Page 8 of Undertow

I can’t stop my gaze from landing on the woman still blasting me with silent messages I don’t want. What’s Scarlett trying to say? And what the hell do I have to do with any of this? Five minutes into the meeting, and all I have is more questions.

“It was my daughter who came up with the idea,” McArthur continues. “Well, in a way. Come sit. Let’s relax while we talk. Patrick, get him a drink, will you?”

The man beside Scarlett recoils at the request, his face contorting into a scowl. The fiancé, maybe? It was big news when the engagement made the rounds a few months ago. He clearly doesn’t like the open taunt of being forced to serve drinks to the guy “his woman” chose.

For something. I still don’t know what.

I’m calm as I take the empty chair McArthur offers me. On the coffee table is a spread of folders, a laptop, and what looks like a map. The other diagram almost looks like a family tree.

McArthur returns to his seat and waves over the table in a clear invitation to observe. Leaning forward, I do my best to keep my expression neutral as I study the contents.

“Are you familiar with the story of the Hatfields and McCoys?” he asks.

I snap my gaze to his. “The two families that hated each other?”

“Exactly. Not just hated,despisedeach other. They loathed each other to the point of slaughter.”

His gaze scratches at my eyes with unspoken violence. His lips curve into a vicious smile. “Have you ever known that kind of hatred, Shaw? That driving need to annihilate someone?”

Blood pounds through my veins as I stare into the face that’s haunted every shadow, every silence, since the moment we met. The face of the devil himself.

“Bullet or paradise? Which will it be, Roman?” he asked.

Which will it be? Not a question. Ataunt.

Cold dead eyes raking my soul, sinking in claws that knew the lie of that choice, even as the words spewed out as toxic air. Knew it wasn’t a choice. What he really meant was Bullet or Hell?

Except I didn’t know Hell like I do now.

“Yes,” I say evenly. “I know that kind of hatred.”

His return smile lodges in the pit of my stomach. “Good. You will need it. Take some time to bathe in it. Wear it as a shield. Let it flow through your veins and steel your mind. Because you, my friend, have just become the epicenter of a war.”

By the timeI close the door to my room two hours later, my brain is dark and splintered. Words swirl in a furious vortex, pieces of my soul I’ve had to lock up for too long. My head pounds as I drop to the edge of the bed and press the heels of my palms against my eyes. The ache. The agony of another day I don’t want to live. Another sin I don’t want to commit.

But I will do both. Live. Sin. Tear off another piece of my fractured soul and feed it to the monster I’ve become.

Only one ghost knows the truth of my existence, the real man behindRoman Everett Shaw. Only one vault protects the core of who I am amidst the wasteland of false identities and broken promises. SometimesIcan’t even remember, but it always does. It always reaches through the mirror to drag me back from the shadows, like it has my entire life. To remind me I’m more than this. That somewhere inside the decaying shell, I can still touch what’s left of me. Just the smallest piece.

My heart.

My sanity.

My air that will help me breathe for another day.

I pull the composition book from a hidden compartment in my suitcase and open to the next blank page. The trauma of tomorrow still haunts the recesses of my awareness, but for now I cling to my last, remaining tether.

The one part of me no one can ever own.

Dropping to the mattress, I grip my pen, blink through the shadows… and write.

The light at the end of the tunnel

seems to be eons away,

so I’m doing my best to find some peace

in the darkness for now.