Page 45 of Perdition

Emily’s voice lowered, soft as a secret, “Mads, oh…Mads….”

When their movements slowed, as if time itself had decided to hold its breath in respect, they found new ways to touch. Fingers threaded into hair, palms cradling faces, foreheads pressed together. They traded names like blessings, letting each syllable rest against the other’s ear. In the tender pressure of their bodies there was an easy peace—an unspoken pact to be present, to listen, to remember why they had chosen each other on the other side of so many hurried mornings and long evenings.

After, when the urgency faded to warm satisfaction, they remained close, not yet willing to step back into the world’s light.

In hushed whispers, in a bed that felt as much home as the woman beside him, Em told him about nothing—the taste of the soup she’d reheated, a joke she’d been saving—and in the way she said simple things he heard confessions. Mads answered with stories from his time away, each sentence stripped of pretense, finishing the other’s sentences as if they'd written the same line in different ink. They made declarations too, quiet ones: a name murmured into a shoulder, a promise tucked into the crook of a neck, the kind of reassurance that does not need demonstration because it is being demonstrated.

There were moments of laughter between them, the kind that undid tension like heat loosening glue. Emily laughed with her whole body, head thrown back, eyes bright with the private absurdities only they shared. Mads matched her, softer, deeper, and the sound slid into the folds of the apartment like a benediction.

Emily curled into Mads in the small hollow between his shoulder and his neck, her breath slowly evening out as slumber overtook her.

In that moment, he knew true peace.

The shrill call of his cell phone stole that memory, that moment from him as his phone rang.

Cursing under his breath, he checked the screen and nearly dropped it.

Em was calling.

He immediately answered, shooting up from the bar stool to head toward the back office and the quiet away from the bar crowd.

He answered just as he shut the door to the manager’s office, thankful that Stallion was already gone.

“Em? Baby?” Frost spoke, his throat barely capable of forming the words through the relief and dread choking him.

“Your bitch just showed up at my shop, Frost….”

That began the downward spiral, one he should have seen coming, and one he could have prevented if he’d just kept his fucking mouth shut.

When would he ever learn?

FOURTEEN

She tookanother day off work, and she didn’t even bother denying the fact that she was hiding fromhim.

And from ballsy bitches.

And from the truth of what her life had become.

She ached. So much. So deeply.

She hadn’t slept at all the night before, Sarah’s voice and words echoing through her mind…and then Frost’s words.

It’s just a fucking tree….

So that’s what he thought about it, their tree, their spot, their shared memories of a place that was once sacred to them both. It was where they’d had their first moment, their hands touching as they, together, held the little sapling as it was planted. It was their second moment, when they were sitting beside the young tree, it’s thin branches sprouting green leaf buds as they talked about what they wanted their futures to look like—and she’d realized she wanted her future to be woven with his. It was their third moment, when Madsen Flowers asked her to be his girlfriend, cupping her face as he pressed his lips to her for their first kiss. It was their fourth moment, when they’d given their bodies and their hearts to one another in the dark and holy, theirnames carved into the healthy trunk as a memorial to their love, something she’d believed would last forever.

But those moments were gone, extinguished, slashed from their history, the hallowed testament to young love and endurance.

What was once beautiful, pristine, precious, was now toxic, poisonous, and hideous.

No, to the eye, nothing had changed, that shady spot, just beneath the spread branches of the red maple was still idyllic, still quiet, still peaceful.

But the very thought of it, the meaning of it—to her—had become morass. Black. Rank. Disgusting.

It needed to be ripped out, root and all, leaving nothing but disturbed earth and painful memories behind.

It was the first cut that killed the most, slicing right into her soul, chainsaw teeth ripping and shredding and biting and gnawing through the healthy bark and trunk and heartwood—to the very meat and vein and sap.