He Hits You? Suck It Up So I Locked Them in With My Abusive Husband novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Cuffs

The family spills out untouched, Diane screams kidnapping, Conway is cuffed in front of everyone, and in the ambulance Nate feels the old breaks and asks how many times.

"My husband is in the watch room with eight people," I told the officers on the porch. "I locked it. I'll open it for you."

Nate stood a step behind them with his bag on his shoulder.

He had not stopped looking at my hand on my ribs.

"You're hurt," he said quietly.

"Later," I said.

He nodded once and said nothing else.

The older officer asked me where the door was.

I led all four of them through the dining room, past the cake nobody had cut, to the study.

Behind the steel door, fists were still hitting the metal.

I held up my phone and pressed UNLOCK.

The bolt slid back.

The door opened, and the family poured out.

The aunt came first, crying into her hands.

The pastor was sweating through his shirt.

Diane pushed past all of them and pointed at me.

"She kidnapped us!" she said. "Arrest her. She locked us in with a drunk man!"

The younger officer looked at the people in the doorway.

"Did anyone in that room get hurt?" he asked.

Nobody answered.

"Did he touch any of you?"

"Of course not," Diane said. "Conway would never lay a hand on his family."

I stepped forward.

"Nobody," I said. "Eight people, a drunk man and a locked door, and he didn't touch one of you."

Diane opened her mouth.

I turned to the room and kept going.

"He didn't touch a case, a vase or his mother. Only me. He only does it to me."

My mother crossed the floor in three steps and slapped me.

It rang through the study.

"You could have gotten us killed," Carol said, shaking. "What is wrong with you?"

"You just told the police he'd never hurt you," I said. "Which is it, Mom? Can he help it or can't he?"

She raised her hand again.

Nate put himself between us.

He did not touch her.

He just stood there, and my mother lowered her hand.

Conway came out last.

He walked slowly, with his hands in his pockets, swaying a little at the doorway.

"Officers," he said, thick-tongued. "Officers, my wife is upset. She's not well."

"Mr. Slocumb, is it?" the older officer said. "Ma'am, can you show us what you showed them at dinner?"

I lifted my blouse in front of all of them for the second time that night.

The younger officer took four photographs.

Nate crouched and looked at the bruise without touching it.

"Right side, lower ribs," he said, to the officer's notepad. "Fresh swelling over an older injury."

"Ma'am, did he do this?" the older officer asked.

"Four nights ago," I said. "In the kitchen. He was drinking."

"Mr. Slocumb," the officer said. "Turn around."

"Wait," Diane said. "You can't."

Conway turned around slowly, and the cuffs closed on his wrists.

"Mom," he said, slurring, "call the lawyer."

Diane stood with her handbag against her stomach and said nothing.

Every relative stared at the floor.

The pastor's lips moved.

I did not look away from any of them.

The younger officer saw the camera over the vault door.

"Does that record?" he asked me.

"It records to a drive inside," I said. "Conway set it up himself."

"We'll need the drive."

He went in with an evidence bag.

Conway's head came up.

For one moment he looked at the camera, then at me.

He smiled.

"I'll see you at home, baby," he said.

The older officer walked him out through the front hall in cuffs, past the cousins and the pastor and the family friend, past the cake.

His mother followed, calling the lawyer's name.

The uncle and the aunt did not go after them.

They went out the kitchen door with their coats over their arms and did not say goodnight to me.

I stood in the study with my blouse still lifted.

Nate took his jacket off and put it around my shoulders.

"My partner will drive," he said. "You're coming with me in the back."

"I'm fine."

"You're not," he said. "You haven't been fine since you opened that gate."

I followed him out.

In the ambulance, the light was white and the leather bench was cold.

He knelt in front of me and unbuttoned two buttons of my blouse.

"Tell me if it hurts," he said.

"Nate," I said. "It's been nine years."

"I know exactly how long it's been."

His hands were gentle on my side.

He moved from the new bruise down to the lowest rib, and then he stopped.

"This one's old," he said, pressing a thin ridge under my skin. "It healed crooked."

"Two years," I said.

"Who set it?"

"Nobody. I taped it myself."

He moved a little further down and found another.

His jaw tightened.

"Jean. How many times?"

I looked at the ceiling of the ambulance.

"Fifteen," I said.

Nate sat back on his heels.

He picked up his pen and the report board and wrote nothing for a long time.

"Then every one of them goes on the record tonight," he said.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend