I peek through the bushes, but I can’t see him anywhere. I can hear his cries, but they grow muffled. All of a sudden, a flashlight shines right in my eyes. A hand reaches out and grabs me right by the neck. I reach my fingers underneath his grip, trying to loosen them up before I start to choke.
The hard metal of the flashlight comes crushing down over the back of my head before I can get away. “Bartek stop!” I shout. “I’ll help you get your life back, but I can’t do that if you kill me. Come on sweetie.”
I don’t know if it’s the blood coming from my head or the words coming out of my mouth but I feel woozy. I struggle to keep my eyes open, struggle to find any sort of footing at all.
His grip loosens, and I think for a second that maybe I’m getting through to him. I breathe out a huge sigh of relief, but I’m instantly jarred from my delusional fantasy as the rough grip of his hand grabs me by the hair and starts pulling me from the bushes.
I kick. I scream. I plead. Bartek has never been the kind of man who spoke the language of reason. The only way I could ever get through to him was dragging him down as low as he made me feel.
It was never in my nature before, but now, he’s fucking with the wrong woman.
“What are you going to do Bartek? Tie me up and force me in the car? You think that makes you a big strong man? Forcing me to go along with you?”
“Shut up, bitch. You earned this, and you know it,” he says, yanking me up off the ground. The smell of stale vodka and old garlic on his breath almost makes me vomit. The sight of his face definitely makes me sick to my stomach.
“A real man doesn’t need to knock a woman around to make her submit,” I say. He slaps me across the face, and blood runs down my nose, but I just smile. It feels so fucking good to speak the truth. It feels so good to finally come out of hiding. “And trust me Bartek… I submitted. Many times. On the desk, in the pool, in his car, in the bed we sleep in together every night…”
He takes a step back, and I know I should run away before he can calculate his next move, but adrenaline courses through my veins.
“He made me realize you don’t need to wear a badge or have some fancy rank to command respect. I mean, unless you’re a pathetic, small dick, wife beater like you, Bartek. Then I guess you need as much help as you can get.”
He lands a blow directly in my stomach, doubling me over. I land on the ground and curl up into a ball. My body is telling me to do whatever it takes to get away, to flee, but my heart is telling me this fight is what I’ve been waiting my whole life for. I’ll defend Serafin’s honor until the day I die. Bartek might take my life away, but at least he’ll have to live with the truth. I have never been more alive than in this instant, standing up for myself and standing up for the love of my life.
“I’ve always loved him, Bartek. Every time you and I fucked, the only thing I thought about was him. The only time I ever got off was when I was thinking about him. You disgust me, asshole.” I take all the energy I have left in me and kick him as hard as I can between the legs.
I know it’s dumb. He’s so big and I’m not. I’m injured, and he’s drunk and violent. I’m on the ground, and he’s towering over me. I don’t care. I kick and punch and scream and bite, and I love every fucking second of it. I’m vindicated. I don’t care about the consequences, I’m just not going down without a fight.
“You know, you’re cute when you’re mad,” he says with a laugh, dabbing at the scrape on his face. His eyes look calm and clear but maniacal at the same time. I crawl away as quickly as I can, but he grabs me by the back of the shirt and I dangle in the air, helpless. He pulls my face right to his. “I like you like this, Mia. Maybe I’ll have to push your buttons more often.”
I struggle with all my might, screaming my lungs out until my throat is raw as he drags me to the car. He swings open the back door and shoves me inside, slamming it behind me. I fight with the handle, but the safety lock is on, and I can’t get out.
He’s already in the driver’s side, staring back over his shoulder at me.
“What did you do with Serafin?” I ask as he starts to back down the driveway and peels out onto the road.
He turns up the radio, and one of Onyxs’ hard rock ballads blares through the speakers. It’s fitting that one asshole loves that other asshole’s music so much.
Out the window, I see Serafin’s Jaguar, smashed into a tree. There’s smoke coming out of the engine, and the car looks like a wrinkled piece of tinfoil. My heart sinks down into my stomach, and I start to wail.
“This is all my fault,” I cry.
“Well, at least you learned your lesson, sweetie,” Bartek says, shooting me a wink.
All of a sudden, I feel a thump coming from the back of the car. You can’t really hear it over the loud music, but I can feel it. In that instant I know it. And in that instant, I pray that Bartek forgot the latch on my trunk was broken, and would sometimes just pop open on its own when you got over 20 kilos
