Page 23 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

twenty-three

Soren

“A scream?” I blink dumbly, my brain trying to handle all of the things that had come into it in the last few hours.

“Yes ma’am.” The officer—his nametag reads BARNES—cranes his neck a bit, obviously trying to see past me into the house. “Is everything alright?”

Unease spills over me like a bucket of cold syrup being poured over my head. It’s slow and viscous, but it’s there.

Everything is not alright. Not even close.

I have a stalker—at least one. The jury is out on whether my boss, who I caught outside my window watching me touch myself, is the same as the man who is texting me right now.

Unless those text messages came from this scrawny-looking officer who looks like he’d rather spend a night in the woods than be here talking to me, someone is watching me right now.

“I’m fine.” I find myself saying. My tongue knows exactly how to move to say the word without choking on it. It’s got plenty of practice. I’ve been fine for the last year.

“Are you home alone?”

His question makes me narrow my eyes on him, and he seems to recognize that it could be taken the wrong way, because he shakes his head. “I mean, is there something I can do for you? Do you need help?”

I need more help than one officer can give.

My own therapist wasn’t up to the task of helping me, and the police department has already proven themselves to be genuinely and pathetically useless.

I open the door a little more, letting him see that there’s no one holding a gun to my head making me say that I’m okay.

I guess I should appreciate the effort, but it feels like a waste of my time to be here talking to him right now.

“So, there’s no sort of… domestic dispute?”

Bite your tongue, Ren, I tell myself.

If I don’t follow my own advice, I’ll probably tell the officer no domestic dispute since I already killed my husband.

That’s what they all think. I’m not even sure that Detective Fremont has given up on looking into me.

When he questioned me last, he told me not to skip town…

a warning that I was considering disobeying given my current situation with Declan.

“No.”

“The scream was reported…” Officer Barnes glances down at the watch on his left wrist and takes a second longer than he should need to read it. “About two hours ago.”

Two hours ago, and they’re just now showing up?

Good thing there is no one here trying to murder me—I’d probably be dismembered in the bathtub by now.

It’s not funny, but the thought makes me laugh. Officer Barnes grimaces and his green eyes narrow on me even more.

“Two hours ago?” I laugh again. “Well, don’t worry. I’m alive this time. Next time you take two hours to show up, I probably won’t be.”

“Miss…”

“It’s Mrs.” I correct him. “Mrs. D’Anerio. And I’m fine. I screamed in the shower earlier because I had a really bad day, and I needed to let my frustration out. And I’m done talking to you.”

“Maybe I could come in and make sure everything is secure?”

“No.” I laugh. All the anger that’s been tormenting me for the last few months in particular is making its way out with this guy as a target. “Your department has already proven their uselessness to me. I don’t need to be reminded of your incompetence. Good night, officer.”

I slam the door in his face and draw the chain lock into place before leaning against it, all the fight leaving me at once.

It’s not nice to take out my dissatisfaction with his superiors on a very-obvious rookie, I know.

I also know that his apparent concern wasn’t genuine.

People like to think they’re helpful. They like to think that their pity or concern means anything in the face of tragedy, but at the end of the day they go home and sleep peacefully, grateful that they’re not the person they pity.

Everyone wants to feel bad for a widow when she’s had her future ripped away from her, but they don’t do anything meaningful to help the widow find a new future or clean up the mess that becomes their past. They all just look the other way and continue to fight with their own spouse over who forgot to put the cap back on the toothpaste or who missed the laundry basket, as if those things are worthy of the breath it takes to complain about them.

Sliding against the door, I draw my knees to my chest and bury my head in my knees.

My phone chimes with a new text.

When I look down at the message, my heart seizes.

UNKNOWN: If I EVER see you answer the door in a robe again, I’ll come lift it above your hips and introduce your ass to a paddle.