Jack In The Box

Chapter 28

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I waited to see if there was a punch line, some clue to see if he’d made a crack but Jack’s expressions

remained the same. He wasn’t laughing; in fact his face remained stoic. With a lot of people, I could

easily figure out what they were thinking but with Jack I always encountered a brick wall. I could only

see what he decided to show me.

“I can’t decide if that’s a joke or if you’re serious.” I said.

“I’m not really in a mood for jokes lately. So far I’ve been telling you the truth.”

“You’re telling me you killed three people and enjoyed doing it.” I waited, my blood was turning to ice.

A few second passed, he was still holding me and staring intently at me. I pulled away and started to

scramble off the bed when Jack caught my hand and pulled me back into his arms. My bare front

rubbed against his chest. His other hand went into my hair; his mouth was hot on my neck. “Stop it.” I

pushed my palms against his chest, but he was so strong and didn’t even budge. “Stop touching me!”

I knew that if Jack decided that he wanted to kill me, it would be a piece of cake. A swipe of his

Herculean arm would be enough to silence me for good.

In a silky desperate voice, he said. “Shhhh...Don’t be scared of me, love. I will never hurt you. Believe

me.” Tenderly, he swiped at a tear on my cheek with his thumb. “I love you. I’ll kill myself before I let

anything happen to you.”

“I don’t want to be with a killer!”

“You say that now, but you can’t deny this attraction between us. Be honest with me, Cotton-Candy,

would it matter to you even if I’d killed people ruthlessly? If I told you that I hadn’t killed three but the

dozen that they accuse me of, would you stop loving me?”

I didn’t answer. A sob was on the verge of erupting from my throat because he knew that he was my

weakness. He whispered something sweetly into my ears and tried to calm me down. I felt the swipe of

his wet tongue against my collar bone, and then he pulled my lips down to his in a desperate, hard kiss.

I whimpered and tried to pull away but his hold on me was solid. Apart from being a master

manipulator, he was also an excellent seducer. I didn’t fight back, instead I thought fuck it and relaxed

into his strong hold. My arms went around his back as I held him in place, kissing him back with the

same amount of fierce longing. The thought of losing him forever pained me.

He pulled back a little, our foreheads touching, “Whatever I tell you, promise me you won’t leave me,

Riley.” Jack said in a low voice.

“I can’t promise you anything until you explain yourself. And you didn’t answer my question.”

His dark eyes softened.

“Why did you kill those people, Jack?” I asked. “No matter how much you try to portray yourself as the

bad guy, I know you wouldn’t kill anyone just because you enjoy killing.”

“Do you want to hear the rest of the story?”

I gave him a nod.

Jack glanced at the clock hanging against the wall. It was three a.m.

“How long do we have until Ken comes back home?”

“We have a lot of time. He won’t be here until ten a.m.”

“That’s more than enough I guess, because this story is long.”

“I want to listen.” I said.

And so he began. “At one point in my life, I was having a really hard time, getting into brawls at clubs,

beating up thugs who landed up in hospitals, getting wasted doing drugs and finding myself in company

of strange women. Well, I was never home most of the time because I was sick and tired of my parents

constantly fighting. Ezra was doing his thing, he was the golden boy after all. I already knew Ezra

would be the next successor to the Wolfe Enterprise and I was fucking jealous.”

“My father cut off my resources and that’s when I got myself into a shit load of other things. As if I

hadn’t already done enough. I had no money and Ezra was tired of covering up for me. He told me to

′get my shit together or leave’ and that irked me. I was the older brother here, but he was acting like

one.” He said, curling and uncurling my hair.

“Wait. You guys are twins.”

“Yeah, but I’m still twenty minutes older than him. I saw the world twenty-minutes before he did so that

makes me his older brother.”

I suppressed an eye-roll. “What happened then?”

“A friend suggested me an easy way to earn money.” Jack continued, this time avoiding eye-contact

like he was ashamed of the information he was going to reveal next.

“You did not just...”

“I just needed to drive the goods from one place to another. I thought that was going to be fairly easy. I

did that like twice, before I got arrested for possession of cocaine. They found it stashed in a hidden

compartment of my car.”

“It’s during the same time that I began seeing things that didn’t exist. An influence of the drug abuse.”

He laughed. “I was a lost case. Dad got me admitted into a psychiatric institution. Only, it wasn’t

private. This was the worst kind and I was probably one of the sanest people living there. The patients

were neglected, treated badly and not provided with proper food. I don’t think the doctors were even

qualified to do what they were doing.”

I touched his face, trying to fight the pity and the sympathy I was feeling for him. “What did they do to

you, Jack?”

“I’ll spare you the details, Cotton-Candy. I thought it was the best punishment my father could think of

for what I’d been doing. I stayed there for six months until I had enough.” Jack’s hand began shaking. I

turned in his arms and lay my head on his chest, snuggling close. I took his shaking hand in mine and

interlocked our fingers.

“They’d diagnosed me with anti-social personality disorder. An obviously wrong diagnoses. They’d

done it on purpose. My dad told my family that I wasn’t fit to be free in the world, and that if I was let out

of an institution, I’d be posing as a threat to society.”

“Mom didn’t believe it at first, but dad always found a way to manipulate her. There was a nurse there

who was better than the rest of the staff and knew I didn’t belong there. Aline. She visited me one night

and told me something shocking.”

“What did she tell you?”

“She’d heard the head doctor talk to one of his staff about me. They were speaking in some code

language, but Aline knew what the doctors meant.” Jack paused. “My father had paid one of the

doctors to kill me and make it seem accidental.”

“How could your father do something like that?”

Jack gave a sarcastic laugh. “We weren’t his, remember? I was proving to be more of a liability than an

heir. A waste of space. Ezra was all he needed and for personal gain only. I wish my brother saw

through all the lies. Brady had torn our family apart.”

“I tried calling Ezra but he refused to speak with me. He said I was making excuses to get out of the

asylum. He didn’t believe what I was telling him about our father.

Anyway, Aline came to my room one night with keys to get me out of chains. It appeared another ward

boy had followed her.

He tried to stop me from escaping and I knew if I was caught by any doctor that night, I wouldn’t

survive. I wound the chain around the man’s neck and bit a chunk out of his shoulder. I acted on

impulse, it was an act of self-defense. Aline helped me get out of the institution gates.”

“News got out pretty fast. I was a mess and on the run. I managed to come home and tried to look for

Mom because I wanted to talk to her, apologize for my wrongdoings.”

“What happened?”

“You know the story, Riley. I found her in the shed. Brutally murdered, and cut into pieces.” Jack sighed.

“When the authorities arrived, I was right there, sitting with a suitcase, matted in her blood. It was easy

for them to assume I’d killed her. Broken out of the institution and then taken my mother’s life out of

revenge for putting me there. My law record wasn’t glorifying to say the least.”

“Ezra convinced me that it would be best if I voluntarily admitted myself in the asylum. He said he

would make sure I got into the best one. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have a choice. It was either prison

or the asylum. During the car ride, the car crashed and when I woke up in the hospital, they told me

Ezra was dead.”

“Oh, Jack. I can’t even imagine what you went through.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Riley. I had it all coming. I was partly responsible for everything.”

“You didn’t tell me why you killed those three people.”

“I’ll get to that.” Jack said.

The night had already passed. I could see the traces of light starting to spill out of the thin curtains.

We’d spent the night making love and talking and I wasn’t even feeling sleepy.

“Jack, aren’t you feeling sleepy?”

He smiled. “Sleep can wait, I guess. I feel like I haven’t slept for days.”

I ran my hand through his wavy curls. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours and then you can

continue your story.”

He debated. “Is it really okay if I sleep?”

I nodded and kissed his head. “Sleep. I’ll protect you Jack.”

Jack’s eyes lit up with amusement. “I’m so glad I met you, Riley.”

“Me too.”

Jack’s eyes turned heavy, before slipping into a slumber, he mumbled. “You’re the other half of me.”

I didn’t even realize when I’d fallen asleep just watching him. When my eyes flew open, it was already

past eight a.m. The other side of the bed was empty. I sat upright and got a whiff of fried eggs.

When I walked out of the bedroom, I found Jack’s imposing figure standing behind the counter and

flipping an omelette. His eyes followed me as I went and stood behind him. I laughed. “What are you

doing?”

“Making us breakfast.” He said.

I choked back a laughter. “You overcooked the omelette. Get away from here!”

I snatched the spatula out of his hand and began putting the omelette in a plate. “You can’t cook to

save your life, can you?”

Jack shook his head. “I suck at it, and that’s why I want to get married.”

“What kind of qualities are you looking for in a wife?”

Jack leaned against the island. “I want a tall girl, blonde and beautiful like the sun.”

I threw him a look. “Well, good for you because I’d like someone who looks like Liam Hemsworth. Tall,

sandy hair, blue eyes. He’s a treat, isn’t he?”

Jack was clearly amused as he walked towards me. “I’m sure you’ll find a guy like that in your dreams.”

He caught me by the waist and turned me to face him. “On second thought, I’m not really picky. I would

like a certain girl with dark hair and violet highlights, who can cook a masterpiece for a lasagna. I can

spend the rest of my life with her.”

Was that an indirect proposal?

My cheeks burned. He nudged my chin up to look at him. “I lied. I don’t want you to dream about any

other man. Just me.”

I laughed. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Do you want me to tell you the rest of it now?”

“Go on.”

“After knowing my brother was dead, I had nothing to loose so I stayed in hiding until I learned the

truth. I had resources, a handful of people I trusted. It turned out my father had wanted to get my

mother killed because he suspected she was getting back together with Anotonio. I was enraged. Mom

died painfully, Riley, and she didn’t deserve that end. I hunted those three men down and killed them.

They didn’t tell me who asked them to kill her, but doesn’t take a genius to figure out.”

“You could have gone to the police and told them the truth about your father.”

“Riley, my father was a very powerful man. He had people spread out everywhere. You never know

who was siding up with him.” Jack argued.

“But the police could have helped.”

“You’re so pure, Cotton-Candy. I wish I could protect your innocence.”

“Well, it’s too late for that.” I retorted.

“Corrupt officers. That’s who I’m talking about. A few months of practically living like a homeless man, I

eventually gave up. A few key people whom I trusted, ended up dead in a similar way that my mom had

and it was all linked to me because the witnesses said they’d seen me with those people. My number

was in their phone logs.”

“When I stood in court, I plead insanity. The doctors backed up that I was in fact crazy and the rest as

you know is history.”

“It’s a lot complicated than I thought.” I said.

“Do you trust everything that I told you?” He asked, his eyes glinting with hope.

“Of course I trust you.” I said.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you decided you didn’t want to be with me, Riley. With the killings that have

piled up again, I may get a death sentence.” He said sadly. “I don’t understand why Ezra would pose as

me though.”

Just then we heard the jiggle of keys and the lock turning.

“Go into my room and hide!” I whispered to Jack as he dropped the breakfast on the table, ran into my

room and shut the door.

Ken walked into the house and saw me standing near the dinning table.

“What are you doing, standing there so awkwardly?”