I look to where it lands on the floor a few feet away, and her eyes go to it as well, right before we both dive for it, crashing into each other. I slide across the carpet, and my fingertips touch the blade, then I yell when she grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls my head back. I reach behind me and dig my fingernails into her arm through the paper-like material covering her, hearing her hiss, and she pulls harder on my hair, causing pain to radiate through my scalp.
“Get off me,” I yell as she attempts to slam my face into the ground, then I buck up to try to dislodge her, but she’s heavy—really fricking heavy—and my body is weak. When she tries to reach over me for the knife and almost touches it, I roll to my side, taking her with me and sending her to the ground.
I try to roll back to get the knife again, but before I can, she grabs my hair once more. Crying out, I ignore the pain in my head and stretch my arm out toward the knife, my fingers brushing the handle, causing it to move just out of reach once more. Before I can stretch for it again, her hand wraps around my throat from behind, and she tugs back so hard that my throat aches. I give up and turn toward her quickly so that she can’t strangle me, and I reach for her face. Which is stupid, and I know it’s stupid when she uses that opportunity to straddle my chest and wrap both her hands around my neck, putting all her weight into the hold she has on my throat. I buck, kick, try to scratch her face and arm, and tear at her with my hand that is free, but she’s relentless, and I’m getting weaker by the second from the loss of blood or the hit to the head. I don’t know which, or maybe it’s both.
Staring into her blue eyes that seem void of all human compassion, I open my mouth, wanting to plead with her to stop, but no words come out. My arm trapped under her weight feels along my side, and my fingers twitch. That’s when I feel the thick braided cord attached to my leggings. My fingers fumble as I try to grasp it, then my nail hooks, and I pull.
Just like in Vegas the night Malo showed me his invention, a loud shrieking sound fills the room, and like he said would happen, the woman startles, and her hands on my neck release almost instantly as she goes to cover her ears.
I drag in a much-needed breath of air, then shove her off me with one hand, using all the strength I have. She flies back off balance with a stunned expression on her face, and I don’t hesitate to reach behind me for the knife on the floor. But I don’t have a chance to grab it before she realizes the siren sound is coming from my pants and that there is no one here but us.
Like a wild animal, she comes at me in a rush, her body crashing into mine, sending my head bouncing off the floor. Stars dance in my vision, and bile crawls up the back of my throat when she straddles me once more, wrapping her hands around my neck. Then a crack of thunder reverberates though the room, and she screams out in agony, her weight knocking the air from my lungs as she falls forward against me. With the little energy I have left, I attempt to push her away so I can breathe, but it’s no use. I’m too exhausted; my muscles are no longer willing to cooperate.
As darkness starts to creep in, the weight on my chest is shoved aside, and a warm palm rests against the side of my face.
“Fuck, call an ambulance,” I hear Maxim roar, and I cover his hand with mine as I try to blink away the darkness trying to consume me.
“Stay with me, baby,” he demands, and I try to focus on him, but it’s difficult. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Okay,” I agree. “I just need to rest my eyes for a minute.”
“I love you.” His forehead presses against mine, his big body making me feel safe and warm. “Stay with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper back… right before everything goes black.
Chapter 20
April
SITTING ON THE couch in the living room with the TV on low, I watch my mom and Myla whisper back and forth to each other as they unpack the boxes that were stacked up against the wall by the movers days ago. My fingers twitch, wanting to help them, but since I’ve been told more than once to stay put, I pick up one of the books May brought to me while I was at the hospital and open it up. Try as I might, I can’t for the life of me focus on the words on the page, and my mind wanders.
Three days ago, I woke up in a hospital bed with Maxim at my side and my entire family and his waiting just outside the room. The doctor explained then that I had suffered a concussion, and due to the wound on the back of my head, I had lost enough blood to need a transfusion. And because they were concerned about a lump that had formed on the back of my head I would be spending a couple of days in the hospital so they could monitor it.
During the three days I was in the hospital, Shell passed away due to her injuries. The woman responsible for her death along with Meghan and Charlotte’s confessed to what she had done after the surgery she had undergone for the wound she suffered after being shot in the shoulder by Gene.
It turns out that Mary Garther was a doctor with a private practice, and her husband was a local real estate broker with a wandering eye. When she found out he was not carrying on one but two affairs with realtors from around town, she lost her mind. Instead of confronting her husband and ending things with him, she decided she would remove Meghan, then Charlotte from the picture.
She set up appointments with them under fake names, wore wigs so she couldn’t be recognized, injected both women with some concoction she got from the office where she worked, then murdered them. She thought that with the two women who had been entertaining her husband gone, her marriage would get better, but that didn’t happen. Instead, he met Shell, and not long after that did they begin having an affair. When Mary found out, that her husband was once again cheating she decided Shell needed to go too, so she put a plan in place.
Only she didn’t account for me being at the house or my very determined man using his resources to track me down and come to my rescue when I didn’t answer my phone or return any of his calls. Something that I will forever be grateful for, because I know deep in my gut that I wouldn’t be here right now if he hadn’t come after me. And worse, I don’t know that Mary would have been caught or if she wouldn’t have gone on to kill the next woman her husband decided to sleep with.
As a woman, I can understand her anger and her hurt, but I do not understand her taking that pain out on the three women who did not make her a promise of fidelity and commit their life to hers.
And in my opinion, men get off way too damn easy when it comes to cheating, and women—instead of blaming the men they share their lives with—take it out on the other woman way too often.
“Are you okay, honey?”
Coming out of my thoughts, I look up at my mom as she walks around to the side of the couch and rests her hand on the top of my head. “I’m okay.” I close the book I’m not actually reading, and her eyes fill with concern.
“Are you in pain?”
“A little, but I just took a pain pill, so it should kick in soon. If anything, I’m bored out of my mind.”
“The doctors said you need to take it easy for a few more days,” she reminds me with a gentle smile, and I reach for her hand, then give her fingers a squeeze.
I know she’s worried. Has been worried about me since Maxim called to tell her and my dad that he didn’t know where I was and asked them to come to the house earlier than planned in case I showed up while he was out looking for me.