Chapter 9 - The Final Stand
BOOM.
The master bedroom door gave way with a sickening splintering sound.
Mark’s heavy boots stomped across the hardwood floor, stopping right outside the bathroom door.
"I know you're in there, Valerie!" Mark screamed, his voice hoarse, breathing heavily like a wounded animal. "The cops are coming! Evelyn lost the house! They froze everything! You took everything from me!"
"You took it from yourself, Mark!" I shouted through the thick oak door, my voice echoing off the bathroom tiles, strong and unwavering. "Put down whatever you're holding and leave! The police are already on the property!"
"I'm not leaving without Toby!" Mark yelled.
BANG.
He kicked the base of the bathroom door. Unlike the cheap hollow door in our old apartment, this door was solid three-inch mahogany. It didn't break.
"You think you're smart with your high-priced lawyer?!" Mark roared, kicking it again. "You were nothing before I met you! Just a pathetic little designer living in a studio! I gave you a family! I gave you a home!"
"You dragged me by my hair!" I screamed back, tears of pure rage spilling over my lashes. "You let your mother steal my keys! You left me bleeding on a floor three days after giving birth! You aren't a husband, Mark! You're a coward!"
Outside, the distant sound of police sirens began to rise over the sound of the howling wind and thunder.
Mark heard them too. He let out a primal, guttural scream of rage and hurled his entire body weight against the door handle.
CRACK.
The heavy brass latch bent, but held.
Below us, loud voices echoed up the stairwell.
"POLICE! HANDS IN THE AIR!" Frank’s voice boomed from the bedroom doorway, accompanied by the sharp, authoritative shouting of tactical officers. "DROP THE CROWBAR, MARK! DROP IT NOW!"
"SHOOT ME!" Mark screamed, turning around in the bedroom. "GO AHEAD AND SHOOT ME! SHE STOLE MY BABY!"
"DROP THE WEAPON!"
Through the small frosted glass window above the bathroom door, I saw flashes of bright laser sights cutting through the dark bedroom.
THUD.
The heavy metallic sound of a crowbar hitting the hardwood floor echoed, followed immediately by the sound of Mark being tackled to the ground by three heavy officers.
"GET HIM DOWN! SECURE HIS ARMS! ZIP-TIE HIM!"
"Valerie! It's Frank!" the investigator’s voice called out gently from outside the door. "It's over, Valerie. He's in cuffs. You can open the door now."
My knees trembled so violently I nearly collapsed.
Slowly, carefully, I lowered the brass paperweight onto the marble counter. I reached out with a shaking hand, unlocked the bent brass latch, and pulled the heavy mahogany door open.
Mark lay face-down on the bedroom floor, his face pinned against the rug by a heavy tactical boot. His hands were bound tightly behind his back with thick black zip-ties. Blood dripped from his nose onto the floorboards.
He turned his head sideways, his tear-streaked, angry eyes fixing on me one last time.
"Valerie..." he choked out, his arrogance finally dying, replaced by a pathetic, desperate plea. "Please... don't do this... she's my mother... I'm your husband..."
I looked down at him from the doorway.
I looked at the man who had terrified me, broken me, and tried to steal my future.
I didn't feel anger anymore. I didn't feel hatred. I felt nothing at all.
I shifted Toby comfortably in my arms, pulling the blue blanket up over his sleeping shoulders.
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"You're not my husband, Mark," I said, my voice clear as crystal. "You're just a mistake I'm never making again."
I turned my back on him and walked down the hallway into the bright, warm light of the home below.
