Page 54 of Stand: Part One

I bit the inside of my cheek. It was true that my mind was finally coming to terms with what I had endured in the basement. I couldn’t remember the last time I dreamed of those horrors, though they still plagued my inner peace and influenced my actions.

But this dream was a whole new can of worms I was not willing to dissect with him. If anything, he’d probably just validate them instead.

“You know I’m always full of surprises,” I offered innocently.

He groaned, squeezing a little tighter. “Predictably so.”

Before anything else could be said, his phone rang, temporarily saving me from his interrogation.

Reaching over, he grabbed his phone and brought it to his ear.

“Yeah,” he answered.

I could only make out an unintelligible voice on the other end, but the more they spoke, the more Darren’s fingers dug into my arm.

“Then he’s still alive,” he replied gravely into the phone. “I’ll be down shortly.”

He then ended the call and kissed the top of my head.

“I have to go,” he said, releasing my body and quickly slipping from the bed.

Whoever it was that was still alive, they had my thanks for saving me from what would be a very heated argument followed by a callous victory lap.

Apparently, Darren’s non-ass-kicker did survive the encounter…

Darren quickly changed into a suit and headed for the door in record time, his demeanor that of all business and lethal determination.

“You can expect a visit from Sid later,” he warned, giving me a single glance before he opened the door and shut it behind him.

I released a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, relief flooding my lungs as I fell back against the pillows. But that relief was quickly replaced with dread as the images of my nightmare came back with a vengeance. My stomach clenched at the memory, the anxiety building in my blood.

I couldn’t believe what Darren had revealed last night. I still wasn’t convinced I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing up.

To think that Warren Davis had his own children tortured. TORTURED. Every single year! FOR THREE DAYS!

What kind of parent did that?

What kind of person ordered the torture of a child, let alone their own?

On a yearly basis!

Darren’s father was clearly a psychopath. There was no other explanation. And so was his grandfather. An entire lineage of psychopathic, bloodthirsty monsters…and Darren wanted to continue that line.

Fuck that.

I reached down my abdomen until my fingertips grazed the puckered scar where a bullet had simultaneously saved and sabotaged my life at just the right time.

With the destruction of one ovary, I was just one away from stopping that madness right in its tracks. A carefully calculated puncture at just the right angle could permanently free me from ever having to bring a child into Darren’s evil world.

It would spare my would-be children from ever having to suffer the same fate as their sadistic father.

The only thing that had me pausing was what Darren would do to me if I was successful in my objective, even if it was by another happy accident. I could probably expect to live the rest of my life in the basement while Darren found some other poor soul to bear his children. If I had learned anything in the years I had been with him, he would find a way.

He would always find a way.

If there was a God, she’d make the damn man infertile.

I sighed in disappointment.