Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“GET UP! GO GET MY FUCKING BLAZER!” he bellowed.
Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply and forced myself to do as I had been told. The agony caused a cold sweat to break out all over my body. I found a focal point and breathed out and in through my nose. Keeping my eyes locked on the door that led to the back patio, where I would escape if I could. Imagining I was running for the door to freedom. That I would never see this house again. My secluded cabin in the woods with Bear the dog was there, waiting for me.
“If you would just try, Carmella—do something worth the life you’ve been gifted—then I wouldn’t be so angry. You bring this on yourself. You know that, yet you do it anyway.” He was talking softer now. Explaining himself. It was part of the routine.
I nodded. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
He sighed heavily, as if he was weary from trying to teach me.
“Go upstairs and get my blazer, then just get out of my sight. I don’t want to look at you wincing and being dramatic,” he ordered me.
I did the best I could to stand up without crying out. I didn’t make eye contact with him, keeping my head down as I hurried to the staircase. I wanted to get away from him as much as he wanted to not see me. I’d get his blazer, then go back upstairs and hide until he left. I would be kept here all day to clean, make sure everything he’d touched upstairs was back in its place, prepare the evening meal, and hope he came home too late to eat it.
If I had known then that it would be the last time I had to live in fear of Churchill Millroe, the pain would have been easier to bear.
• one •
“Monsters could come in pretty packages. I knew that only too well.”
Rumor
I should have called the police. That would have been the sane thing to do. I glanced back at Hill’s Mercedes I’d parked at a busy service station I stopped at before I ran out of gas in Florida. I scanned the area, looking for a sign to clue me in as to where I was exactly. The abandoned Mercedes wouldn’t be noticed right away. This place was crawling with people. It was why I had chosen this as my stop. I had to calm down and think.
Where did I go from here, and how? I couldn’t use anything that required my identification or credit cards.
There was a little less than a thousand dollars in cash stuck in my purse. I’d taken it from Hill’s closet. It was where I had gone to hide shortly after I heard the door on our veranda crash open. I heard Hill’s panicked voice and men demanding their money, saying something about him stealing from them or selling something that wasn’t his to sell. I stood there, listening long enough to know Hill was in danger. The way he begged for them to let him fix it. The tremor in his voice. Part of me enjoyed hearing him terrified. He deserved that. To know how it felt. The other part knew I was in danger and had to hide before the intruders found me.
I barely got myself tucked away when the sound of the gun went off, and then I sat quietly, barely breathing while huddled in the storage cubby inside his walk-in closet. Footsteps got closer, and muffled voices I couldn’t hear well through the walls came, then went. I stayed there for over an hour. When the silence continued, I made a plan. I would leave. This was my chance to escape. I never thought I would get this kind of opportunity to flee Hill. He’d made sure I had no money of my own or a vehicle. My phone had a tracker on it so he could see where I was at all times. So many nights, I had lain awake, believing that my freedom would come with my death. The day that he hit me too hard or not stopped choking me in time.
I had no family to worry about my whereabouts. No one to ask where I was or call and check on me.
I only had Hill. And from the silence, I realized he could no longer hold me.
So, I took the money, necessities, and I left in his car. Not even stopping to glance back at his body, sprawled out on the living room floor. I could see it from the corner of my eye, but I feared if I went to look at him, he’d open his eyes. He’d still be alive. He’d somehow take me with him to his death.
That had been five hours ago. Now that I’d had time to calm down, reality was starting to sink in. I’d run from a possible murder. Stolen my husband’s car. Hill had people who would be looking for him. They’d not get an answer. They would come to find him. Dead. And I’d be gone.