CRACKED a gripping crime thriller full of twists by Emmy Ellis

Author:Emmy Ellis [Ellis, Emmy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books Mystery, Crime Thriller, Suspense
Published: 2024-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The Past

Years Later

Celia is trapped. He’s taken her back home, and she’s locked in. The keys are gone, and all the windows are secured, double-glazed, so she’d have a hard time breaking them. He’s also unplugged the house phones and taken them with him. Her mobile, too.

The day is long, the night even longer. He hasn’t come home, and she wonders whether he’s staying away on purpose so she worries over exactly when he’ll be home to beat her again. The anticipation of that is somehow more painful than any blows he could give her.

She hasn’t got ready for bed. Doesn’t intend to. Once he does arrive, she might kill him, then run away. Somewhere. Anywhere other than here. The Tiffany lamp on her side table brings tears to her eyes. Uberto had likened her to a lamp, and now he’s gone, undoubtedly removed from his house by Bobby’s men, buried someplace no one can find him, and he’ll never call her his little lamp again.

He had been her ticket out of this life, and until she can break free, she’s stuck here.

She’s ashamed of distancing herself from her family, but Bobby had worked it subtly, without her notice somehow, so she didn’t see them or contact them. Over the years, he’d played the long game, that much is clear. She was stupid, so greedy and stupid she can’t stand herself.

A sound. A vehicle. The beams of headlights searing the closed curtains.

He’s here, he’s here, he’s here.

Her anxiety skyrockets, her pulse seeming to bulge the vein in her neck, the pressure there immense. She remains where she is, in her chair, eyes closed, the light from the lamp glowing through her eyelids. Pink. So pink.

A car door slamming.

God, will her heartrate ever slow down?

A key in the lock.

The snap of the front door closing.

Footsteps. One, two, three.

Pause.

Four, five, six.

His scent.

His breathing.

Him.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” he asks, voice gravelly. “And look at me when I’m talking to you.”

She does, hating the sight of him, and isn’t it funny how that happens? Once, she loved everything about him, and now? It’s all gone. All that love. The respect. All the light has gone out of her life. Out of her. At some point in the past he’d flicked the switch and sent her emotions spiralling into darkness.

She might as well be dead.

“I’m not tired,” she says, because if she doesn’t answer, he’ll hit her. Which makes no odds. He’ll hit her anyway.

“I want to talk about what you did all those years ago.” He comes to stand in front of her, hands behind his back, and Bobby, her un-darling husband, rocks from toe to heel. “About what you were doing with Uberto. Having an affair. It’s been eating at me for too long. I thought killing him would be enough, but it isn’t.”

Celia wants to laugh but doesn’t dare. Maybe it would have turned into something with her Polish saviour, given time, but it’s too late now. Uberto is gone, and she’s still here.

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