Conviction: Devine (17 page)

Eighteen Months later

H
ENRY STARED WIDE EYED
at everyone, his eyes brimming with tears as everyone sang happy birthday. He’d been grumpy since Jake had woken him up at six a.m., more excited that it was Henry’s first birthday than Henry was.

It was late April but the weather was warm enough to celebrate Henry’s birthday with a barbeque and all our friends. Everyone doted on him, all of the Devine corp ‘employees’ uncles and aunts to our handsome little man.

A dark cloud crept across the sun and Henry shivered in my arms when the weather instantly cooled. As Jake blew out the candles for Henry, I told him I was going to put Henry down for his nap.

He nodded, taking the bottle of beer from Kris then blew us both a kiss, his eyes glistening with love and happiness.

I settled Henry down, kissed his forehead then went back to join the party.

And for the first time since I had met Jake, I suffered the side he was renowned for.

His wrath.

After everything my life had thrown at me, I soon realised that I had never witnessed hell until that day. But when I walked out onto the garden of our home, the sun warming my skin and my heart full of joy, I was dragged so far down I knew I would never be able to claw myself back out again.

“H
EY, MRS DEVINE,” DAN
, the regular UPS guy, said with a nod as I stepped out of the back door onto the patio.

“Has someone taken delivery?” I asked. Due to taking many deliveries for Deviant while I had been on maternity leave, Dan had become a friend.

“Yep.” He smiled. “One for your fella. Nothing heavy this time so I thought he’d manage it,” he added with a wink.

Laughing, I waved him off and walked round the side of the house to re-join the party.

I wasn’t sure what made me aware that something was wrong, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention. My heart clanged hard in my chest, my throat closing in as my stomach twisted. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the party, their laughter loud and their partying lively, but goosebumps erupted over every inch of my skin.

When my eyes found Jake, I knew. I
knew.
His gaze rose from some papers in his hand and a brown envelope dropped to the floor. A malevolent evil seemed to coil around him, the air practically shimmering with his rage. His face paled, his eyes glazed over and then he started to tremble.

The ground moved beneath me, and as if in slow motion, his hand moved to the back of his jeans and he slid out the knife he always kept there.

I tried. I tried so hard to move but I stood in shock as he turned, held the knife between his fingers then flicked it straight towards Kris. Everything was surreal, like a dream when the blade punctured Kris’ shoulder and his eyes widened in shock.

Everyone moved back; a few women screamed and I stood immobile and dazed. Jake stared at Kris. Kris stared at Jake. Everyone else stood frozen and as mute as me.

Jake slowly turned to face me. I gulped when he sauntered across the grass, his strides paced and even as his fists clenched and unclenched the papers he still held. When he reached me, he didn’t stop until my back slammed against the wall.

“You’re lucky I class him as my brother or I’d rip his fucking heart out right in front of you,” he hissed, the adoring tone he had always spoken to me with now gone and a deep icy pitch freezing the marrow in my bones.

“I don’t . . .”

I sucked in a breath when his grip squeezed my neck, his fierce hold cutting off my air supply and making my head spin as all available oxygen depleted and my lungs squealed.

“I never had you down as a whore, Isla.”

I shook my head, hurt and confused by his anger.

“Why,” he whispered with a broken cry. “Why?”

I was unable to reply, my plea unheard when he slapped some photos at me, crushing them into my chest. He shook Adam off when he tried to help me. “Don’t!” he growled, lifting his hand towards him. Then he ran. Just ran. Completely out of my life.

Adam stared at me, his shock as strong as mine. “Isla?”

“I don’t . . .” Struggling to understand, I bent and picked up the pictures that were crumpled and covering my feet.

I stared at them, vomit rapidly surging up my throat as the images of me and Kris in various sexual positions stared back at me; me on my knees as he mounted me, his face buried into my neck, me looking up at him with an expression of pure pleasure; me on top of Kris, my breasts covered by his large hands and finally, me on my knees, Kris’ cock in my mouth and my hair wrapped around his fists.

I shook my head at Adam, dazed when he looked at me with as much hatred as Jake had.

“Adam, I . . .”

I was hurt and shocked, my body shaking violently as my heart beat a rhythm in my chest that I was struggling to control but most of all I was angry that I seemed unable to find my defence mechanism and argue that none of it was true.

Adam turned slowly, his gaze zeroing in on Kris as he stumbled up the garden towards us in shock, his hand on the knife still sticking out of his flesh. Before I could grab him, Adam launched himself at Kris, knocking him to the floor in one punch.

“You bastard!” he roared. “After everything Jake’s done for you!”

Kris, in obvious pain, gawped up at a furious Adam. His eyes swung to mine, his confusion evident as Adam broke through the gathering people and left just as Jake had.

Carrie blinked at me and shook her head sadly. “Christ, Isla.”

“I haven’t . . . I didn’t . . .”

Everyone glared at me as they sloped away, leaving just me, Leah and a groaning Kris. Even Sophia nudged me angrily on her way out.

Kris, trying to get up, hissed and gnawed on his bottom lip as he hobbled towards me. Taking the photos from me, his face tightened in anger and bewilderment. “What the fuck?” He looked at me, his round eyes reflecting my own despair.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What . . . ? How . . . ?”

Slipping them into his pocket, Kris said nothing else before he also left, the roar of his engine alerting me to his departure. How the hell he managed to drive with a knife sticking out of him was beyond me.

“Isla,” Leah soothed as she placed her arm around my shoulder and led me back to the house. “Come on, babe.”

I gazed at her. “I didn’t, Leah. I wouldn’t.”

“I know,” she whispered as she sat me at the kitchen table and grabbed the Jack from the cupboard.

Eve, now Leah’s fiancée, took Henry home with her for the night.

And then Leah and I got drunk.

Raging—fucking—drunk.

T
HE BLONDE WHORE GIGGLED
when I snorted a line off her tits, my dick still not playing nicely as it sat limp and bored between my thighs. She was a looker; that wasn’t the problem. The problem was I couldn’t stop the fucking pictures of my wife and that cunt bursting in my head.

I felt sick, and it was nothing to do with the cocaine racing through my system.

“Come on, Jakey,” Blondie purred, her incessant nag making me recoil.

Pushing her off my knee, I laughed when she hit the floor with a heavy thud, her tits bouncing in time with her body. “Go home,” I told her as I felt the customary rage come to the surface.

She scowled at me before snatching up her clothes and storming from the room, the door bouncing back open with the force of her slam.

Stumbling into the corridor, I rolled my eyes when I saw Adam leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “You’re gonna regret doing that.”

“What?”

“Just because your wife is a whore doesn’t . . .”

He gulped when his back slapped the wall and my fist restricted his airway. “You ever call her that again and I will end you!”

Calmly, he stared me out, waiting for me to calm. I did, and released him. “I found someone for you to play with.” Adam smiled.

“Lead the way.”

“You should know better than to hurt one of mine!” I spat as I laid another fist in his face. His teeth shot all ways as his blood sprayed my shirt, his squeal satisfying to my soul when all I could see was Kris in front of me; Kris taking the beating this arsehole endured.

“I’m sorry, Mr Devine,” the twat slurred. “I’m sorry.”

He was crying, his tears mixing with the blood on his face. It was soothing to watch; his pain and his pleas made me feel euphoric.

“Sorry’s no good now, you prick!”

He screamed when my foot connected with his jaw, the shatter of his bone under my foot causing me to shiver in delight.

“Sorry won’t heal Jenny’s wounds. Sorry won’t take away the memories of your filthy dick inside her!”

He didn’t scream when I hit him over and over again. The exposure of his bones tearing the skin on my knuckles and the pain of it fed my rage.

I didn’t stop until he was completely pulverised then I sighed contentedly.

“Thank you.” I turned to Adam who stood to one side, watching. “I feel better now.”

Shrugging, he smiled and pulled me into a side hug, the blood covering me not bothering him. He was used to it. “Time to get pissed.”

I couldn’t have agreed more.