“You liar.” I whispered as I watched Ryder lean into the window of the white Range Rover.
My chest squeezed when I heard laughter from the female in the driver’s seat. I didn’t know what she was laughing at, or what Ryder was doing to make her laugh, but what I did know is that he kept his head, shoulders and arms inside the driver’s window of her car and was making her laugh.
I felt sick. I felt weak. I felt numb.
I didn’t want to stick around and find out what he was doing to make her laugh because I feared I’d do something that would hurt me more in the long run. I lowered myself back down to my hunkered position, reached out and gripped onto the bush that I was hiding behind and inhaled and exhaled deeps breaths.
I’m going to pass out.
I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to continue taking deep breaths. When the urge to faint passed, I focused on not vomiting. My stomach was churning and rolling, and there was a pain in my chest that I had never felt before in my life. It was a similar pain I felt when my parents died, but for some reason, it was much worse.
Ryder… he was cheating on me.
He was betraying me, and I had the proof, but I still couldn’t believe what was unfolding before my eyes. I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t want to. I just wanted to erase the image and sound of Ryder and the woman’s laughter. I didn’t want to think of him smiling because it reminded me so much of the smile he used to show me whenever he saw me.
Home, I told myself. I need to go home.
A strong woman would have confronted Ryder, and possibly run him over with his beloved car while the bitch he cheated with watched, but I wasn’t a strong woman. I was a shell of the woman I used to be, and what I just witnessed would stay with me forever.
I was broken.
I numbly retraced my steps back to Dominic’s car and when I got back inside the vehicle everything felt wrong. The silence was unbearable, but I didn’t want to hear anything else. My heart was slamming into my chest, and the pain I felt with each beat was the only reminder that I was still living, but surely there was more to living than feeling so dead inside?
The taste of sickening infidelity in my mouth urged me to start Dominic’s car. I quickly reversed until I came back to the main road where I switched my headlights back on and safely pulled onto it. I hated how I felt. I was numb to what I was experiencing, but yet my chest hurt. I couldn’t cry, but I knew that’s what the hurt I felt wanted me to do.
My body knew something was wrong, but my brain hadn’t reached the point where it was on the same wavelength. I understood what I saw and what it meant, but I didn’t feel any kind of way over it. I just couldn’t believe it was real.
I found myself laughing hysterically like a crazy person when I realised only hours before that Ryder asked me if I was cheating on him, when it fact, he was the cheater.
Him.
I drove Dominic’s car back to his and Bronagh’s house. I didn’t know why, but I completely bypassed my house and just went to theirs. I parked behind Kane and Alec’s cars and I was glad to see that they were there. I didn’t want anyone around me right now, and when I went back to my house, I wanted to be there on my own.
I quietly made my way up the pathway to Dominic and Bronagh’s front door. I heard the cry of a baby and chatter of men. I distinctively heard Damien saying Dominic’s name, too, which meant they were no longer at my house. When they realised I was gone with Dominic’s car, this was obviously the first place they checked for me.
Before any of them could come outside and catch me, I quietly put the car keys inside their letterbox without them knowing. In a daze I walked back to my house and was fully aware that the numbness I felt would soon fade and agonising pain would fill me, but until that happened, I intended to go home and pack my belongings together.
I needed to get out before Ryder came back. I wasn’t strong enjoy to face him, and I feared I’d do something dangerous if he lied to my face when I saw with my own eyes that he was with another woman.
Ryder is cheating on me.
I unlocked my front door and stepped into my house. I closed the door behind me and looked down to my pocket when my phone vibrated, and as if someone else controlled me, I slipped my hand into my pocket, and without looking at who was calling me, I answered the phone and placed it against my ear.
“Hello?”
“Branna?” Ash chirped. “Hey Angel, do you have a minute? I’m telling my sister about the code red we had today and I forget what our response time was. Was it ninety-one seconds, or ninety-five?”
“Ninety-one,” I replied without hesitation, my tone flat.
“Bran?” Ash said. “Are you okay, hon?”
“No, Ash.”
“What’s wrong?” Ash asked and I heard him moving about.
“Ryder,” I blinked. “He’s cheatin’ on me.”
“Oh, fuck,” Ash hissed. “I’ll kill him!”
I didn’t reply, instead I walked down the hallway and into the kitchen.
“Where are you?” Ash demanded. “I’ll be right there!”
“I’m in me house, I just walked in—”
“Hello, Branna.”
I swirled around at the unknown voice that cut me off and stared into the dark room. I was too far away from reaching the light switch without moving, and I couldn’t move even if I tried. My legs had locked when I heard the voice of a strange man and fear broke through my numbness and shot through me.
“Branna?” Ash said from my phone. “Who was that?”
“Someone… someone is in me house,” I replied and felt oddly calm, but that feeling fled a moment later.
I heard movement over by the back door, and screeched when the shadow of a tall man came out of the shadows and surged toward me. I dropped my phone and tried to run out of the kitchen, but the man was on me before I even had a chance to move. We hit the floor with a thud, and almost instantly I felt blunt pain rack up and down my body. It caused a shrill scream to rise up my throat and break free.
“BRANNA?!” I heard Ash scream through the phone lying by my head.
I had fallen to the ground first and the body of the man’s added extra weight on top of mine when I hit the ground only caused the impact to hurt that much more. He used my sudden stillness to his advantage and quickly pinned my arms above my head with one hand, while he used the weight of his body to pin my legs and body to the ground. I forgot about fighting him off when fighting to breathe became my number one priority.
“Shhhh, sweetheart.” The man crooned with a Southern American accent. “It’s going to be okay, Branna. Don’t you worry about a thing, honey. I’m going to take real good care of you.”
I wheezed as I desperately tried to suck air into my lungs, but suddenly felt my body go lax as something pinched my neck. One second I was in pain and a blind panic, and the next I was slipping into unconsciousness.
My last thought was of Ryder and the woman from the white Range Rover, and how my life had already ended before this stranger had chance take it from me.
One year ago…
I was tired.
Not physically, but mentally.
I felt as if I was on a merry go round with Ryder. Our stupid arguing had amplified and instead of happening once or twice a week, it was happening once or twice a day. We either fought with one another, or ignored each other. It was becoming tiresome.
It all started six months ago, just after Dominic started fighting at Darkness under Brandon Daley. Ryder would disappear for a few hours, and when I asked where he was, he’d blow up at me. I forgot about it after a while because my long hours at the hospital had me overlooking his nightly absences. I could have probably dealt with him being evasive, but while he was in my presence his arsehole behaviour and snippy remarks picked away at me until a fight was ignited.