The Starkest Truth (A Breaking Insanity Novel Book 2) (33 page)

I SLIPPED OUT of my drug induced haze. My hospital room came into focus and my limbs began to wake. The rain made a rhythmic tapping sound on the windows of my private room.
 

The room was lit by the cloud-covered morning light peering into it from the open curtains. The dreary scene outside matched my mood.

The silhouette of Eric’s profile was barely seen as he stood by the window. Hearing me stir, he glanced over his shoulder at me. He took a long, deep breath and broadened his back. “You lost the baby, but I doubt you care.”

His news hit me hard and stung me deeply. “How can you think that?” I asked, the cadence of my voice broken and weak.

“How fucking stupid do you think I am?” The curtness cut through his apparent rhetorical question. “I saw your blood panels, Nikki. Please don’t tell me you’re stupid enough to think you can take anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds without hurting our kid.” He fully turned around and put his hands behind his head, proclaiming loudly through frustration, “Fuck!”

I persistently shook my head as I touched my stomach. “No. I stopped taking the drugs after the first scare. You have to believe me—”

“I don’t want to hear your fucking excuses. I know what I saw on your chart. Please tell me you weren’t being a self-absorbed bitch,” he continued, hoarseness taking a hold of his voice. “Tell me all of this was just you lacking clarity. Tell me something other than the fact you hated being pregnant and did everything you could to terminate the pregnancy.”

My lip quivered as I tried to restrain the sob. Having heard the news I didn’t want to believe, I clutched my stomach. “That’s not true,” I responded, barely audible. “I wanted this baby. I stopped taking my medication to make sure the baby was safe. Why don’t you believe me?”

“I think that’s utter bullshit, and I’m insulted you think you can lie to me. Admit it; you wanted this to happen. You never wanted to be pregnant. I bet you’re very fucking relieved right now.” He slowly paced toward my bed. A shadow hit his face, but didn’t hide the return of the emotionless monster. “Are you happy now, Nik?”

I kept shaking my head. “No. The blood tests are wrong. I didn’t—I didn’t—” Chocking on my sobs, I barely managed to shout a defiant, “NO—”

He abruptly strode toward me and held my head to keep it from shaking. “Stop,” closing his eyes, he spoke through his teeth, “fucking talking. Don’t say a goddamn thing. I knew you could be thoughtless at times, but this—this takes the fucking cake.”

“Since you don’t even believe me when I’m telling the truth”—I inhaled deeply and wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand—“are you going to divorce me now?”

“Goddamn it!” he shouted and stood upright. The timbre of his voice echoed off the walls and startled me. “Is that what you want? Because you’re off to very good start.” The shout was gone and replaced by something more menacing. The contradiction of displeasure and stillness.

“Maybe it was for the best.” I hid my hurt, trying to make sense of the loss. If I had to bear the fault for the loss, I might as well have borne all of it. But there was one thing I couldn’t let slip. If I showed my anger over what he did to Melonie, he would go after her. I made a mistake in mentioning her name once, and it proved enough to send Eric off. Despite her mistakes, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she didn’t deserve it.
 

I wasn’t in the position to let him know. Not at the moment. The best thing I could’ve done for her is to never let her name cross my lips in Eric’s presence without a knife behind my back. No matter how livid I was with what he did to her, or what she did to me, I would not be held accountable for her death.

I blamed the loss of our baby on him. The stress he forced me to endure. His brand of poison was so deep inside me, it spread to anything and everything innocent and good in our life. “We wouldn’t have made good parents.”
 

“Maybe that was your thought. But it was your fucking thought alone. It wasn’t up to you decide how it should end.”

“I want you to leave.”

He grabbed my chin, his harsh grip stung my flesh. “No, Nik,” he seethed with a menacing quiet. “You gave your body to me and it was a permanent deal. Being that you damaged something that belongs to me, you’ll excuse me if your life suddenly becomes hell for however long I choose to remain pissed off at you. ‘Cause, baby…I’m fucking livid. Mutilate you, torture you, kill you, and tell no one where the body is buried livid.
 

“You haven’t seen the full extent of how twisted I can be. Did you finish watching the DVD Tamala gave you? I don’t think you did, even if you did, you should know that I’m far more lethal on my own. As beautifully scarred as your skin is, it doesn’t have my brand on it.” He fingered the scars on my forearms, focusing on the ones he made the night I found out the full extent of his monstrous deeds. “These don’t count. Maybe I should do something about that. Your body wears the pain that other people have inflicted on you. My pain? No. It’s a problem I think I’m going to resolve very fucking soon.”

I jerked back from his hold. My eyes stung with bitter, angry tears. “Get the fuck out of my room, Eric!”

He continued to be unmoved and inexpressive.

Pushed to the limit of what I could endure, I forgot my pain and stood tall, nearly ripping the IV drip from my arm. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!”

He stared at me and I stared back, unafraid.

A nurse peeked in the doorway. “Is everything all right?”

“My husband is causing undue stress,” I told her. The hoarseness took a hold of my words and made them barely intelligible. “Can you ask him to leave, or get a security guard to remove him? I’m” —locking eyes with Eric, my stare turned frigid— “afraid of him. He threatened to kill me.”

My last words were the ones that made him march forward and nearly topple me over. He grabbed the crown of my hair, harshly, forcing my neck back with a harsh jerk. He pressed forward, pushing his form against me. “Really, Nikki?” he asked testily against my lips. The heat of his breath, burned my lips with a fiery heat. “Are you aboso-fucking-lutely sure you want travel down this road with me?”

“Yes, Eric,” I forced through clenched teeth.

He looked at the ceiling for a moment, and took a painstakingly slow time to level his eyes at me. He plastered a deviant half-smile on his face as he nodded his head at something unknown. “Enjoy your fucking stay.” He released me with such an abruptness I felt like I was pushed. “It’s the last time you will ever feel this comfortable again.”

I staggered before finding my bearings again.

Without a goodbye, he left the room.

Completely aghast, the nurse blinked between me and the door. “Mrs. Brenton, if you need me to contact the local domestic abuse shelter—”

“I got it,” I snapped at her and got back in bed. Rolling over, I turned to face the pillow. I clutched my stomach. A womb without a baby. Disappointment took hold. I projected every ounce of the hurt and pain into my pillow.

“NIKKI?”

STARTLED BY A familiar voice, I slipped up in my hospital bed. The man before me was the same one I saw the night Tamala almost died, and never saw again—Dom. He looked different out of the flannel shirt and jeans. Dressed in a button up and slacks, he looked liken to a professional hitman.

Pulling the sheet up to my neck, I tried to cover myself. He appeared to suddenly remember how to be a gentleman and turned his back on me.
 

“I’m supposed to take you home and make you stay there,” he said over his shoulder.

“Your orders came from whom?” I questioned through vexation. “Because whoever ordered you to do that—”

“Ethan did, Nikki.”

Slipping into a furious anger, my body began to shake.

I couldn’t believe Eric. Not only was I his emotional stress ball—and the woman he no longer believed in—now I was his prisoner in the house my mother gave to me?
 

“Clean clothes are in the thing—” he pointed in the direction of the armoire. “I’ll wait here until you’re ready to leave.”

“You can’t—”

“I’m not going anywhere until Ethan decides you can be alone.”

“Decides?” I restrained what I was feeling and slipped out of bed, showing my compliance through my silence, when I planned to be anything but.
 

“You won’t get any ‘poor you’ from me. Lost my chance at being a godfather, because of you.”

I bit my lip, hard, to avoid expelling a string of venomous threats that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop once they slipped from my lips. Taking my clothes and my phone out of the armoire, I went inside the bathroom, intending to call someone to help me, but the one person I could call should’ve only been contacted during dire straits, and I didn’t want to invite him back into my life.
 

When my phone rang and displayed an unknown number across the screen, I jumped out of my skin.

“H-hello?”

“How are you, pretty girl?”

I looked at the phone for recognition. The man’s voice, though I’d never recalled hearing it before, brought about a terrifying emotion. “I think you have the wrong number.”

“On the contrary, Nikki. You are the exact woman I want to speak with.”

“W-who are you?”

“Victor Mejía, pretty girl,” the throaty, heavily accented voice responded.

A chill worked up my spine and made me shudder with displeasure. “A-and what do you want?”

“I’d say it’s time we met.”

“Time we met?” I asked. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Oh, you do, and if you need help, I’m the powerful man to get you anything you need.”

I glanced at the closed bathroom door. “I don’t want your help.”

“We have a common enemy, Nikki.”

“We do?”

“Who do you think switched your test results and made your husband think you were responsible for killing the baby? I’m looking at your real file right now. And it wasn’t your fault, pretty girl. These things happen.”

My hand shook as the anger rifled through me, knowing only one person who would go to such lengths to make Eric react.
 

“I’m going to guess through you passing dead air that you want my help. You want Preston out of your life, and I can certainly do that for you. We’ll be in touch.”
 

He hung up, leaving me staring at the phone, and wondering exactly what type of help he’d provide, how he knew Preston and the nature of Preston’s intentions, and what the help I didn’t ask for would cost me in return.

It was more of Eric’s past coming around to hurt me. The feeling Victor left me with made me think I reached the point of no return. If I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I was certainly wrong.

GIVEN THE SIGHT of the numerous cars in the driveway, I rethought my decision to return home. It was one of the few times in which I no longer felt comfortable in my mother’s home. The memories Eric and I made there soiled the few good memories I had—and there weren’t many.
 

When I opened the door, the clanking of glasses from people inside made me pause. I padded down the hall, my steps falling heavy and slow, reluctant to see the scene unfolding in the formal dining room. At the long formal table sat a handful of men. Looking as though he had not a care in the world, Eric sat at the head of the table. Half-eaten food and half-full wine glasses decorated the smooth wood surface.