Tried for Love (TSATD)

Chapter 56

Leah

  I felt the tight grip of my family's murderer in my hair, the metal blade tightening underneath my throat. The window allowed the wind to blow in what seemed like white ashes, yet at the back of my mind my brain registered it was the signs of first snow.

  I closed my eyes, remembering the previous year, the previous winter,  the French cabin and the man with the forest green eyes whispering comforting words in front of the fireplace.

  The reality was, nearly a year later, it was the same man that I now called my husband, the father of my child, and he was standing in the window frame pointing a gun towards the monster that could all but glide the blade across my throat and kill me in seconds.

  "Let her go." He slid in the room, and I seemed to be able to find air once more, knowing he wasn't on the menacing edge of the two story window frame.

  Dows laughed from behind me. "I should've known you'd try something idiotic, Valentine." He pulled on my hair. "You think you'll be able to pull that trigger faster than me cutting her throat? Should we make a bet?"

  The look behind Gabriel's eyes was frenzied as his gaze met mine. I shook my head. "Gabriel, leave. Now!"

  "Listen to your wife, Valentine. It will take but a scrape of this blade for her to bleed over this table. And don't deceive yourself thinking I won't." I felt his breath near my face from behind, his weight over my body.  "Or perhaps I've been mistaken about you. Do you prefer to watch? Perhaps you'll enjoy your role as a cuckold."

  I clenched my teeth, nearly flinching at the cocking of the gun. "Take your hands off her!"

  My eyes shot closed at his roaring voice. I could feel tears burning, for I knew what Dows was capable of. Gabriel had to leave. And in that moment, at that. The plan had changed. It was too late. He couldn't-- mustn't watch.

  Pain, sharp and piercing shot from my throat. I hissed at the slow movement of the knife across my skin. Gabriel's voice echoed a denial as Dows cut my skin, and the monster laughed at it.

  "An inch deeper, and she'll bleed to death."

  "Stop!" He yelled. "I will. I'll do as you ask." I couldn't watch the anguish on his face. My heart broke.

  "Put the gun down on the table. Slowly." The deep breaths were closer now, his presence nearer. I glanced, only seeing his hand putting the gun slowly on the table near my face. "That's right. Now, move back, facing me. All the way to the other wall."

  I couldn't look up. I merely watched my husband's legs, moving further back, and the hand of the predator wrapping around the gun on the table. My breath caught in my throat, and I shut my eyes closed. I couldn't-- I couldn't watch. Not this. Not him.

  Dows chuckled at my flinch. "What is it, darling? Are you scared I'm going to shoot him?" He whispered in my ear before inhaling against my hair. "Shh, open your eyes. It's alright." I shut them tighter. "Open your eyes!"

  My mind seemed to had shot down to a certain extent, for I felt little of the pain in my body other than the slow, tightening angst building in my chest. He must've pulled me up straight at some point, for I found myself on my feet, the gun now pointing at Gabriel and the blade still at the open cut on my throat.

  "I really hoped that we could finish this job without sullying you family's old home with any more blood, Leah, but you don't listen. You never did." He was walking towards Gabriel with me, his body pushing me to move. "You had to go behind my back. You just had to ruin everything, didn't you?!"

  "You fucking coward." Gabriel's mouth stretched in an erratic grin. I could see no fear behind his eyes, just fury, and what seemed like desperate containment. "You have to bring a woman and a child into this to make yourself feel important? Let her go and finish this like a fucking man!"