324 Nights. Not One Was Mine Chapter 04
Margaret stared at me for a moment, thrown by what she saw. Then, furious, she snatched up my handbag and smashed it against the floor.
“You *still* won’t shut up?!”
Chloe crouched in front of me and patted my cheek almost tenderly. Her smile was vicious.
“Evelyn, weren’t you saying you were innocent?”
She turned to Margaret and raised her voice deliberately.
“Mom, since she won’t admit it, why don’t we let everyone see for themselves—if there are any *marks* on her body from other men!”
The doorway went dead silent.
Then a strange, hungry excitement stirred in the air.
Every drop of blood in my body ran cold.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
Margaret’s eyes lit up.
“Yes! She wants to keep playing the saint? Strip her down. Let everyone see what she really is under those clothes!”
“I want the whole building to know—she plays the respectable wife by day, but underneath, she’s *filth*!”
My skull rang. My hands went numb.
Before time rewound, they’d only forced me to sign and pushed me out.
This time, because I’d made that call, they threw off any pretense. They wanted to grind the last shred of my dignity into the floor.
I tried to struggle up, but Chloe pinned me down.
“Trying to run?”
“You’re the one who knows how to seduce men, aren’t you? Let everyone get a good look at what those men have done to you!”
Her hand shot out and grabbed my collar.
I clutched at the front of my blouse. My voice shook.
“Get off me!”
Margaret dropped down on my other side. The two of them pinned me to the floor, one on each arm, and yanked at my sleeve.
“I’m going to see for my son exactly what he married!”
The crowd in the doorway shifted. Someone muttered, “This—this is going too far—” but no one moved to stop it.
The rest of them just stood there. Waiting for the show to get better.
My back slammed against the floor. Their hands ground into my arms. My collar tore with a sharp *rip*.
Cold air rushed against my skin, and I went rigid.
This humiliation was worse than any beating, any insult.
I thrashed, kicked out hard. My foot connected with someone—I couldn’t tell who.
Chloe screamed and slapped me again.
“Bitch! You’re still fighting me?!”
Her hand went for the hem of my shirt.
Margaret ground my arms down and shouted at Ethan, “What are you standing there for?! Block the door! She’s not walking out of here tonight!”
Ethan actually took a step toward the door and cut off my last exit.
He looked down at me. There was no warmth left in his eyes at all.
“Evelyn. You brought this on yourself.”
“Don’t blame us for not sparing your dignity.”
The last flicker of warmth inside me went out.
Margaret and Chloe came at me together—one pinning my legs, one yanking at my clothes.
Fabric stretched taut with a shrill tearing sound.
I fought with everything I had. My fingernails scraped the floor until they bled. My throat went raw from screaming.
“Let go of me!”
“*Help!*”
The people in the doorway shifted uneasily, but not one of them stepped forward.
The instant Chloe’s fist closed on my collar to rip it down, a roar tore through the hallway.
“*STOP.*”
The voice was deep and hard as iron. It cut through every other sound in the room.
The crowd in the doorway was shoved aside. They fell back and cleared a path.
I lifted my head, ragged and gasping, and saw him—a tall, broad-shouldered man in a Class A uniform, striding in with police officers and MPs at his back.
He’d come.
—