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“I can’t fucking believe you,” I hiss, continuing my onslaught. “All this goddamn time I thought I was free of you. Changing phones, moving on with my fucking life. And all this time you’ve been following me.” I throw my arm out at the pictures. “Why?! Why let me have something that means so much to me just to rip it away?” I’m hysterical at this point. My chest is heaving, tears streaming down my face.
“How does it feel?” Jase says, taking a step for me. Ever the calm, cool, and collected detective that he pretends to be. “How does it feel,” he continues, “to have something so precious and then have it stolen from you?”
I scoff. “I was never precious to you, Jase. I was a pawn. Something you used to get off and discard whenever you didn’t want to play with me anymore. You didn’t love me. You think I didn’t know you were sleeping with all those prostitutes?” He narrows his eyes at me, taking another step towards me.
He reaches out to touch my hair and I flinch backwards, which makes him smile.
“Of course I loved you, Alexis. And of course I’ve been following you. Biding my time, watching you with him,” he spits, reachin
g out and grabbing a fistful of my hair and yanking me towards him. He presses his lips to my mouth and I gag. He brings our bodies flush, and I can feel he’s hard and he presses it against me, thrusting. He yanks my head backwards, tilting me so I’m looking up at him. “I was fine letting you go until I found out you were fucking someone else.”
“Jase, you’re hurting me,” I manage to say through the pain. He pushes me backwards until my back is against the wall and he leans down, hissing in my ear, “watching you fuck him when it should have been me. Do you know how angry it makes me to know my wife has been sleeping with another man?” He takes his hand from the wall and presses it against my throat, and I’m taken back. Back to that night so many years ago when I thought I would die before I ever got away from him. He closes his hand and squeezes, positioning himself so my legs are straddling his leg and his knee is wedged against my crotch. There’s so much malice in his eyes as he squeezes harder, reminding me of just who he is and what he’s capable of. I push at his shoulders, gasping for air.
“Jase, I...can’t...breathe…,” my vision starts to go dark around the edges. He takes a slight step backwards, still squeezing my neck and I do the only thing I can think of. I reach out and claw his face with my nails and he jumps back, dropping me.
“You bitch!” He roars, blood running down his face as he steps towards me and all those self-defense lessons come back to me. Lungs burning, I draw my hand back and punch him in the mouth, splitting his lip open. He stumbles and I take my out, grabbing him by the shoulders and bringing my knee up to his dick, effectively dropping him. I turn to run, and he grabs my ankle, dragging me down to the floor with him.
“Shouldn’t have done that, Lex,” he shakes his head as he spits blood out, dragging me towards him. I lash out, kicking him in the face and scramble up, pushing out of the pantry and into the kitchen. I just needed to get to my purse where I stashed my gun before we left. I hear the click of the safety on his gun and I freeze.
I turn around and he’s pointing it right at me. I raise my hands, placating him.
“Let's talk about this,” I beg, my throat raw from him choking me, my words coming out hoarse. I’m in the foyer, mere steps from the picture window and he’s in the threshold of the kitchen, the gun pointed straight at my head. He’s going to kill me.
“I tried talking, Mrs. Crenshaw. I told you how this was going to go. Fuck, I should have just let you go. You’re not worth the fucking trouble I’ve gone through to get you back here with me.” He shakes his head and I close my eyes. This is it. A gunshot rings out and I scream, the window behind me shattering into a million pieces. I hit the ground, thinking it’s me who's been shot but Jase is still standing there with the gun in his hand.
“What the fuck?” He roars, closing the distance and snatching me up off the ground, spinning me so my back is to his front, he presses the cold metal to my temple. “Move and I’ll blow your fucking brains out,” he whispers harshly in my ear.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Ford's voice comes from outside the now shattered window and my body sways in relief. He comes into view with a gun pointed directly at Jase’s head.
“Hey, baby,” he says, not taking his eyes off of Jase. I let out a choked sob, Jase’s arm still wrapped around my neck holding me flush against him.
“Move an inch and I’ll fucking shoot her,” Jase says, “I’ll scatter her brains all over this fucking foyer and then I’ll shoot you.” Ford laughs.
“Lex, did I ever tell you that I used to go hunting with my daddy?” He asks, like now’s the time to be making conversation when my husband is just waiting for a reason to kill us both.
I shake my head in response. “N-n-no, you didn’t,” I whisper, taking in every feature of his beautiful face that I can. “You need to l-leave Ford. Please.” I can’t let him get hurt. Those babies need him and I need him and god he’s so fucking beautiful it hurts.
He grins, cutting his eyes to me, then back to Jason. The gun still trained on him.
“Oh yeah,” he goes on. “Every chance he had he took me hunting. Taught me everything I know about shooting. He was in the Special Forces, too. Just like Zander. Did you know Z’s a sniper?” He asks, lifting his chin and motioning backwards with his head. “He’s out there, somewhere. Has his rifle trained right on your head, Crenshaw. So even if you did shoot my girl here, you’d be next. Zander won’t miss. And neither will I.” He finishes by taking a small step forward and Jase tenses, pressing the gun harder into my temple. Tears are running down my face.
“Alexandra Renee Carter, you’re everything I never knew I wanted. You came into my life and turned it upside down in the best way,” he says, cutting his eyes to me and then back to Jason.
He goes on, “and I just need you to know, if any of this goes south, that I want you to do good and have good things in life, even if I can’t be there to share those things with you. Just know that I love you. So much. More than I ever thought I could,” he finishes, and I can’t say anything but sob and nod.
Jase swings the gun from me to Ford and I let out a scream. “No, no. Shoot me Jase. Not him. Me!” I plead with him. “Please, don’t hurt him.” I sob out, turning around and clutching his shirt and banging on his chest. I reach up and grab his face. “Me, Jase. Shoot me.” He doesn’t take his eyes off of Ford.
“Precious,” Jase sneers, “too bad you’re both about to be dead.” He points his gun at Ford and pulls the trigger. Two shots ring out and I scream, dropping to the floor at the same time Jase does. There’s a bullet right between his eyes, I scramble up and turn towards Ford but he’s on the ground too. I climb through the shattered window and reach him on the porch. There’s so much blood. Too much of it. Dropping down on my knees I press my hands to the open wound on his stomach.
“Don’t you dare die on me, Crawford Winston James,” I sob, “Help! Help!” I scream, tearing my tank top off and pressing it to the hole. “Stay with me baby,” I can hear sirens in the distance. “Stay with me god damnitt,” I cry, leaning down and pressing a kiss to his mouth. His eyes flutter open. Reaching out and grazing my cheek with his hand he gives me a small smile.
“I love you,” he whispers, right before he passes out.
Lex
Curled up in a ball in the corner of the bench in the ER waiting room is where I’ve been for the last three hours. They rushed Ford here in an ambulance, but they wouldn’t let me ride with him, saying he was too critical. Zander drove us separately after he hit the porch the same time the paramedics did. He made the shot that killed Jase but not before Jase shot Ford. He coded two times in the ambulance on the way here, is what the ER doctor said when he came out to tell us they were taking him back for emergency surgery and they weren’t sure he’d make it because he had already lost a lot of blood.
Zander excused himself to call their mom and he’s been back by my side ever since. He’s sitting next to me with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. A commotion comes from the entrance and Nina comes barreling through the entryway with Steve behind her. You can tell she’s been crying. Zander stands and meets her halfway, tugging her into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and shaking Steve's hand. She pulls out of Zanders arms and makes her way to me.
