He won’t ever leave me alone. Do you hear? He’ll kill me. And Sarai will—”

  I press my finger to her lips, staunching the panic rising in her voice. “I’ll check.”

  “Now.” Tears leak from the corners of her eyes and skid over her swollen cheekbone. “Check now.”

  Smudgy marks from his fingers stain her jaw. My stomach turns at what he’s done to her. At the thought that this isn’t the first time. She lived with him. She slept beside him. For months. Alone.

  Fuck.

  I gently shift her and scoot across the blood-covered floor to the vermin pickling in his own reckoning. Rage overpowers me the closer I get. I want to stomp on his face and press my boot to his throat. His hand is tucked under his shirt, and when I tug the shirt back, he’s covering a hole in his belly streaming blood.

  “West.” His eyes flutter open. His voice is thin, withering, agonized. He grimaces, tipping his head back. Life leaks from his eyes as surely as it’s leaking from his wound. “I guess you win.”

  I look back to Iris, who has pulled herself to a sitting position and leans against the wall. Even now, with him clinging to the last threads of his life, she’s wary and guarded, watching him like, shot and bleeding out, he still might strike.

  She lifts her hand, revealing a small ring in her palm.

  “Lo told you your days were numbered,” she says, her voice wobbling.

  With eyes narrowed, she cups her hand to her mouth and blows over it.

  “Fuck you, Iris,” he says, voice rough and angry.

  With one hand covering the bullet hole in her shoulder, Iris drags herself across the floor until she’s beside me. A scarlet line of blood trails her.

  “Iris.” I pull out my phone and nod to her bleeding shoulder. “I need to call nine-one-one.”

  “No.” She fires the word like a bullet, the last one in her barrel as she looms over Caleb. “Don’t call yet.”

  “But your shoulder—”

  “It’s fine.” Her soft mouth lopsides in a bitter smile. “I have a high tolerance for pain. Isn’t that right, Caleb?”

  Her gaze is locked on his—on the last vestiges of life draining from his eyes, from his body.

  “As long as he’s alive, I’m not safe and neither is my daughter. He tried to kill me.” She draws in a long breath, her eyes narrowed. “So we wait.”

  She’s my Iris, but I’ve never seen her like this. I thought I had seen all her sides, loved all her sides, but I’ve never seen this. Ruthless and beautiful and bloodied, she emanates all the strength and determination it must have taken her to survive.

  And I’ve never loved her more.

  We stand in silent vigil for the few minutes of life Caleb has left. His moans and his pain don’t move me—they don’t bring me satisfaction either. It’s simply a necessary end. He deserves so much worse, but at least Iris gets to watch him die.

  The absolute stillness of death settles over him. His gaze is vacant and fixed on Iris. I pass a hand over his eyes, closing them; denying him, even in death, one last glimpse of my girl.

  I call nine-one-one and then turn my attention back to her. I take her face between my hands, aligning our eyes.

  “He’s gone.” I press my forehead to hers, and the blood on her face smears against mine. I don’t care. I wish I could share her pain as easily. I wish I could wipe it away like it had never happened.

  “Yes. Yes.” Her fingers dig into my hair and her head drops to my shoulder. She kisses my neck. “I love you.”

  I pull back, tilting her chin and erasing her tears with the back of my hand. Carefully, I kiss her, tasting her blood and her tears and her pain.

  That night we first met, we couldn’t have known what lay ahead. If she had only kissed me—if I had only pressed for more. If the night I won the championship, I’d managed to convince her that even though we’d just met, even though she had a boyfriend, even though it didn’t make sense – we should take a chance. If I had looked closer and hadn’t missed the signs. Life isn’t a road that forks or a line of numbered sliding doors. There is no alternate universe filled with only right choices. There’s just this one—just this life, and we go where our choices take us and grow wiser from our mistakes.

  Standing on the porch waiting for the paramedics, I glance up at the blackened stretch of Louisiana sky. Life is a constellation of decisions, connected by coincidences and deliberations, painting pictures in the heavens. During the day, when things are brightest, we don’t see the stars, but they are there. It’s only in the contrast of night, when things are darkest, that the stars shine.

  Iris is my constellation. She took the darkness as her cue to shine. It only made her brighter, stronger, and tonight, her hard-won glimmer lights up the sky.

  OVERTIME

  “I have been bent and broken, but - I hope – into a better shape.”

  -- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

  Epilogue – Iris

  “Shitbag!”

  I’m literally pulling my hair and grinding my teeth.

  “Motherfucker, are you kidding me with this?”

  I pace the floor and clench my fists at my side.

  “Just . . .” I punch the air. “Ugggghhh.”

  My Lakers are playing. And as usual, I’m at war with the refs.

  “Grrrrr.” Another bad call.

  I’m trying to keep my voice down. August is in his guest room reading to Sarai. We have these little “sleepovers” at his place from time to time, my concession since I haven’t decided to move into his condo yet. I’m especially keen for these semi-regular events at times like this when he’s coming off a long road trip and we haven’t seen him.

  The Lakers score.

  Yes!

  Even though I’ve been a Lakers fan since I was a kid, and even though August knows that, I still feel a little disloyal. My Lakers did beat the Waves two days ago. I drove up to LA for the game and sat in the stands. I was torn, but I managed to sit on my hands whenever we—we, being the Lakers—scored. As competitive as August is, he gave me a “don’t talk to me” look after they lost the game.

  I wore his Waves jersey proudly, number thirty-three.

  But my panties were purple and gold.

  The doorbell rings when the game goes to a commercial, and I turn off the TV in case August finishes before I get back to the bedroom.

  I stare dumbly at the pizza delivery guy standing at the door.

  “Pizza for DuPree?” the pimple-faced teenager asks.

  “Um, I didn’t order pizza.” Would have been good, though.

  He peers up at the number over the door and back to the delicious-smelling box of pizza, and then squints at a little slip of paper.

  “Pineapple and pepperoni pizza and root beer?” he asks. “That’s not you?”

  August.

  “Oh, yeah. Th
at is me.” I laugh and turn back toward the living room. “Let me grab my purse.”

  “Already paid for.” He hands it over, offers a small salute, and leaves.

  I lean against the door, holding the pizza in the palm of one hand, clutching the root beer in the other. August knows me so well—he remembers that I like pizza and root beer when the Lakers play.

  He knows me well, and we have no more secrets. No more shadows or shame. There are obvious disadvantages to Andrew leaking that file, but I can’t deny the good it did. Yes, the darkest, hardest parts of my life were put on display for everyone to dissect and judge, but now I have nothing to hide.

  And no one to hide my secrets from.

  Caleb is dead. I’ve held onto my humanity enough not to take joy in it, but I can’t say I mourned him. Never has ‘survival of the fittest’ been truer. There’s no doubt in my mind that if Caleb had lived, I would have died. I almost did. His eyes were cruel until his last breath, and he tried to diminish me until the very end. And with him gone, it’s like my entire existence exhaled.

  There wasn’t any question that it was self-defense. If the file released wasn’t damning enough, the head wound, marks on my neck, and bullet in my shoulder testified against Caleb. I answered all the questions the police had, but I really wanted to leave it at that and go on with our lives.

  But it’s not that simple.

  I’m in a relationship with one of the NBA’s rising stars, one who leads a very public life. Two of the league’s most popular players were ensnared in a “love triangle” that turned violent and tragic. One of them ends up dead, and the woman caught in the middle was holding the smoking gun. It was the juiciest basketball story in decades. In the locker room, after games, in interviews, reporters always found a way to bring up “the scandal.” It was awkward.

  August was evasive, impatient, ill-tempered. And I was . . . not sure. Not sure I was ready to talk about the things that almost destroyed me—to talk about my life like it was some telenovela. Like some sensationalized soap opera with a fairytale beginning, a villainous prince, and a grisly end. And the last thing I wanted to be was the poster child for domestic abuse, not with the way our culture finds ways to blame the victims.