Conflicting Interests Read Online Free

I’ll give you whatever
you want. Please…please don’t hurt me.” She was begging and she could feel the
tears dropping from her eyes as she waited for him to do something. He was
towering over her, glaring down. He was frozen like a large statue and all she
could do was wait.
    When he reached down for the collar of her shirt, she
shrieked and the sobs that she’d failed to stifle turned to wails of desperation.
Snot was running from her nose and when he jerked her to her fee she tried
again to hold her hands out in front of her. She had to fight back but she was
too terrified to even move. Her hands were crossed at her wrist only a few
inches from her face as though she could make him disappear if she could just
block him out—keep him from killing her if she couldn’t see him.
    “Please…please…please…” Her breath was hitching in her
throat as she pleaded with him.
    His other hand shot out and slapped her hands away from her
face before grabbing her by the throat. He squeezed and her panic built
further. He was panting and she was trying to sob around the constricting
pressure on her throat. When her phone suddenly rang from her pocket, she
grabbed at it without much thought in her head.
    She hit the answer button as she pulled it from her pocket
and before he could even react, she yelled as loud as her garbled throat would
allow. “Help! Help me please!” It was all she got out before he backhanded her
across the face. Her head exploded in a light storm of colors that flashed in
the back of her eyes and she started sobbing again. He snatched at the phone
and she threw it away from her.
    When his eyes returned to her, they were searing her through
like daggers. His snarl had turned animalistic and she watched as if in slow
motion as he raised his hand and punched her. It sent her head sailing in the
opposite direction toward the fireplace behind her and he let loose his grip on
her throat as she was sent toward the rough hard surface of the mantel.
    Her head hit the brick just above and outside her right
eyes, scraping across the surface after smacking hard into it. She fell down,
collapsing on the corner of the brick ledge surrounding the fireplace. It
knocked the wind out of her, pulled her shirt up and scraped across her stomach
as she rolled down to the floor.
    Her back was to him and as she finished rolling from the fireplace,
she caught only a glimpse of his hulking figure as he darted out her still-open
side door and into the night. She started sobbing as she crawled toward the
door and it was only once she’d pulled it closed, locked it and collapsed back
to the floor that she heard Imogen’s voice screeching to her from her abandoned
phone on the floor.
    She crawled to the phone, afraid to stand up from her place
on the ground. She tried to catch her breath as she held the phone to her ear.
But as she gulped down air her voice started to hitch and the sobs took her
over again.
    “Okay…okay…I’m okay, Imogen.” She had to force her throat to
tighten and control the sobs so she could get the words out.
    “I’ve got 911 on my landline. They’re on the way. Are you
safe? What’s happened? Please talk to me!” She was trying as hard as Katrina to
control her voice.
    “Someone broke in. He’s gone. I’m okay. But I’m scared,
Imogen.” And then she was sobbing again.
    Katrina could hear Imogen relaying information to the 911
operator and she stayed on the phone with her. Katrina pulled her knees up
close to her body as the panic washed through her in waves that would subside
and then reinvigorate. But Imogen was there, soothing her, while she waited and
occasionally reassuring the 911 operator that Katrina was okay. Imogen stayed
on the line until Katrina could hear the sirens approaching.
    “I’m okay now. I can hear the sirens.” Her voice was still
shuddering and lurching as she spoke and Imogen remained there at the
operator’s insistence until the police pulled into her