Page 65 of Beyond the Cut
Too late. Maybe she shouldn’t have made that wish the other night.
“Welcome home, love. Come give your old man a kiss.”
Ice flooded her veins and she turned to see Jimmy sprawled on a chair in her darkened living room. “How did you get in here?”
He gestured for her to approach him, scowling when she didn’t move from the door. With his face half in and half out of shadow, his hoodie bunched around his neck, and his all-black attire, he looked every inch the monster she knew he was.
Run. She should run. But dammit, this was her house. Plus she knew he wouldn’t let her get away that easy. There would be some trap lying outside: Brethren hiding in the bushes, a gun in his hand hidden by his side.
“You know me. I can get in anywhere.” He leered and she recoiled at the double entendre, wishing she could erase every minute she had spent in his bed.
“Get out or I’ll call the police.” She pulled her phone from her pocket with one hand and reached into her purse with the other, feeling for her weapon. She’d loaded the gun after Cade dropped her off at work, never thinking she would have to use it so soon.
Jimmy pushed himself out of the chair and ambled toward her, seemingly unaffected by her threat. “I want my fucking money. Then you’re gonna come home where you belong and I’ll teach you again what it means to be mine.” He struck her with his closed fist, sending her flying sideways across the room. The purse fell from her grasp and she landed on her back beside the coffee table.
Stunned, slivers of pain shooting up her back, her face throbbing, she could only watch as he tugged open his belt and closed the distance between them.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out you stole from me? Or that you’ve been parading around town in a Sinner cut? Did you think Shelly-Ann wouldn’t tell me? I’ve put up with your shit far too long.” He whipped off his belt with a crack and Dawn’s breath caught in her throat. Jimmy had left her alone for the better part of three years. Why did he want her back now?
“Time for a reminder about how this relationship works. Then you’ll get that money and come home with me so you can be reminded of it every day.”
“I don’t understand. I thought we were done. You have someone new.” Grimacing at the pain, she pushed herself to sitting and searched for her purse.
Jimmy tugged open his fly and scowled. “I’m sure you’ll understand just fine when it’s my dick inside you instead of that fucking Sinner’s dick. Shelly-Ann saw you playing happy families in the park.” His face twisted and spittle bubbled at the corner of his mouth. “Isaw you,” he screamed. “I saw him kiss you. I saw his fucking paws all over you. You’re my old lady. My wife. And you’re a fucking whore and a thief.”
Every alarm bell in her body triggered in warning. He was past the point of restraint, past the point of rational thought. The few times he’d been like this she’d barely managed to get out of their apartment alive.
Dawn rolled, her arm outstretched toward her purse, but Jimmy was on her before her fingers caught the handle. He straddled her hips, his weight pinning her to the floor.
“You got two choices, bitch.” He caged her jaw, forcing her mouth open with his thumb as his fingers pressed against her windpipe, cutting off her air and making it impossible to scream. “You can lie nice and quiet and take what I’m gonna give you, or you can put up a little fight and I’ll whip you and fuck you and beat you and fuck you again.”
Dawn’s heart pounded so hard she thought it would crack a rib. How had she ever looked into those cold, dark eyes and seen a savior? How had she ever thought Jimmy cared? She inched her fingers toward her fallen phone, fighting the darkness threatening her vision.
“Tsk. Tsk.” Jimmy released her and snatched the phone from her grasp. “You thinking of calling for help? Do your new Sinner friends know how you earned your keep for the Brethren, little whore? Does your damn Sinner? I’ll bet he’ll lose interest pretty quick when he finds out just what a skanky bitch you really are, when it’s my cum filling your pussy. Maybe we’ll make some more damn brats. He’s not gonna want you all knocked up. I sure didn’t.”
Dawn sucked in a breath of cool, clean air and tried to stop the trembles racking her body. She closed her hand into a fist and remembered the moment she hit Stan and how she’d imagined he was Jimmy.
“No one’s coming to help you, love. Not the police. Not the Sinners. And definitely not that fucking prick who can’t keep his dick out of other people’s business.” He threw her phone against the wall, grinning when it slid to the floor with a sharp crack. “Cheap. Like you.”
“Jimmy. Please. Stop.”
Without hesitation, he shoved up her top. Dawn shivered as the cool air slid over her heated skin. The urge to hit, slap, punch, and fight him away was almost overwhelming, but experience had taught her if she used her hands against him, he would either pin them above her head or bind her wrists, and right now she needed her hands free to get her gun.
“Fuck, I missed these tits.” He gave her breast a vicious squeeze through her satin bra. “Did you know I picked you up off the streets just ’cause you had the nicest tits I’d ever seen? Whore tits.”
Bile rose in her throat as he pawed at her breasts. Her purse lay discarded, open, and within reach. While Jimmy was distracted, she slid her fingers inside, barely daring to breathe until she felt cold steel. When he moved to shove up her bra, she yanked out the gun and held it with two hands, pointing the barrel at Jimmy’s chest.
“Off.”
Jimmy froze and then he smirked. “You playing that game again? You think I don’t know it’s not loaded? You don’t have what it takes. You never did. That’s why you never fit in with the Brethren. And deep down you’ll never shoot me. I’m the man who saved you from the streets, gave you a home, a life, a job, discipline, two sniveling brats, and all the fucking you couldn’t handle.”
“Last time. Off.” She felt different holding a loaded gun. Resolved. And Jimmy could clearly see the difference.
He sighed and pushed himself up, his belt still dangling from his grip. “Okay. I’m off. Now give me the gun before someone gets hurt.”
Dawn scrambled to her feet. “Out.”
Too late she saw the danger. His hand shot out and he cracked his belt, whipping it across her bare arm. The violent sting of leather on her exposed skin made her gasp and she lost her grip on the gun.
