Shattered Dreams (Vegas Dreams Book 2) (4 page)

Damon nursed his prized possession, allowing me just enough time to arm myself with a glass vase, the closest potential weapon in sight. As my own pain heightened, surging through every orifice of my body, he came at me again. I clutched the vase, swung, and missed. He didn’t. The vase surged from my hand and whooshed through the air, shattering into tiny fragments when it crashed to the floor. Damon plowed into me, and I fell, a shard of glass stabbing my hand in the process, piercing my skin. I heard a click and turned my head just far enough to see the open blade from a pocketknife he held in his hand.

“Damon ... no!” I screamed.

The knife plunged into my side. Not far, two, three inches maybe. I felt the sharpness of its sharp edge slice through my skin, then it was yanked out and thrust into me again. On his third attempt, I used what little energy I had left to dodge the knife just enough for it to slice off the top layer of my skin.

He’s trying to kill me.

He’s going to kill me.

My children will come home and find me here in a pool of blood.

Dead.

Outside I heard voices. Two, maybe three. Familiar. Tears stained my bruised, bloodied face as the realization hit me—I wasn’t alone. Not anymore.  

“Get off her, you son of a bitch!”

Kenna’s face hovered over me, her hands gripping Damon’s arms, fighting to set me free. He reached for her, missing by no more than an inch or two. Kenna had five brothers. She didn’t slap, and she didn’t pull hair—she punched. And when her fist collided with Damon’s face, she made damn sure it counted.

“Kenna, look out!”

Callie’s voice rang out beside me.

There was a sound, like aerosol maybe. Something being sprayed from a can.

Through blurred eyes, I glanced up, and that was when I felt the stinging.

“It’s a bit late to scold me now,” I said. “If I said I’d learned my lesson, it still wouldn’t change what I did. I wasn’t thinking, Rae. I’m sorry.”

The irked looked on her face didn’t change.

Apology received but not accepted.

Rae rubbed her temples, something she did when she was two seconds away from a massive explosion like the one she was about to have now. I suspected some small percentage of her anger was directed at me, but the lion’s share belonged to Damon.

“I told you not to let him inside the house,” she said. “You agreed. You promised me you wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I screwed up. Can’t take it back now.”

“No, Sasha.
I
screwed up. I should have never left you there in the first place. I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself.”

It wasn’t her fault and it wasn’t mine.

It was
his
.

“I’m alive, and I’m fine,” I said. “That’s what matters. I’m glad you filed the papers. It was worth it.”

“I’m just glad we got to you when we did,” Kenna said. “And glad Callie never leaves home without her mace keychain. She freaking pepper-sprayed his ass.”

“You know what this means,” Rae added.

“Yeah,” Kenna said. “We’ll never be able to make fun of her for carrying around that ridiculous pint-sized container of pepper spray again.”

“She did say it would come in handy one day,” I joked. “And secretly, I know she’s been dying to try it out ever since she bought it.”

The tone in the room softened, but Rae managed to increase the tension with a request for the truth. “How long has Damon been hitting you?”

“It’s not what you think,” I answered.

“It isn’t? Have you looked in the mirror?”

I hadn’t. And I wasn’t about to either. “I’m around you guys all the time. When have either of you ever seen me look like this before?”

“So this time he took it out on your face,” Rae said. “It doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened before.”

I was going through with the divorce. It didn’t make sense to deny my past anymore. “There have been other times. Not many. A handful. He never touched the girls, just me. If he’d ever laid a hand on them, he wouldn’t be alive. Honestly, he was gone so much, there was little opportunity for him to get angry. Guess I just rationalized what he did and dealt with it.”

“Even one time is one too many,” Rae said. “I can’t help but feel like I should have known.”

“I hid it from you, all of you. I’m not proud of it. Most of the time it was about control and domination. His favorite thing to do was pin me down and hold me while he launched into a verbal assault. He left a few bruises from time to time, crushed a rib once. Nothing major.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Kenna asked. “Why didn’t you let us help you?”

“She knew what we’d do when we found out,” Rae answered. “And even though he never deserved her, and part of her probably hated him, she wasn’t ready to leave.”

A woman entered the room, clipboard in hand. “Ladies. I’m Doctor Stephens. How are we all doing today?” Her eyes rested on my face. “Ohh ... okay. Not so good then?”

I filled her in on the finer details. She remained diplomatic, even though her eyes widened enough to part the Red Sea. When I finished, she mentioned running tests to rule out internal injuries and then said she’d check on me again in an hour. Before she reached the door, she paused, mentioned her concern for my safety. Rae put her at ease, saying it had all been taken care of, although I hadn’t the slightest idea what she meant.

The last thing I remembered was being blinded by residual pepper spray and then loaded into Kenna’s car. As for Damon, I had no idea where he ended up. I didn’t care either. They could have stabbed him, shot him, or drove him off a cliff for all I cared. As long as he never came near me or my girls again ...
my girls
!

“Corinne and Lisa, where are they?!” I asked.

“They’re fine and they’re safe,” Rae said. “Callie picked them up from school.”

“They can’t come here. I don’t want them to see me like this.”

“They won’t. You don’t have to worry about—”

“The house!” A wave of panic ripped through me. “She can’t take them there either. The blood and the glass and the—”

Rae grabbed my hand. “You have nothing to worry about. They’re spending the night at Callie’s. Kenna will stop by your house, grab their clothes, and whatever else they need. The three of us will make sure everything gets cleaned up. They’ll never know anything happened. All you need to do is rest and focus on getting better.”

“And you?” I turned to Rae. “Are you leaving?”

She looked at me like it was the funniest thing I’d said in years. “Ohh ... no. You think I’d leave you alone again? No way. Not a chance.”

I woke a few hours later in a drug-induced haze. The snippet of my mind still functioning alerted me to a casually dressed man in my room. He stood a few feet away, backside facing me, glancing out the window. At first I assumed he was another doctor, maybe off duty, or a specialist or something, but then I realized he couldn’t be. He didn’t give off a doctor vibe.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I think you have the wrong room.”

He turned, beamed a thousand-pound smile in my direction. Said nothing. He just stared. It made me uncomfortable, especially since he looked like he belonged on the silver screen, and I probably looked like I’d been dragged behind a tractor.

Whatever happened to Rae saying she wouldn’t leave me alone?

“Look,” I said. “I don’t know who you are, but you have no right being in my room.”

I surveyed my bed, looking for a clicker I could push to get some kind of outside assistance. I found nothing, probably because I still couldn’t see straight.

“Sasha Chase?”

He knew me. But unless amnesia had set in, I didn’t know him. He removed the ball cap on his head, ran a hand through his hair. His thick,
red
hair. And then it clicked.

“
You
,” I said.

“Me?”

He pointed to himself.

“You’re my ... Gideon. No. Not my ... What I mean to say is, you’re my lawyer.”

Please tell me I did not just say that to this buff, hazel-eyed, “not what I expected in a million years” lawyer.

“I am both of those actually.”            

Now he was just trying to embarrass me.

“But you ... you’re ... it’s just you don’t look like a—”

“Lawyer?” He laughed. “What do lawyers look like? Are we all supposed to look the same?”

Damon came to mind.

Assholes? 

“Lawyers wear suits.”

My face was hot and sweaty. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the injuries I’d sustained, the drugs I was on, or the sheer stupidity of the gems that kept pouring out of my mouth like verbal garbage. In either case, he didn’t seem to mind.

“I wear a suit when I need to, and when I don’t need to, I don’t. Satisfied?”

Satisfied? As in fully satisfied? Nope. Not for a really,
really
long time.    

I mustered a mostly coherent, “Why are you here?”

“I’m Gideon O’Shea.”

“I know. Rae told me your name.”

“As to why I’m here. I wanted to let you know in person that your husband ...” He cleared his throat. “Your soon-to-be
ex
-husband was arrested earlier today for assault with a deadly weapon. He’s also being charged with attempted murder.”

He apparently thought this statement would produce a certain kind of reaction from me. It didn’t. “He’ll get out just as fast as he went in.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

But I was sure. Damon was a weasel, but a weasel with sharks for friends.

“A crime is a crime, and this isn’t something he can walk away from.”

“He knows people. Everyone, really.” I choked back the tears. I’d put myself through enough for one day. I’d never considered myself the emotional type. I wasn’t going to lose it. Not here. Not like this. Not in front of a man I’d only known for five minutes.

Gideon remained aloof, collected. “Damon doesn’t know
me
. Very shortly, he will. The charges will stick, the divorce papers will be signed, and he will be prosecuted. When I’m finished, you won’t have to worry about seeing his face around you or your daughters again.”

“If anyone can find a way to get off, it’s Damon.”

Literally
and
figuratively.

Gideon shrugged. “It won’t matter.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I don’t need to. I know his
type
.”

“Mr. O’Shea—”

“Gideon.”

“I appreciate you taking my case. I don’t know what Rae has told you, but you should know, Damon will never stop until he gets his way. He doesn’t want me. Not really. He just wants to know he can have me. By have, I mean own, like a car parked in a garage alongside twenty others he owns too. For him, it’s about possession, and that’s why he’ll never let me go.”

He walked to my side and hovered over me, his hand sliding over mine, thumb caressing the inside of my palm. It was a simple gesture, and though we were strangers, it soothed me. But that wasn’t all. I felt something, an instant connection perhaps. After a single, brief conversation with the guy, I didn’t see how it was possible. I blamed the drugs.

Gideon leaned in, and said, “It’s time Damon learns what it feels like to lose everything.”          

They were the sexiest eleven words anyone had ever spoken to me.

I just wished I believed him.