Page 32

CHAPTER 32

Birdie

The envelope doesn’t hold a note. No quotes, no vows, no words, just photos. Six to be exact.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Each one of these is a thousand daggers in my back. I lean back in my chair behind my desk and close my eyes for a moment’s reprieve, as if I can ever get those images out of my mind.

“Birdie, you have to say something. Anything,” Tristan says, and it sounds like a plea.

I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been sitting there staring at the photos. I must have looked at them a hundred times. I don’t know what I expect to change every time I take in Blake and Gia, both butt-naked in her bed, from six different angles.

“I’ve always suspected Gia has a thing for my husband, but I’ve never thought he’d go for her. She’s not his type.” I shrug. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re shocked. You’re angry. Whatever it is that makes you think you must hide your feelings, whoever convinced you that you’ll be punished for your tears, they’re not here. You’re free. Let it all out. Don’t let that shit eat you up.”

How can he say one thing and the complete opposite in the same phrase? How does he understand the aches that have shaped what I’ve become to the core without my telling him the stories behind them, and, at the same time, expect me to cry , my eyes open and bask in the immortalized betrayal, looking for the tears I’m supposed to shed, over this?

“Your husband and your friend betrayed you in the worst way possible. You can’t pretend that you feel numb. No matter how much you hate him, it still hurts. No matter how much you love her, it’s unforgivable.”

I rub my fingers over a sigh. “When someone recommends a romance book, even one that is pitch black, do you know the first question readers would ask to determine whether they’d read it or not?”

He crouches by my side and stares at me with both curiosity and concern.

“Is there cheating?” A humorless laugh slips its way under my breath. “Can you believe this? They don’t care if the main character is a sick murderer who takes lives. They don’t care if he kidnaps her and forces her to become his. They don’t care if he’s so violent he physically hurts her. Heck, they don’t even care if he rapes her bloody, so long he doesn’t cheat on her.

“In the world of romance, Tristan, the only sin a woman can’t forgive is betrayal. Don’t think for one second what I feel now is numbness.”

“Then lash out, scream, free those trapped tears.”

“Screams and tears?” I lean forward until my mouth is an inch apart from his ear. “Do you know the first thought that crossed my mind when I found Butterfly Man’s note on my pillow, before morality, rage and disgust roiled in?”

“No.”

“I thought that psycho was the answer to my prayers.”

His head jerks, and his eyes widen at me, as if in shock, as if he didn’t know, as if he’s never whispered the same prayers at a different place and different time, as if he never wished for his own Butterfly Man. “Birdie, you know why he sent these photos. Gia is already MIA. She’s not answering her phone, and Brandon just came back from her apartment and didn’t find her. You know what’s gonna happen to her and Blake after.”

“When Saldana happened, I wondered why start with her when the monster that matters the most is still out there spitting venom on what’s left of me,” I continue whispering in his ear. “Then he sends me these photos, and it’s no longer screams and tears I’m hiding, Tristan. It’s the biggest grin I can muster.”

“You can’t think like that.”

I can’t think like that? Drawing back, I point at the pictures. “Do you see the bed in the photos? That used to be Gia’s bed when she had to stay over in what now is the control room. Take a look at the timestamp.”

He rises to his feet and glances at the little numbers. “What about it?”

“That’s two days after I got out of the hospital last year.”

A grimace contorts his face. “What?”

“She wished me goodnight and went downstairs to fuck my husband in my own house two days after he beat the hell out of me and left me for dead. Don’t you dare tell me I can’t think like that .”