The Witch Of Alpha

Making A Change

Rowan

After Everett left, I stayed in my car for a solid ten minutes. I had so many emotions to work through: feelings for Everett that he may or may not reciprocate; the lack of professionalism I was demonstrating by crushing on my client and telling him all my secrets; the utter soul-crushing pain of seeing my husband making out with another woman the day after he left me alone on the floor with our crying child like we didn't even matter; the fact that I was so done with being married to Sam but I was afraid to leave, afraid he would try to take Lina from me. Or worse, that he would hurt her or leave her all alone when she was with him.

Everything was just so scary and I had no idea what I was going to do. With a huff of breath, I got out of the car and walked inside my shop and called out hello's to everyone again before settling back into my office.

Jenna came and leaned on my doorway with a devilish grin, "So how was your date with Mr. Tall-dark-and-handsome?"

"It wasn't a date, he just wanted to thank me for taking on his huge order." I said, sticking my tongue out at her.

"I bet there's something else that's huge that you're gonna take on," She said with a wink.

I laughed so hard then, it was impossible to be upset about what happened with Sam. She joined me in laughing and even slapped her knee which made me laugh harder.

After we finally calmed down, she asked "so really, how did it go?"

"Ugh my face hurts now. Well it was great until the very end if you must know." I responded, rubbing my cheeks to soothe the pain from laughing so much.

"Oh no, why??" She asked as she came to sit at the chair in front of my desk.

"Well as we were leaving, we saw this," I pulled out my phone and showed her the picture of Sam making out with that other girl.

"That f*****g sleeze bag!! I knew he cheated on you before but I thought he stopped like a year ago??" She said, angry for me.

"Nope, he hasn't stopped. And he always makes it my problem like it's my fault and I'm so sick of it." I huffed. She may be my employee but I always thought of her as a work friend since we never saw each other outside of work.

"What a douche canoe. Well at least you have Mr. Tall-dark-and-handsome now that can be Lina's new daddy...and your new daddy too," She said with a wink. I rolled my eyes and laughed again.

"Stop making me laugh, my face is gonna fall off!" I told her, holding my cheeks again.

"Well all I'm gonna say is, you have options. You don't need to stick around with someone who treats you like s**t and clearly doesn't give a f**k about you or your family. I would say you should start seeing whatever handsome-guy's name is more often, maybe see how a real man should treat his woman. Sam doesn't deserve anymore chances." She shrugged and I sighed.

"His name is Everett and it's more complicated than that, I don't want Sam being able to take Lina without supervised visitation."

"But why? You always said he was a good dad?" she asked, confused.

"Well he is until he gets mad. Then he doesn't care if she's terrified or crying and that scares me more than anything. I don't want her being traumatized because of what he could do." I said solemnly.

"Has he done that already?"

I looked around the office then slowly pulled down my collar to show the bruising there. Her eyes widened in surprise which turned to anger. "He did that in front of her while she screamed. Then when she was crying, he blamed me for turning her against him and left us both there. Then today, I see him with that woman as if nothing ever happened." I shook my head.

"You can't let that asshole be around Lina at all! What if he hurts her too? He's clearly not above hurting someone smaller than him. He's a psychopath and complete narcissist. You need to go to the police." She was so upset for me, it was nice to have a work friend to vent to.

"I will if he does anything else." I told her, defeated.

"What if he kills you the next time he tries something??" she tried knocking some sense into me.

I sighed, "You're right. Can you take pictures of my neck so I have proof?" to which she nodded and took out her phone.

I pulled my collar down and she gasped at just how bad the bruising was. "Oh my God, Row..." then put her phone up and snapped pictures from different angles.

After she was done, she saved them to the cloud so no one could get them. Then she pulled me in for a hug. She was much shorter than I was - I'm 5'6" even without the heels I was wearing today and I would say she was closer to 5"1" - so it was a little weird of an angle but I appreciated the gesture.

She pulled away and said, "You should have Everett - hot name for a hot guy by the way - there when you decide to leave. It may make him more angry but at least you will have some protection for you and Lina to get away." she looked at me seriously.

"I know, he gave me his number for if I ever felt like Sam was gonna hurt me again. I'm just so scared, I don't want Lina to see any of that." I said, shivering.

"Well you can always bring her to my house if you need somewhere safe for her while you get your things out!" and I was so grateful for her in that moment, she was truly a great friend!

"Thank you Jenna, truly! That means a lot, " I said, starting to get teary eyed.

"Don't get all sad on me! You start smiling right this instant young lady!! Just think about how handsome your new boyfriend is and started drooling instead," She wiggled her eyebrows at me and I laughed again, shaking my head.

"Fine. Well go get back to work, this episode of Dr. Phil is over." I smiled and started working on my computer again. She laughed and walked back out to her station.

I had to come up with the best way to leave with as little issues as possible. My best bet would be making a police report so I would have something on my side for when this goes to court.

After work, I went to pick up Lina and then we went to the police station. I told the woman up front, "I want to file a report for domestic violence."

She brought me over to a friendly officer who was sitting at a desk. "How can I help you?" He asked kindly as we sat down. I gave him my ID for any info he would need.

"I want to file a report on my husband for domestic violence." I said shakily.

"When did the event occur?" He started typing on his computer.

"Yesterday evening." I told him.

"Can you tell me what happened?" He seemed sympathetic to my cause which helped.

I told him everything that happened and when I was done, Lina started crying again and I held her to my chest, trying to console her.

"Daddy was hurting mommy and wouldn't let her go." She bawled, telling the officer what she saw.

"Well we aren't going to let your daddy get away with that, okay honey?"

She nodded and they brought me over to get pictures of my neck as proof to add to the case file.

"Do you have any idea where he could be?" He asked me when we were back at his desk.

"Well he didn't come back home after that and today I saw him at the bistro downtown with another woman. But other than that, I have no idea where he could be." I showed him the picture which he had me send him to add to his file.

"Okay thank you, we have everything we need!" And I shook his hand as we walked back out.

I felt so nervous, like this was the start of a long battle ahead of us.

Little did we know what waited for us at home.