Trusting Nicole (The Last Hangman MC #4)(2)
I stay seated in my car as my mind takes me back to a couple of years ago. A psychopath decided to target me and was pretending to live my life for a couple of months. It started innocently with someone sending flowers to Jenny and forging my signature on the note. Initially, I thought she was sending them to herself for attention because I was too busy with work, but the more often it happened, the warier I got. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. If she wanted to send flowers to herself to make herself happy, I wasn’t going to burst her bubble and be a dick about it. I just didn’t understand why she had to make it look like I was the one sending them to her.
When the notes became menacing it all turned to shit. They kept asking her why she was seeing another man when she was happily married. The idea of her seeing someone else had briefly crossed my mind, so I got a couple of my men to look into it and that’s how we found out the whole sordid truth.
A couple of months prior, I had been working on a stalker case and whilst we managed to catch the son of a bitch, at trial the judge let him go. It caused outrage; no one understood why the case had been dismissed since we had uncovered enough incriminating evidence to lock him up for a long time. The judge had a problem with me since I put his uncle away the previous year. So with me being the arresting officer, we guessed that it was the reason why the bastard was freed after stalking and tormenting several young women, that and a big bribe.
It turns out that he had been spying on me since the moment he walked out of jail and over the months had become obsessed with Jenny. The sick f*ck had convinced himself that she was his wife and she was cheating on him with me. We only managed to stop him when he physically attacked Jenny. I’ll never forget hearing him shout that he was going to kill her so she would be with him forever.
Thank God I installed a panic button that sent alerts directly to my phone when the notes became threatening. I managed to get there before he caused her any real harm. I shot him in the head without an ounce of regret.
Afterwards, she struggled to trust that I could protect her and she left for a couple of weeks to stay with her parents. She claimed it was "to heal" but a part of me thinks there was more to it than that. Her parents have never really been fond of me and after the attack, their animosity only grew. They tried to convince her to divorce me but I guess she really did love me because she came back to me and gave us another chance. We had successfully put everything behind us and were ‘happy’ until a couple of weeks ago.
Then she started receiving more notes and threats in the mail. Once again, I was the cause of it. A rival motorcycle club had some issues with the Last Hangman and since I was and still am working with them, with me. I hate that she’s the one getting the backlash, but I have a job to do. I wish everyone would leave her be and let her live her life, but life is a cruel bitch. I know someday soon she’s going to ask me for a divorce. I wouldn’t blame her. I’m rarely home and when I am, I’m either too preoccupied to pay her any attention or I’m shutting her out. She keeps asking questions she knows she shouldn’t about the cases I’m working on or my whereabouts. Again, the less she knows, the better and safer it is for her, but she doesn’t seem to understand that, she wants to know every single detail about what I’m doing when I’m not at home. Sometimes I think she worries that I’m cheating on her. She’s withdrawing from me and I think it’d be the best for both of us if she would leave me. At least that way she wouldn’t be a target for those *s anymore. As much as I want to protect her, she’d be safer without me in her life.
Her parents blame me for her becoming a shell of her former self. I know she’s distanced herself from her friends and her family. I never wanted that and don’t understand why she did it. I’m sure she has a good reason for it, or maybe it’s my fault and all my secrecy has driven her to stay at home and wait for me, seeing if I’d come home to her or stay out again. The truth is that I spend more time out of the house than in it, especially at night. I’m not cheating on her but I’m also not doing my duty as a husband to keep her safe, protected and loved. She probably resents me for wasting six years of her life.
Today I have to tell her that she has to move into protective custody because the Kings are making their move. We’re going to fight, again, and no matter how much I don’t want to, it’s inevitable. It’s not like I have a choice. I have to do everything I can to make sure she stays alive and safe, even if it means sending her away. I wish I could show her that I still care for her, but I can’t. Something has changed within me and I’m not sure how I feel about her anymore.
I take a deep breath and get out of the car, locking it behind me. I open the front door and lock it behind me, making sure to rearm the alarm. I take off my holster and gun, jacket and badge before making my way into the living room. She’s sat on the big armchair with her iPad on her lap, looking blankly out the window, no doubt having seen me park there twenty minutes ago.
“Are you alright, Honey?” I ask her as I kiss the top of her head and pour myself a much needed glass of whiskey.
“I’m fine.” she replies quietly. Now, I’m not an expert with women, but I do know that when a woman says they are "fine", it usually means the exact opposite.
“Are you sure? You know you can talk to me.” I sit on the couch across from her, hoping she’ll open up to me.