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  15

  Reed

  Seeing Hannah cry caught me a bit off guard. Through this entire ordeal, she had remained strong. If she had cried even once since I brought her to the house, I never saw it. I felt like I was close to a breakthrough with her.

  “Hannah, are you okay?” I asked after she lowered her head and refused to look back up at me.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, attempting to stealthily wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes.

  I knew that she was in a vulnerable position, which meant that if I was ever going to get inside of her head, it was the perfect time.

  “I can tell you’re not fine. I know I’m not a therapist or anything like that, but it’s clear that you’ve got some demons eating away at you. It might come as a surprise to you, but I can be a great listener.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “Well, you said that, other than your father, every man who’s ever entered your life has hurt you. Why don’t you start with the first one you remember?”

  “All right,” she said, still looking down at her lap. “The first one I can remember was Jake Patterson. We started dating in high school when he was a junior and I was a sophomore. I was always a shy kid, so he was my first real boyfriend, but people always wondered why he and I were together.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Well, he and I were polar opposites. While I was shy and timid, he was the typical All-American boy next door. He was the star quarterback of the football team. The typical golden boy.”

  “So he was the jock and you weren’t exactly the cheerleader jocks usually dated. There’s nothing wrong with that though. A lot of people with opposite personalities end up together.”

  “That’s what I said when everyone asked why we were together, especially in the beginning. Things actually were going really well with us when we started dating, The first six months were amazing. He was a perfect gentleman and always doing little things for me like giving me flowers or putting cute little notes in my locker. Unfortunately, he quickly became possessive.”

  “Possessive in what way?” I asked, the fact that I was basically holding her hostage not escaping me.

  “Well, I used to be invisible to pretty much everyone. Since I was dating the most popular boy in school, I was starting to get noticed. Jake noticed the new attention I was getting and he didn’t like it one bit. I couldn’t even talk to anyone else without him accusing me of being up to no good.”

  “What did he accuse you of?”

  “Being unfaithful. The first time he made the accusation was when we were at a pep rally the night before a game. I was talking to some friends, girls and boys, when he grabbed me hard by the arm and yanked me away from them. He drug me to the parking lot and yelled at me loudly, not caring who else could hear him. He called me a slut and a whore and demanded to know how many other men I’d been fucking.”

  “Were you cheating on him at the time?”

  “No, not at all. Everyone knew it wasn’t true. I was infatuated with Jake and spent all my free time with him. I wouldn’t have had the time to cheat on him, even if it was something I wanted to do, which wasn’t the case at all. He changed after that night.”

  “In what ways?”

  “For the rest of the year, he subjected me to verbal abuse on a daily basis. He was always reminding me that I was only where I was because of him. I was only as popular as I had become because I was dating him. He would say that if it wasn’t for him, I’d have no friends at all and that if I thought I could do better than him, I was crazy.”

  16

  Hannah

  I couldn’t believe that I was sitting there spilling my heart out and telling my life story to the man who was holding me captive. Even more, I couldn’t believe how good it felt to tell my story. I was telling him things that I had never told anyone, not even my father.

  “So you were the shy, quiet girl and he was the school’s golden boy,” Reed said. “Did you stay with him after the verbal abuse or did you leave him?”

  “I stayed with him because I was an idiot who thought I was so in love. There was also a part of me that was starting to believe what he told me. He brainwashed me and I honestly thought that without him, I’d have no friends. Plus, Summer vacation was coming and I was going to be traveling a bit, so I figured that the time apart would be good for us and make us a stronger couple when I returned.”

  “I’m going to guess things didn’t work out the way you expected?”

  “No, things got much, much worse. I got back in town the night before school started, so I didn’t have a chance to see him. He was super busy with football and other senior activities so we didn’t get to really see each other until this big back to School party one of his friends was having. As soon as we got there, he disappeared with some of his friends so I was mingling while I was waiting for him.

  When Jake came back, I was talking to a group of people about our class schedules. There were three girls in the group, but Jake was focused on the one boy. The fact that there was even a boy around me sent him into a rage. He pulled me outside, yelling at me the whole way. Once he knew there was nobody around us, he slapped me across my face and told me he was taking me home.”

  I stood up and walked over to the window. Reed had already seen me cry and I didn’t want him to think I was some weak girl. I knew I was stronger than that, but I was having some real difficulty keeping my emotions in check.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you need me to get you anything?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I responded, taking deep breaths to calm my nerves. “Anyway, as soon as we got in his car for him to take me home, he started apologizing profusely and begging me for forgiveness.”

  “I can already see where this is going.”

  “Yeah, I listened to all his excuses while he explained away why he did what he did. He told me that he was all worked up with football season starting. His coach had told him that he was being scouted by a number of different colleges, so the pressure was going to be on him to perform. He said that the pressure had gotten to him and he took it out on me. He felt terrible and promised that it would never happen again.”

  “Did things get better between the two of you?”

  As I told him the rest of the story, I closed my eyes and I could see the events unfolding as clear as day. It was as if I was actually there, reliving the entire experience,

  I’m incredibly proud of Jake and everything he’s accomplished. He’s broken many school records and has done a great job impressing the scouts. Unfortunately, he’s got a bit of a reputation among the scouts of buckling under pressure and not getting the job done when it matters the most.

  He’s excited to finally prove all the scouts wrong. He’s lead the team all the way to the state championship game and with the way the team as performed, everyone is expecting the game to be a blowout in our favor.

  When game time rolls around, Jake is a nervous wreck. He’s usually excited and bouncing off the walls, but he’s not doing any of those things. He’s quiet and keeping to himself. He knows that this game is his last chance to showcase his skills.

  He has the worst game in his high school career. He only completes 6 passes out of 37 attempts and is intercepted 4 times. We end up losing the game 31-3. Before the game is even over, there are whispers of colleges changing their minds on scholarship offers.

  I know that he’s going to be disappointed. I go home and make a big sign to hold up so it’s the first thing he sees when the team bus pulls up. The sign says #1 in my heart and I can’t wait to see his face when he sees it.

  When the bus pulls up, I’m standing there with a big group of supporters, the sign I made front and center for everyone to see. Jake doesn’t pay any attention to the sign I made for him, though. Instead, he only pays attention to the fact that I’m standing next to a boy, even though I don’t have a clue who this guy is.

  I
can see in his eyes that he’s itching for a fight, which scares the shit out of me. He gets off the bus, drops his bag, and without saying a word, walks up to the guy standing next to me and knocks him out with one punch.

  I’ve never seen him this angry and the only thing I can think about is getting away as fast as I can. I walk briskly to my car, trying not to draw any suspicion, but he sees me and runs after me, yelling for me to wait up.

  I pretend as though I don’t hear him and keep making my way to my car, but that only makes him angrier. As I’m fumbling with my keys, trying to unlock my door, he catches up to me and grabs my arm, pulling it hard behind my back.

  “I know you heard me calling you,” he scowls.

  “Jake, let me go, you’re scaring me.”

  “You will never, ever disrespect me like that again. Do you hear me?”

  He twists my arm even harder until we could both hear a snap. He lets go, knowing that he’s just broken my arm. I fall onto the ground crying, the pain becoming intense quickly. I figure he’s going to start apologizing again, but he begins to mock me instead.

  “You know you had this coming. What are you going to do now? You gonna go home and tell your daddy on me? Go ahead and do that. I dare you. I dare you to tell your dad what I did to you. I’ve got something for him too.”

  I think this is the end of his coldness, but he threw one more shot at me.

  “You and me, Hannah? This is the end of us. I’ll be the last boyfriend you have in high school. I’ll see to that.”

  Jake spits on me before walking away back towards the bus. As soon as he’s gone, I pull myself up, get into my car and drive away.

  My shoulder is burning and the pain is intense as I try to focus on driving one handed. Eventually, I make it home and burst through the front door crying, my shoulder feeling like it’s hanging on by a thread.

  “Hannah, what in the world happened?” My dad asks.

  “I fell at school and hurt myself badly. Can you take me to the hospital?”

  He doesn’t hesitate and helps me to the car. As soon as we get to the hospital, I’m taken back for x-rays, where I am found to have a clavicle fracture.

  My dad is skeptical about whether or not I really fell. He’s had some intuitions about Jake for a while, but I’ve gone out of my way to defend him. I decide to stick to my story about falling because I don’t want my dad to have to deal with his craziness. If he would knock some guy out just for standing next to me, who knows what he’s willing to do to my father.

  When I opened my eyes, Reed was standing right in front of me, about to wrap his arms around me. I accepted his embrace, but was caught off guard by the feelings his hug brought on.

  For the first time in a long time, I felt safe and secure in a man’s arms. His touch gave me chills that ran over the entire length of my body. Being close to him gave me the feeling of butterflies in my stomach. I had no idea what was happening, but I was starting to think I wanted more of it.

  17

  Reed

  I was fuming as I listened to Hannah recount her story of how she was abused at the hands of her high school boyfriend, but I didn’t let her see how angry I was getting. She didn’t need to see anger at that moment. Instead, she needed to be supported and made to feel like she was cared about.

  After she finished the story, I changed the subject so we could talk about happier topics. I asked her about her favorite foods, music, movies, television shows. I asked her question after question in an attempt to cleanse her mind from the things we’d been discussing. There was no reason for her to dwell on those things. I was going to be doing enough of that for the both of us.

  I discovered that Hannah loved wine and she seemed enthusiastic when I pulled out a bottle of red moscato. She was so enthusiastic, in fact, that she drank an entire bottle by herself.

  Tipsy as hell, I helped her into bed. In her inebriated state, she had gotten more than just a little flirty. She was downright sexual. As I helped her into bed, she threw her arms around my neck and tried to pull me towards her for a kiss. As badly as I wanted to kiss her and do a lot more, I wasn’t going to take advantage of her while she was drunk. Instead, I gave her a kiss on the forehead, told her goodnight and went into my office to do some research.

  Pulling up my criminal record search software, I type in Jake Patterson to see what he’s been up to since high school. Unsurprisingly, he’d found himself in more and more trouble as time went on, which was not at all uncommon for someone with a temper and anger issue such as his.

  He had page after page of arrests. He had a number of restraining orders against him, most of which had been renewed multiple times and were still active. He had double digits worth of arrests for various domestic assault charges.

  The problem with all the charges in his file was that none of them ended up being prosecuted after the arrest. That was odd to me, so the next day, I went down to the police station and, citing the Freedom of Information Act, requested his files.

  In every single case, the female who was being abused dropped the charges against him before any action could be taken. That kind of thing happens for one reason and one reason only, and that reason was fear. They were scared of him and there was no doubt in my mind that he used whatever intimidation tactics he had to do to ensure that he stayed out of trouble.

  It pissed me off to think about the fact that the only reason he hadn’t done time in prison was because these poor girls were scared of him. Someone needed to put a stop to it before he eventually killed someone. I noticed that the address on his last three arrests were the same, so it was probably a current address. Who better than me to make sure there weren’t any more victims.

  I was waiting outside his house when he pulled into his driveway. I found it comical that the star quarterback who was supposed to be the next big thing came home in a Burger King uniform, smelling of grease and onion rings.

  “Are you Jake?” I asked, causing him to turn towards me in surprise.

  “Who’s asking?” He replied in a very condescending tone.

  “I’m a friend of Hannah’s.”

  “Hannah? Hannah who?”

  “Hannah Sullivan. Surely you remember your old high school sweetheart, right?”

  His eyes widened and he went to make a run for his front door, but I cut him off quickly, tackling him down onto the ground.

  “What the fuck do you want?” He asked. “I haven’t even seen her in years.”

  “I want to know why you get off on harming women.”

  “Come on, man! That was years ago. I was just a kid. Don’t hold that shit against me.”

  “I might be willing to agree with you if it was a one time thing, but you’ve got domestic abuse arrests as recent as three months ago. That tells me you’re a chronic abuser and I just can’t have that. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

  “Please, man! I’m trying hard to turn my life around.”

  Before he could say another word, I grabbed his arm and yanked it until I heard it snap and Jake started screaming at the top of his lungs like a little girl.

  “Shut up,” I growled into his ear. “You’re acting like a little bitch. Now I just did to you exactly what you did to Hannah. Do you want me to make it even worse?”

  “No sir,” he whined.

  “I’m going to be watching you very closely. I’ve got alerts set up to notify me if you get into any trouble. If you get so much as a ticket for jaywalking, I’ll know about it. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good, because if I ever find out that you’ve laid your hand on a woman again, I’m going to come back here and I’m going to finish the job.”

  “Okay, okay, I get it!”

  “Do you? I want to make sure I’m crystal clear on this. If you lay your hands on another woman, I will kill you.”

  “I’ll never touch another woman again. I swear! I’ll be good.”

  “That’
s what I like to hear. Now stand up.”

  I pulled my camera out and snapped a photo of his arm dangling in a very unnatural angle. The photo wasn’t for evidence, of course. It was more like a trophy. Something to remember the encounter by. I had many such trophies from previous scumbags that I’d had to deal with.

  He was shaking and was obviously trying hard not to bawl loudly.

  “You might want to get that looked at,” I told him. “Just tell the doctor you fell.”

  18

  Reed

  I returned home that night feeling accomplished and even though I’d never be able to tell her what I’d done, I hoped that the punk would always remember that he never should have fucked with Hannah. If my snapping his arm like a twig saved other women from similar abuse, that would be the icing on the cake.

  In my office, I printed out the photo I took of his broken arm and threw in into the file folder I created for Jake. I also kept true to my promise to create an alert that would let me know of any arrests as they happened. I meant what I said to him. If he was ever arrested for a domestic incident again, I would kill him. As a matter of fact, I would post his bond for him and be waiting when he exited the jail.

  I took a quick shower and climbed into bed. Between everything Hannah had told me and my confrontation with Jake, I was exhausted. I was nearly asleep before my head even hit the pillow. For the second time since I bought Hannah, I had a vivid dream of Nikki and our life together.

  We are on the rooftop patio of Club Prana in Tampa. I pulled some strings with some people I know to reserve the entire patio just for us.

  It’s one year to the day that Nikki and I first met in the BDSM club and we’ve been virtually inseparable ever since.