Page 50

Aiden

The burned-out Lexus sits about 50 feet away from the stone steps, just another skeleton in the graveyard of my past. It looks so nice on the lawn, framed on both sides by Victorian urns I never bothered to refill with anything living.

This house has been dead for years anyway. I imagine the car will stay there for quite some time, a monument to this new chapter of my life.

Of our life.

How poetic.

Tipping my glass, I empty the rest of the scotch into my mouth, savoring the burn as it flows down my throat. I’m finally getting a buzz, which means I have to stop because there’s nothing that I hate more than not being in absolute control of my mental faculties.

She would say I have control issues, just like she’ll say I’m holding her captive in this house. But she’s biased. Her opinion of me is based on an incomplete story that I’ve allowed her to carry around like a security blanket since she left here all those years ago. But that’s about to change. She likes stories, and I wonder if she’ll like the one that I’ve been holding onto just for her.

Our reunion was nothing unexpected, full of hellfire and brimstone that could rival Mount Vesuvius. I half expected to end up with a knife in me like last time. It’s been an exciting 48 hours.

She thinks I’m a monster, a horror with no soul and a heart made of granite and ash, smoldering like that car out there on the lawn. And she’s not wrong. I should be in prison. She could’ve put me there a long time ago with just one word, but she didn’t. And that was her mistake. But contrary to popular belief, I can compromise. I’m prepared to move on, but not before she pays for what she did.

Because I don’t forgive. And I don’t forget.

I’ll leave her alone tonight only because I have an engagement with two people who have proven to be just as cold-blooded as me.

Turning from the window, I meander across the marble floor as the fading sunlight bursts through the glass, painting the room gold. It’s my favorite time of day—when everything looks like it’s on fire.

Taking a seat in the middle of the oversized sofa, I grab my controller and headset from the table and scan the names along the side of the flat screen mounted above the mantle. The fireplace is empty now, but by the end of this endeavor, who knows?

The corner of my mouth curls when I see their handles show up as active. Obi GYN Kenobi and American Ass Eater. What a pair. I don’t have to wait long, though. Alex sees my handle first— SistaFista .

“You never know when to quit,” Alex taunts. “Ready to get destroyed again?”

He doesn’t know the half of it. I’m a masochist, a glutton for punishment, because I can take it just as well as I can dole it out.

“I actually have a question for your woman.”

“What kind of question?” Dallas’s cloying voice cuts in.

“What if I told you that I have a way to not only bring down our boy, Bo, but his entire family, including our friends at the Canaan Police Department?”

There’s a pause, confirming my offer is having its desired effect.

“What have you got, Aiden?” she finally replies.

“I have a belated wedding present for you.”

“Our wedding was over a year ago.”

“Fine,” I shrug to myself, “it's not so much a present as—"

A door slams upstairs with a resounding echo, eliciting a smile from me as a surge of blood rushes to my groin.

“A secret weapon.”

THE END