My Fiancé's Brother (The Guilty Series Book 1) Read online

  A surge of fear went through me. Was this really happening to me? I tried to lift my knees. Tried to buck him off but the weight of him on my thighs was so heavy.

  “Nooo,” I screamed, crying so hard I couldn’t bring oxygen into my lungs. I heard Chloe barking in the distance.

  “That’s it, baby,” he grunted, as he yanked my pants down to my hips. I watched through blurred eyes as he trailed one dirty hand down my chest and then he slowly, started to undo the belt on his pants.

  “No,” I whimpered, trying to push up. His hands came around my throat, choking me. My hands went around his neck, fighting him. I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating. He was going to kill me. I was going to die at the hands of a madman. My fear was so intense I thought I was going to have a heart attack before he even managed to choke the life out of me. I didn’t want to die like this. I didn’t want to be murdered on the side of the road with no one around, no one wondering where I was. Who would take care of Chloe? I would never see Jackson again. I clawed at his face, but to no avail. His ugly features swam before my eyes. I could feel myself begin to black out. I cursed his face in my mind. I cursed this animal that was going to take away my last chance to see Jackson again.

  And then he was gone.

  I rolled over on my stomach, coughing and gasping in pain as I tried to pull air into my lungs. I tried to push myself to a kneeling position. I needed to run. I needed to get away. What if he came back? My pants were around my hips. I staggered to my feet, pulling up my pants. I was crying and shaking, completely in shock. I became conscious of the sound of someone getting hit. Repeatedly. I swung around and Jackson was kneeling over him, pounding his fists into the guy’s face again and again.

  I stood there for one long moment and then wondered if I had already died. If this was my version of heaven.

  “Jackson,” I wailed, my voice sounding thin and reedy.

  He stopped and looked up at me. His face was a mask of rage. His eyes had murder in them. Blood was splattered over his face. He was breathing like a crazy man. I bent over howling in pain and fear.

  And then he was rushing towards me. I collapsed into his arms, sobbing and clinging to his hoodie. He had his hands on my chin as he took in my bloody face. I tasted the bitter iron of my blood dripping down my lip. I used the back of my hand to wipe my mouth. Tears were pouring from my eyes and I hurt so much I thought I was going to black out.

  “Oh baby,” he soothed. “Sweetheart.”

  “I want to go home,” I sobbed, trying to hold my ripped shirt together. I looked around in horror. Was this really happening to me? What was happening to me?

  He peeled off his sweatshirt and then ever so gently helped me lift my arms so that I could slide it over my head. He looked down at my face and said in a low voice, “I'm going to kill that piece of shit.”

  I shook my head, sobbing so hard I could barely breathe. “No, please. I just want to go home.”

  He lifted me up. My arms went around his thick neck and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He started to walk. We stopped when he stepped over the unconscious body of the man who had attacked me. And then he reached down, and with one hand, grabbed the man by the collar and started to drag him behind him.

  We walked like that for the three blocks back to the loft. My face buried in his neck while I bled all over his shirt. I could hear the sound of the man’s body being dragged carelessly along the gravel road.

  We got to the loft and Jackson just dropped the guy, letting his limp head bounce on the ground.

  “Is he dead?” I asked, my voice muffled against Jackson’s neck.

  “No.”

  He carried me up the stairs and put me gently on the couch. I curled my knees up to my chest. “You need to call the police.”

  “After I tend to you.”

  “Call them first,” I begged, terrified that the man would wake up. Come up here. Hurt us.

  Jackson stood up and pulled out his phone. Chloe bound up onto the couch beside me, and tilted her head at me. Looking at me with concern on her face.

  I reached out and gently touched her nose. I vaguely heard Jackson talking. Words like assault and perpetrator. Our address. And then he was tossing the phone down and crouching in front of me.

  “Let me see your face,” he said gently, pulling my hand from my eye. His fingers gently palpitated my face. I winced.

  “I don’t think anything is broken,” he said, “But you have a bloody nose.” He left for a moment and then was back with a cool cloth in his hands. I shut my eyes as I felt him gently dab the cloth over my skin.

  My eyes met his. “Why are you here?”

  “I couldn’t stay away,” he said, his face a mask of concentration as he dabbed at my lip.

  “How did you know?” I began to cry again.

  “I got here and you and Chloe were gone. I thought I would find you on your route. I started walking and Chloe saw me and came towards me. Barking. Her leash trailing behind me. I heard you scream.”

  I stared into his eyes, tears gushing down my face. “You saved me.”

  The sound of a siren peeled from blocks away. Getting closer and closer.

  “Wait here,” he stood up and disappeared downstairs. I heard the sound of car doors slamming and then voices. Heavy footsteps on the stairs and then a female cop stood looking at me. She spoke into the radio on her shoulder. Then she walked towards me.

  “My name is Constable Jenkins. Do you need an ambulance?”

  I shook my head. I burrowed deeper into Jackson’s sweatshirt. Where was he? I just wanted him to come back upstairs.

  She sat down and gave me a long look. “Want to tell me what happened?”

  In a choking voice, I relayed what had happened.

  “Where is Jackson?” I begged her, my eyes glued to the door.

  “If by Jackson you mean the guy who’s breathing fire and looks like he wants to kill someone, he’s giving his statement to the police outside.”

  I heard the slow rise and fall of an ambulance siren as it approach the property.

  “I don’t need an ambulance,” I repeated.

  “The guy who assaulted you does,” she said.

  I put my face in my hands. “I just want to go have a shower.”

  “We’d like to take you to the hospital. To check you over and run some tests.”

  Chapter 43

  I sat huddle on the bed in emergency. Another police officer came in and asked me if they could take some evidence. They swabbed my hands and my nails. A female officer asked if I needed a rape kit. I shook my head violently.

  Jackson was asked to go talk to the police in another room. A female doctor came in.

  “How are you doing?” she asked gently.

  “My face hurts.”

  She took out her penlight and flashed it in my eyes and then gently lay me back down and palpitated my stomach. I winced.

  “Is that tender?”

  I nodded. “I don’t remember him punching me in the stomach.”

  “We are going to do a urine test for blood in the urine, okay? So you are going to have to pee in a little cup, but I promise you if it comes back negative, you can go home soon. I don’t think you have a concussion.”

  I nodded. “Okay.” I was deathly afraid that Jackson had murdered the other guy and would get arrested.

  “Is the man who assaulted me going to die?”

  She took a deep breath. “No, the person who worked him over did an excellent job of pulverizing him to the point that he will be drinking out of a straw for the next few months, but he won’t die.”

  I let out a harsh breath. The relief was so intense stars swam before my eyes.

  “Hey,” she reached over and squeezed my arm. “They say that the man is suspected of hurting a lot of women. He’s going to go to jail for a really long time. You don’t have to worry about him, okay?”

  She handed me a cup, directed me to the washroom and told me to hang tight.

 
In the washroom I studied my face. It looked a lot less worse than it felt. My nose had a crusty trail of blood. My upper lip was swollen. Both my cheekbones were starting to swell and bruise, my left one in particular. I had big bruises on my neck where he had choked me. I peed in the cup, left it in the little window box and then washed my face and my hands.

  I walked back to my bed and shut the curtains. I took off my hospital gown. My bra and shirt had been taken away as evidence, so I pulled Jackson’s hoodie back over my body. It was so big it hung down to my knees. The arms were past my fingertips. It smelled faintly of him. I put my knees up on the bed and lay my head on my knees. I just needed to go home.

  Jackson’s voice sounded from outside the curtain. He came in. Our eyes met.

  I worked my throat. His sympathetic look just made me want to burst into tears again.

  “Thank you for saving me,” I said in a tiny voice.

  “I should have killed that asshole,” he said, walking over to the bed. I moved my feet and he sat down on the side. He picked up my hand. I looked at his knuckles. They were swollen and bloody.

  “Your hands, Jackson,” I cried, looking down at them.

  He shrugged and stared at me. “Do you want me to call Matt?”

  I shook my head violently. The only person I wanted to be around right now was Jackson. “No.”

  We stared at each other. I tried but I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes.

  The words tumbled out of my mouth, “I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t have my phone. I didn’t even see him. I was totally in my own little world. One minute I was daydreaming and then the next minute he was attacking me. All my defences, all my training was useless.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Emily, you are 5 foot nothing and you barely weigh 100 lbs. The guy outweighed you by at least a hundred pounds. The only thing you could have done to stop him was put a bullet between his eyes.”

  “You stopped him.”

  He swallowed. “I saw Chloe running towards me and then I heard you scream. I swear my heart stopped. I have never run that fast in my entire life. When I saw that asshole on you, I fucking lost my mind.”

  He stared straight ahead. I could see the rage and frustration on his face. “If you hadn’t stopped me I would have killed him.”

  I looked at his huge hand, holding mine. “They say that he hurt a lot of women.”

  “Emily.”

  I looked up in his green eyes. “Please tell me what he’s done.”

  He swallowed. I could see him fighting to control his emotions. “They say they have tied his fingerprints to the rape and murder of nine women.”

  I had a flash of that man and the cold rage in his eyes. I knew when that man was attacking me that he would kill me.

  “He strangled them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you please hold me?”

  He moved down the bed and then lifted me against his chest. I shut my eyes and clung to him. How was I going to live without this man? I had absolutely no idea. I felt Jackson’s big arms wrap around me. This was the one place that I felt safe.

  I shut my eyes. I just wanted to go home.

  Voices outside out the curtain. It sounded like two men had stopped and were talking quietly in front of my curtain.

  “Hey Doug, what you here for?”

  “Domestic gone bad. You?”

  “Paperwork on an attempted assault. You will never guess who they caught.”

  “Who?”

  “The throat slayer.”

  I stiffened and raised my head. Alert and listening.

  “No shit! Some lady finally have a 45 in her purse?”

  “No, get this. Some woman is attacked. Her dog runs back to her place and her friend goes looking for her. The guy is a fucking navy SEAL.”

  “You are shitting me.”

  “So this SEAL fucking destroys this guy. The girl says she saw him only hitting her assailant’s face but both his arms were broken, fifteen bones broken in his hands, nine of his ribs. His nose was broken in eight places. His jaw broken in six places. There was nothing left of his face. Then navy SEAL guy carries his roommate back to to her place and he dragged this guy behind him like the piece of garbage he is. Doctors said his pants were down and they will be picking gravel out of his dick for weeks.”

  “No shit.” The guy laughed.

  “The navy SEAL dude? Had a couple scrapes on his knuckles.”

  “Any charges against him?”

  “Not even close. The chief of police came down and shook his hand. Thanked him for his civic duty.”

  “How’s the girl?”

  “She got lucky. No rape. Just beat up. We’re going to Ducky’s later to celebrate. If I can find the SEAL dude I'm going to invite him.”

  “Count me in. See you later.”

  “You bet.”

  I turned and looked up at Jackson. Green eyes looked down at me. I was struggling to even know what to say when the curtain whipped open and the doctor took the two of us lying on the bed together and Jackson’s arms wrapped around me.

  “So are you the boyfriend?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I have to talk to your friend here for a moment and then you can take her home.”

  Jackson lifted me up, sat me on the bed and with one last look at me, disappeared around the corner. She watched him walk away and then she shut the curtains.

  “We got your urine sample back. No blood in the urine,” she pushed her glasses off her face.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “But we do have high levels of hCG,” she looked at me, like I should know what this meant.

  I shrugged.

  “Human chorionic gonadotropin, also known as hCG, is a hormone produced by the placenta after implantation.”

  My mouth parted. Thinking. “Placenta?”

  “You’re pregnant.”

  I felt myself get dizzy. She caught me and helped me place my head between my legs. Her soft hand rubbed my back. “I take it this is a shock.”

  I stared at the floor between my legs. “There must be some mistake.”

  “We ran the test twice. They were both definitive. I take it this isn’t planned?”

  I sat up, blinking. “I’m supposed to get married in four weeks and my fiancé thinks I'm a virgin.”

  Her mouth parted. “Okay. That’s a complication.”

  “How pregnant am I?”

  “When was your last period?”

  I thought back. “About six weeks ago?”

  “The first day of pregnancy is counted from the first day of your last period. So that would make you approximately six weeks pregnant.”

  I shook my head. “But I had a really light period two weeks ago.”

  “That was probably just some spotting. That’s a fairly common occurrence.”

  I sat there concentrating on breathing for a long moment. “Is the baby okay?”

  “Some abdominal pain is normal. Your organs are shifting, your uterus is expanding, and all those ligaments are stretching,” she said. “I suspected you were pregnant, but I wanted to rule out other things in light of your attack. If you experience any bleeding, come back.”

  I couldn’t even wrap my brain around this. I was pregnant. With Jackson’s baby. Jackson, the guy who was emphatic that he didn’t want children.

  “So is the guy I just kicked out of here the dad?”

  I stared at her. “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess,” she said wryly.

  I dropped my face in my hands. “Oh my God.”

  She rubbed my back again. “Listen. You’ve had an insane day. Go home, get some rest. Drink plenty of water. No alcohol or drugs. As soon as you can, get in to see your regular doctor. And you should go on some prenatal vitamins as soon as possible.”

  Chapter 44

  Jackson drove me back to the loft. I sat huddled in the passenger seat, unable to even speak. I felt him glance at me frequently, but I cou
ldn’t even meet his eyes. I tried to wrap my mind around everything, but I had nothing. My mind was blank.

  When we reached the loft, he got out of the truck and walked around to my side. He opened the door and I reached out my arms to him. He picked me up and carried me up into the loft. He continued to carry me up to my bedroom. And then we were standing in my bathroom.

  He didn’t say a word to me, just turned on the shower. I started to cry again. With an unbelievably gentle touch, he helped me pull his sweatshirt over my head. I kicked off my clothes and then I stepped beneath the warm spray.

  Heavy emotions continued to roll over me. And then he was behind me, his huge arms wrapping around me from behind. I turned around and clung to him, sobbing my heart out. He didn’t say a word, he just held me to his chest.

  When I could cry no more, he took a bar of soap and a cloth and ever so gently began to wash my body. I stood there like a rag doll, unmoving as he washed every inch of me. Then he carefully washed my hair. Holding my neck as he tilted my head back to rinse.

  I opened my eyes and looked up at him. He had taken off his shirt but he was still wearing his jeans. He was carefully inspecting my face. When his eyes dropped to my bruised neck, I could see his nostrils flare in anger.

  Our eyes met. This man had saved me from eminent death. I owed him my life.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He swallowed and reached behind me, turning the water off.

  Much like the time I had barfed, he gently dried me off. And then he picked me up and carried me to sit on my bed.

  I allowed him to pull a t-shirt over my head, and then held onto his shoulder while he helped me step into a pair of panties. He whipped back the covers off the bed and I climbed in. I curled up on my side and stared up at him.