Page 167

But he knows if he brings her up, it’ll set me over the edge. At least he thinks it will. And I admit, it definitely sends a wave of nausea through me having her name pass through his lips again.
Despite the war raging inside me, I lean back and wink at him. “Happy.”
Sweat coats my skin as the summer humidity clings to the back of my neck. I give him a one-word answer. I’m not telling him that we just celebrated six years of marriage where I took her back to Costa Rica, the same place we went on our honeymoon. Same place she got pregnant with Taliyah. I’m not telling him that we have three beautiful children that are a spitting image of her. Green eyes, blonde haired babies. A piece of her he will never get, I have in my arms every night. I won’t tell him that despite all the therapy and years of healing, Evie still has nightmares and screams for Shane to stop. She still can’t look at a bat without her face paling, even though our son loves everything baseball related.
I won’t tell him that I see a therapist once a month, but the pain is still there. Present in our everyday lives. Hell, I can’t hear out of my left ear and my headaches, I’ll suffer with migraines my entire life thanks to the one across from me. He doesn’t need to know that I told everyone I was okay so I could move on, so Evie and I could move on, and that I try to convince myself of that too. But it’s a lot harder to sell truth to yourself. He doesn’t need to know I’m not okay. Evie’s not okay. She tries to act unbreakable and me, unshakable. It’s an act, one we’re really good at because we have babies now and they deserve parents who aren’t going crazy. And we might feel shitty for the rest of our lives. I’m angry. Even angrier now that I see his face. No matter how much I try, I can’t forget it. I can’t stop seeing him raping my wife. I can’t stop reliving it.
He doesn’t get to know any of that. What he gets isthis. Me. Sitting before him. Surviving.
“I know she came to see you once… and at first, I was pissed that she went without me.” I swallow, my throat dry, my words harsh but calm. My tone is even though inside, I’m raging, fighting with my racing mind. “After a moment of anger and resentment that she wasn’t honest with me, I understood. Now, staring at the you, the man who tried to destroy us, I understand.”
His jaw clenches and he looks anywhere but at me. There’s no remorse. No begging for forgiveness. I sit up straighter, his silence is deafening. Frustrating. Downright disrespectful.
I kick his foot under the table, the chains on his ankles clank against the metal table and draw the attention of the guards. “Look at me you piece of shit,” I snap, my words sharp but my stare even deadlier. Without caring what happens, I lunge my upper body on the table and reach forward. So lost in my anger, consumed by the rage, I grab a handful of his jumpsuit and slam him forward until he makes contact with the table, our faces inches apart.
Scowling, he winces and jerks his legs back. Slowly, he slides his eyes to mine. He studies me, picking apart the glimmer of emotion I let seep out. He’s looking for a weakness. An opening to deliver a blow he knows will hurt me. Drawing in a deep breath, he grits out, “What are you looking for, Grayson? An apology? Is that what you want?” His dead eyes lock on mine as he fights to move back. I eye the guard to my right and he looks the other way, as if he hasn’t seen anything. “You want me to say I’m sorry for raping her?” His nostrils flare, his shoulders stiff. He lets out a dry laugh. “You want me to say I’m glad you’re still alive?”
My breathing picks up and though I wanted to remain calm and not cause a scene, my temper gets the better of me. I shift forward, my chest against the table. Tilting my head, leaning further toward him, I pause and smile, my grip on his jumpsuit tightening. Our faces are inches away when I growl, “I don’t need anything from you.”
“Yet you’re here,” he spits, uninterested as he sighs. He lifts his cuffed hands and holds them steady in front of him. “I’m here. Locked up for life.” He glowers at me with more fury than I’ve seen in a while. “Isn’t that enough revenge for you?”
I’m not sure what to say. How to respond. I sit there for amoment, unmoving. Revenge? I thought it meant payback. Eye for an eye. It’d feel so good to act out revenge, but what would that get me? Besides missing my daughter’s birthday party.
Every muscle inside me tightens, straining, my chest constricting. Isn’t that enough? It should be. But is it? He’s not locked up for life. He got twenty years for first degree rape and another fifteen for first degree attempted murder. That’s not enough. Itneverwill be. I swallow over the lump in my throat. The tightness in my chest twisting. My hands shake, hell, my entire body is shaking with pent up anger I didn’t know I still had for this situation and him.
He tips his head. “Truth is, me fucking your wife’s ass is my best memory of her,” he says, the words piercing through me.
My vision blurs, my body burns. I close my eyes, drawing in a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. When I reopen my eyes, he’s staring at me. Waiting. For a reaction. The revenge he wants me to attempt. My brows knit together, pain radiating through my jaw. I wait another beat before I answer him. “I wish you were dead. I wish you had blinding headaches and nightmares. I wish… someone brutally raped you and took every ounce of security you felt and ripped it away. I wish for what you did tomy wife, and me, to happen to you.Over, andoveragain until you die. If not physically, but mentally. Emotionally.” He doesn’t say anything but he’s listening. Maybe not caring, but he’s listening to the words I’m saying. “So no. It’s not enough that you’re behind bars.” I have to force the words out through the swell of emotion in my chest. “It won’t ever be enough. But I have her. She’s breathing, living a lifewith me, inmybed every night and I know that kills you.” I let go of him and he falls back into the metal chair. “That’s revenge.”
His jaw flexes again, his eyebrow curved in question and then he nods to the men standing against the wall. “Guard?” he barks, keeping his death stare on mine. I bet if he had a bat, he’d take another swing.
The guard comes forward but before he reaches Shane, heleans in and smiles, hard and tight. “I’m not sorry for what I did to you.” His nearly black eyes reflect nothing. That’s when you know a man is truly gone. When you stop seeing emotion. You see a shadow of what used to exist. It’s like a black hole now. “I’m only sorry you survived.”
I damn near flinch at the anger in his voice, an echo of my own tone used. There’s a buzzing sound, a door opening and closing next to me. I laugh and stand from the table. I wonder if I look as confident as I’m trying to be, despite wanting to kill him. “Try harder next time.”
Maybe he will try again. I don’t know.
Does it scare me?
No. It doesn’t. Couple years ago it might have, but not now. Not when I have everything he wanted. I watch him disappear behind closed doors before I leave. I shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans and breathe in. It does nothing to calm me down.
I take my time leaving the prison. Ethan’s waiting in the truck. I look up, sweat beading at my temples as I trudge through the parking lot. The sun reflects off the metal fencing, blinding me momentarily.
I swallow over the ever present lump, unsure what coming here got me. Satisfaction of knowing he hasn’t changed?
Maybe.
As soon as I open the door to the truck, Ethan is pummeling me with questions. “What did he say?”
I stare at the prison in the distance. “He’s sorry I survived.”
“Seriously?” Ethan sucks in a sharp breath beside me. I look over at him. “What the fuck?”
Taking my cell phone out of my pocket, I notice I missed a call from Evie. I hold it up between us. “We have bigger issues here.” Evie doesn’t know I came here today. I told her Ethan and I were driving to Nashville to pick up a Fender guitar for Taliyah’s birthday. That’s true. We did that, but I made a deter atthe Limestone Correctional Facility in Harvest. And I think if Evie put two and two together, she knew. She had to of.
Ethan’s smile forms, amusement on his face. “She’s going to kill you.”
“That’s what grand gestures are for.”