Broken Illusions (His Agenda Volume 3) (11 page)

“No. You’re lying.” My hands flew to my mouth as my mind transported me back to the day that caused me everything, reminded me of the family holiday that had turned into a nightmare when Liz was washed away by a powerful wave and couldn’t be found for weeks and months. She couldn’t be alive. Jude had to be messing with me yet again. “I don’t believe you.”

“Let me finish and then you can tell me what a big liar you think I am.” He rubbed the burnt side of his face.

“When Elizabeth finally emerged from the coma and was able to speak, she revealed her identity, and your mother was tracked down in Boston. But guess what?” He slapped his forehead as if in surprise. “She was barely able to support one child.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I retorted, pulling myself to a sitting position. “My mother was not perfect but she loved Liz. She loved us. She would have done anything to get her back. She was devastated when—”

“Poor, poor, Haley. When are you going to remove your rose-tinted glasses? If she was so perfect, why then did Elizabeth grow up in an orphanage? Why did your precious mother not do everything to get her daughter out of that shit hole? Why didn’t she visit her?” He tapped his nose as though thinking hard. “Oh, I know, she chose the booze instead.”

That was the first sign that there could be some kind of truth to what Jude was saying. I had never told him about my mother’s drinking problem. In fact, I had never told him much about my childhood, just enough. But he was an intelligent man. He could have done his research.

“Call me a liar again and I’ll tell you more.”

I looked up, my eyes and nose dripping. “You’re a fucking liar. If Elizabeth were really alive, my mother would have told me. She would have.”

“Except she didn’t, did she? Could it be that she was never sober long enough to even think straight? You know what’s funny? Elizabeth didn’t believe your mother would turn her back on her either. At sixteen, she ran away from the orphanage and followed you and your mother to Serendipity, where you both were by then. Oh, I’m sorry, I meant to keep this short.” He sighed and continued. “Elizabeth found your mother inside her favorite place, a whorehouse. She told Elizabeth she didn’t know who she was and walked away. Can you believe your sweet mother would do that? Maybe it was shame, or maybe she was literally too fucked up.” He roared with laughter, and slapped his knees.

I was trembling now, and anger boiled in my veins, anger at my mother for turning her back on Liz, and for never telling me that she was alive. I was furious with Jude not only for keeping this secret from me, but for murdering my sister. My rage gave me the strength to get up, to lunge for him. Even with handcuffed hands, I punched and clawed at his scarred face, screaming, shouting, swearing. “You bastard!”

“Bitch,” he said through clenched teeth and gripped both my wrists. He brought his face a breath away from mine. “Don’t you dare do that again. Get that?”

I spat into his face. “You are an asshole. You are nothing inside, nothing but scum.”

I felt the slap on my face and my head snapped to the side before I even saw his hand.

I turned back to face him, feeling the heat in my eyes, daring him to strike me again.

He grinned, pure evil stretching across his face. “Want to know why you didn’t recognize your sister immediately? She was skilled with a makeup brush. See, she resembled your mother too much, the woman who had turned her back on her. She hated that.” He paused. “She ditched the name too, asked me to call her Lacey instead. I worked my ass off to make her dreams of having a family come true.” He shoved me back and my head hit the toilet pot, and I bit my lip to steel myself. “Then she became an ungrateful bitch just like you. How dare she fuck another man, after everything I did for her?” Drops of spit sprayed everywhere with each word.

He stood and I tightened my whole body, bracing myself for the next blow. His foot landed in my stomach and I gasped with pain. But I was beyond pain at this point, too fueled by anger to stop. He was hurting me physically, but I was intent on hurting him where it hurt most—his ego.

“I’m glad she fucked someone else. You’re a lousy fuck. You never did it for me. Never. I faked so many orgasms.” I smiled up at him, my slapped cheek smarting at the movement. “Dustin, on the other hand—”

“Shut up, whore. Shut the fuck up.” Another kick in my stomach made me double over and taste blood in my mouth, but still I refused to back off. I would continue until I broke him.

I raised my gaze again. Through my blurred vision, I watched him pace the small bathroom, gripping the sides of his hair with his eyes squeezed shut.

“I have a secret too,” I said in a voice that didn’t sound like my own. “Want to know it?”

His eyes snapped open and he stopped moving.

“I
was
pregnant. I found out on Dustin’s ranch. It was your baby. I knew then that you’d switched my pills.”

“You liar.” He dropped to his knees and grabbed my chin, turned it upward so I was looking straight into his eyes. He was coming undone. I was getting to him, and it felt so good.

“I’m telling the truth. The baby died before you showed up. You killed it. If I weren’t so afraid of you, maybe you would have been a father by now. Except… I’d have raised the baby with Dustin.”

He pushed me back and got to his feet, leaned his forehead against the closed door. He spun around, dropped to his knees again, and knocked me down, my head missing the toilet this time and hitting the floor with a thud that vibrated inside my skull. My vision started to blur, and then darkness took over.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jude

Jude was no fool. He knew Haley didn’t love him anymore. The moment she attempted to set him on fire, it was clear. But he loved her and that was enough. He loved her and hated her at the same time. The way she hurt him and shattered their vows was unforgivable. He had to push his love for her aside and punish her for her sins. Both love and the desire for revenge had kept him alive—revenge that had eaten him up inside like hot acid. Also, the thought of Haley fucking another man drove him crazy. Haley would belong to him until death. He’d come back to remind her of that.

As he watched her lying on the floor, a cocktail of love and hate raged through him, and he saw red. He wanted her and he hated her more than he'd ever hated anyone. Even his father. At least his father had never pretended to love him and then withdrew that love. Haley had played him from the start. Just like Lacey had. As much as it hurt him to cause her pain, she had to pay.

He sucked in a breath through his teeth and lowered himself to her level, studying her closed eyes. With his gaze, he followed the curl of her long lashes, imagining the pool of green behind the lids that had always driven him mad with desire.

His groin strained at the sight of her smooth skin, her full, pink lips, and the curve of her breasts. He craved her just as he had the first time he’d laid eyes on her. He wanted to fuck her even now, knocked out as she was, but he loved watching the fear in her eyes when he entered her, loved feeling her squirm beneath him.

He reached for her throat, encircling her gentle neck with his hand. He could finish her off right now and his job would be done, but he wanted to see her fight for her life. What was revenge without pain? No, he would wait. He'd wait until she woke up and then he would finish what he'd started. For now, he had to have her, or else he would explode. The most important thing was that she was still alive. He’d felt her pulse.

Grinding his teeth together, he ran a finger down her throat, past the hollow in her neck. He paused there a moment, wishing he could carve his infinity mark into her skin. He would, but not yet. He moved on to where the strapless dress started across her chest and pushed down the thin elastic material, all the way until her soft, round breasts were free.

His pulse quickened and his breathing intensified as he pulled the material lower still over her flat stomach, down to her belly button. He lowered his mouth to it and flicked it with his tongue, inhaling her vanilla scent. Then he used both hands to lift her hips and thighs as he moved the dress to her knees and down her endless legs. He slid her thong over her hips.

Satisfied, he sat down and reached into his pants. He was so ready for her.

***

Jude watched Haley’s pretty, broken face fill the television screen, her wild eyes frozen with fear as he took back what belonged to him.

He shifted in bed as he felt himself harden with longing for her yet again. Why was she being such a bitch? He had not expected her to fight this hard. He'd thought that night in the barn would be a one-time thing. He'd thought walking back into her life as if he'd just come home from work would teach her not to mess with him again.

As he watched the video of her writhing beneath him on her kitchen floor, he gripped the bed sheet next to him with his hand, crushing the rose petals he had sprinkled on it earlier, crushing his plans for a romantic evening.

He would leave her in the bathroom for a while. When she awoke, maybe she would come to her senses. It was up to her whether they lived through this weekend or died tonight.

He could only imagine the headlines when the cops found the dead bodies next week. His return would shock more than Serendipity. It would shock the nation. Every newspaper would have his photo stamped across its front, like last time.

They had called him a monster then. They had believed him to be dead, not knowing he was reading every article he could find on the serial killer that shattered the town of Serendipity. A monster. The thought made him laugh from deep in his belly. Stinking bullshit. They should have done their research. He was far from a monster. What monsters were driven by love?

He muted the TV but kept his gaze fixed on the screen. He leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes, thinking of Lacey, his first love. His love for her was what had helped him conquer his childhood demons. It had run so deep it both healed and hurt him to the core. And when, like Haley, she had withdrawn her own love and offered it to someone else, she had ripped his heart right out of his chest.

They had promised each other forever and he had kept his end of the bargain. He had loved her more than fuckin' Romeo had loved Juliet. And then she threw it all back in his face. He'd had no choice but to let death part them, as they had promised to each other on their wedding day.

He was no monster. He felt pain. The moment life had left her body, he had never felt more powerful. But after a few weeks, that power had been replaced by an all-consuming pain that had swallowed him whole and pushed him into the sea of depression. The only thing that cured his grief, and numbed the pain, was Lacey’s resurrection in her sister’s body. The joy he’d felt when he found Haley, had been a drug with an everlasting effect.

Haley had taken him by surprise. He had never anticipated that his love for her would be even deeper than what he’d felt for Lacey. There were times he wondered if he had married the wrong sister first. As his feelings for Haley increased, he knew the answer. Lacey had been his first love, but Haley was his true love.

He was not willing to live without her. He loved her enough to follow her into the afterlife.

He unmuted the television again. He wanted to hear the sound of himself fucking the woman he loved.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Haley

When I opened my eyes, I saw darkness. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Then for me to realize I was naked. What had he done to me while I was out? Did he rape me again? I wanted to cry, but held the tears back.

I didn’t smell him, didn’t hear him breathing, and didn’t hear any movement.

Relief and then hope poured through me when I realized I was alone in the bathroom.

I tried to pull my wrists apart but they were still in the cuffs. I bit my lip to hold back tears, but the thought of my sister being imprisoned and murdered by Jude caused them to break free and course down my cheeks. I pulled myself up and drew my knees to my chest, resting my outstretched arms over them. I buried my face between my arms and allowed myself to weep for my sister, for the chance I had been robbed of to say a proper goodbye to her.

Then I thought back to a dream I’d had of her when I was at Dustin’s ranch, of her trying to communicate with me at the beach. It seemed she had tried to warn me from the grave. How did he kill her? Did he make her suffer first, like he enjoyed doing to me? I cried harder when I thought of the pain she must have endured at the hands of that monster.

Then I wiped my eyes and swallowed the rest of my tears. Jude was the one who needed to be punished. I was restrained, but I still had to find a way to make him pay for what he’d done to me, and especially for what he’d done to Liz.

I was exhausted of being under his thumb. He had hurt me in more ways than any person ever could. I refused to let him win. I was glad for this moment alone to think.

My gaze took in the small, barred window, faint moonlight filtering in along its edges. No chance of escape through it.

I could scream but I doubted anyone would hear me. They hadn’t heard me yet. The glass panes were too thick and most of the occupants were party animals who seemed allergic to silence. Jude had managed to sneak his way in, made himself part of that community. Besides, if I screamed, Jude would hear me. I registered the sound of the TV at low volume in the bedroom. He would be in the bathroom in an instant if he even suspected I was up to something.

In spite of my circumstances, I couldn’t help but be proud of myself for standing up to him earlier. It saved me from sleeping next to him right now, being raped over and over through the night. I hoped his intention was to keep me locked in the bathroom all night. I doubted he would want me close after I’d lashed out.

If only I could switch on the light to be able to search the room for anything that could protect me against him. I was positive he had removed whatever could be used as a weapon. But my self-defense instructor had taught me that almost anything could be used as a weapon if I was determined.