Broken Illusions (His Agenda Volume 3) (12 page)

An idea crossed my mind. Feeling a flicker of hope radiating heat inside my chest, I turned my head in the direction of the shower curtain.

***

I was absorbed in my task of gathering any hard objects from around the bathroom when my arm came into contact with something on the basin—a bottle of lotion, maybe. It fell to the floor before I could catch it. The sound it made was loud enough for me to freeze.

Stupid, stupid, stupid
, I thought and held my breath, listening. Did he hear?

My heart jumped to my throat as his footsteps approached the door.
Damn
.

He didn’t open the door immediately. I imagined him pressing his ear to it, listening. Then I thought he started moving away again but at that moment the door burst open and the light was flicked on, blinding me temporarily.

He found me back where he had left me, in the fetal position.

“What the fuck are you up to?” His voice was steel-edged.

“I wanted to use the toilet. I dropped something.”

Jude’s gaze dropped to the place between the toilet and basin and then he pulled something from his pants. He was no longer wearing pajamas. The shiny black thing he’d pulled out and pointed at me was a gun.

“Don’t try to mess with me, Haley. You should know by now what I’m capable of.”

I scrambled from the floor and scooted away from him. “Don’t do this.”

“What?” He came closer and pressed the gun to my temple. “You mean blow your brains out?” He licked his lips. “After all the shit you pulled, I’m rethinking my plan of letting you live a few more hours. I got what I came here for. I fucked you. There’s no need to wait, don’t you think?” I winced as he pressed the gun deeper into my skin.

I closed my eyes. “I agree,” I said, my voice a broken whisper. “Go ahead. Kill me and kill yourself. I don’t give a fuck anymore. At least the world will be rid of you.” I opened my eyes.

He was quiet for a long time and then shook his head. “No, death would be too easy. You deserve to be punished some more. I know just the thing to make you shut your damn mouth.” He left the room without switching off the light. I didn’t have time to continue with my plan because he was back within seconds, his face creased in a smile.

My heart pounded hard as he turned on the faucet of the bathtub.

“Don’t worry. It’s not hot. I want to play a game with you.” He reached for what looked like a bottle of bath bubbles and poured half its contents into the water. The aroma of coconut filled the air. He also poured in a whole bottle of oil he’d removed from the cupboard above the basin.

I thought of running out and messing with his plans, but I doubted I would get far.

I screamed and kicked as he lifted me into his arms and dropped me into the water. Pain shot through the arm I landed on.

Then he pulled something black and coiled out of his pocket. A braided leather bull whip.

My blood ran cold and I scrambled to my feet so I could get out of the tub, but I slipped with every move. Jude’s plan was working He wanted to flog me, and he knew I wouldn’t be able to escape with all the oil in the bath. I started bleeding inside before he even touched me.

The whip cracked twice, first in the air, and then in contact with my wet, oily skin. The pain sliced through my flesh and spread through my whole body. It was white-hot, pure, and blinding. Points danced before my eyes, and blood rushed to my brain. I screamed.

He lifted the whip even higher above him. This time it landed across my neck, forming a necklace of pain. An even louder scream ripped through my body, as deafening as the crack of the whip. I attempted to stand, to escape, but each move was a slip that landed me back in the foamy water. Trying to hold myself out of water was a complicated task with my hands bound together.

“This is for cheating on me.” Jude cracked the whip in the air and then raised it again, ready for another round.

Water, foam, snot, and tears mixed on my face as I sobbed. My back, neck, and shoulders were raw, as if they had split wide open and I sat in salt water. I wanted to beg him to stop, to plead with him to let me go. But what was the point? He wouldn’t do it. And the stubborn streak I’d found was still strong.

The whip sliced across my shoulder next, the impact short, sharp, and intense. I slid into the water, my head being swallowed up, and then scrambled out again, sending water splashing everywhere.

I blinked the water from my eyes and cried harder.

“Maybe now you’ll behave. I had planned for this to be peaceful… romantic… but you had to be a bitch, didn’t you?” He tossed the whip to the side where it landed on top of the toilet. Then he removed the drain stopper from the tub. I heard a gurgle and the water began flowing out of the bath.

I closed my eyes, wishing I could wrap my arms around me to stop myself from trembling, yearning for comfort only I could give myself.

“Here.” He threw me a towel, but I didn’t pick it up. How did he expect me to dry myself with my wrists handcuffed?

While he waited for me to pick up the towel, I heard something. At first I thought I was imagining it. My mind was so jumbled. But it had to have happened because Jude spun toward the door and then looked back at me, his eyes wild.

I pulled my gaze from his and bit my lip as I watched a spot of mildew on the wall.

The doorbell rang again, and it sounded louder this time.

“Stay here,” he said, his voice hard. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

He left the bathroom, locking it behind him. I doubted he would open the front door; perhaps he’d peer through the peephole to see who it was. He would be back soon to continue his torture, to kill us both.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Jude

Jude cursed silently. Six months, and Mary Lou had not received one visitor. Not one. Now that he needed time alone with his wife, someone had showed up? He walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where he grabbed his gun from underneath the pillow and stomped to the door. He would not be disturbed. Whoever tried would have to die.

He had work to do. Haley had to be taught a lesson and then fucked some more before he was done with her. By the time he was finished, she would wish she’d never been born, and he would have the power she had stolen from him back in the palm of his hand. Her death would be the ultimate prize, his victory.

He slowed down before he reached the door and pulled himself together, reminding himself he was not the kind of man to rush into things, to make stupid mistakes. He would see who it was before making any rash decisions.

Gripping the pistol tight in his fist, he leaned forward and gazed into the peephole. He drew back instantly.
Fuck
. The cops, two of them. One was clearly visible but the other stood too far to the side of the door, with only his shoulder visible.

Jude glanced behind him, trying to think. Why the fuck were the cops here? He had done everything right up to this point. Could someone have seen him sneak Haley into Mary Lou’s apartment? That wasn’t possible. There had been no one in the hall. Besides, he had messed with the elevators so no one could make it up to the third floor unless they took the stairs, which had a door that creaked so loud when it was opened, the whole floor heard it. He shook his head and peeped back into the hole. Someone was behind one of the cops, a woman with a white head scarf. He squinted, trying to see better, but one of the cops leaned forward and peered into the peephole as well, the curved glass giving him bug eyes.

Jude drew back and aimed the gun at the door, then dropped his hand.

Don’t be stupid
, he told himself.

If he kept quiet, they might think no one was inside. They would leave and possibly return later. By then it would be over. All they would find would be dead bodies. He would shoot Haley and swallow the pills himself. He had planned to give them both the deadly drug—purchased online—that killed within minutes. He knew it worked. He never left anything to chance, so he’d tested it on a homeless woman on the outskirts of Serendipity. His plan had been for him and Haley to lie in each other’s arms as they drifted into the afterlife. But it seemed she wanted it the hard way. So be it.

He waited for a while longer, his ear pressed against the door, trying to understand the muffled voices. He heard nothing coherent. He inhaled sharply, wiped the sweat off his brow, and leaned his forehead against the door. Finally the voices muted, then faded and died. As he waited with bated breath, the voices were replaced with the harsh creaking of the door to the staircase. He waited a few beats before looking through the peephole again. When he did, it was just in time to see the heavy metal door on the far end closing shut with a loud bang. He let out a breath.

The fact that the cops were here meant they were suspicious about something. They would return, possibly with reinforcement. He had not returned to this town only to end up in prison. No one would put Jude Macknight behind bars. No one. He lived life and died on his own terms.

The clock was ticking. He had to move fast, make changes to his plans. He had no problem with that, but Haley probably would.

Chapter Thirty

Haley

Even if the person at the door didn’t make it inside to help me, the disturbance itself was a chance, an opportunity to save myself, if I could.

I tried to move but the pain in my body halted me, almost causing me to scream out again. I couldn’t scream now, because if I did, Jude would certainly walk in and kill me. Especially now that he had been disturbed.

With the help of the towel to stop me from slipping as I climbed out of the now empty tub, I limped toward the toilet and managed to climb on top, kicking the blood-stained whip out of the way. Raising both my arms, I stood on tiptoes and reached to the top of the shower curtain, holding on to the plastic curtain for support when I almost fell.

With the help of one of the metal curtain rings, I managed to loosen most of the screws holding the curtain rod in place. Though it was old and loose, it was still hard getting it to release from the wall completely. My trembling hands were not helping. As I pulled at it, one of the nails clattered to the shower floor. I paused, holding my breath. My blood was pounding in my ears. No sound came from outside. I guessed Jude was still at the door, waiting for the person to leave.

I tugged some more and the long rod was in my hands. I scrambled off the toilet, wincing with each movement, and stood on one side of the door, waiting for him to return. I’d beat him to death with the rod if I had to.

With each minute that passed, determination surged through my veins, and the will to fight, to live, to destroy Jude once and for all overwhelmed me. It went far beyond the physical pain I was feeling, far beyond my fears of him. When I thought of him I saw red. When I thought of everything he had put me through, I couldn’t let him win. I would not let him kill me. He had taken enough of me already. He would not take my life.

Finally, I heard the faint thud of his footsteps coming down the corridor. Sweat poured from every inch of my body, which was still shaking, but I pulled my legs apart and planted them firmly on the floor, ready for attack. My earlier fear of him had caused me to forget any attack moves I had learned in my self-defense classes, but I would allow my instinct to lead me.

“It’s time to say goodbye, Haley. Time for you to die,” he said as he opened the door.

The first thing I saw when he emerged was the gun he was holding out in front of him.

As soon as I saw his face, I swung the rod upward and allowed it to fall on his head with a thud. He yelped as the gun fell from his hand and went flying into the bedroom.

I tightened my grip on the rod and hit him again and again and again until he crumpled to the floor. I kept hitting him on the head until his blood stained the metal rod. He tried to use his hands to protect his head but he removed them and pulled them against his chest when the rod came crashing down on them as well.

Then he looked up at me, hate boiling in his eyes, before trying to crawl out of the bathroom. I wasn’t done with him yet. As he moved, leaving blood on the tiles, I hit him everywhere, especially his legs and feet. He would not escape me until I was done with him. With his legs possibly broken from my attacks, he let out a loud grunt and fell face down onto the bedroom carpet.

I didn’t waste any time. I would not underestimate him. This was my moment to take back everything he had ever taken from me. I almost slipped on the pool of water and blood as I scrambled out of the bathroom and grabbed the gun. I had never held one in my life before. But there was a first time for everything. This would also be the first time I murdered someone. I had no intention of failing.

Jude turned his bloody head to the side. The blood had plastered his hair to his scalp and was now trickling into his eyes. There was so much, it looked almost fake.

“Don’t…” he said, but the sound was low and hoarse, tortured.

His begging took me by surprise. When had the tables turned?

I didn’t trust him one bit. If I let him live, he would kill me. Even if the cops showed up, I could not let them arrest him. He would find a way out of prison. He would find me. Only I could end the madness.

“Stop begging,” I said, disgusted. “It makes you look pathetic.” I pulled the trigger and shot a bullet into his shoulder. He bounced on the floor from the impact and I jolted back. The little weapon was more powerful than I had anticipated. I collected myself and aimed again.

To my surprise, Jude raised his head off the floor and he began laughing, his body trembling with mirth, blood covering his white teeth. “You… are… not a killer, Hay… ley.”

“You underestimate me.” I pulled the trigger again and the bullet met his other shoulder. I had wanted to hit his head, but I was a lousy shot. This was just as well, though; I so much enjoyed the marriage of sudden shock and fear in his eyes when he noticed I was serious about killing him.