~The Binding~
Chapter
7
Bron tried to think of any plausible explanation that
would explain the drastic measures she had taken against Kevin.
Having a fan stalk her seemed pretty flimsy to her now after
what she had been through with her life.
Sitting on the bed those little fears turned into big
fears. All the threats and then the final one, that if she
didn’t do as she was asked then the person would take the most
drastic measure they could against her. Slowly pick off every
single member she had left. “When I find out who this is, which
ever one of you, I will kill you myself.” Bron squared her
shoulders and headed back to the kitchen after pulling on her
sneakers. A little laugh escaped her; if she pissed Kevin off
enough, she might need her sneakers to run like hell right out
the front door.
Kevin sat at the table with a folder in front of him
waiting for her to come back. He automatically assumed she
was trying to think of an excuse to avoid telling him the truth.
Now that he had read through the letters at least twice he could
understand why, sort of. What pissed him off more than anything
was that Bron wasn’t by far an unintelligent person and she
had to know that this was someone in her family or at the very
least, someone was handing out information to the person sending
the letters.
“So now that you quit
my job for me, I guess I’ll have to go back to the real world.”
“Anytime sweetheart,” Kevin leaned back in the chair
with his fingers laced together behind his head.
Pouring another cup of coffee, she sat down with a
loud thud. She wasn’t sure how to start the conversation and
it didn’t look like Kevin had any attentions of doing it. “So
how are the kids?”
“That’s not even damn funny Bron,” Kevin’s hands came
from the back of his head. He waited, she didn’t speak again.
Pushing his chair out, he stood up, and began to pace the kitchen
and waited as patiently as he could.
Closing her eyes for a second so she could focus, she
yelled at herself to calm down in her head. “I want to know
how my children are and I don’t want a repeat of last night.”
“Hmm, Cooper is upset, he’s not into thawed breast
milk, and the bottle thing is upsetting to him, he’s use to
skin. Kaylin cried her eyes out and begged me not to leave
her, of which I did, to come down here and haul your ass back
home. The quote for your benefit 'Daddy don’t leave me, I don’t
have anyone to love me anymore.' Kevin’s eyes settled on Bron,
the tears poured quietly down her face without any vocalization
from her. “Andrew took care of the kids while I got drunk for
almost a week.” Kevin stopped and scratched his head. “I think
it was a week?”
She watched him lean back on the kitchen counter, he
crossed his arms. His hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail.
One of Kaylin’s pink Barbie rubber bands was being put to use.
I guess at the time he wasn’t thinking of that or didn’t care.
A loud sigh and a rush of air and he was kneeling on
the kitchen floor next to her. Grabbing both of her hands,
he pulled her to sit sideways in the chair. A simple request
was uttered, “I know that you love me and the kids. I need
to know why you would do this to us. Bron, the only reason
that you runaway is because you are scared, even I figured that
out a long time ago. I didn’t let you runaway away from me
in Pittsburgh or Chicago. You have to tell me why you did this.
Renew my faith in you and give me a reason that is so important
that you would destroy everything we have built over the last
eleven months.”
“I wish I could but I don’t think you would take it
well and I don’t think you would understand.” Bron spoke softly
but not compliantly.
“Bron the only thing that would cause this in you is
Lenny and what happened. Or is it something else?” Kevin was
trying very hard to make it easy for her to tell him the truth.
“Okay, fine, I just
thought that maybe you had second thoughts.”
“That’s a lie, don’t lie to me.” Kevin’s eyes narrowed
on her, he wasn’t playing anymore. “Why did you call Kris to
see if we were okay?”
Bron frowned, that didn’t take long to get back to
him. “I just wanted to know if you were okay.”
“Bron I was on tour out of the country, I was served
with divorce papers. You left our infant son and our young
daughter with my mother for Christ sakes.“ A hand slammed down
on the table. “How the hell do you think I was doing!”
Bron’s lips formed a straight line; they were doing
okay until she asked. Now Kevin was going to vent and she had
to wait until he was done. Grabbing a tissue from the box he
thrust at her, she pulled one and wiped her eyes.
“The kids are okay for now, I talked to them this morning.”
Kevin took his seat once again. He wasn’t going to get anywhere
with Bron by demonstrating anger. Thanks to Suzie and his brother’s
fax machine, he knew what was going on. However, his wife needed
to have confidence in him to tell him herself. He sat and stared
at her for a long time. For the first time he could see how
much she wasn’t herself. Gone was the confidence to do battle
with him. Gone was the woman that he wanted so much to build
a life with. “Why,” he mumbled in his head. Because one person
took it upon himself or herself to make her life a living hell
every time he stepped out the door.
The expression on Bron’s face reflected the sadness
she felt in her heart. Leaving her husband and children was
her last option. Her original plan was just to leave and let
whoever was threatening her to come and find her. The last
letter she received was very direct. Thinking about it for
days, she came up with the idea of leading the person away and
dealing with whoever it was on her own. The repercussions of
her actions were as clear then as they were now.
Absently she rubbed the back of her neck, the muscles
were knotted from the tension and stress. Silently she sat
and thought about what had transpired. The biggest fuck up
in this whole endeavor was the asshole that served the divorce
papers prematurely. She explicitly informed the lawyer that
the papers were not to be served until Kevin was back in the
States. It would have given her more time. Her mistake in
all of this was just doing all of this in the first place.
It was harsh but fear had driven her to the edge. In her mind
she felt if she had left, the person would follow her. She
could confront the person away from the ones that she cared
for so much.
Bron’s own little list of suspects had been narrowed
down to two, Mc or Stevie. Bron couldn’t fathom why either
one of them would do this. She knew Mc had feelings for her
and so did Stevie. Mc was her main suspect in all of this.
It reeked of the man; he had lost power over her, power over
the family. He was the one who had just handed her over to
Kevin in Pittsburgh out of frustration, now she thought that
maybe since he had his surgery, he felt he had made a mistake.
Stevie was a different ball of wax. She rarely saw
him anymore since he spent most of his time taking care of Mc’s
personal business and flying around the country. Mc may have
washed his hands of having criminal ties but that doesn’t mean
he wasn’t up to making a quick buck if someone dropped it in
his lap. Mc was used to the freewheeling, living large lifestyle,
and he had certain standards. Some of his standards had been
compromised when he had to earn an honest living.
Jake was ruled out in her book and so was Webster.
Jake was her best friend. Jake was not capable of any of these
things. She wondered if Stevie was capable of them.
Webster was out of their social scene for a long time.
It did bother her that the man just up and quit his job in Chicago
to move back home to essentially baby-sit her case.
“Well?” Kevin moved out of his chair and debated whether
he should just show her the letters that were faxed to him or
just let her stew. He had to get her to admit to him what was
going on. Bron needed to face this situation and understand
fully that this wasn’t a game and whoever was doing this was
serious. Kevin didn’t like the fact that he had been threatened
but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been threatened before. When his
children came into play, it was an entirely different ballgame.
Bron focused on Kevin’s face, it was unreadable beyond
the contempt and anger. Her head titled as she gazed at him.
Kevin knew she was thinking it over and decided to
hand her some reassurance. “You ran from me and the kids.
You ran because you were scared. I love you and won’t let you
run away from me ever again. I swear, I’ll lock your ass up
in the house for the rest of our lives.”
Bron’s lips pursed together, she didn’t want to deal
with cave dweller Kevin today. She decided to head him off
at the pass, “I’m not building you your own dungeon.”
Kevin grinned for the
first time, “You won’t have to, I’m sure Andrew would help.”
Bron swallowed and blew
out a very long breath, “You’re right I am scared.”
“That’s a start. Wanna tell me of what?” Kevin sat
back down, relieved that they were finally going to get somewhere.
“Somebody was threatening the kids and you. I don’t
know who but it’s somebody in my family. I think it’s Mc and
you know what he is capable of.”
“I see,” Kevin leaned forward in his chair. Crossing
his arms, he propped his upper body on the table. “What makes
you so sure that it is someone in the family and not just a
fan?”
Bron had dropped a bomb and Kevin hadn’t even blew
his mind, he was as cool as a cucumber, something was very wrong.
Biting her bottom lip, she started to pour the information out.
“Letters… I’ve been getting letters, they are full of incidents,
and discussions that only people in our family would know about.
There are details about my life before I met you so I know it
isn’t anybody in your family or a fan.”
“Fans can be pretty insistent on getting information
but if it’s that personal then I would assume that you are correct.
That still doesn’t explain the fear. If it was somebody in
the family then you should have confronted them.”
Closing her eyes slowly
and then opening them she looked at him, “There were threats,
nasty ones towards you….”
“I’m a big boy, I can
handle myself…”
Bron snorted, Kevin
was being a bit naïve but only because he didn’t know how violent
her family could be some times.
Kevin leveled a glare
at her for the action, “So?”
Licking her lips, she
felt her throat constrict, “He, she, whatever, threatened to
kill Cooper and Kaylin.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Kevin was now
nose to nose with her. The tip of his nose was actually resting
on hers.
Bron was blinking rapidly; she knew this would happen.
She couldn’t breath, she was, to say the least, a little frightened
of him at the moment. Her lungs were compressing in her chest.
Kevin could go way past ugly when he wanted to, like last night.
If he had a point to prove, nothing was too drastic to get it
across to someone. It wasn’t just her that he pulled this with
either from what she had learned; the rest of the guys had been
targets at one point in time over the last ten years of him
coming on strong. “I… I… like I said.”
“My kids, somebody threatened my babies?” Kevin hissed.
“You chose not to tell me this?”
Bron just nodded her head, she felt like a mute. No
matter what was to come out of her mouth, nothing would justify
this one to Kevin.
“Let me get this straight, somebody threatened my children,
so you just up and leave them with my mother.” Kevin knew the
entire story he was just pointing out to her how stupid she
had been.
“I thought they would
leave you and the kids alone and come after me.”
“You did?” The vein was beginning to pop out the side
of neck like it always did when he was just short of exploding.
Bron backed her head up slightly only to have it pushed
forward as Kevin’s hand swung behind her and shoved her towards
him.
Bron gasped and prepared
for the worst after last night, her eyes tightly shut.
“Opening your fucking eyes and look at me. Do not
dare play that ‘I’m afraid of you card’ on me. You aren’t afraid
of me, you’ve never been afraid of me. Right now, I’m really
fuckin’ pissed at you. Not just for leaving the kids but for
being stupid enough to use yourself as some kind of bait for
someone. Your past is getting in the way of your thinking.
How dare you set yourself up as a target and not tell anyone,
especially me.” Kevin jumped away from her like a flame had
burned him.
Bron sat motionless
in the chair.
Kevin waved his index finger in her face. “You ever
fuck up like this again and I’ll make your life a living hell.”
Now Bron was getting pissed off. “I don’t think so.
My life can’t get much worse at the moment. I miss my kids,
I missed you.”
“Shut up!” Kevin reached for a pile of papers that
he had again left on top of the refrigerator.
Kevin always hid things up there, she had to get a
stool or climb the cabinets to get things, Bron thought. She
watched him slam the documents on the table. This is sort of
like last night, she groaned in her head. Kevin gave the papers
a shove in her direction.
Bron looked at the first one and then her mouth fell
open wide enough you could drive a semi-tractor trailer into
it. “Where did you get these? These are mine.”
“Gee, you’re pretty defensive over a bunch of letters
that threaten everything near and dear to us.” Kevin dropped
in the chair and was shaking his head at her.
“That’s not what I mean….”
Kevin watched her face turn paler and paler as the
ramifications that he knew everything fell into place for her.
He was antsy from too much coffee and now he was getting hungry.
As he let her sit and simmer he ordered a takeout meal.
Bron was dizzy. If anyone had seen these besides Kevin
or anyone in his family, her children were in danger. Reading
a few letters over again while she waited for him to get off
the phone, when he did she asked, “Where are the kids?”
“The kids are safe…” Pausing as he debated whether
he should tell her that she would see them tomorrow or not.
This sucked, but thank God for friends. Nick cancelled his
cruise appearance at Howie’s fundraiser. Nah, I’m not going
to tell her, he mused in his head. Then he went back to why
she was originally here to begin with. “They’re coming down
tomorrow with some help from some very dear friends.”
“Thank you,” Bron smiled at him, it was a smiled filled
with relief. “Kev, seriously if anybody saw these…”
“Nobody knows about
this but Tim, Suzie, and Andrew of course,” Kevin let it slip
out.
“Oh poor Andrew.” Bron’s head whipped up. “You don’t
think this is Andrew, tell me you don’t, please?”
“It’s not, at least I don’t feel like it is. So let’s
sit down and try and figure who and why. We’ll take it from
there.”
Bron dashed back to the bedroom, Kevin rolled his eyes.
“If that woman walked anywhere, I would be scared.”
Bron bought a tablet back and set in front of him.
“I went back and tried to remember everything I could about
each occurrence in the letter. Not everyone was there all the
time, it’s not that cut and dry.”
“And you have a list, which is a little too short.”
Kevin looked down the sheet she had written on, every name was
crossed off but Mc’s.
“What do you mean?” Bron watched Kevin get up and
search for a something to write with.
Finding a pencil, he sat back down in the chair next
to her. Scooting closer, his chair was almost touching hers.
He began writing with his left hand as his right hand bounced
up and down on her.
His hand would stop and then bounce again. This was
Kevin’s normal reaction when he was nervous, first he would
try to calm himself and then he would just bounce his hand off
anything he could. Bron watched him write down more names.
“Jake and Stevie? Come on Kevin, no way.”
“Hey, we don’t know, we’re going to start with a full
list and narrow it down.” Bron was stressing as he wrote down
every single person he could think of. “I did that already,”
she basically whined at him.
Kevin turned to his head towards the side to face her;
leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers, giving her a gentle
kiss. “Calm down Witch, we’ll figure something out. We’re
going to start from scratch and then we go from there. Okay?”
Bron nodded a yes to
him.
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This page © 2001 - 2007 Bronwyn
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This is a work of fiction.
The characters and events portrayed are fictitious.
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