Caught in the Devil's Sheets (44 page)

“I didn’t know then or I never would have.”

If he’d have known Odin and I would wind up fucking and deciding to make a go of things without him, of course he wouldn’t have set us up. I don’t think any warning from Rick about Odin being involved with murder in Louisiana would have deterred Jaime’s decision. He didn’t care.

We stare at each other impassively for a moment. “I know I don’t deserve you, Lila. But please, think about what you’re doing. You’re making a huge mistake. Pull back and just be alone for a while. Maybe when I get out we can talk. If you still don’t want to be with me, I will leave you alone. But I’m begging you. Let James hold onto the papers a while and keep your distance from Odin. He’s dangerous.”

“Is that all?” I stare at him, seemingly unmoved by his warning.

“Tell him I signed and the papers are being processed by our lawyer. Then at least the brutality should stop. Although, it wouldn’t surprise me if he denies any knowledge of it.”

I, too, wonder what Odin’s response will be. A looming cloud of anxiety and anger rains over me as I realize I will no doubt have to confront him about this.

“I’ll tell him you signed.” I assure him of nothing more.

Our time isn’t up and all the other visitors are still stationed at their seats as I head down the ramp back into the waiting area. I’m all nerves, anxious, angry, unsettled, sickening nerves. As soon as I get outside, I blow chunks of my breakfast into the bushes. My stomach is unwilling to take in everything I just saw and said and heard, and the confrontation that is still ahead of me. I stagger blankly back down the sidewalk until I reach my car. As if things can’t get worse right now, someone has written “WHORE” with white paint in huge drippy letters down the driver side of the Mustang.
FUCK!

Who the fuck would do this to my car?
Odin?
No, this is way too sloppy and uncontrolled. If Odin knew where I was right now, he’d be in my face pissed as hell!
Rick? Erica? Random vandalism?
I am going to fucking rage on someone right now!

I fish into my purse and pull out my phone. Odin is still at work, but I call him anyways. For his sake, I hope I get his voicemail.

“Hey,” he answers sweetly, knowing that it’s me.

“Hey Odin.” My voice radiates bitch. “I just went to see Jaime in jail and you’ll never—”

“What!” he interrupts mid-sentence, fuelled by his own anger. It startles me. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he rages at me.

“I was thinking if you can lie about talking to Daniella, then I can go see my ex in jail.” I say coldly.

He is silent, and my heart lurches, making me want to cry. I knew there was something between them, his silence confirms it.

I fill the unbearable silence. “I had planned to tell him how much I hate him and how he doesn’t stand a chance in hell of getting back with me, so he might as well just sign. But he’d already signed because YOU went behind my back and had someone beat the shit out of him!” I scream in anger, feeling betrayed by him. Staring at the word ‘WHORE’ on my car is only making me feel more hysterical.

“And you believe that?”

With four words, Odin makes me feel stupid. I should know better than to believe Jaime, but right now I am just so confused. I’m filled with aggravated emotions, staring down at my most prized possession, vandalized.

“I don’t know,” I begin to sob.

“Where are you?” his voice is calm, but still angry.

I can’t bring myself to answer him, part of me wanting to just crawl into a hole, and cry alone.

“Delilah!” he snaps, demanding my attention.

“Around the corner from the jail, in the alley behind the Ink House,” I answer before my brain even acknowledges it. All I want is for Odin to hold me, and tell me he’s not mad. I want him to have some perfect answer for why he lied about Daniella, and I want the heaven I have been living in with him to continue.

“I’ll be right there. Don’t even think about leaving,” he says.

I sit on the back bumper, trying hard to fight the urge to continue crying. I just want this day to be over. I want to sit on my porch swing, smoking pot and drinking margaritas until none of this hurts anymore. I hear his tires skid as he pulls down the alley. The Chevy stops abruptly and he leaps out, coming around the hood to where I’m leaning on my Mustang. He looks like he’s about to let me have it when he sees my car.

“What the fuck?”

I shrug, and again I feel the tears welling behind my eyes.
Crying is weakness!
Inner Teenager’s stubborn strength is holding me together.

“You want to tell me why the hell you came here?” Odin’s voice is strained, and the look in his eye is hurt, and angry.

“I, I just thought that—” I stutter.

“You thought what!?” he snaps, and I flinch, my reflexes still readying themselves for a man with more unpredictable anger.

I see his gaze fall, unable to understand why I would cower to him. I know Odin would never hit me in anger. Not like this anyways. I gaze into his eyes, feeling broken and on the verge of losing my shit.

“Are you the reason Jaime got beat?” I look Odin directly in the eye, daring him to lie to me.

This angers him so much he turns around and hits the hood of his truck. He runs his hands through his hair and tries to take a calming breath. Regaining himself, he turns to look at me again, his eyes smoldering with fury.

“I don’t want to talk about it here. Get in the truck,” he says, so calmly, it’s unnerving.

I’m afraid to get in, afraid of what he’s going to tell me. I stand, idling on the sidewalk.

“Delilah, get. In. The. Truck.”

I can tell he is trying very hard not to lose his temper. I start to cry, regardless of my best efforts. I fall to the cement, pulling my knees to myself and letting it out. I’m so angry and hurt and confused right now, and all my emotions take hold of me.

He scoops me up in his arms, tossing me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing. I can’t even fight him, I just sob as he strides back to his car and puts me in the passenger seat. I stare out my own window, tears silently streaming down my face as he gets in his side. He throws the truck in drive and skids back out of the alley. He pulls out his phone and calls a tow truck. I fasten my seatbelt.

“In the alley behind the Ink House. Gray Mustang. 8R95884.” He reads my plates to the dispatcher.

Should I be creeped out that he has my plates memorized?

“Tony’s Auto Repair. It’s obvious. Thank you,” he says hanging up the phone.

He doesn’t say anything as he speeds through the streets on the way to his house. The tension in the cab is so thick I could cut it with a knife. I jolt forward as he comes to a halt in his driveway. He turns the truck off and gets out, slamming his door behind him.

I reluctantly let myself out of the truck and follow him up the porch. Odin opens the front door, holding it open for me. I walk inside, and I take a seat on the arm of the couch. Odin sits across from me in his arm chair. He stares at me, and he looks more sad then anything. My eyes are still watery, but I try to contain my emotions.

“Why, Lila?” His voice is begging.

“Why did you lie to me about Daniella?” I stare back with the same hurt expression.

Odin crosses his fingers and very calmly explains, “Daniella showed up last week. I don’t know what made her decide to after all this time. I think she just needed someone to listen to her vent about her life. We sat, right here in the living room, her on the couch and me right here and I listened to her go on and on and on about how much she regrets her new life. I had always dreamed of that day. You know what I felt?”

I shake my head, unsure I want to know.

“Nothing! Absolutely nothing. I could have had her! I could have taken her upstairs and fucked her all different ways, the state of desperate she was when she came here. Since she left, I’ve been dreaming of doing just that, and I’d have kicked any girl I was with aside to do so. I sat here, contemplating that, while she told me all about how her husband cheats and takes her for granted. At the risk of losing you, I told her I was sorry to hear that. She made a joke about us getting back together, and I was nice enough not to crush her hopes. Clearly that’s why she had come, to see if that ship had sailed. I told her I was seeing someone. She stayed a few more minutes, asked me about how the other parts of my life were going, careful to avoid talking about you. Then she left.”

Some small part of me is hesitant to trust anyone right now. But my instincts trust that Odin is telling the truth.

“Why did you lie to me about it?”

“I just didn’t think it mattered. I thought it was over. I didn’t realize she’d be still texting me desperate messages.”

“It matters to me. How can I trust you if you’re going to decide what I should and shouldn’t know?”

Odin looks conflicted for a moment. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He leans forward, catching my gaze in an honest attempt to apologize.

I realize that in most of Odin’s past relationships, it was probably accustomed for him to decide not to be truthful. The fact that he’s willing to apologize is humbling.

“So am I,” I whisper.

“Oh no! Don’t think that me not telling you Daniella and I talked in any way justifies what you did today!” He’s not about to let me off that easily.

“I wanted to confront him, and tell him how he made me feel throughout our marriage.” I try to explain my actions.

“Yeah? How’d that go?” Odin asks rhetorically.

“I told him.”

“Do you feel better?”

“I don’t know.” I stare down at my fingers, unsure of how I feel about it really. “Did you…”

“No.” He answers before I even have the chance to ask again about his role in Jaime’s beating. “The fact that you even think I would, pisses me off! It shows how little you trust me and makes me wonder what the fuck we’re even doing here.”

His words stab at me like a knife in my heart. I don’t want him to second guess us.

“This is exactly why I told you
not
to go see him. Jaime is a manipulative son of a bitch who will say and do anything to get his way. All I am doing is trying to get you away from him. All I want is to help you put him behind us, and you go see him! After everything we talked about!” he says as if he can’t even believe I would do such a thing.

I begin to feel really stupid about my decision. “Well, someone beat the shit out of him.” I try to defend myself, this time careful not to accuse Odin.

“No shit!” he says, completely unsurprised. “That’s what happens when you go into jail after selling a load of bad coke to a bunch of gang members!”

Oh!
Holy shit do I feel stupid right now. I hadn’t even thought of that. The Kings put a hit out on him. Odin is right when he says Jaime is manipulative and really this makes perfect sense. He knew Odin would be pissed if I went and saw him and that’s why he made sure to tell me to have Odin call off the hounds. He probably knew this would cause a fight and it did.

“Are you sure that’s what happened?”

“Yeah! Micah made a call telling the brothers we have a member in county and not to protect him. Said it’s not fair for anyone to get hurt over Jaime’s bad judgment call. Give the Kings one good shot at retaliation and hope that they’re done. It had nothing to do with me. I knew it would be ugly, that’s another reason I told you not to go. I didn’t want you to see that,” he says and suddenly all my anger seems unbidden.

I feel so stupid for having believed Jaime in the first place. I should really know better. I bury my head in my hands, completely embarrassed, and feeling like shit!

“I’m sorry,” I say, my head still in my hands.

“I hope whatever you said was really worth it! I have no intentions of letting this go. Now get your ass upstairs!”

His tone is hardly playful, but excitement stirs in me, knowing full well the things he plans to do upstairs. After the shitty day I’ve had, I want nothing more than to be bound up and fucked senseless! I fear that his anger will no doubt cause me pain, but I know I deserve it, and I just want him to stop being mad at me. I jump on my feet and run up the stairs, stopping when I reach the top, and he hollers up for me to wait in the loft. He walks toward the garage door and I hear it open and shut, then open and shut again. He has two full bags of ice in his hands from the deep freeze, my mind is bewildered. He reaches the top of the stairs and I start to make my way to his bedroom.

“Oh no, baby. No more little league. I want to show you something, at the risk of you leaving, I think it’s time you saw what’s in here,” he says, setting the ice on the floor and reaching in his pocket for the keys to unlock the forbidden door. He holds it open for me. But it’s dark inside so I stop just a few steps after walking in. He comes in behind me with the ice and shuts the door.

Blue florescent bulbs light up the room, in a creepy haze. My jaw drops and my eyes widen as I see the lay out. It looks like a scene straight out of a horror movie in here.
I know there are women, like my best friends, who would be getting the hell out of here right now. But I have to admit the truth, I am completely turned on!

To the left, against a cold tile wall, is a workbench with surgical tools, ropes, knives, and paddles. On the opposing wall is the steel table he had set up in his room the night he used the whip on me. There are numerous torture devices, contraptions, and furniture clearly used for some sort of pain or pleasure. There is at least 100 items in here that I would never think to use, like a straightjacket hanging in one corner with some other freakishly odd apparel. Hanging above the steel table are even more things that I would downright refuse to use, like a metal spiked whip and a blow torch. There is a large mirrored wall, I guess so we can choose to watch as we play. My mind flashes back to the movie
Saw
or
Hostel
. Kelli and I used to be in the front lines when new horror flicks hit theaters. While this may be the most realistic haunted house I have ever walked into, I realize the word ‘funishment’ just flew out the window. Fear mixed with sick, dark desire pools in my belly.