POV: KATHERINA
“You should have fucking called me, dammit!” Chris said in frustration, yanking his hair.
“I couldn’t. He took my phone,” I replied.
“We should tell the cops,” Chris said in a strained voice, tension clear in his features.
“You think that’s going to work? You don’t understand. You didn’t see what I saw, Chris.” My voice trembled at the recollection.
“What do you mean? You and your sister were abducted and threatened by some fucking asshole! This is a serious issue, Katherina,” he said gravely.
I saw how tired he was from practice. He had bags under his eyes. His body would give out if he continued to overwork this way.
After we were home, I quickly applied ointment to Ara’s neck. Then I fed her and put her to bed before calling Chris. He instantly left practice and came over when he heard me crying on the phone.
“He threatened to slit my sister’s throat if I involve the cops,” I replied. “He lifted her by the neck like she weighs nothing. He’s a monster, Chris.”
Chris said nothing for a while and looked away from me.
The cops were my one and only hope, but I knew that man was dead serious when he threatened to kill my sister. The mere image of him laying a finger on her again sent shivers down my spine.
“Should we tell my parents?” I asked.
“No, no way!” Chris snapped immediately. “You can’t panic them this way, Kat. I’m talking to my mom once she comes back from Hawaii tonight.
“She will handle things with the cops so your parents won’t have to worry. They can find the CCTV footage of the club and identify the guy.”
“You can’t ask your mother to help me just because she’s a lawyer, Chris―”
“Yes, I can, and that’s what I’m going to do. Leave it to me.”
“Chris―”
“Don’t argue, Katherina. This could turn out to be serious as it seems, or the guy might just be a douchebag, for all we know.
“I’m going to ask some guys to watch your place tomorrow to look for the creep. You and Arabella can stay at my place.”
I sighed and slumped on the couch, wrapping my arms around my knees. I really hoped he would turn out to be a douchebag, but his actions and demeanor said otherwise.
It was frightening to know a man could be that merciless.
Chris sat beside me and wrapped his hand around my shoulder, pulling me to his chest. “Go to sleep, baby. I’ll be here with you till your parents come back,” he said and kissed my forehead.
I sighed and closed my heavy eyelids as my tired body finally relaxed.
***
When I woke up, the room was empty. The washroom door opened to reveal Chris.
“You’re up,” he said, smiling softly at me.
“I thought you were gone,” I said
“Well, I did say I’d be here.” His smile widened.
“Is Ara awake?” I asked curiously.
“Yes. It was hard to console her. I ordered some pizza. She’s eating downstairs,” he replied, slipping his hands into his jean pockets.
I got up from the bed and went downstairs to check on her. She was watching a cartoon while eating her pizza.
Mom would be here in an hour, and the last thing I wanted was for Arabella to complain about what happened today.
“Hey,” I slumped on the couch next to her. “How are you feeling?” I asked, trailing my fingers behind her neck to inspect the bruise.
I stopped breathing when I saw the purple bruise painfully swollen on her neck.
“I’m feeling good, Kat,” she said so softly.
“Does it hurt?” I asked, fearing my touch might hurt her.
“No, Chrissy reapplied some ointment. It doesn’t hurt now,” she said and gave me a slice of pizza.
“Munchkin, I want you to promise me that you won’t tell your mommy about this, okay?” Chris asked, sitting adjacent to us on another couch.
Ara looked at me and Chris and then went back to watch the TV.
“Arabella?” Chris called her again, “Do you promise Chrissy?”
“Will he hurt me again?” she asked softly.
“No,” I replied immediately. “He will never come near you. I promise you that.” I kissed her head.
“Okay then,” she agreed reluctantly.
“I won’t let anything happen to either of you. We’ll stay at my place tomorrow, all right?” Chris reassured Ara.
“That’d be awesome! I miss Aunt Karen!” Gone were all her worries and sadness, replaced with excitement and joy.
“Yeah, even Mom misses you,” Chris said, smiling in relief.
With Chris around, things seemed easier than they should be. I trusted him to take care of the situation because his mother is a lawyer.
With her friend’s in the department, she would handle it confidentially. Once it was settled, she’d inform my parents too.
Our town doesn’t have a high crime rate, and it’s mainly because of Sheriff Bill Newman.
He was a high-ranking police officer in his old department. Due to his outstanding work, he was transferred and given many important cases.
Karen and Bill had worked many cases together, which raised Karen’s popularity above the masses of lawyers from the city.
Whatever she did, she was always laid back because she comes from a small town. With Bill’s retirement age nearing, he had come back to his own town to live the rest of his life peacefully.
When Mom arrived home, she was happy to see Chris. Maybe that’s why she didn’t question why Arabella was wearing a thick scarf around her neck when the fireplace was lit and the living room was warm.
Ara was true to her word and greeted our mother happily, and never spoke about what happened today.
Chris kept my mother distracted, talking about practice and future plans for his football career, and my mother listened to him intently while preparing dinner for us.
I held Ara in my arms, massaging her neck. The swelling had gone down in the past few hours, leaving a red mark.
“Will you marry Chrissy?” Ara asked out of the blue, making my eyes widen.
“What?” I chuckled nervously.
“You heard me.” She shrugged.
“Yes. Yes, of course, I’ll marry him in the future. Why would you ask that?” I said, smiling down at her.
“I don’t know. He’s so nice to me, Mummy, Daddy, and to you,” she replied.
We looked at Chris, laughing with Mom about something we couldn’t hear.
“Yes. Yes, he is,” I said.
Just then, there was a knock on the door, interrupting us. My stomach churned, and I stiffened.
Was it him?
The question popped up, even though he said he would be here tomorrow. Placing Ara beside me on the couch, I stood up.
“I’ll get that,” I said and went to open the door. I opened the door to be greeted by Dad.
I let out a huge sigh.
“Hey, honey.” Dad hugged and placed a kiss on my forehead before entering the inside.
“Daddy!” Ara screamed and ran toward his open arms. Dad threw her in the air and caught her back, making her laugh. I had this overwhelming urge to just spit out everything that happened today.
“Dad—
“Good evening, sir,” Chris greeted Dad, his eyes observing me cautiously.
“Evening, Chris. How’s practice?” he asked, leaving Ara down to the floor, letting her run to the kitchen.
“The coach is pretty hard on us all,” he said, smiling. “But none of us are complaining.”
“That’s good. Hope to see you win the cup this year. I’ll go freshen up,” Dad said and hurried to the stairs.
“You were going to tell him, weren’t you?” Chris hissed once he was out of view.
“I think it’s better if the elders deal with it,” I replied softly.
“I told you I’m informing my mother, and she will handle this,” Chris glared at me. “I left my practice session and came for you, Kat. The least you could do to support me is keep your mouth shut.”
“But I’m scared.”
“And that’s going to give your parents trouble. I got this, so please trust me,” he said firmly. I nodded.
I tried to keep my head on straight and calm down about the situation, but the more I looked at my parents and sister throughout dinner, the more I wanted to scream and cry out my problems to them.
Chris kept a cool facade like everything was fine. So did Ara because her neck didn’t hurt as much, and the delicious food in front of her distracted her from today’s incident.
Father was having a hearty conversation with Chris, talking about his school days and the games he’d won as a quarterback, and Chris listened to him with interest.
Mother told me about the marriage contract she’d taken that was going to pay her a bundle. She was so excited.
They were happy, and it hurt to think of what might happen the next day to wipe the smiles off their lips. I lost my appetite and hardly ate anything.
Once dinner was over, Chris stood, kissed my parent’s cheeks, and bid goodbye to Arabella. I followed him to the door.
“So, I’ll see you at school?” Chris asked, scratching his head while standing on the porch.
“Yeah.”
“You sure? Will you sleep well tonight?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about me.” I mustered up a smile.
“Okay,” he said and left. Soon I heard his bike taking off from the driveway.
I looked at the door, switched off the lights in the living room, and put Ara to bed before going to my room.
There was perfect silence for what seemed like ten minutes, and then I heard a soft knock, making me jump in fear. I quickly looked at the window. There was another knock.
I slowly walked toward the window and pulled the curtain aside.
“Chris!” I quickly opened the window. “What are you doing here?” He jumped into my room and turned toward me.
“I forgot something,” he said.
“What is it? Is it your phone? Or—”
My sentence was cut off as he captured my lips with his. His kiss was urgent and fast, and I opened my mouth, letting him slip his tongue inside.
My hands locked in his hair and around his neck while he pulled me closer, crushing my body to his hard one. By the time he withdrew his lips from mine, I was gasping for air.
“I forgot my kiss,” he whispered huskily before climbing out the window.
“You’ll sleep well now without the bastard inside your head,” he said, holding onto the wall. I smiled at him.
“And yeah, happy wet dreams,” he added when his feet met the ground.
“Idiot!” I said, making him chuckle and getting on his bike and driving away this time.
I barely slept all night. I had a cold shower and got dressed for school. I was feeling sick, so I skipped breakfast and rode my bicycle through the woods to clear my head before getting to school.
I spent the morning classes in fear of a masculine man entering the class any moment and dragging me out by my hair. When lunch came, I rushed to the cafeteria.
I didn’t tell my best friends what had happened, but one look at my bloodshot eyes and tired face told them something was wrong.
They insisted on knowing what was bugging me, but I refused and then lied, which made them drop it.
My mind kept replaying the events in the club and the day before. He was clearly an outsider. If he had been here more than a month, most people would know about him.
With his cold personality, there would’ve been gossip about him too. He oozed danger, and it was clear he wasn’t some local gangster.
“Blackwood! So amazing to see you!” I was interrupted by Megan Barbara.
“What is it, Megan?” I asked, my voice dropping low. I had enough problems at the moment without having to deal with this bitch.
“What’s wrong, honey? Chris didn’t feed you his cock last night?” she commented loud enough to make heads turn toward us in the cafeteria.
“If you’re here to annoy me, just leave,” I said calmly in a dismissive tone.
“Well, I just wanted to return your chemistry notebook, which Mrs. Logan personally requested me to hand over to you,” she said, and her friend Veronica threw the book on the table.
“ I swear to God if you have messed it up—”
My sentence turned into a surprised gasp when I opened my book to see the mess she had created.
“Oh my God, what the fuck Megan!” I screamed and looked up at her.
“You’re welcome, honey,” she said coolly while I just sat stunned to my core.
I’d rewritten everything from scratch after Ara spoiled my book, and now I have to do it all over again! She had torn every page!
Every freaking page was torn in half and covered with her eyeliner, lipstick, and foundation. She’d written every dirty word in the dictionary to describe me.
I was so angry that I didn’t think about what I was doing. I immediately took Anna’s noodles and dumped them on Megan’s head.
I just hope she doesn’t freak when she comes back from the washroom with Bella.
The impact caught Megan off guard. The others found it amusing and shrieked with excitement.
“ I’m going to—”
Her sentence was stopped abruptly as I threw Bella’s chocolate mousse right in her mouth. Veronica stepped back automatically, trying her best not to laugh with the others in the cafeteria.
Megan wiped the chocolate furiously with her bare hands. Her eyes are blazing with fire. No doubt she was very angry.
“You bitch!” she cursed and came at me. A hard punch came my way, which I blocked and started taking steps backward.
All the students in the cafeteria were watching us with pure amusement, screaming for us to chop each other’s heads off.
Megan kept throwing punches at me, which I kept blocking. She then took a random plate and threw it at me.
I blocked the plate from hitting me, but the contents fell on the side of my face and neck.
“That’s enough, Megan!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, which caught her attention, and the cafeteria fell silent.
“You’ll pay for this, Katherina. I swear you will pay for insulting a mayor’s daughter,” she hissed in her noodle-mousse makeover and stormed out of the cafeteria without another word.
The moment she was out, Bella and Anna ran toward me.
“Hey, what happened?” Anna asked as she wiped the side of my face.
“Did you do that to her?” Isabella asked, bubbling with laughter. The students went back to their lunch, and soon the room was back to normal.
“Shut up, Bella. What exactly happened?” Anna asked me. I quietly marched toward our table and showed them my notebook.
“We were gone for ten minutes, and you started World War III and even ended it,” Bella said.
“I’ll help you with your assignment, but I freaking need my noodles!” Anna complained.
“And my chocolate mousse!” So did Bella.
We finished our lunch before the bell and chatted for a while in the library. I know Megan wouldn’t let this go without a fight.
But what could she possibly do other than messing with my books and throwing things at me?
The remaining periods went well after the food fight with Megan. I heard that she went home during the lunch break claiming that she was sick.
It was pathetic to watch her take everything for granted just because her father is the mayor of this town.
When the last bell rang, I got a message from Chris to head to his home. He’d ditched his classes and picked up Ara from kindergarten.
It was three pm now, and my heartbeat was accelerating for each passing minute. I couldn’t stop being afraid as I rode my bike to Chris’s home.
When I reached his house, he told me that he had made some of his friends watch over my place and skipped practice today too.
I felt guilty to have come between him and football, but he brushed it off like it was nothing and gave me a mug of hot chocolate.
“Did you tell your mom last night?” I asked, sipping on the chocolate.
“Yes,” Chris answered, looking away from me. “She and the sheriff are looking into the matter. You don’t have to worry.”
“Chrissy?” Ara’s voice made us turn toward her.
“Yes, munchkin?”
“I need Cheetos,” she said and pointed at the snack in the cabinet above.
“Sure. Cheetos and movies, what do you say?” he asked, looking at us.
“Little Mermaid! I wanna watch the Little Mermaid!”
I rolled my eyes at her. She must have watched the movie a hundred times and woken me up a thousand times to accompany her to the washroom in the middle of the night.
“No, little mermaid,” I said strictly. She pouted but let it go.
“Oh, c’mon, she wants to see it,” Chris said. I glared at him, which made him shut up.
After arguing like hell about not watching animated movies, we ended up watching The Spy Next Door in his living room.
Time flew faster than I’d expected, and before I knew it, five pm had passed. Ara was fast asleep on Chris’s chest while my head was on his shoulder with his arm wrapped around me.
“Everything’s clear,” Chris said after a long time looking at his mobile.
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“Kevin texted. No one came. No one. It’s completely clear there.”
I released a huge sigh of relief.
“I told you, it could be a random idiot messing around. There’s nothing to worry about; you can go home in peace,” he said.
Sighing heavily, I stood up. I felt so light now.
Since the day before, I hadn’t been able to concentrate on any shit thanks to that bastard. I felt a burden being taken off my shoulders as I took my bag and my coat. Chris picked up Ara.
I switched off the TV, locked the main door, and opened the car door for Chris to buckle in Ara’s sleeping form before driving us home.
Home was just the way it usually was. I thought someone might have come in or messed it up and left some creepy note for me, but nothing like that happened.
After Chris placed Ara in her room, I asked him to stay for a while till I freshened up. He accepted on the condition that he would join me too.
Stripping my clothes, I went to the shower, and soon Chris’s arms snaked around me from behind as he dipped his head to my neck.
I closed my eyes and relaxed in his arms as the warm water cascaded down our bodies. I picked up the soap, but he stopped me.
“Let me.” He took the soap from my hand and applied it all over my body, making me wet. He purposely avoided the region that most craved his touch.
His hands came to my breasts, one hand pinching my nipple as the other was lathering them with soap. He gave me pleasure, so I would forget about a man who haunted me from yesterday.
“Chris!” I moaned when he plunged inside me.
He held me by my waist and fucked me against the shower wall till I passed out in his arms.