Bound to Him: A Spirit's Dark Return

Gavin

Modern | Completed

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The last time I heard my boyfriend Arthur' s voice, he was telling me to stop being so dramatic. I had been kidnapped by a man he' d bankrupted, and I was begging for my life. "This is a new low, even for you," he said, his voice cold with annoyance. "I don' t have time for these games." He hung up on me to deal with a work crisis for his partner, Genesis. My kidnapper, realizing no ransom would ever be paid, strapped a bomb to my chest and left me to die. The explosion killed me, but it didn't set me free. Instead, my spirit became tethered to Arthur, a cruel, invisible chain forcing me to follow him. I had to watch as he investigated the murder of a "Jane Doe," never once suspecting the unrecognizable victim was me. He saw my final text message-the one telling him I was pregnant-and called it a sick, manipulative lie before blocking my number and erasing me from his life. I was a ghost, bound to the man whose indifference was my death sentence, forced to watch him grieve for a stranger while cursing my name. I thought this was my eternal punishment. But a year later, I overheard his new fiancée, Genesis, bragging to her friends. And I finally learned the truth about who really sent my killer to my door.

Crime Betrayal Revenge Pregnancy Drama

Chapter 10

11-04 08:45

Chapter 1

The last time I heard my boyfriend Arthur' s voice, he was telling me to stop being so dramatic. I had been kidnapped by a man he' d bankrupted, and I was begging for my life.

"This is a new low, even for you," he said, his voice cold with annoyance. "I don' t have time for these games."

He hung up on me to deal with a work crisis for his partner, Genesis. My kidnapper, realizing no ransom would ever be paid, strapped a bomb to my chest and left me to die.

The explosion killed me, but it didn't set me free. Instead, my spirit became tethered to Arthur, a cruel, invisible chain forcing me to follow him.

I had to watch as he investigated the murder of a "Jane Doe," never once suspecting the unrecognizable victim was me. He saw my final text message-the one telling him I was pregnant-and called it a sick, manipulative lie before blocking my number and erasing me from his life.

I was a ghost, bound to the man whose indifference was my death sentence, forced to watch him grieve for a stranger while cursing my name.

I thought this was my eternal punishment. But a year later, I overheard his new fiancée, Genesis, bragging to her friends. And I finally learned the truth about who really sent my killer to my door.

Chapter 1

Elia Carpenter POV:

The last time I heard Arthur' s voice, he was telling me he was done with me, right before the world dissolved into a flash of white-hot light.

A rough hand clamped over my mouth, the stench of stale cigarettes and sweat filling my nostrils. My arms were wrenched behind my back, the zip-tie biting into my wrists until my fingers went numb.

"Scream and I' ll break your jaw," a voice rasped in my ear.

I was shoved into a chair in the center of a damp, concrete room. The man who' d dragged me from the parking garage stepped back into the dim light. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollowed out pits of despair. I recognized him from the news articles Arthur used to leave open on his tablet. Fuller Durham. The contractor Arthur had systematically bankrupted.

"You know who I am," he said. It wasn' t a question. "And you know who did this to me. Arthur Thompson. Your brilliant, ruthless boyfriend."

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage.

Fuller paced in front of me, his movements jerky, agitated. "He took everything from me. My company. My house. My family. It' s only fair I take something from him."

He knelt down, his face uncomfortably close to mine. "You' re going to call him."

"No," I whispered, the word barely a breath.

He laughed, a dry, rattling sound. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket, its screen cracked. "Oh, you will. You' ll call him, and you' ll tell him I have you. You' ll tell him I want the ten million he stole from me, or he' ll never see you again."

He unlocked the phone and shoved it against my ear, his fingers digging into my cheek. The phone rang once, twice, then a third time before Arthur' s voice came through, clipped and impatient.

"What is it, Elia? I' m busy."

His tone was a familiar bucket of ice water down my spine. I swallowed against the lump in my throat. "Arthur," I began, my voice trembling. "Listen to me. I' m in trouble."

"Trouble?" He sighed, the sound heavy with exasperation. "What now? Did you forget to pay the credit card bill again? Genesis is having a major issue with the foundation plans for the Zenith tower, and I have to deal with it. Whatever your drama is, it can wait."

Panic clawed at my throat. "No, it' s not that. Arthur, I' ve been kidnapped."

There was a beat of silence on the other end. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought he understood.

"Kidnapped," he repeated, his voice flat with disbelief. "Elia, for God' s sake. This is a new low, even for you. I don' t have time for these games."

"It' s not a game!" I cried, tears blurring my vision. "His name is Fuller Durham. He wants money. Please, don' t come here. Just call the police. Don' t-"

Fuller snatched the phone away from me, his eyes blazing with a strange mix of fury and disappointment. He put it on speaker.

"You hear that, Thompson?" Fuller snarled into the phone. "Your girlfriend is begging for her life."

Arthur' s voice came back, colder than I' d ever heard it. "I hear my girlfriend pulling another one of her desperate stunts for attention. Genesis just told me a structural engineer forged his credentials, and we might have to halt construction. That' s a real crisis. This pathetic little play of yours is not."

The words hit me harder than a physical blow. A crisis for Genesis. A drama for me.

"I' m warning you, Elia," Arthur continued, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You hang up right now and stop this nonsense. If you make me look like a fool by involving the police in one of your little theatrical episodes, I swear to you, we are finished. For good."

Before I could even process the threat, another voice drifted through the speaker-a voice I knew as well as my own. It was Genesis Bentley. Her tone was laced with manufactured concern. "Arthur, darling, is everything okay? We need to get back to the schematics."

"It' s nothing," Arthur said, his voice instantly softening for her. "Just Elia being Elia."

The line went dead.

An eerie silence filled the room. Fuller stared at the disconnected phone in his hand, a slow, dawning comprehension spreading across his face.

He looked at me, not with anger, but with something that looked almost like pity. "He doesn' t care," he murmured, more to himself than to me. "He actually doesn' t care if you live or die."

The weight of that truth crushed the air from my lungs.

Fuller shook his head and gestured to a large, duffel bag in the corner. One of his accomplices unzipped it, revealing a horrifying tangle of wires, a digital timer, and blocks of C4.

They strapped the device to my chest. It was heavy, cold against my skin even through my blouse.

"My revenge was supposed to be against him," Fuller said, his voice distant. "Making him pay. But he' s already paid, hasn't he? By becoming the kind of man who wouldn't pay a dime for the woman who loves him. There' s no point."

He and his men walked toward the door without another glance in my direction. They were just... leaving.

The heavy steel door slammed shut, the bolt sliding into place with a definitive, metallic clang.

I was alone.

I stared down at the red numbers on the timer strapped to my chest. 10:00. 9:59. 9:58.

A single tear traced a path through the grime on my cheek. Then another. Soon, silent sobs were wracking my body, my shoulders shaking with the force of a grief so profound it felt like it was tearing me apart from the inside.

It wasn't the bomb I was crying for. It was the devastating, final clarity.

He never loved me.

The thought wasn' t an emotional outburst; it was a cold, hard fact settling in my soul. I saw it all now, a slideshow of a thousand tiny cuts. The way he always called Genesis his "partner" with a reverence he never used for me, his "girlfriend." They weren't just business partners; they were family friends, their lives intertwined since childhood.

When I first questioned their closeness, he' d called me insecure. "Genesis is like a sister to me," he' d said, his eyes so sincere I' d felt ashamed for ever doubting him. I believed him. I wanted to believe him. I' d loved him so much, I was drowning in it, blind to the fact that the water was poisoned.

Everything was always for Genesis. Every late night at the office, every canceled date, every holiday cut short. It was always some emergency that only he could solve for her.

I remembered my grandmother' s 80th birthday party. I had begged him to come, just for an hour. He promised. He was dressed, ready to go, when his phone rang. It was Genesis. She was stuck at a site in a bad neighborhood with a flat tire.

He' d looked at me, his expression apologetic but firm. "I have to go, Elia. She' s alone."

"Call her an Uber, Arthur! Call a tow truck! It' s my grandmother' s birthday!" I had pleaded.

"You don' t understand," he' d said, his voice chillingly calm. "It' s Genesis."

As if those two words explained and excused everything.

I had tried to rationalize it, telling myself that their work was demanding, that their bond was purely professional. I had lied to myself, over and over, because the truth was too painful to face.

The truth was that I was never his priority. I was a placeholder. A convenient, warm body to come home to when he wasn't saving Genesis from some manufactured crisis.

He never loved me. He never would.

My shaking fingers found my own phone in my pocket. Somehow, they hadn't taken it. The timer on my chest read 02:14.

I opened my messages, my thumb hovering over Arthur' s name. A thousand vengeful, hateful things I could write. A thousand pleas.

But what was the point?

I deleted his contact. Then I opened a new message and typed my final words to him.

My fingers moved with a strange, calm certainty.

I know you don' t care. But I was pregnant. You were going to be a father.

I hit send.

Then I added one last message, a final, freeing release.

I hope we never meet again. In this life or the next.

I closed my eyes as the timer hit zero.