I couldn’t take it anymore. I stopped jogging and turned and got right in his face. Aggressive, sure. But even Malcolm wasn’t stupid enough to hit me in public, in full view of a multitude of cars. I hope.
“You come up here, you stalk our son, you stalk me, you little fucking asshole,” I said. “You lost the right to tell either of us how to be when you hit me. I threw your ass in jail once; I’ll get you arrested again. You hear me? Stay the fuck away from Ryan and me.”
It was, unfortunately, entirely predictable that Malcolm acted like I was the criminal here. He put his hands back, made a face of mock shock, and pretended to tremble.
“Oh no, Daddy can’t go see his son because Mommy is a fucking cunt,” he said, starting to laugh in between his fake trembles. “Whatever is Daddy to do? I know! Daddy can tell Mommy the truth, which is that he hasn’t seen his son in two fucking years and still hasn’t seen him and would like to!”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you—”
“Before I what, Izzy?” he said. “Would you like me to show you what I did?”
I wanted to vomit at the thought. It really wasn’t above Malcolm to strike me here, was it? He was that fucking crazy and deranged that he was willing to hit me, out here, in front of the entire Sacramento area, just because he was that insane.
I bit my lip. I could feel my eyes starting to well. Before I could so much as say another word, I spun around and took off sprinting to my office. Malcolm cackled behind me, laughing.
“Run, run, run away, little Izzy; it makes no difference! I found you here, and I’ll find you again!”
He laughed some more. Tears started to fall. Why? Why?
Why, after moving all the way from Los Angeles up to here, had the worst part of my past followed me? Why, a mere twenty-four hours after that photo was leaked, had he managed to find me? Why was he lying about looking at Ryan in the daycare?
What the fuck had I done to deserve this?
All I knew was I needed to get back to the office, now. I kicked it into an extra gear that I had never hit in my life. I didn’t even care about time; my survival depended on getting back to that office space. I checked my watch. I’d run three miles in about twenty minutes.
Fucking fast. But my life almost literally depended on it.
I looked over my shoulder. Malcolm was nowhere to be seen. I let my gaze linger for several seconds just in case he thought he was outsmarting me by hiding. But nope. It looked like I really had left Malcolm in the dust.
For now. He’d be back. And I didn’t know that I’d have the good fortune of being able to escape him again in public when next time came.
With some time to spare, I decided to head to the showers. I wouldn’t get a complete rinse off, but I’d get enough of one to be presentable at my desk. I locked the door behind me, making sure that only female employees with a key fob could get into the bathroom, and then headed to the very back to the shower. I really wished that said showers had their own locks, but the key fob one did enough.
I turned the water to steaming hot and took off my workout clothes. When I got under the water, I finally let it out.
There was no fucking escape. There was no getting around the fact that Malcolm would follow me forever. I wasn’t going to be the one who ruined what I had with Nick. Malcolm would. I could control my actions, but I could not control Malcolm.
And because of that, I was destined to be hunted forever, never free until he was in jail for good or dead.
I cried like I hadn’t cried in ages. The stress was unbearable. He was probably going to kill me without ever laying a finger on me; just the chronic beatdown from the possibility of getting hurt was too much.
I let myself sob for a few minutes before I pulled myself together. I didn’t have time right now to be a pity case. After work, I’d head straight to my parents’ house and spend some time there. Maybe I’d go to Nick’s later. I definitely didn’t feel safe going back to my home.
Through the shaking and the sobbing, I washed myself down as best as I could with my limited time. I heard someone else enter and froze, but when I heard the sound of a toilet stall slamming shut, I relaxed a bit. Malcolm wasn’t going to go so far as to create a ruse like that. And when the sound of a flush, a running sink, and the door swinging back open came, I felt as safe as one reasonably could.
I turned the shower off and sighed. I felt terribly, miserably cold, even though I had just taken a shower so hot that it steamed up the entire cube of space. I had a feeling I’d just have to get used to living this way.
I brushed open the curtain. I walked toward my bag. I heard another shower curtain open.
There was the sound of a sneaker dropping onto the shower floor, a moment of fear, and then—
Chapter 15: Nick
My phone rang. Feeling no sense of urgency to answer, I strolled over to the kitchen counter, grabbed it, and looked. It was my agent, Scott. I wasn’t exactly in a mood to chatter about business, but it was my agent, not some random CMO of some company whose products I didn’t use anyway.
“Hello.”
“Nick, I
