Page 4 of Dirty Mechanic

Mike Bishop. My toxic ex-landlord, my kidnapper’s son and my captor, needs me. And he’s blackmailing me into marriage to get what he wants.

Fine. If it means Derek will be safe, he can have the paper, but I’m keeping my soul.

My knees shake, but I keep breathing. Keep existing. Keep wondering if Derek’s calling. If he’s pacing, furious, hurt, thinking I’ve disappeared again.

Just get through this.

The ceremony lasts five miserable minutes in a dingy courthouse outside San Francisco. Mike nods once at the bored clerk he paid to overlook the lack of proper witnesses. A sleepy security guard eyes me dispassionately, clearly in Mike’s pocket too. The judge drones through his script, never making eye contact. I inhale the ever-present smell of bleach as Mike slips a tacky plastic ring from a gumball machine onto my finger. I close my eyes, whisper “I do”, and sell my life to the devil.

We drive back to the same block I ran from. Mike’s bar reeks of cheap whiskey, cigarettes, and despair.

Neon signs buzz like dying fireflies, casting jaundiced light across sticky floors and sticky men. Regulars barely glance at the bride dragged inside. Maybe that’s because I look like a corpse.

“Welcome home, Mrs. Bishop,” Mike’s voice is a predator’s purr as he jerks a thumb toward the stairwell. “Apartment’s just as you left it. Keep it spotless. I’ll be back tonight. We have a marriage to consummate.”

My skin crawls.

Over. My. Dead. Body.

But I say nothing. Right now, silence is my shield.

I drag my suitcase up the stairs, each step heavier than the last. My hand shakes when I slide the key into the lock, but I get it open.

The place hasn’t changed. Same bleach-scented prison of bare walls and claustrophobic corners. I bolt the deadbolts and prop a chair under the doorknob.

I know it’s not enough, but tonight, Mike will be too drunk to remember I’m upstairs.

The next day, I buy a new lock and two more deadbolts. I start using the fire escape to get in and out.

I make myself invisible.

And for a while, it works.

For almost a year, Mike’s words chip away at everything inside me. When I’m not working at the bakery, he makes me work shifts in his bar, cleaning up after drunk customers, their eyes crawling over me. Every day he whispers the same poison: “No one's coming for you. Not Derek. Not your brother. You're mine. No one wants you back.” Eventually, I start believing him.

While Mike stays distracted with his bar, his shady friends, and his schemes, waiting for a clear background check to get his green card, I become a ghost in his world.

I work. I eat. I sleep with one eye open and tell myself I’m safe. Until the night I wake to the sound of splintering wood as Mike breaks through the apartment door I thought was bolted tight.

I sit up, heart hammering in my throat. The door is hanging from its hinges and Mike looms in the hall like the devil’s shadow.

“What are you doing?” My voice barely escapes.

He smiles that slow, poisonous smile.

“It’s time we validated this marriage.”

He blocks my path to the fire escape before I can reach it. Drunk, he crosses the room in two strides, and I have nowhere to run. I want to fight. God, I want to run back to Derek, to home, to a life I never really let myself believe I deserved. But that night, all I know is how to survive. And survival means keeping my mouth shut, keeping my heart locked down, and hoping the damage stays small.

I tell myself it’s safer this way. I tell myself it’s the only way.

But my chest aches to not give up.

So I fight. I scream. I beg.

But it doesn’t matter.

He laughs, low and dark, his eyes glazed with rage. “Did you really think you could hide from me?” His grip tightens, fingers bruising my skin. “You’re mine, Belle."