Page 18 of Beyond the Cut
“You don’t give up, do you?” Dawn unlocked the dead bolt on the door leading to the parking lot. “It’ll take at least an hour to get a cab out here at this time of night. The bus is coming in five minutes. I’ll be fine. It’s not like I have far to go.”
“I’ll wait at the bus stop with you,” Banks called out. “Just gimme a minute and I’ll meet you there.”
The door closed behind her and she crossed the deserted parking lot toward the Dumpster. She tossed the bags, and pulled her leather jacket tight around her neck. Where had the warm spring weather gone? This winter had been the longest ever, and she so wasn’t a winter kind of girl. Now, Florida. That was more her style. Her parents had owned a condo on Miami Beach and she’d spent the summers with them building sand castles, learning how to in-line skate, and never appreciating her safe, secure loving world until it disappeared when a drunk driver crossed the median and hit her parents’ car.
She wanted that kind of happy life for her children—a life without stress or fear, a life where they were surrounded by love and laughter, a life where parents kissed you in the morning and didn’t disappear in the afternoon.
Keeping to the lit side of the street, she walked toward the bus stop. The streetlights had been changed out for energy-saving orange a few months ago, giving the area an eerie glow. She reached the crossroad and looked up and down the street. Time to jaywalk. She just couldn’t help breaking the law. Maybe it was genetic. After all, her uncle had broken at least ten different laws the first time he trapped her in the bedroom.
Footsteps rang out behind her, and she turned, half smiling, expecting to see Banks. But her smile faded and her pulse went into overdrive when Jimmy stepped out of the shadows.
“Time to come home, love.”
Dawn’s gaze flicked back to the bar and then down the street. Where was Banks? The drunks were still inside. The streets were deserted. It was just her and Jimmy, and a lifetime of regret.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” She took a step toward the bus stop, and Jimmy grabbed her arm and yanked her back.
“You’ll come with me or you lose those girls forever. I’ll take them someplace you’ll never find them.”
She stared up at him, his face at once foreign and familiar. They’d shared a bed every night for seven years. At first, she’d thought of him as her knight in shining armor, rescuing her from a pimp who had discovered her unprotected and living on the street. It was only after Jimmy turned vicious that she saw him for who he truly was: a monster. In biker’s clothing. There was no way she would allow herself to get caught up in a relationship where she could fall into that trap again. Especially not in a world where women were property and everyone turned a blind eye to abuse.
Still, it had taken years to push aside the childish teenage fantasy, break the emotional bond, and gather up the courage and enough money to leave him. And in the end, she’d done it for her girls. Not for herself. Caught in an endless cycle of abuse, she’d lost her sense of self-worth. Her mama bear instincts had saved her as much as she’d saved her children and taught her an important lesson: She was a fighter and a survivor, and she would never let anyone take that away.
“I’ll find a way to get them back.” Her heart thundered so hard she thought she might break a rib. She was intimately familiar with Jimmy’s moods. Her safety had depended on reading him correctly and responding accordingly. And right now, she read danger with a capitalD. He wasn’t just angry; he was enraged, and his control would slip the longer they dragged out the conversation.
Jimmy gave a bitter laugh, tightening his grip on her forearm. “You’ve tried for a year and what do you have to show for it? Nothing. Shelly-Ann has you over a barrel and now I’m gonna have you back in my bed. I lost the last election ’cause the brothers thought I was too weak to control my woman. But there’s a new election coming up and I’ve let this stupid little game go on long enough. You’re mine until I let you go. Until death do us part. Nobody leaves Jimmy, especially not you, and never for a Sinner.”
“Wrong.” She tugged the unloaded .22 from the pocket of her jacket and Jimmy released her with a jerk, his hands flying up in a defensive gesture.
“You don’t want to that, love. Think about the kids. You’d go to jail for life. They would have no one but Shelly-Ann.”
Love. The term of endearment made her feel sick inside. He’d called her “love” from the day he took her back to the clubhouse. New name for a new life, he’d said. Now she associated that name with only one thing: Pain.
“Drop the gun and stop playing games.” His grin turned feral. “I know you. And I know it’s not loaded.”
For a split second, Dawn wondered what she would have done if there had been a bullet in the gun. But he’d called her bluff, just as Banks had. Now she had only one option.
Run.
Turning quickly, she raced across the street. In the distance, the headlights of the bus glowed warm in the night. It would all come down to timing.
“Fuck.” Jimmy’s voice echoed in the darkness, and the thud of his shoes on the pavement sent her heart into overdrive.
But although she was fast, Jimmy was faster. Just as she reached the bus shelter, he grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. Using her momentum, he slammed her face into the glass. Pain shot through her skull and she shuddered beneath his grip.
“Wrong. Fucking. Decision.” Jimmy pressed his lips to her ear and growled, “Looks like someone needs to be reminded of her lessons.”
Well conditioned to what usually followed those particular words, Dawn froze. Jimmy had rules, and every lesson she’d learned after breaking one of his rules resulted in a trip to the hospital.
The growl of an engine shattered the silence. Light flooded the shelter and the bus slowed to a stop. In the distance the bar door slammed and she heard Banks curse.
“Let me go or I’ll scream.” She mumbled the words against the glass, unable to move an inch with his body pressed hard against her. “They have armed security on the night bus, and my manager is coming.”
Her gamble that Jimmy knew nothing about buses or the limited resources they had to run at night—resources that most certainly didn’t include salaries for security guards—paid off. With a last smash of her forehead against the glass, he released her and backed into the shadows.
“We’re not done, love.” His words sliced through the darkness, piercing her heart. “Not even close.”
***
