“Ari, he’s here in town.”
I searched his face. This didn’t seem like the sort of prank Shaw would pull. In fact, he wasn’t the kind of man who pranked anyone. He was the person who got pranked. But what he was saying was impossible.
“He can’t be.”
“He stopped by Jackson’s home the day you left for LA. And he made it clear he’s here for you.”
I shook my head slowly. “That can’t be him. Someone’s playing a trick on you.”
“It’s no trick.” He placed his hands on my shoulders. “I saw him with my own eyes. He had scars all over his face. His voice was damaged by what happened to him. By what you did.”
The room spun around me, Shaw’s arms the only thing that kept me upright.
“Ari, breathe.” He squeezed my shoulders. “Breathe, Ari.”
I sucked in a gasping breath as Shaw walked me over to the chair and sat me down. He left me alone and returned shortly after with a glass of water. “Drink.”
I gulped down the cool liquid, then pushed the glass away. “What did he say?”
Shaw pulled up a chair next to me and sat, holding my hands. “He said you two had a score to settle. That he’s here for you and he won’t leave until he gets you.”
I stuffed a hand to my mouth, but it was too late to stifle my cry. I trembled, my arms shaking. He can’t be alive.
“No, no, he can’t be alive. He can’t be. He’s going to hurt me, as he did before. Please don’t let him hurt me.”
Shaw wrapped his arms around me, and I clung to him, flinching at the memory of hands holding me down, fists connecting with my stomach, boot crunching my hand. Oh god, I’d rather die than allow him to get a hold of me.
“I need to leave.” I shoved at Shaw. “I can’t let him find me here. I need to go somewhere he won’t ever find me.”
“Or you can stay.” Shaw didn’t budge. “Stay, and I’ll fight this with you. I won’t let him hurt you, Ari.”
I shook my head, tears filling my eyes. “You don’t understand. He did bad stuff to me. Bad stuff. I spent six months planning just how I was going to kill him, and when I got the opportunity, I couldn’t waste it. I had to do it for all the bad things he did to me."
“What did he do to you, baby?”
I couldn’t say the horrible things. It would all come back, opening a can of worms that would only set me off again.
“Don’t make me talk about it, please. I don’t want to relive it.”
He kissed my forehead, and tears spilled down my cheeks. I was stupid to think this happiness with Shaw would last. It was all too good to be true. I wasn’t meant to have a happily ever after.
“It’s okay.” He thumbed my tears away. “I promise it’s going to be okay. We should go to the police and—”
“No!” I pushed away from Shaw. “We can’t. I tried to kill him. If I go to the police, I would just land in prison too. And not just for attempted murder, but for all the crimes he made me do with him. He’d make us both go down for them.”
“Shit.” Shaw shook his head. “I need some time to think about what we can do.”
He stood, but I caught his arms and held on to them. “I know what we can do. We can leave and never come back. Find somewhere else he can’t track us down.”
“He tracked you down here, didn’t he?”
“But that’s because he knew I would come back to you. If we go somewhere else, he’ll never find us. We don’t even have to remain in this country. We can pack our bags and take the next flight out somewhere we’re both safe.”
“That’s not a solution, Ari. I’m almost fifty. I can’t start over somewhere. What would I do? We’ve just bought this house to share a life. We’re not going to let someone like your father ruin our lives and have us looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. We’re going to stand our ground.”
“But you don’t understand. You think I’m evil, but you haven’t seen evil yet. I might have been a bad apple all my life, but he created me. He made me the monster I am.”
He cupped my face in his hands. “You are not a monster. He might have influenced you to do things, but he’s no longer controlling you, and you can stop. You have stopped, and we are going to prove it by staying here in town and living productive lives.”