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Jake frowned, and I saw his tears well before his whimper escaped.I buried his head into my shoulder, hoping Stan hadn’t heard the noise.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, baby. Go outside for your dad, okay? And when you get there, baby, run for me.” I swallowed over the lump in my throat, feeling my own tears leak down my cheeks. “Run until you get to the pool and then call Zeke.”
Jake would know how to get to the community pool. We would walk there every day during the summer. And he knew Zeke’s number because he’d called it every night to FaceTime me. I just prayed that Zeke… or someone who had his phone would answer.
“Mom…” His lip shook.
“Be brave.” I pushed him away from me and toward the front door, hoping Stan was too focused on me to care which exit from the house Jake took.
I stared at my ex—stared at the face that always wore a charming, heroic mask. No one knew there was nothing behind it but evil. A man who needed to be the hero so badly—to get his way so badly—he was willing to drug his own son.
We stood unmoving until the door closed.
“You can’t get away with this anymore, Stan,” I told him, somehow keeping my voice steady when it felt like all my insides were trembling. “Zeke will come looking for me. He’s my husband.”
Stan’s lip twitched at the last—as though Zeke had taken something that belonged to him even though he’d never been interested in making me his wife until someone else did.
“You were mine, Mackenzie. I loved you.” Stan shook his head and casually walked to the kitchen, grabbing a water from the fridge.
“Loved me?” I scoffed and shook my head. “No. You don’t even know what that means.”
“I saved you—”
“You tried to kill me! You tried to kill our son!”The words flew unbidden from my lips. Not once in all the years we’d been together had I ever accused him like this.
“No, I saved you, you ungrateful cunt.”
I jerked. “Zeke will find me,” I warned—hoped.Except he was in the hospital. Probably still wondering how he’d overdosed on fentanyl.
Maybe if I’d just told him what Stan had done… maybe he wouldn’t have been hurt. Maybe none of this would’ve happened. Or maybe Stan would’ve hurt Jake sooner to punish me.
“I’m sure he will now that you’re his needy little whore.”
I shivered, but his words fell flat compared to the fear I felt when he pulled a small packet from his pocket and started to dump the powder into the water bottle.No.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, my voice cracking.
“You made a mistake, Mackenzie, and now you have to be punished.”
I shook my head. “You can’t make me drink that.”
“Of course, I can.”He smiled, having gotten away with this for too long to think he was in danger now. His ego was too inflated to see how close he was to giving himself away, and he was too insane and enraged to heed my warning.
He started to approach me. My heart pounded.
I had to escape. I had to find some way to escape.
“I thought you wanted us to be a family,” I stammered, grasping at anything to hold him off.
“I did, but you wanted to whore yourself out to your lawyer to try and steal my son, and that’s unacceptable.”
I backed up until my back hit the console that sat against the wall.
“You won’t get away with this,” I warned again. “You don’t think they’ll make the connection? A water bottle with fentanyl that caused Zeke’s overdose and now mine?”
His calm mask faltered.
“You don’t think they’ll make the connection to you?”
