A Friend in the Dark by Samantha M. Bailey

Author:Samantha M. Bailey [Samantha M. Bailey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Psychological, Domestic, Women
ISBN: 9781662513541
Google: LuoM0AEACAAJ
Amazon: B0C9JWRHFC
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2024-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Olivia wakes up groggy and unrested, as she always does. Justin is a deep sleeper, of course. He’s unbothered by the worries that plague her. He’s covered himself in most of their white duvet, and she carefully edges her way out of the bed. The floor is freezing when her bare feet land, and she immediately pushes her feet into the fluffy slippers she keeps beside the bed. A tiny delight he’s given her.

She’s about to leave the room when Justin’s hand on her arm stops her cold.

She remains with her back to him, because she knows how he wants it. All of a sudden, he’s behind her. Olivia shivers as he pulls down her pajama pants and bends her over the Eames chair that belonged to her father.

She knows exactly how long it takes him to be satisfied. During those six minutes, she thinks about how she and Alistair used to sit on this very floor watching their mother put on makeup for a night out with their father. Blissfully ignorant of what truly lurked beneath the tremble in her mother’s hand as she applied silver eyeshadow, Olivia would engage Alistair in whatever scenario he’d come up with for her dolls. It wasn’t until Alistair was a teenager that she understood he could actually hear the dolls talk, and it wasn’t just in his imagination.

As Justin collapses with a shudder onto her back, Olivia wonders, as she often does, what other families are like. Whether the sorority sisters she still sees a couple of times a year ever suffer the assaults she does. If their husbands really love them.

Justin has never loved her. While her father was alive, Olivia was the project manager for Walker Developments, and Justin, the contracting manager. The three of them worked and lived side by side, but it was a boys’ club of expensive cigars and scotch, backslaps and raunchy jokes—a club that Olivia clearly wasn’t invited into. She didn’t want to be, but she was desperate for her father to notice, even once, how viciously Justin treated her. He never did. Or he simply didn’t care.

When her father died, it was Justin who became the successor of his trust, and she was a cobeneficiary. She relinquished all rights to the house and Walker Developments, which Justin turned into Ward Contracting, and gave him power of attorney over Alistair. She had no choice if she ever wanted to see her brother again.

She would have given her own life for Alistair’s. She should have.

Her husband doesn’t even look at her before he heads to his bathroom to shower.

As she’s heading to the kitchen to prepare Justin’s breakfast, the doorbell rings. Instantly, Olivia’s adrenaline rushes into flight mode—this interruption will mean that his meal won’t be ready when he comes downstairs.

She debates ignoring it. But the bell peals again, an old-fashioned, long, haunting chime that creeps her out every time she hears it. She asked Justin to replace it years ago, but he’s seen how she reacts when it rings; he likes that it scares her.

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