Beautiful Surrender (The Surrender Series Book Three) (11 page)

Kristen

Seeing
the tears from Vincent’s eyes made me want to die. He wasn’t happy about
hearing I was pregnant with his child; he was torn. The tears from his eyes and
the pained expression on his face said as much. I thought about rushing Marty.
I could try to tackle him out the window. Or wrestling the gun out of his hand.
He’d probably end up shooting me but fine, let him shoot me.

Vincent
broke his gaze from mine. He drooped his head and his body went limp in his
restraints.

Was
he dead? Oh god no.

“Stop
this Marty! He needs to go to the hospital!”

Marty
turned away from Vincent to face me. He started walking toward me with fists
clenched. “Why didn’t you say that when he was beating me up?”

“I
tried! I stopped Vincent from hitting you. Don’t you remember?” Seeing Marty
approach me, broke me out of a spell. I suddenly feared for my life again.
“Please don’t hurt me, Marty.”

His
face softened. “Hurt you? Why do you think I’d hurt you? I told you. I love
you. Do you still love me? You must since you protected me.”

“Please,
don’t. We broke up. Protecting someone doesn’t mean you love them.”

“Did
you love me before?”

“I
don’t know.”

“How
could you not know?” he shouted. “All those times together. Everything we
shared. I loved you. I still do.”

“Marty,
our relationship was very rocky. We were breaking up and getting back together
constantly at the end. I’m still trying to figure out what my emotions were
like at that time.”

He
shook his head. “Do you love him?” he asked frantically. “Do you love Vincent?”

“I
don’t know.”

“Yes or
no, Kristen.”

I
recalled the sad look in Vincent’s eyes. It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing
mattered. I thought I’d escaped Marty but he had known where I was the whole
time. I lost Vincent. I was going to lose my job. I was going to lose my life.
I was going to lose my baby.

“Yes! I
do love Vincent.”

His
features hardened into a scowl. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do,”
I said, mustering up my remaining strength. “I truly love Vincent. I don’t care
what you say, Marty. Threaten me all you want. I don’t love you.”

Marty
ran a hand through his hair, staining it with the blood on his fist. Vincent’s
blood. “You’re so frustrating, Kristen. You know me. You know how I feel about
you.”

“No I
don’t. I don’t understand you at all,” I cried.

“Stop
crying. Stop being afraid of me. I can’t take it when you do that.”

“I
don’t care.”

“It’s
because you’re carrying his child. That’s the reason, isn’t it?” Marty
approached me, backing me into the couch. His eyes were on my stomach.

“No,
don’t come near me.” I stuck out my hands and feet, trying to shove him away.

“You
can’t keep me away.” His eyes were still on my stomach.

“Don’t
hurt my baby!”

“You’re
making me angry, Kristen. You already know you don’t want to make me angry.”

A loud
crack sounded. Where did it come from? It sounded like a wooden plank snapping.
Was the couch about to break?

“Marty,
no!”

Marty
balled his fist.

“Somebody
help!” I screamed as loudly as I could.

“Shut
your mouth, Kristen. You’re out of your mind.”

Another
loud crack.

Marty
raised his fist. I crossed my arms to shield my body, hoping that the flesh and
bones in my limbs would prove sturdier than an apartment wall. He was going to
punch my stomach. He was going to punch the baby.

“Forgive
me, Kristen. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to.”

In a
blur, Marty vanished behind the couch. I sat up, realizing someone had tackled
him.

“Vincent!”
I screamed.

How had
he gotten out of the handcuffs?

I
leaped from the couch to see Marty and Vincent rolling into the kitchen and
crashing into the oven. The force from the impact shook the stovetop and the
hot water I’d been boiling in a saucepan for tea tipped and poured over Marty’s
head.

Marty
screamed and frantically swiped at his face with his hands. His face was
steaming.

Vincent
was groaning and rubbing his head with the heel of his palm. His hands were
mangled, his thumbs twisted inward. That’s when I realized what happened.

The two
loud cracking sounds I heard were from Vincent breaking his own thumbs to
escape his handcuffs.

I
rushed over to Vincent to try to help him up. He was dazed and couldn’t stand
up on his own. I hooked my arms beneath his shoulders and tried to drag him to
the apartment door but it was difficult to move him.
He’s so damn heavy.
I thought about escaping just by myself but I knew I couldn’t leave Vincent
alone with Marty. Not like this. By the time I came back with the police,
Vincent would probably be dead.

Marty
blindly reached in front of him, knocking over a jar of sugar and a spice rack
on the kitchen counter. White dust and parsley spilled across the counter and
the kitchen tile. I’d dragged Vincent a foot when Marty found a towel hanging
from the oven. He wiped his face vigorously and opened his eyes.

Before
I could react, Marty lunged at us, landing on top of Vincent. I fell backward
and smashed into a kitchen table chair.

“You
bastard!” Marty cried as he began wailing on Vincent.

Vincent
snapped out of his daze and raised his arms to shield his face, shifting his
head from side to side to avoid a direct blow.

Frantic,
I stumbled to my feet and picked up the kitchen chair with both hands, raising
it over my head. Marty leaped from Vincent and rushed me. He swatted the chair
out of my hands, making it crash across the kitchen table into the corner.
“Don’t fight me, Kristen!” he shouted. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Then he
shoved me away. I toppled over the coat rack and into the pile of shoes.

Sprawled
over a bed of flats and heels, I spotted the a silver object lying beside the
couch.
The pistol.
It must’ve flown out of Marty’s hand when Vincent
tackled him. Crawling on my hands and knees across the sea of footwear, I
neared the couch and reached for the gun.

The
sound of a punch landing on flesh and the sound of a male voice groaning in
pain made me realize Marty had mounted Vincent again and was attacking him.

I picked
up the gun with shaky hands.

“Stop
it or I’ll shoot!” I screamed.

Marty
continued pounding and shouting at Vincent. He wasn’t listening.

“I said
stop!” I shook the gun in their direction, but neither of them seemed to hear
me.  I’d never fired a gun before but I knew how to pull a trigger.

Fearing
Marty was going to kill Vincent, I fired a round at the kitchen wall. The sound
was almost deafening. The force from the recoil was stronger than I’d expected
and I staggered backward, tripping over the coffee table and landing on top of
it. The glass shattered under my weight. The back of my head hit something
hard. Was it the ground? The broken frame of the table? I laid on a bed of
broken shards, the air knocked from my lungs.

The
last thing I remembered before blacking out was that the unexpected weight of
the gun combined with the shakiness of my hands made the barrel shift downward
the moment I pulled the trigger.

The gun
had been aimed at Vincent and Marty.

Vincent

Six
years prior

My fist
was throbbing. I successfully fought the urge to look at it, but I knew it was
fucked up from how bad Jim’s face had been. Once he was awake, he was going to
have some decisions to make about how to fix his features. That nose would
never be the same.

I held
Giselle as she cried in the same living room our parents had once held us. Even
though they were gone, it was still our home.

“You’re
going to be okay,” I said. “I’m going to take care of us.”

“Vincent,
look at your hand! I’m so sorry,” Giselle cried.

It
killed me to hear her feel guilty about what had happened to her. As much as my
fist hurt, I put the pain to the side. “Stop it, Giselle. You don’t have to be
sorry about anything. What that bastard did to you wasn’t your fault.”

She
shook her head. “I should have handled it myself. I should have gotten out as
soon as it started. I don’t know how I let it keep happening.”

“It’s
not your fault, and it’s over now.” I squeezed her tighter as she sobbed into
my shoulder. It was over. That was the only thing that mattered at that moment.

“What
if he does come back?” she choked out.

My jaw
clenched. She didn’t want to know the honest answer to that question. “He
won’t. If he does, I promise you he’ll regret it for every second of the rest
of his life.”

She
stopped crying for a moment and pulled back to look at me. “Vincent, you can’t
always be around. You have your company to worry about.”

“I’ll
find a way. The only purpose of that company is to provide for you and any
other family we ever have. If it doesn’t make the lives of the people I love
better, I might as well sell the damn thing.”

She
nodded and sobbed again. Her eyes were puffy and red, and her makeup had been
smudged everywhere. Seeing her so disheveled and upset made my stomach feel
like a bottomless pit.

Finally,
she calmed down enough to speak. “Vincent,” she said, her voice small. “I have
something to show you.”

My eyes
widened. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. “What’s that?”

She
rolled up the sleeves of her green sweater. At first I didn’t know what I was
looking for, but then I saw them: several raised pieces of scar tissue in a
neat row, each in various shades of pink.

My
vision blurred as tears welled up in my eyes. “What are these?” I asked
quietly.

“Cigarettes.”

“You
don’t smoke.”

“He
did. Does. Whatever.” Tears rolled down both her cheeks.

My
heart sank as I put together the implication. “He put them out on you?”

She
nodded. “In a neat row. Once for every time I pissed him off. So I wouldn’t
forget.”

My
mouth fell open at the audacity of what I was hearing. “He’s sick. I’m so
sorry, Giselle. If I had any idea . . .”

“You
didn’t,” she said. “I guess I’m pretty good at covering up, but I just have to
show you now so I feel like I’ve come totally clean. I’ve been hiding it for so
long.

I
blinked and felt a hot tear roll down my cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

She
looked down. “He said he would kill me if I told anyone.”

I
snapped my jaw shut and flexed my still aching fist. “He said he would kill
you?”

She
nodded.

My
heart was pounding in my chest as I breathed heavily in and out. Could I kill
someone who had threatened to kill my sister? How would I get away with it?

“Don’t
even think about killing him first,” she said, as if reading my mind.

I
snapped out of my plotting. She was staring at me with a very serious
expression etched into her features.

“I’m
not letting my brother become a murderer.”

“But if
it’s him or you—” I started.

“It
won’t be. It can’t be,” she said.

I
sighed and took her by the shoulders.

“Fine.
But know this: you’re the only family I have, and I’m going to protect you no
matter what. Even if it costs me my life.”

Kristen

The
world was fuzzy. Hues of brown and white swirled like cream being stirred into
coffee. I couldn’t make out any details in the forms that swirled in front of
me. What had happened to my vision?

My ears
were ringing. My body felt like it was being poked by a thousand needles. It
hurt to move. I remembered a gun in my hands going off. How long had I been
out?

A
shadow shifted into view. It grew larger and more defined. The outline was a
figure. Someone was approaching me.

I
blinked. The picture became sharper. I blinked again then a few more times. I
was staring at the ceiling, the fan spinning.

There
was a face in the picture. It was still. Eerily still. Staring at me from
above. Who was it?

Blue
eyes. Brown hair. Thick spectacles.

Marty.

My
hearing slowly returned, but Marty vanished from my vision almost as soon as he
appeared. I sat up and saw that Vincent was still fighting with him. Vincent
barreled into Marty with his shoulder, pushing him back until Marty was
cornered against the wall.

Vincent
pummeled Marty with his mangled hands but it was clear that Vincent was at a
disadvantage. I looked around for the gun but it was nowhere to be found, it
must have gotten tossed somewhere around the room in the confusion.

I saw
 a small hole on the kitchen wall inches from where they had been.
I
didn’t hit anyone.

When I
looked over at them again, Marty was kneeling on top of Vincent, straddling him
and repeatedly punching him in the face. “Take that you piece of shit!”

“No,
Marty! Stop . . . please stop Marty . . .” I pleaded, tears streaming
uncontrollably down my face. He was going to kill Vincent, the man who loved
me, the man that I loved.

Marty
ignored me, continuing to hit Vincent. Vincent had his broken hands up, trying
to defend his face. He seemed so helpless in that position that it sent another
knife of sorrow into me.

“Stop
Marty! Please stop!” I sobbed.

Marty
looked up at me, chest heaving, fists covered in Vincent’s blood. “Stop? Stop?!
It’s too late to stop Kristen. You made me do this! This is your fault! Look at
what you’ve done!”

This
was my fault. My fault. None of this would have happened if Vincent had never
met me. I felt sorrow so intense I wanted to vomit. It was because of me that
this monster was hurting Vincent. Killing him.

Marty
finally got up from Vincent and walked over to the kitchen counter.

I
crawled towards Vincent, the room blurry in my vision. When I got to him, I sat
down and cradled his head in my lap. He was still breathing. His breath was
heavy and ragged but he was still alive.

“Kristen
. . .” Vincent groaned.

“It’s
okay Vincent. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I love you Vincent. I
love you so much.” I chanted, rocking back and forth. Wet droplets fell from my
eyes and splashed onto Vincent, leaving streaks in the dried blood caking his
face.

When I
looked up again, Marty had found the gun. He had it pointed at us.

We were
going to die here tonight.

“You
brought this on yourself Kristen . . . you didn’t even give me a chance . . .”

Vincent
was drifting in and out of consciousness. He stirred, pushing himself up until
he was sitting upright, putting his body between me and the gun. Even in this
state, with his eyes swollen shut, his hands battered and his face bleeding
from cuts and swollen from fractures, he wanted to protect me. Vincent wanted
to protect me with his last breath even after I had brought this monster into
his life.

“I’m sorry
Vincent, I’m sorry about the baby, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you early. I’m sorry
for Marty. I’m sorry for everything.”

I
wrapped my arms around Vincent, crying onto the back of his shoulder.

“No,
Kristen.” Vincent coughed. His voice was low and raspy, barely audible. His
eyes were half-lidded. His lips were trembling. He was using every ounce of
strength left to talk to me.

I
leaned my ear to his mouth to hear the faint words riding his shallow breaths.
“No. Don’t say that Kristen . . . Don’t ever apologize to me for those things .
. . You didn’t do anything wrong . . . I love you Kristen . . . Let’s keep the
baby . . . I’ve always wanted a child . . . We’ll raise the child together . .
. I love you . . . I want to start a family with you.”

My
heart was shattering. Vincent was confessing to me that he wanted a family
together, moments before we were going to die.

He
continued, “I’m the one that should be sorry . . . I promised I’d protect you .
. . but I failed . . . I’m sorry Kristen . . . Forgive me . . . I . . . ” He
was losing consciousness again.

Marty
stared at us, his eerie blue eyes filled with anger.

I
blinked back my tears and took a deep breath.

Goodbye
Riley.

Goodbye
Mom.

Goodbye
Dad.

Goodbye
Vincent.

I’ll
always love you.

The
apartment door exploded. A mist of splinters shot through the air, covering my
living room.

“POLICE!
DROP THE GUN MOTHERFUCKER!”

I
blinked and half a dozen officers were fanned out on my right kneeling behind
the kitchen wall and the couch, their guns drawn and aimed at Marty.

Before
I could feel any relief, I saw the look in Marty’s eyes. They were wide and
panicked like the eyes of a cornered animal and he still had the gun pointed at
us. He hadn’t made any motion to surrender.

The
cops were shifting around. They were getting antsy. Marty looked back and forth
between us and the cops as if he was deciding what to do. I could see the
desperation growing in those blue irises.

No. No.
We were so close! This wasn’t right. Marty was going to shoot Vincent anyway.
We were so close. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. We were so close to being
safe, to being happy.

“DROP
IT ASSHOLE! THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING!”

Marty
didn’t care about getting shot himself. He was going to empty the clip into
Vincent and at this distance, he wouldn’t miss. I could see the events playing
in his mind: he would shoot Vincent then me while the cops shot him down.

I had
to try; I had to try one last time to get through to Marty.

I wiped
the wetness from my eyes and looked into Marty’s face. “No Marty, please . . .
Marty you need help . . . Vincent and I . . . we love each other. You and I had
something, but that was long ago. You need to get help Marty. Don’t take
Vincent away from me. Don’t take my life away from me. If you ever loved me, if
what you said was true about still caring about me, do the right thing. Please
Marty, think about what you’re doing. You’re going to ruin all of our lives.”

His
brows narrowed. A strange expression crossed his face. Maybe it was a rare
moment of lucidity for him or maybe I just imagined it, but it seemed like he
suddenly realized what he had become. For a split second, I thought I saw a
glimpse of the Marty that I knew years ago. Blue eyes, brown hair, boyish
smile.

His arm
wavered, then went limp. The gun clattered on the floor.

And
then it was over.