Page 48 of Wicked Ends (Hellions of Hade Harbor #4)

Arianna

I came to slowly, the TV blaring in my ears. It was dark in the room, with only the dancing colors of the TV to orient myself.

I was at the Night Owl. The previous hours rushed back.

My brother was here. He’d shown up. He was alive, and apparently unharmed, and here.

Someone burped. Dale, drinking and being messy. I turned my head slightly, not enough for him to know I was awake, but enough to make him out, sitting on the waterbed and scrolling through my phone.

He tossed it away and reached for his own. He called someone and waited a long while until the call connected.

“I want the exact location.”

I could only imagine what the rest of the conversation was about.

I looked around as carefully as I could.

The bathroom door was only a few feet away.

The light was off, and the door was cracked open.

I knew that room well. The window was gummed shut, and the lock wasn’t that strong, but there was a security cord next to the shower, in case someone took a fall.

It should set off an alarm at the reception desk.

Earl would call an ambulance, I could only hope, instead of coming to check for himself.

I inched toward the bathroom, pushing myself with my heels across the carpet and only daring to move a tiny amount at a time.

Loud gunshots came from the TV show Dale was watching sent my nerves higher and higher.

My ribs ached. He’d clearly continued to kick me for a while after I’d lost consciousness.

My head was splitting, and there had to be a sizable egg on the side. It throbbed.

My hand brushed over my wallet. Dale had tipped my entire purse out onto the floor while searching for my phone. I dragged myself slowly over the contents. It felt like a suitable allegory for the state of my new life now… torn and spilled out everywhere.

I’d feared this moment would come, but it had come so damn fast. Tears threatened to fall, but I couldn’t let them. Crying was too noisy.

Something shiny caught my eye, a tiny round metal disk with a familiar logo on it. It was a tracking device; I’d seen them often. People put them in their instrument cases for if they were stolen. That had been in my purse?

Marcus.

Now, the thought of the hockey player who’d stolen my heart only made me want to cry even more. I wanted to see him. I wanted to tell him that I’d been wrong… staying apart was a waste of fucking time. I’d made the mistake of assuming I’d have time—that was always a mistake.

Nothing was guaranteed.

Keeping myself from him was my first mistake.

My second had been lying to him. Maybe if I’d shared my past, he would have come to check on me.

Maybe. All the maybes and regrets cluttered up my head.

They were all useless, at the end of the day.

I was here, now, and so was Dale. The worst had happened.

I gripped the tracker and tucked it into my palm.

Fuck. I wish I could send a message to Marcus.

Just the thought of him filled me with longing.

I’d felt safe with him. For the first time in my life, I’d been truly safe.

Even when I was a kid, living in my grandparents’ house, loved and protected, Dale had lived down the hall.

I’d never been truly safe from the monster who lived in my own house.

Here, though, in Hade Harbor, I’d finally felt safe.

Effortlessly protected. Now, it was ruined.

I crawled a little farther, reaching Dale’s boots.

“You left me for dead, Arianna. I’ll return the favor…”

Would Dale leave me here in Hade Harbor, a body in a motel?

Or would he make me go with him first… leaving the people I’d met here to wonder where I’d gone?

Leaving Marcus to think I was another person who had abandoned him.

Kenna would go to the police, of that I was sure, but what could they do if Dale forced me to leave, or worse, abandoned my body by the side of the highway?

I stared at the boots, an idea occurring to me. The chair across the other side of the room groaned as Dale stood.

I moved as quickly as I could, lashing out a hand to tuck the tracker inside Dale’s boot, under the leather insole. I prayed that my brother wouldn’t find it. If I did go missing… at least the police would have a lead. Kenna would surely tell them about Dale.

“Awake already?” Dale stood over me. “Get up, then.”

I froze where I was, pain radiating down my neck when I craned it to look at him.

“I’m hurt,” I said emotionlessly. All the tips I’d learned over the years about dealing with abusive people had never really worked on Dale, but it was worth a try.

“Yeah, well, join the club,” he snarled and yanked me up by my hair.

I fought through the pain in my side to scramble up. He barely loosened the pressure as he dragged me to the bed and tossed me on it.

“Now…” He lit a cigarette. “Where is my money, Arianna?”

“It wasn’t your money. Gran left it to me, and me only,” I said quietly.

Dale took a long pull from his cigarette. “That dementia-ridden bag of bones didn’t know what she was doing at the end, and you took advantage of that… just like you convinced my wife to run away from me.”

A bitter laugh left me at that, and then I flinched when Dale raised his hand as if to backhand me. But he managed to stop himself before the blow came.

“Stop trying to goad me, Arianna, you know I won’t fall for your tricks.”

He had always been strangely controlled with his abuse.

He never hit someone where it showed. That went for his wife and daughter, too.

Nothing that would raise alarms at school or work.

Well, in the beginning… he’d started to break even those rules with Claire. That’s when we’d known we had to leave.

He yanked down my T-shirt, exposing my collarbone, and lowered his cigarette to my skin. Once. Twice. I screamed, but his hand quickly muffled the sound.

“Shh, stop making a fucking scene. Tell me where my money is, or else I’ll have to get it from somewhere else.”

“What does that mean?” I gasped, out after he removed his hand, his words sending fear through me.

Dale sank back in his seat and smirked at me. “You think I don’t know that you gave it to that whore I married? You gave so much of it away that you have to live here to get by.” He snorted. “You never were very smart, were you?”

“I don’t know where they are,” I said.

“Yeah, I figured, but you know they’re safe and sound from the big bad monster.” Dale laughed bitterly. “That’s the shit she’s filling my kid’s head with, that I’m a monster and they had to run away. I don’t need you to tell me where they are. Soon, I’ll know.”

“How?”

“Because Claire hired a lawyer—to divorce me. Stupid fucker couldn’t last through one day of a little questioning.

I guess that’s what happens when a lawyer likes keeping all his fingers and toes more than his client’s privacy.

In fact, they aren’t too far from here. This East Coast trip is killing two birds with one stone. ”

“If you know, then why are you here?” I shot out.

He was bluffing, he had to be.

Dale smoked and watched me with an inscrutable expression.

“You think I was going to let you get away with leaving me for dead? Or taking my money? It’s about the principle of the thing.

Not to mention that you did me a favor getting rid of Claire and the brat.

I’m free of them now, and it’s a relief.

I want my money… and you’re going to get it for me. ”

“How do you think I’m going to magic up all that money?”

“You should have thought about that before giving it away. Get me my money by this time tomorrow night… or you’re dead…

but you won’t be dead right away. I’ll bring Lulu and Claire here first, get the money, and kill them in front of you.

Got it? I’m done being humiliated by you witches. Now, just so we’re on the same page…”

He reached into his waistband and pulled out a gun. I stared at it.

He waved it in front of me. “This is for Claire and Lulu, if you don’t cough up the cash.

It’s also for anyone you might go to for help…

like your little friend, McKenna. I remember that bitch from school.

Or your boyfriend. You think he’s a tough guy, and he can protect you?

Let’s see if he can survive a gunshot. Tell anyone, and they die.

Don’t pay me, and they die. Take too fucking long, and they die.

Got it? And as for you? You’re already dead…

your body just doesn’t know it yet.” He pressed the gun into my temple. “Get. Me. My. Money.”

Then he kicked me again, and I went under once more.

I woke up the next morning in immense pain. The kind of pain that made breathing painful. I sat up on the floor, bracing in case Dale was there waiting for round two, but it was quiet, the room empty.

Crushed beer cans littered the table and bed. The room smelled of smoke and my brother’s rank, old sweat—but I was alone.

I dragged myself into the bathroom and switched on the shower.

A glance at my watch told me it was Sunday, not Saturday like I’d imagined. I’d been fading in and out of consciousness for a whole night and day? That was terrifying. My head was tender, and I gingerly felt around the lump on it. Yep, not good.

I got into the shower and tried not to look at the dark bruising on my torso and arms. The areas that would be hidden by clothes. Dale’s specialty. The cigarette burn stung the most.