Jaded Hearts (23 page)

A man responded in urgent Spanish.

"Damn it!" He barked as he slicked his hair
down.

He looked at me reluctantly, gently pulled
me up, and gave me a quick kiss as he fixed my dress back around my
neck. I watched him in a daze. He smoothed my hair back into place
and leaned back to tuck his erection back into his pants. I didn't
even know when he took it out. He barked at the door and from what
I gathered he said he would be right out. He opened a cabinet and
took a swig from a bottle of Patron, then walked back over to me
and stood me up and straightened my dress.

"Baby, wait for me. I have something that
I've blown off all night. Then I can explain everything to you. I
won't be long."

I just gawked at him.  Some things
never change.

Was this how it would always be?

He walked out to handle whatever business
was waiting for him.

Thank the Lord!

Relief rushed through me as I reached for my
purse. I checked my phone. One text from Jackie letting me know
that they were leaving since I was in good hands. Two missed calls
and a text from John asking me to call him. Guilt settled in my
stomach like a ton of lead.  I stuffed my phone back into my
wristlet and headed for the bathroom. I couldn't believe Julian was
back.  Did I really care to hear what he had to say? He was
gone for almost five months without a text, an email, or a smoke
stack. As I walked out of the office I spotted an exit sign.
Remembering our previous bathroom tryst, I thought it best to
leave.

With no one in sight, I made my escape. I
stepped out to the back alley into the pouring rain. Not a good
look, but luckily the street was less than half a block away. I
hurried down the block to an empty street. Not a cab in sight.

Shit!

*

Thirty minutes later I was walking down the
block to my building. Thank God it was warm out. The rain felt good
in this heat, and I needed to cool off.  Seeing Julian was too
unexpected. I breathed, in relief, as I spotted Manny, the night
doorman. He wasn't as friendly as Donovan, but I felt good finally
seeing someone I knew. I was safe. I couldn't wait to get inside
and call John. Then the door of a black Range Rover swung open and
Julian jumped out storming towards me. He was furious.

"Woman! Are you crazy?? Do you know how
insane that was for you to do?" He shouted as he approached me.

The tears came in a flood, and I couldn't
stop them if I tried. My life had spun out of control and I was too
tired to fight against it.

Maybe I was weak.

He stopped in his tracks and just looked at
me and then came and scooped me up into his arms.

"Is this how far you go to get away from
me?" His look was of sincere hurt and disbelief. I just continued
to cry, my tears mixing with raindrops.

"Ay, baby don't cry. I'm sorry Hermosa. Lo
siento." He kissed my tear stained cheeks and took me into his arms
a look of curiosity playing at his frown.

"Why would you do this Jade? It was so
freakin dangerous for you to walk out into an alley, and walk home
in the rain after midnight. Maldito!" He scolded me softly.

I tried to pull away from him in one final
act of desperation.

"Julian! I feel like you are ruining my
life! You can't do this to me. You can't begin to understand what I
have gone through. What you put me through! The not knowing! The
constant wishing and hoping! Trying to forget!" I pushed against
him in futility. His arms just held mine against him, wearing me
out.

"You think I don't know? Do you think I
didn't die inside every time I thought about you and then die twice
at the thought of you with another man?  I came back for you!
I can't stand to be away from you any longer. Come back with me."
 His eyes pleaded with me in my stunned silence.

"Come with you? To Where? This is crazy; I
have a life! And yes, there is someone else!" I yelled.

"Jade, I told you I will explain this all to
you. I know you have a life but I would give anything to have you
in mine," he continued.

I just held my head against his chest too
emotionally exhausted to say anything. There was so much going on
in my mind right now with John and the visit from Evan.

WTF?

Julian pulled my head back by my soaking wet
hair, his eyes asking me an unspoken question, and I knew the
answer. The answer was yes. With no more fight left in me I reached
my arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. He accepted my
kiss like a man starving for it.  The enormity of the passion
that transpired between us was overwhelming.

"I can't stay here with you Jade, please
come with me so we can talk." He had already used my submission to
his advantage and was ushering me towards his car whose driver was
waiting patiently as our drama played out. I didn't even know where
we were going.

Once inside I sagged against him almost
lifeless and for warmth as the chill from the a/c caused me to
shiver. Julian uttered a command at the driver to lower the blast
of cold air, to no avail. His order was ignored. Again he called a
command to the driver while tapping on the privacy glass. I could
feel the tension rising in him and panic stirred in me.

"Fucking, shit! Hello? Do you not value your
life? Turn the-wait...where are you going?" His voice masked the
dread that was permeating from him.

I held onto him fearing the unknown dangers
everyone had warned me about.  Julian was frantically fighting
with his phone to make a phone call, but there was absolutely no
reception. I pulled out mine hoping to help, but I also had no
bars. He handed it back to me and tried his again with the same
result, and then hurled it at the privacy window smashing the phone
to pieces, but not harming the glass.   I stared at him
as the cold chill of fear crept throughout my body.

"Jules? What's happening?" He looked at me
with the same pained expression as the night he left me, and shook
his head. I jumped as the privacy glass abruptly slid open and then
managed a small scream as a gun protruded through it, aimed at
Julian who had his head in his hands. He looked up just in time to
see the gun before he was struck in the neck.

A dart?

Not finding any comfort in the fact that it
wasn't a real bullet I screamed wildly as his body slumped heavily
against mine. I checked to see if he was still breathing but before
I could find his pulse I heard another shot. I don't want to die
this way...

Fade to black.

*

The Lord is My Shepherd...

It felt as if like I was lying on a slab of
ice. My body was so cold I was certain that was what woke me up
until a sheet of cold water came crashing over me. I tried to
scream, but all I could manage in my drug-induced state was a long
groan. I couldn't move, but I could still feel.

Oh God!

I opened my eyes to the concrete ground that
was acting as my pillow, and a pair of shoes. An expensive pair of
Italian loafers to be exact, and they were approaching me. The
owner used one of those shoes to nudge my forehead upwards. I felt
like my body was not working because I couldn't move a muscle. My
head was so heavy it just kept rolling to the side.

"I think this bitch is finally awake. Douse
her again to make sure." Italian shoes backed away, and a pair of
leather boots approached. I tried to lift myself up, but I couldn't
because my hands were tied behind my back. I groaned in panic and
agony as I received another blast of arctic water. I didn't even
know where I was, why I was here or who was doing this to me.

"Fuck! Just leave her alone already! She has
nothing to do with this!"

The familiar voice sounded so hoarse and
strained. I looked beyond my tormentor's shoes to see the man tied
to a chair. His once beautiful face was bruised and bloody from
whatever abuse he had received. Mr. Italian shoes walked over to
him and slapped him across the face with a large, opened palm. His
head swung violently in the direction of the slap and I gasped in
horror.  "Shut up you piece of scum. You're concerned for this
whore, but there was no concern for my daughter. My daughter!"

Whore? Who the...

The man's voice was a loud angry roar that
scared me even more than I already was. I was in terror as he came
back towards me but realized too late that it was the man in the
boots who was my assigned tormentor. Another bucket of water was
splashed roughly in the direction of my head momentarily causing me
to choke.

Were they trying to drown me?

"Please, stop!" I managed to plead while
choking and shivering violently. Italian shoes came to me this time
using his foot to examine my body.

"I can understand the attraction, she is a
beautiful woman, but is she worth my daughter's misery? You beg for
this bitch the way my daughter begged for you while she was in pain
after having an abortion of your baby. After you turned your
spineless back against her."

As he talked he used his foot to admire the
curves of my body and then swiftly kicked me in the stomach at the
end. I curled into my pain as much as my restraints allowed, a moan
of agony escaping my lips.

What the hell was going on?  The Lord
is my Shepherd!

I prayed every prayer I knew to make me wake
up from this nightmare. This had to be a dream, but in my dreams I
couldn't feel Italian shoes kick me in the head.  I closed my
eyes and thought back to the night my life took a turn. When I
decided to leave my safe zone.

This was definitely not a dream. The loud
voices would not have followed me into wakefulness, and I wouldn't
be sleeping on a concrete floor. My body shivered wildly at the
cold chill of the ground seeping into my bones. My clothes were
soaked.

"Jesus! I did not get Nina pregnant! I was
never with her in that way,” Julian yelled.

Nina? Oh, Ms. Tall and Blonde.

"You have to believe that. Call her! She
will tell the truth,” Julian pleaded for reason.

Unfortunately that didn't seem to be on the
menu as he was rewarded with a punch so vicious it knocked him and
the chair he was tied to over. The tears finally flowed out of my
eyes as I waited in vain for his eyes to open. My eyes closed
against the horror that I was feeling at that moment.

"Open your eyes you slut! I want you to see
what happens next. Put her in a chair!"

That was an order from Italian shoes. I was
dragged roughly across the room and thrown into a chair. I saw
Julian still on the ground, tied up and lying on his back as two
men with baseball bats began to beat him over his legs and stomach,
and he groaned in pain even after they stopped.

"Yes! That's how my Nina sounded as she laid
bleeding in her bed!" said Italian shoes, also called boss by his
associates. He turned out to be an Italian man in a full suit and
dark glasses. He walked over to Julian and pulled him up by his
shirt so that he could pound his face in. I winced as I saw the
blood pour from his nose and began to scream. I was panicking. A
hard blow to the back of my head put an end to that. The pain was
so severe that I couldn't feel the rest of my body as I finally
passed out.

I was vaguely aware of my injuries because I
was blacking in and out of the pain. I managed to roll my head
around to still see Julian tied up and unconscious. I wished that I
too could stay passed out and not have to know how I was going to
die. I tried to close my eyes and let the pain take over, and to my
dismay it was working faster than I had hoped.

Then I had what felt like an out of body
experience. I heard John's voice. When I opened my eyes I was
watching him from the other corner of the room. He was untying me
and slowly pulling the duct tape from my skin. I began to cry
because I knew that John was the only one that could save me. I
tried to let the pain take me again because now I was torturing
myself. Then I felt like my eyes were being torn apart.

Oh God, not again!

I stopped fighting and let my eyes open to
see which goon was torturing me now.  I saw John's serious
eyes staring into mine.

"Jade! Baby you have to wake up, please!
That's right look at me. Stay with me, I'm gonna take you
home."

I was so confused. How did he find me? Then
the confusion turned into fear now that I thought he was in danger.
Again came the tears.

"No! Leave me here. I don't want them to
hurt you too."

My words were barely audible, and before I
could wait for him to respond the pain became too much.  I
felt him trying to lift me up, but I had no energy left to fight
him off. Then I heard the voices. My torturers had returned and
they were yelling at John. The last thing I heard was a
gunshot.

I felt like I was floating. My first thought
was that they had drugged me again, trying to finish me off without
too much blood. I looked around to see that I was in a hospital
room. John was sleeping in a chair with his legs propped up on the
bed. I tried to get his attention, but I was so out of it I
couldn't remember how to talk. I managed to move my legs, the only
thing on me that wasn't sore. The movement startled him and he
jumped to my side.

"Jade! Baby, I'm so sorry. I thought-wait!
Don't move. You have some serious injuries. I don't want you to
pull your stitches." He looked at me with a mix of relief and
sadness.

"How did you find me? How did we make it
out? Stitches? Where?" My voice was hoarse and gravely. I knew that
I had been beaten, but I wasn't even sure what else they had done
to me.

"Don't worry about that now. We are both
safe, and with enough rest you will be as good as new. Drew just
left, but I'll call him to come back." He moved towards the dresser
and opened a bottle of pills and poured me a glass of water.