The Promise (Wolfe Creek Duet #2)

39

THEA

It’s been five days since Cole’s last visit. I’ve been avoiding sleeping in my room as long as possible, but it’s nearly Thanksgiving and I want to get this over with before then.

I toss and turn restlessly, waiting for him. The minutes drag to hours until my eyes hurt from trying to stay awake. Then I hear the familiar creak of the closet door. My body goes rigid.

The bed dips and I feel the press of his body against mine. It doesn’t matter that he does this every visit lately. It doesn’t matter that I’ve had hours to prepare for this moment. My stomach still turns with his closeness—it always will.

“You’ve been prolonging our visits, love. Why? Don’t you look forward to our time together?” His silken voice makes me want to scream or throw up. I can’t decide. “You’ve had a lot going on. That’s it, isn’t it?”

I’m not sure what he means. “What?”

His fingers skate over my arm. “The search warrant. That blew up in your face, didn’t it? My brothers will trust you a lot less now that they know you’ve been hiding shit.”

The camera. My head turns to look in its direction inadvertently. It’s a mistake. Now he knows that I know it’s there. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But I do and you know I’m right. Although, now I’m curious. Did you let Adrian fuck you in here so that I’d see? So that it’d make me angry or jealous?” I don’t say a word. I don’t need to. Cole roughly grabs me by the hip, yanking closer to him. “I was furious when I watched him climb on top of you and fuck your lifeless body. I had to buy a new computer because of it,” he growls hotly in my ear. Then his voice calms. “But now… now that I know you knew about my camera, I’m not angry anymore.”

“Why?” I mumble out the question, nervous to hear his answer.

His grip on me eases slightly. “Because you did it to get a rise out of me. And why would you do that, Thea? Why would you care enough to want to make me upset?” I don’t know where he’s going with these rhetorical questions. “You did it because you still love me. You want me to take what’s mine and until now, I’ve been rather gentle. You want me to claim you in a way that can’t be undone. There’s no other explanation.”

My heart pounds faster with each word he speaks. No. No. No. That isn’t why I did it. Chills spread over my body and a shiver rolls down my spine. “I… I—”

“You don’t have to say anything, love. You’re making this very easy for me, now that I know you want this as much as me. I’ll ruin you so that my brothers don’t want you. I’ll ruin you so that we can finally be together. And I know the perfect way to destroy their precious plaything.”

The lump in my throat makes it so I can’t get out any words, not that I have anything to say. He’s completely wrong. But how do I tell him that without him losing his mind, more than he already has? I’m about to say something, anything, when Cole starts yanking down my bottoms.

Instinctively, I resist, pulling them back up. He doesn’t do this. He never undresses me. My lip quivers in fear as my mind races to think of why he would do it now. Although, deep down, I know why. I just don’t want to admit it to myself.

“Stop,” I snarl low. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t act like you don’t want this, love. You want my attention, we both know it. It’s all you’ve ever wanted.” I hate that he’s using that against me. It was true when I met him, but I’m different now. I’ve changed. I’ve changed. I’m not that woman anymore. Somehow, the more I think it, the more I feel like a liar.

I try to think of a way out of this. “Cole, we can’t. They’ll know.” It’s flimsy. Still, I hope it works.

“I want them to know. They need to know that you’re mine, permanently.” I struggle against his advances. “Thea, if you don’t let me do this for us, I’m going to be forced to hurt my brothers.” My body stills.

“Wha-what do you mean?” He’s tried to kill Sutton, so I won’t put anything past him. But it sounds like he’s thought this through. Who am I kidding? It’s Cole, of course he has.

He takes his hand from me and I feel the distinct movement of him pulling his own bottoms down. My eyes water, knowing that this is about to happen no matter what I say or do, short of screaming and ruining my plans.

“I have an insurance policy of sorts, in case things don’t go my way,” he explains as he kicks off his pants. “The night we killed Rob and Matt, Damian told me to destroy the duffle bag with the evidence of our crime. I didn’t. I have everything I need to tie them to the murders.” Fuck. He continues. “And just in case that isn’t enough, the night we buried them, I planted Wes’ pill bottle on one of them.” My breath catches and my chest tightens at his confession. “Before you get any ideas, if anything happens to me, your persistent detective will get everything he needs to take my brothers down. Naively, I thought death was the better option. No, them rotting in prison while you’re out here with me is a much worse fate.”

I thought I was steps ahead of Cole. I was wrong. He’s been doing this longer—I should’ve known that he’d be miles ahead of me. His hands yanking down my pajamas pulls me from my pity party. I can’t even stop him this time. There’s no way out of this. I have to give him what he wants so I can get what I want—eventually.

This is going to kill me, maybe not physically, but it’ll surely kill some significant part of my soul.

“You’re going to love this. We both will. It’s what we’ve been wanting,” he assures me. His voice is poison in my ears, making my blood run hot and my vision blur. But I drink it in, nonetheless. I let its effects sink into my flesh and bones. I let it cloud my mind, so that nothing feels real.

Closing my eyes, I sink into the depths of darkness. I’m in a trance, hardly registering Cole’s hands on my body, the push of his dick against me, him moving my legs apart. When he enters me, I completely shut down. I don’t remember anything other than his grunts and my wet cheeks.

I don’t remember him finishing or leaving my room. The absence of his body hits me some time later and I’m finally safe to feel everything.

The violent sobs make it hard to breathe. The pillow I’m screaming into makes it even harder. There’s a painful ache between my legs and I can feel where his fingers dug into my hips. But what hurts the most is the swallowing agony in my chest. It feels like every layer of muscle has been peeled away and my insides are exposed to the world.

I can’t bring myself to get to the shower tonight. I want to wash him from me. I need to scrub myself clean of his evil presence. But I can’t. My legs won’t move. All I can do is try to keep my cries muffled so that no one hears me.

Staying quiet is all I can manage. Don’t let them hear you. Don’t let them hear. Don’t let them. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

My alarm pulls me from the nightmare that’s played on repeat all night. I was running through a forest of dead trees, trying to dodge sharp branches and failing miserably. The forest had no end and every so often I’d stop to find that my flesh was scratched and torn. But there wasn’t any blood, at least not from the gashes over my face and arms. The only blood I could find was on my thighs, coming from between my legs.

Jolting up, my hand immediately searches my lower half. No blood. Although the events from last night begin to hit me. I turn off the incessant alarm.

Rubbing my temples, I recall Cole’s words about the duffle bag and the pill bottle. I can’t believe I thought I’d outsmarted him. Of course, he has a backup plan. He always does. And I fell into another one of his manipulations. This time, I’m not sure if there’s a way out of the damage he’s caused.

I’d cry if I had any tears left, but I don’t. I don’t feel much. The shame is gone, so is the sadness. All that remains is darkness and anger. If I’m being honest with myself, those feel more like home than anything else right now.

I reach for my phone on the nightstand, but something else catches my eye. The silver foil of my birth control packet glints in the morning light and I notice that all the circular holes have been popped out. Picking it up, I turn it around and sure enough, all of my pills are gone. What the fuck?

Looking around, I search for them. Gone. Then I see a bottle of murky water next to my phone. Chunks of white residue sit at the bottom. Jesus Christ. Cole must have crushed up my pills and dissolved them.

He could have easily just taken the packet with him. He could have left no evidence. But he wanted me to see this. That piece of shit. Two more coals come to life—one for what he did to me last night and another for this.

Forcing his way into my life, spying on me, pushing me into consent so that he could touch me, raping me, and now trying to impregnate me. This is war. I won’t stand by and let him ruin me or my life.

He’s forced my hand and I won’t feel bad about the repercussions. I might have had a guilty conscience months ago. I can’t afford that now. I’m a shell of who I was—that woman is a stranger to me. Oddly enough, I don’t miss her. I do miss the joy and hope and goodness, although it’s a vague longing to have those things back. It’s pointless to yearn for the things that will get me killed.

The woman I need to be now is focused, relentless, and vicious. I need to be void of doubt. Humanity has no place in my heart. Maybe I can reclaim everything Cole’s taken from me and everything I’ve had to sacrifice because of him after all of this is over. I really hope so.

Cassie’s plea for me to wait until after Thanksgiving echoes in my mind. She wants Cole to confess. I don’t have the luxury to count on a plan that has too many flimsy variables. He has to die and I’m absolutely fine with going down for any crime I commit, as long as he can’t hurt Damian, Wes, or Sutton anymore.

At least if I’m locked up, I can’t drag them down. I’ve caused nothing but chaos since coming into their lives. They don’t deserve this. They deserve peace and happiness.

However, planning the murder of my ex-boyfriend will have to wait—at least a few hours. I need to head to the pharmacy to grab Plan B and a new birth control prescription. I’ll be damned if he throws another wrench into my plans.