After We Fall (Take the Fall, #3)(48)

“You bastard,” I growl into the phone as soon as he answers.

“Isn’t this a special surprise,” he drawls.

“The bullshit is over,” I say, launching right into my tirade. “I’m done playing your games. It’s over. You will give me a drama-free divorce. You will pay for all future legal fees until our divorce is finalized.” Never in our six years of marriage did I demand anything of Penn. But that was the old Eva.

Penn chuckles, a sound that both scares me and enrages me. “Do tell me, you little bitch, how you’re going to accomplish that. You’re nothing but a washed-up video girl. Surprised you haven’t gone into porn by now.”

Washed-up video girl? Something in my brain clicks. I know how to get Penn to stop, or at least make it so that his parents will stop paying for his legal fees and therapeutic vacations. “No, not porn. But I do have the means to make a video—about what you did to me. I’m sure everyone would love to know exactly why some little nobody from a Podunk town is divorcing an American hero from a prominent family. All those scars and bruises will finally be explained, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Won’t your parents be thrilled? So you have one option, agree to my terms or I go viral.”

“I will f*cking kill you,” he threatens.

My body shakes. It remembers all the other threats he gave me, all the other promises he made good on. “Is that your final, recorded answer?” I ask, refusing to cower.

“This call is over.”

“Agree to my terms or else,” I counter.

“Make the video, Eva, I dare you. No one will believe you anyway,” he taunts, getting one last shot in.

It hits near the center of my biggest fears, but I’m not going to let him win this time. I am not that girl anymore.

“How about we let the two million followers of my washed-up YouTube channel decide?” Then I end our call before he can say anything more.

I force myself to take deep breaths to relax. While I do have the means to make a video, I don’t know if I can. There would be no turning back from that. No way of excusing or explaining away my past.

My marriage and the reasons for our divorce would be front and center. People would talk, and my parents—I swallow—my parents would finally know the truth.

You can do this, I tell myself. You’re not alone anymore. I have Saylor and Hunter now. I can count on them for anything.

But I know who I want to talk to first, the one I want to share this phone call with.

Hunter, the man I— Oh God.

I love Hunter.





Chapter 17


Hunter


Evangeline comes bursting through my door. If I wasn’t expecting her, I would have drawn my gun. The woman has no sense of what makes a cop go into high alert, but I’ll take the time to show her. Although, I kind of like when she bursts in, a wide smile on her face, and— She crashes into me, her arms winding tightly around my waist. “I need your help.”

“Consider it done.”

Leaning back in my arms, she tips up her chin to look at me. Her blue-green eyes are huge. “I spoke to my ex today.”

My jaw clamps down so hard that my teeth grind together. “So you need my help to kick his balls in….Want me to hold him down for you?”

“I threatened to make a video to post on my YouTube channel if he didn’t do things my way.”

“What kind of video?”

“One that tells the whole world what he did to me.”

I walk across the floor, taking her with me to the couch. We sit, her still in my lap, snuggled up against me so tight that air can’t penetrate the space between us. “I don’t want to talk you out of this, if making a video is what you need to do, but if you’re doing it just to spite him, I can’t see how this will end well. I’ve read your file. I know who your ex’s family is, how much power and influence they have….”

“Which is exactly why I have to make this video. I have to speak up for the powerless. For women like me too ashamed to admit what was happening in their marriage, for the ones who feel like they have no hope…I have to. I can’t let him win.”

“Then we’re making a video.” The way her eyes light up makes my ego grow bigger than the entire building. It’s not an artificial inflation, either. I’m proud of her and the strength she’s exuding. “What do we do first?”

“Let’s go to my spare bedroom and I’ll show you.”

—

She has an office of sorts set up in her bedroom, complete with small desk, laptop, and a printer.

“I used to have a better monitor, but he smashed it.” She takes out a digital video camera. “It’s a little old-school this way, but it will get the job done. You can go ahead and record me.”

I take the camera from her and start recording. “What would you like to say?”

“Hi, my name is Evangeline Ambrose and I’m a survivor of marital abuse.” She looks straight at me, her vivid eyes clear and her chin strong as she tells the story of how she met her ex. She even shows pictures of what she looked like after she arrived at the women’s shelter.

“They wouldn’t let me take the pictures with me from the hospital because those are for evidence. This was my alternative, I took these with my smartphone. I was so afraid that no one would believe me, or that the bruises would fade before someone did believe me, and I wouldn’t have proof. It would be my word against his, a guy from an all-American family who was also a decorated war hero.