No Going Back by Casey Kelleher (bill gates books recommendations TXT) 📕

of the night,’ Janey Baker said, pulling open the front door and staring at her daughter questioningly, wondering why she hadn’t used her key instead of knocking so loudly. And why she was here so late, full stop.

Janey would never normally have opened the door so late, or to such a furious banging, but she’d checked the security camera’s monitors first, and had been shocked to see her daughter’s image staring back at her. ‘Your father’s asleep. At least he was…’

She could hear Pete now, awake and no doubt wondering what all the commotion was.

‘Mum! He tried to kill me.’

‘What? My god, Shelby, what on earth has happened to you?’ Janey shrieked, realising the state Shelby was in as she stepped closer to the doorway, the light from the hallway highlighting her daughter’s sobbing face. Dishevelled and shaken, her lip was cut and bleeding and her clothes were wet and covered in mud. ‘Come in. Come in,’ she instructed, ushering her distraught girl inside to the warmth and safety of their home. Pete padded down the stairs behind them, reaching the hallway just as Shelby threw herself into her mother’s arms, sobbing loudly.

‘Shelby?’ Pete said, taking in the scene of his hysterical daughter, turning up alone at this time of the night and hugging her mother to her as if her life depended on it. ‘What the fuck’s happened this time? Seriously, you’ve been married all of five minutes, you shouldn’t be fighting as much as you are.’ It wasn’t the first time Shelby had turned up here in the middle of the night, crying her eyes out and moaning about the useless moron of a man she’d stupidly been lumped with. And Pete guessed this wouldn’t be the last time either. Shelby and Ashley had barely been together for five minutes before Shelby had fallen pregnant.

It was never going to be the fairy-tale ending.

Ashley Cooke was the bane of his life. Not only had he managed to get his daughter knocked up in record time, but the untrustworthy weasel had managed to worm his way in to the family business too.

It had been Janey’s idea originally, and Pete had agreed at the time that it made sense. That if Ashley worked for Pete, it meant that Pete would be able to keep an eye on the lad. That he could keep him in some kind of check. All the while making sure that Ashley was earning his way and paying for that child of his and giving his Shelby a decent life. Only Ashley seemed to be a law unto himself: he still seemed to do whatever it was he liked and didn’t seem to care that he was constantly upsetting Shelby with his actions.

It was pay day, so Pete guessed that the man was AWOL as per and drinking away the bulk of his earnings. Pete could happily kill the bastard.

‘It’s not Ashley, Dad. Well, not really. I’ve been attacked…’ Shelby said through her sobs, stepping back and looking her dad in the eye. Her cries became more frantic when she saw the concerned look on her dad’s face as he took in the sight of her injuries.

‘Jesus Christ, Shelby! Attacked by who?’ Pete exclaimed in horror, instantly riled that someone had dared to deliberately hurt his precious daughter. ‘Did Ashley do this to you? I’ll fucking bury that bastard…’ Not waiting for an answer as he grabbed his coat from the hook on the wall. ‘Where is he?’

‘No, Dad, please. It wasn’t Ashley,’ Shelby said quickly, sensing her father’s fury and fighting for breaths between her sobs, so that she could find her words before he went out looking for Ashley. ‘We did have a row. Well, sort of.’ Shelby thought back to the threatening voicemails she’d left her husband. Screaming down the phone and calling him every name under the sun. ‘He didn’t come home tonight. He stayed out and he hasn’t answered his phone. And I was angry with him, so I told him I was leaving him.’

She wiped a stream of snot from her nose.

‘I just wanted to scare him a bit. I want him to be a good husband and to come home to me at the end of the day. Is that too much to ask?’ Shelby said, shaking her head sadly now, remembering why she’d come here in the first place: to get Ashley in trouble with her father. Well, he’d be well and truly in trouble now, because this was all his fault. If he’d just come home like he was supposed to none of this would have happened. She’d be at home in her bed, instead of here, battered and crying in her parents’ hallway.

‘I shouldn’t have walked here. I should have got a cab, but you’re only the other side of the common,’ Shelby said, physically shaking as she thought about her ordeal. She was lucky to even be here right now. ‘That’s when he attacked me. He was going to kill me; he had a knife.’

‘Oh my god. Did he hurt you, Shelby? Did he do anything to you?’ Janey sobbed, thinking the worst – that her heavily pregnant daughter might have been raped.

‘No, Mum, I fought him off. That’s when he punched me.’ Shelby held her face then. Her jaw was throbbing.

‘Right, I’m calling the police,’ Janey said, not waiting for her husband to give her permission as she picked up the phone and frantically dialled the numbers.

‘Who was it? Did you get a good look at them? What did he look like?’ Pete said now, practically foaming at the mouth as he grabbed his keys. ‘I’m going to go and look for him. I’m not waiting for that lot to finally pull their finger out their arses. He’ll be long gone.’

‘I don’t know, Dad. It was dark. He had his hood up. I managed to get a glimpse of his face, but I didn’t recognise him,’ Shelby said, throwing herself into her father’s arms again