this shithole a week before I planned for us to leave Bracknell.
“But in the end, it didn’t matter. Money talks just as loud here. For those that couldn’t hear it, the threat of making an enemy out of the Byrne family worked just as well.”
“You bought the police.”
My voice sounded far away—as if reaching me through glass.
“For much less than you’re thinking,” he replied. “It’s an atrocity how little we pay our law enforcement. Why put the effort in catching me when helping me pays so much better? Yes, they’ve been putting on a good show. Interviewing witnesses. Calling in the FBI, only to discover a security tape of us leaving the island just in time that moved the investigation to the mainland.”
Mal laughed. “That was a particular stroke of genius on my part. I found a couple that matched our basic description and gave them an all-expense-paid vacation to anywhere they wanted to go. All they had to do was get on the plane at that exact time, and not look up.”
“Why?” I asked so softly the waves tried to silence me. “Why can’t you let go?”
His handsome face contorted. “Because you’re mine. You refuse to accept it but that makes it no less true.” The humor was fading quickly, disappearing as the mask peeled back. “The wrong person intercepted the message you sent. Fox Hill Road. Blue house. Boat. They had to come and search, but we won’t lose sleep over them coming back. At least, not any time soon. They’ll be busy.”
An edge crept into his voice, sounding alarm. “What does that mean?”
“It means I always keep my promises.” Malcolm held his phone up to my eyes. I looked at the photo—
—and screamed.
“The police will be too focused on finding your boyfriend’s killer to chase a couple that got away.”
There was no mistaking it. Nathan—my Nathan—looked into the camera without seeing it. Blood dripped down his face, soaking a dark red halo into his pillow.
I swung, smacking the phone out of his hand and overboard. He wasn’t prepared for that, or for me to launch at him. We went down in a heap. “You killed him!” I screamed into his wide eyes. “I loved him!”
“No!” Mal backhanded me. “Don’t you dare fucking cry for him! I’m your husband. You love me.”
I tumbled across the deck, recognizing the pain, but feeling none of it.
Nathan was gone. My first real love. The boy who made love to me under the orange trees, made me laugh after I’d forgotten how, and sheltered me in his beach house—safe in our refuge from the world.
“I’ll never love you!” I spat out a mouthful of blood. “Carter is funny, smart and passionate. Preston understands me in ways I didn’t know myself. And N-Nathan,” I cried. “He was twice the man you could ever be even before you became this monster. That’s real love, Mal, and it kills you that you’ve never had it. Not from me, and not from my mother.”
Roaring, Mal bounded across in two steps. I knew it was coming. Accepted every word would seal my fate. But what did it matter?
He clamped my throat—his eyes bulging as mine did.
My fist cracked on his nose. Mal stumbled back, loosening his hold, and I made a run for the dock.
Something struck my ankles and I was falling. The deck rose up to meet me, smashing mercilessly against my forehead. Groaning, I willed myself to move. Run. Anything.
“Nathan...”
“Don’t cry for him!”
The first kick knocked me against the hull.
“He’s dead,” he shouted. “They’re all dead. You belong to me, Arabella. Your tears are for me.”
The blows rained down in an endless torrent, and I cried.
Loud, chest-wracking sobs.
For Nathan.
I SAT ON THE BED, SILENT in the dark. Outside, Mal creaked the floorboards moving the rest of his stuff out to the boat.
Friday had come. It was time to go.
I twisted my sore neck, looking to where the restraints used to be. He had taken them down and threw them away in front of me. Malcolm knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Let’s go.”
Carefully, I stood, cradling my sore ribs. I didn’t think anything was broken, but it hurt like hell anyway. I shuffled out under his watchful eye.
“Don’t blame anyone but yourself, Arabella,” he hissed. “It didn’t have to be like this.”
Yes, it did.
The little blue shack was swept bare. There truly was nothing for the police to find now. Everything had worked in Mal’s favor.
But not in Bracknell. Sending me here ruined whatever hideous plan he