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I blushed with innocence and handed everything I had right over to him.“I’ll never forgive you!”
I don’t stop until every last garment is littered on the floor. I take a shaky breath, not knowing if it’s him I hate or myself.
My gaze searches the closet for something, anything to validate my rage. I tear open shoeboxes looking for little black books. Ripping through the drawers of a small watch armoire I tear them all out, flinging the cold metal behind me.
Each is a moment I wish I could take back.
Support that I’d given him blindly. The trust. Our marriage vows that meant nothing to him.
There’s nothing that overtly makes him abad manin this closet. No evidence that he deserved to die. There’s nothing here. Nothing but ghosts of the past and memories I haven’t suffered through in a year.
My shoulders rise and fall heavily as I move from one post to the next, focusing on taking it all down. I can’t stand to see his things hanging there.
It’s all the memories and the details he hid from me. They don’t deserve their place anymore. I can’t stand it and I want them gone.
I know deep in my gut that everything Mason told me is true. I always go with my gut, and it led me here. Crying in the middle of a trashed closet, with my prick of a dead husband's clothes scattered around me.
I’m searching for anything. Anything at all that would tell me it’s okay to hate Jace and be done with him forever. That everything Mason said is true, and therefore it’s okay to love him. That it’s okay … for him to have murdered Jace.
I use the sleeve of a suit to bury my face. The cool material makes my heated face feel even hotter. I’ve finally lost it.
“I’ll hate you forever, Jace Anderson.” Exhaustion makes my legs shaky and I just want to lie down. I want to wake up and forget it all. I push the hair out of my face, taking in a deep breath.
My eyes close, and I see Mason. His gorgeous smile, and those deep gray eyes full of so much emotion.
I wish I could smile. I wish I could go to him and beg him to take me back. That’s how far gone I am. I open my eyes, promising myself to be strong, but I can’t walk another step.
My body tingles with awareness and fear as I look straight ahead.
The balcony doors are closed, but unlocked.
I know they were locked. My body feels frozen as I look to my left, the gun still in plain sight on my nightstand.
I look back to the balcony, staring at the lock and knowing without a doubt someone else is in this house.
MASON
Dressed in all black, I’m certain I’ll slip into the night for most people as I casually stroll along the sidewalk to William Street Towers, my father’s office building. It’s late and although the building is unlocked, the offices inside are locked up and most of the lights are off.
Opening the main door, my blood heats with anxiety as it swings open. The cameras are on. I don’t have to look up at the little red lights to know they’re recording.
My posture is relaxed, and I’ll act like I belong. I won’t appear out of place in the least. It’s silent in the building as I rock on my heels and hit the button for the elevator. Someone coughs to my right, and I chance a look at a woman in a pencil skirt walking quickly to the narrow hallway where the restrooms are. A lone soul, working late.
This is how men go to prison for life for crimes they committed, but didn’t get caught for.
This is how you fuck up and drown in your past mistakes for something so damn stupid.
An arrest for trespassing, or breaking and entering? They could charge me with that, and it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have happened to me.
But they won’t stop there. If I get caught, then my father will find out. He’ll know what I was doing. He can push, and the powers that be will sentence me harsher than justice would allow.
This is how men are taken down. For doing stupid shit, rather than keeping their noses clean. But I don’t give a damn. I need to know what’s in that safe. I need answers.
It’s been itching at me, an irritating thought in the back of my head, over and over ever since I left. A nagging that won’t stop and a whisper that tells me everything is there, right there.
He had information on Liam … what else does he have in that safe?
The elevator dings as it arrives, the doors parting for me and sealing my fate.