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Zane’s father was the first to speak. “I might end up liking you after all. I’ve been wanting to beat Mark’s ass about my daughter.” He smiled, but it looked more like a grimace.

Mama just shook her head, muttering in patois as she reached across the table to squeeze Zane's hand.

And just like that, the war was over before it could truly begin.

Chapter 33- Mark

I should’ve taken the day off.

First thing that morning, a senior partner pulled me into his office with a look that said it wasn’t about billables. He didn’t waste time. Just leaned back in his chair and said, “You need to get your personal life in order, Mark. You’re making us look sloppy.”

Sloppy.

That’s what he called me.

Like I hadn’t given fifteen damn years to that firm.

Like my name didn’t mean something.

It wasn’t just him. The whispers were loud today. The paralegals didn’t even try to hide that they knew my life was falling apart. I passed two of them by the copier and heard them talking…

“...and he’s mad his wife moved on? Please. He’s slept with half the paralegals in this office. Including me.”

“And me too,” the other one laughed.

“Trash.”

I should’ve turned around. Should’ve walked right back into that office and thrown their damn coffee across the wall. But I didn’t. I just stood there, frozen, letting the heat rise behind my ears and settle in my jaw.

Trash.

That’s what they thought of me.

All because Zane was out here playing soft-bellied victim, even though she was the one who did the worst. She was strolling around town with her belly swole from fucking a construction worker.

He wasn’t even in her league.

But somehow, he got her.

I wish I never saw them coming out that night a few days ago. I had been in the bar down the street, sitting on the patio, when I saw them on the sidewalk. I wanted to know where she was staying. It pissed me off to see her smiling so happily at him.

Like she wasn’t wearing a ring I paid for when she laid up with him.

I wasn’t supposed to follow them. I knew that.

But I did.

I wasn’t supposed to get in a fight, but I was just defending myself.

I’d sat outside the place twice since then. Just parked down the street, engine off. Not close enough to be seen, but close enough to see.

I knew I looked crazy.

Ifeltcrazy.

But no matter how many times I told myself to let it go, I couldn’t. It clawed at the inside of my chest like a live thing. They’d embarrassed me.Shehad embarrassed me. And now people thought she was the victim? ThatIwas the monster?

No.