Broken Illusions (His Agenda Volume 3) Read online

  The fact that the cops were here meant they were suspicious about something. They would return, possibly with reinforcement. He had not returned to this town only to end up in prison. No one would put Jude Macknight behind bars. No one. He lived life and died on his own terms.

  The clock was ticking. He had to move fast, make changes to his plans. He had no problem with that, but Haley probably would.

  Chapter Thirty

  Haley

  Even if the person at the door didn’t make it inside to help me, the disturbance itself was a chance, an opportunity to save myself, if I could.

  I tried to move but the pain in my body halted me, almost causing me to scream out again. I couldn’t scream now, because if I did, Jude would certainly walk in and kill me. Especially now that he had been disturbed.

  With the help of the towel to stop me from slipping as I climbed out of the now empty tub, I limped toward the toilet and managed to climb on top, kicking the blood-stained whip out of the way. Raising both my arms, I stood on tiptoes and reached to the top of the shower curtain, holding on to the plastic curtain for support when I almost fell.

  With the help of one of the metal curtain rings, I managed to loosen most of the screws holding the curtain rod in place. Though it was old and loose, it was still hard getting it to release from the wall completely. My trembling hands were not helping. As I pulled at it, one of the nails clattered to the shower floor. I paused, holding my breath. My blood was pounding in my ears. No sound came from outside. I guessed Jude was still at the door, waiting for the person to leave.

  I tugged some more and the long rod was in my hands. I scrambled off the toilet, wincing with each movement, and stood on one side of the door, waiting for him to return. I’d beat him to death with the rod if I had to.

  With each minute that passed, determination surged through my veins, and the will to fight, to live, to destroy Jude once and for all overwhelmed me. It went far beyond the physical pain I was feeling, far beyond my fears of him. When I thought of him I saw red. When I thought of everything he had put me through, I couldn’t let him win. I would not let him kill me. He had taken enough of me already. He would not take my life.

  Finally, I heard the faint thud of his footsteps coming down the corridor. Sweat poured from every inch of my body, which was still shaking, but I pulled my legs apart and planted them firmly on the floor, ready for attack. My earlier fear of him had caused me to forget any attack moves I had learned in my self-defense classes, but I would allow my instinct to lead me.

  “It’s time to say goodbye, Haley. Time for you to die,” he said as he opened the door.

  The first thing I saw when he emerged was the gun he was holding out in front of him.

  As soon as I saw his face, I swung the rod upward and allowed it to fall on his head with a thud. He yelped as the gun fell from his hand and went flying into the bedroom.

  I tightened my grip on the rod and hit him again and again and again until he crumpled to the floor. I kept hitting him on the head until his blood stained the metal rod. He tried to use his hands to protect his head but he removed them and pulled them against his chest when the rod came crashing down on them as well.

  Then he looked up at me, hate boiling in his eyes, before trying to crawl out of the bathroom. I wasn’t done with him yet. As he moved, leaving blood on the tiles, I hit him everywhere, especially his legs and feet. He would not escape me until I was done with him. With his legs possibly broken from my attacks, he let out a loud grunt and fell face down onto the bedroom carpet.

  I didn’t waste any time. I would not underestimate him. This was my moment to take back everything he had ever taken from me. I almost slipped on the pool of water and blood as I scrambled out of the bathroom and grabbed the gun. I had never held one in my life before. But there was a first time for everything. This would also be the first time I murdered someone. I had no intention of failing.

  Jude turned his bloody head to the side. The blood had plastered his hair to his scalp and was now trickling into his eyes. There was so much, it looked almost fake.

  “Don’t…” he said, but the sound was low and hoarse, tortured.

  His begging took me by surprise. When had the tables turned?

  I didn’t trust him one bit. If I let him live, he would kill me. Even if the cops showed up, I could not let them arrest him. He would find a way out of prison. He would find me. Only I could end the madness.

  “Stop begging,” I said, disgusted. “It makes you look pathetic.” I pulled the trigger and shot a bullet into his shoulder. He bounced on the floor from the impact and I jolted back. The little weapon was more powerful than I had anticipated. I collected myself and aimed again.

  To my surprise, Jude raised his head off the floor and he began laughing, his body trembling with mirth, blood covering his white teeth. “You… are… not a killer, Hay… ley.”

  “You underestimate me.” I pulled the trigger again and the bullet met his other shoulder. I had wanted to hit his head, but I was a lousy shot. This was just as well, though; I so much enjoyed the marriage of sudden shock and fear in his eyes when he noticed I was serious about killing him.

  He stopped laughing and his mouth hung open as he tried to crawl across the floor, his useless legs dragging behind him.

  “Stop,” I said with authority. “You son of a bitch. Stop moving.”

  He collapsed, and so did I with tears streaming down my cheeks, my body shaking uncontrollably. Through the blur caused by my tears, I saw him moving and then he reached out to touch my ankle, his hands cool and wet with blood.

  I gulped down my tears and aimed the gun at his head. I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. And then I did it again. His grip on me loosened.

  My eyes flew open and I broke down as I watched him lying at my feet, face down.

  Still sobbing, I collapsed to the carpet and felt his pulse. Nothing.

  Jude was dead.

  All of a sudden my body relaxed and the pain he had inflicted on me with the whip flooded into my body.

  My head jerked up when I heard a crash coming from down the corridor, followed by loud voices, and then hurried footsteps. Moments later, the bedroom door crashed open and Dustin burst in, looking bewildered. First his eyes took in Jude on the floor next to me, and then he dropped to his knees beside me, gathering me into his arms.

  “Jesus, Haley,” he said, his face buried into my hair as I cried harder, clutching his shirt with bloody hands. I felt him shaking in my arms as well. He pulled away and looked into my eyes. “I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you. I thought…”

  I nodded, and then I realized what was going on. The room started filling with cops and paramedics. As I became conscious of my nakedness, Dustin pulled a sheet off the bed and draped it around me. As I tightened it around my body, I prayed the paramedics wouldn’t find a pulse on Jude either. I was so ready for it to be over.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Jude

  What went wrong? How could this be happening? Jude’s mind raced as Haley struck him again, this time on an ankle. He was in too much pain to determine whether it was the left or right one. But he’d heard the crack that told him she had broken something. The bitch. She still thought she could win this game. A game he had invented. She had no idea. As long as he had a breath in him, he would be the master, her master until the end. He would not be killed by her. He would not die at the hands of anyone. He was the killer. He took life, not the other way around.

  The iron rod slammed onto another part of his leg and he gritted his teeth. She hit him again and again, everywhere, but he held on until he not only felt the pain, he tasted it on his tongue. He still held on to life, even as blood poured into his eyes. And then his body betrayed him. He couldn’t take it any longer, couldn’t take being degraded by her like this.

  He had to do something about it, to snatch some power back so he could use it to finish her off. She was soft at the core. And he still had the power
of his words, words that had brought her to her knees more than once. But he was in a vulnerable position. He had to do something that reached her heart faster. He tried begging, but it didn’t get the results he had hoped for. She had no ounce of sympathy left for him. Instead of weakening, she rewarded him with a bullet in the shoulder. He fell face down, his mouth open with shock as he hit the carpeted floor. He tasted more than pain now. He tasted death. But he was still breathing.

  He was never one to give up easily. Using every ounce of energy he had inside his body, which wasn’t much, he lifted his head off the floor and met her eyes, registered the shock of having hurt another human being, her own husband. He started to laugh then, even if it hurt him to do so. He couldn’t help it. How did she think she could kill a man like him? She didn’t have it in her. He told her as much. He had to crush her where she was weakest. He struck her conscience.

  To his horror, it didn’t work this time either.

  Shit, he screamed inwardly when she drove a bullet into his other shoulder. Death was closer now, laughing in his face, taunting him, and calling for him at the same time. He couldn’t die like this, not at the hands of a woman. His true love. But the pain drove him to the brink of insanity.

  A flicker of hope raced through him when he saw her collapse as well. She had reached the point he’d wanted to bring her to. She had lost her murderous streak. He could grab the gun from her now, finish her off and then himself.

  He swallowed the blood lodged inside his throat and pushed himself forward, stuck out an arm, groaning inwardly with the agony that the simple move unleashed. He reached her, his bloody fingers meeting her skin. He didn’t have the energy to lift his gaze, to see what part of her body he touched. He stretched out his fingers to touch more of her, and then a shot rang out and the bubble of pain inside his head exploded. Shit, she had shot him again.

  Now he was falling into a dark place. He was seconds from dying.

  Final, blood-stained words settled into his fractured mind before his eyes drifted shut: I own you, Haley Macknight. I’ll find you in hell.

  Then, after one last breath, Jude Macknight became nothing but a memory.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Haley

  Dustin knew I preferred calling to texting. When he got the text about me going out of town, he called right away but was unable to reach me, not even a couple of hours later. He knew then that something was going on. He came over to my place to find out if I was really out of town and found my apartment door unlocked.

  “How did you know I was next door?” I asked him as Becca treated the wounds on my back and neck. I flinched at every touch of the antiseptic.

  Dustin took my hand and kissed it. “There was an old woman with bandages around her head standing at the door with a cop. She said her name was Mary Lou and that was her apartment.” He paused. “She told the cop that a man was hiding inside and he had hit her on the head with a pan.”

  I raised my hand to my mouth. Another person who had suffered because of me. “How… How did she escape him? I can’t imagine Jude letting her live.”

  Becca came to stand in front of me and Dustin, her face creased with worry. “I talked to Mary Lou when she came in for us to check her head wound. She said the only thing that saved her was playing dead. He stuffed her into the trunk of a car, but someone managed to hear her crying.”

  “Thank God.” I shook my head and looked at Dustin. “I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself if she’d died.”

  “The most important thing is that she’s fine. And it’s all over now.” Dustin shook his head. “Haley, why the hell didn’t you tell me what was going on? You even went to Madison without saying a word. I would have come with you. If that’s what you felt you had to do, I would have supported you.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Becca leave the room to give us time alone. We hadn’t had much of that with all the cops and nurses swarming the room earlier.

  “I don’t know.” I bit back tears. “I think… I guess I was scared. I’ve put you through so much already. I didn’t want you to think I was too much of a burden, that it will never end, you know? I was afraid to lose you.”

  He placed his hands on both sides of my face and pulled my forehead to his. “Never, you hear that? You can never be a burden to me. I want to be there for you and I don’t care how long it takes until you’re fine and safe. You hiding this from me was dangerous. You should have at least called Rimes. Jude could have killed you… this time.”

  I moved my head from between his hands and looked down at my lap. A tear trickled down my cheek. “There’s something else.”

  “What is it? What else happened?” There was a slight tremor to his voice.

  “Some weeks ago, not long after we got back from Stony Creek, I sleepwalked. Becca slept over at my place that night. She saw me.” I swallowed hard and raised my gaze to his face.

  “You sleepwalked? I don’t understand. You’ve never done that before.” Worry set itself in the faint lines on his face.

  “No, and I was shocked when I found out.” I sighed. “Well, one of the reasons I didn’t tell you about the weird things that were happening was that I thought maybe I had done some of those things while sleepwalking. I didn’t think Jude had something to do with it.” I shrugged. “I never thought he would be alive, never in my wildest dreams. I did worry sometimes about Nolan still being out there, but…”

  “I can’t believe Jude sacrificed his brother like that. Why didn’t they just run off together?”

  “Jude wanted me to believe he was dead. He wanted the cops to have a body to prove it. He fooled me yet again.”

  This time I’d made sure he was dead. No more surprises. No Jude coming back from the dead, and no Nolan to worry about.

  Dustin took my hands in his and lifted them to his lips. His eyes sparkled. “I love you so much, Haley. I’m so glad you’re okay. And I’m so sorry about your sister.”

  “Thank you.” I didn’t want to talk about Liz, didn’t want to think about her. It hurt too much to think about what she had gone through. My only comfort was believing she was in a better place now.

  I’d kept one more secret from Dustin. I had told him about the beatings I’d suffered at Jude’s hands, but I didn’t tell him about the rape. I just couldn’t.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Haley

  I grabbed a handful of dirt and tossed it onto Jude's coffin. I had asked to bury him. Not because of any emotional attachment to him or the past we shared, but because I wanted to make sure he was gone for good. I wanted to see him off.

  My heart had been hard as I’d looked into his coffin earlier, making sure he was inside. I had felt his pulse after shooting him, but Jude had eluded death in the past. Not this time.

  During the ride to the graveyard in one of Dustin’s limousines, I had not glanced away from the hearse in front of us for one second. Now, along with Jude’s body, I was burying my past. When I thought he'd died last time, I'd still been left with a heaviness in my heart, but now, the weight had lifted. For the first time in a long time, I was truly free.

  Maybe I should have been remembering the good times we'd had before everything came crashing down, but I couldn't. All those snippets of good memories had been built on lies. Knowing what he did to my sister, I would never be able to feel pity for him. To show how much I despised him, I wore a cream cocktail dress to his funeral instead of black.

  “You okay?” Dustin whispered into my ear, drawing me close.

  I looked up at him and smiled. “You know, my father used to tell me that when you forgive, you do it for you, not for the other person.”

  “And… do you think you will ever forgive Jude?”

  “I'm not talking about him,” I said with conviction. “The person I need to forgive is the old, naïve Haley. For being so blind.” That Haley was being buried with Jude today. Haley Macknight had died so Haley Bradley would have a chance to live.

  �
�What about Jude,” Dustin said. “Can you ever forgive him?”

  “The truth is, I don't know. I don't. He took so much from me, but I also know he was a very sick man.” I slipped my hand into Dustin’s and pulled him away from the grave. From beneath a sycamore tree, we watched in silence as more earth was thrown onto Jude's coffin.

  I breathed slowly and consciously as I listened to the birds singing in the trees, the sound merging with that of the wind whistling, with the sound of my heart beating.

  Through it all, I had to admit that I felt somewhat sad for Jude. He had lost everything because of his obsession. He had been locked inside his own kind of prison. One he never had a chance to escape from. He died inside it.

  After his death, Detective Rimes called to tell me that they now knew Jude’s real name. He had been born Terence Pirone, a name that didn’t seem to suit him. No wonder he’d changed it. Jude Macknight seemed like a better name for a monster.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Haley

  Dustin brought in more of my boxes from the car, followed by the employees of a local moving company. How could I have accumulated so many belongings in only two years?

  In the end I decided to move into Dustin's mansion. Without Jude's shadow hanging over my heart, the idea of starting a life with Dustin had become more exciting. Initially I had planned for us to stay in my apartment for a couple of months, but after what had happened there, it was time to give it up. Since the incident with Jude two months ago, I had been living with Dustin. It was time for me to move in for real.