by Shen, L. J.
“That’s right because you, her only living relative, were MIA.”
“I know.” His voice broke. “I’m here to make amends. Let me? Please?”
He kissed my cheek hastily, worming into my apartment uninvited.
I closed the door, knowing I was going to blow the rooftop with screams in about half a second and not wanting to get evicted or causing Cillian any embarrassing headlines.
“Give me one good reason not to tell Byrne and Kaminski you’re back in town.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
Paxton gave himself a tour around my living room, whistling as he drank in the expensive fixtures, gourmet kitchen, and quartz countertops. His neck craned as he studied the lighting, one hand brushing over a floor-to-ceiling art piece that cost more than the apartment we’d rented together while married.
“Wow. Okay. Nice digs.”
When he saw I was still standing by the door, fully ready to throw him out, he poked his lower lip out.
“C’mon, babe. It’s been a minute. We need to iron things out, but there’s a lot to talk about, don’t you think?”
No, my mind screamed.
Sam had told me I’d dodged a bullet the night of the storm, when I tried to accept Cillian’s proposal and found out he’d already withdrawn it. But the deadly bullet I’d escaped was the day Kill took me as a wife.
He made my problems disappear.
Put me out of harm’s way, no matter the price.
“I’m not buying your charade,” I said pointedly.
“Fine.” His voice dropped to a low growl. “Then let’s get real. I’m glad your bouji ass is living the good life. Got yourself a sugar daddy and found your sass, huh?” Paxton winked, his charming, dimpled smile on full display. He jerked my fridge open, taking out a glass bottle of juice. The kitchen had been stocked thrice a week by Cillian’s people.
The thought of Paxton being here, drinking an organic pressed juice at Kill’s expense made me want to punch him into a wall.
I hadn’t been fair to my husband.
He fulfilled his end of the bargain, providing me with everything he’d promised and more. In return, I pushed him into giving me things he was incapable of providing. Love, sympathy, and tenderness.
Kill deserved to know everything.
About my plan to destroy Arrowsmith.
About Paxton being here.
“The word you are looking for is a husband. My husband does well for himself, yes,” I corrected. “But even more important than his deep pockets, he was kind enough to get me out of the trouble you got me into. Knowing Cillian, he won’t appreciate you being here, so I suggest you get out of here before he does the job Byrne couldn’t finish.”
Paxton snapped his head toward me mid-sip, his eyes bulging.
“Don’t tell me you fell in love with him. That’s such a sap move, Pers. Rich boys don’t have hearts.”
“Neither do poor ones from Southie, apparently.”
He collapsed onto a barstool, groaning as he scrubbed his face.
“Look, I know I haven’t been the man you deserve, babe. But I needed a way out. I knew you were going to get us out of trouble. I couldn’t keep in touch while you were working on getting us out of this, but I stood on the sidelines and watched, ready to pounce if they actually did something to you. I always had your back, Pers. I did this to protect you. Protect us.”
The lie was so half-assed, that I felt hysterical laughter bubbling in my throat. He continued, undeterred.
“Our goodbye was temporary. I always planned to come back. You were smart, resourceful, and responsible. I just needed you to do me this little solid. When I saw the article about your marriage to Cillian Fitzpatrick, I wanted to kiss you. I thought, ‘that’s my girl.’ I was beginning to worry Byrne would follow up on his threat to pimp you out. I was about to step in.”
He put a hand to his chest. He looked like a bad soap opera actor. The type to win a Razzie award every year and be arrogant enough to walk the red carpet to accept it.
My blood buzzed. I was on the brink of smashing his nose in with my fist, and I never hurt so much as a fly.
“You knew they were following me?” I gritted out.
He nodded. “I kept an eye on you the entire time. Made sure you were okay. I was worried sick, Pers.”
“I wasn’t okay.”
“You really need to give yourself more credit, babe. You did great.”
“How did you keep tabs on me?” I demanded.
“Friends.”
“Which friends?”
“C’mon.” He waved his hand around as though I was missing the entire point.
“Where were you, Paxton?” I pressed, taking a step toward him.
No part of me was unsure or ambivalent.
No disappointment.
No sorrow.
No pang of that wild heartbreak that tore at me each time Cillian left my bed at night.
All I felt was disgust.
“Here and there,” Paxton sulked, averting his eyes from me to his shoes.
The idiot thought he could waltz into my life and reclaim me.
He mistook my bleeding heart for a dumb brain.
“You either answer my questions or I’m calling security.” I raised my phone in the air.
He shot me a tired smile.
“How’d you think I ended up here? The security in this place is trash.”
“In that case”—I swiped my finger over my phone’s screen—“I’ll call my husband. Don’t let his rich-boy reputation confuse you. He is very good with his hands, beyond just making me come.”
Paxton’s jaw constricted, his eyes darkening.
“Don’t,” he bit out. “Fine. Whatever, Persy. You wanna play? I’m game. What do you wanna know?”
“Who told you about Byrne and Kaminski following me?”
“Mitch.” Mitch was the guy he was paired with by Byrne for assignments. “He was still hustling for Colin a few months after I bailed. Still shoots the shit with Kaminski every now and again.”
“Where were you all this time?”
“Costa Rica was my first stop. The day word got out that Byrne knew I blew all our savings and couldn’t pay him back, I bought a one-way ticket. I laid low there. Worked in construction. Saved up whatever I could. At first, I’d hoped I could come up with half the money, then pay the rest in Boston. I always wanted it to work between us, Persy. I just knew keeping in touch with you was going to put you in a whole lotta risk. Then the news of you marrying Fitzpatrick broke the fucking internet. There were memes about it, dude. I picked up the phone and called Mitch. Asked if it was true. He told me your husband made sure Kaminski could never take a piss standing up again he trashed him so bad. Byrne wasn’t doing so hot, either. I realized I was probably next on your husband’s shit list. That he was going to unleash Sam Brennan on me. Brennan has eyes and ears everywhere, so I moved up to Mexico. Cancun. Stayed with a friend.”
“A friend?” I asked with a snort. The only piece of information to make my heart stutter was Cillian beating up Kaminski. I had no idea he did that.
“A chick from high school. She’s running a spring break resort there. It was always crowded, lots of people moving in and out. I knew Brennan would have a bitch of a time catching me there. I cleaned her pool.”
“Platonically, I assume.” I rolled my eyes. He was such a cliché.
He laughed humorlessly.
“Please, Pers. Let’s not pretend you haven’t been sucking Fitzpatrick’s cock every night the better half of this year. We both did what we had to do in order to survive.”
“In my case, I enjoyed the task immensely,” I lamented. “You haven’t even picked up the phone to check in on your grandmother.”
I knew because I asked at the nursing home if they’d heard from him each time I visited.
Paxton flopped his cheek over his fist, sighing.
“I knew you would take care of her. I’d trust you with my own life. You always do the right
thing. Listen, we’re out of the woods now. Mitch told me the debt has been paid. Byrne’s out of the picture. We can be together, Persy. Start over fresh. Pick up where we left off. He didn’t make you sign a prenup, right?”
My ex-husband wasn’t only insane, he was also as dumb as a shoestring. I tried to remember what I saw in him in the first place, beyond his Instagram model looks. The answer was clear as it was embarrassing—he was the designated rebound. The antidote to Cillian’s refusal. The untried vaccine that ended up nearly killing me.
“We’re happily divorced. I married someone else.” I erected my wedding finger, an engagement ring with a diamond the size of his face sparkling back at him.
I never took it off. Even when I knew I should.
Paxton jumped up to his feet, hurrying over to me. Maybe it was because he wasn’t built like Cillian—not quite as tall, as broad, as commanding—or maybe it was because he simply wasn’t Cillian, but his very presence annoyed me.
“I get it, babe. You’re angry. You’re hurt. You have every right to be. But you’re not fooling anyone. Your marriage isn’t real.” He stood before me now, grabbing my arms, itching to shake me.
“Ours wasn’t, either. In the spirit of being candid, I, too, have a confession to make.” I broke out of his grip, taking a step forward, my breath fanning his face. “You were always nothing more than a distraction. It was always Kill. You were on borrowed time. But Cillian? Cillian is my forever.”
The words settled between us, an invisible barbed-wire barrier.
By the way Paxton stared at me, I knew he wanted to rip it apart.
The hunger in his eyes alarmed me, even if I knew it wasn’t for me, but for all the things I represented now: wealth, power, and connections.
“All right,” he rustled. “You win. I’ll be the side piece. But it’s gonna cost ya.”
“I don’t want a side piece. Even if I did, you would be the last person on the planet I’d consider. You are mean and selfish, Paxton. Get out of my apartment before I speed-dial Sam Brennan and throw you out myself.”
“Babe,” he groaned, seizing me by the jaw, walking me backward until my back hit the door. “I know you’re pissed, but we were good together.”
His lips spoke over mine. He was kissing me. Half-kissing me, anyway. His breath and heat and body pressed against mine. His tongue rolled over my lower lip.
“I don’t want good,” I spat into his mouth. He tripped backward, his eyes wide.
A slow, vicious smile spread on my face. I didn’t recognize myself in my behavior, and for the first time, I was fine with it. “I want divine, and I found it. Get the hell out, Veitch.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m letting you go.”
It was promise, a warning, and a declaration. He stepped away, giving me a once-over, assessing me before he made his next move. “I’ll change your mind. I won you once, and I can do it again. Whether it’s the easy way or the hard way, you’ll be writhing beneath me in no time, and when you are, I promise you, Persephone, I will make sure your husband knows it.”
“Out!”
He shouldered past me with his tail tucked between his legs.
I closed the door, locked, and bolted it, then pressed my back against it, letting out a ragged breath, feeling rather than thinking a word that’d been pulsating against my skin from the moment I said “I do” to my new husband.
Saved.
“You dumb piece of cock-sucking shit.” I raised a fist to Sam Brennan’s face the minute he walked through my door, slamming it against his thrice-broken nose.
I’d texted Brennan at five in the morning to let him know if he didn’t show up at my doorstep in fifteen minutes, I was going to buy every building in Southie—federal and private—and bulldoze through each childhood memory in his neighborhood just to shit all over his day.
He made it to my house in nine minutes and didn’t even look ruffled.
I, on the other hand, moved from no profanity to nothing but profanity.
“Good morning to you, too,” he said calmly, readjusting his nose back to its place without as much as a wince as blood spurted out of his nostrils. The crack the bone made alone would make anyone but the two of us gag. “To what do I owe this greeting?”
“To being a bullshit private investigator and a terrible fucking friend. You slacked off. Guess how my wife spent her night yesterday?” I plastered him against my front door, swinging my fist again.
I jabbed his ribs, feeling and hearing at least two of them crack.
“With your dick in her ass?” he asked flatly, tapping the pocket of his leather jacket, taking out a pack of cigarettes and lighting one up. He really was immune to pain. “I suggest you try other holes if you’re interested in knocking her up.”
“You’re a sick human.”
“Thank you.” He dropped his Zippo into his front pocket.
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“To me, it was. Most people don’t consider me human at all. So what was your wife up to yesterday?”
I stepped back from him, realizing his lack of fear and pain made it pointless to beat him up. I walked over to the bar cart. It was five o’clock. Sure, it was in the morning, but I never let semantics get in my way.
“Paxton Veitch paid her a visit.” I poured a finger of cognac into a goblet, training my eyes on the golden liquid.
Sam limped in my direction, his expression unfathomable. “He’s in town?”
“You should’ve known that.”
“You told me not to check on him. You were fucking specific about it, too.” He leaned against the wall, watching me.
He had a point. I’d rejected the idea Paxton Veitch posed a threat to my marriage for so long, being proved differently wasn’t on my radar.
“You need to tail him,” I instructed. “Find out why he’s here. What he wants.”
“I can tell you right now why he’s here—he’s here because his ex-wife just married into one of the wealthiest families in the country, and because he is a money-grabbing scumbag. Do you need me to deal-deal with him?” He raised his eyebrows.
My instincts told me to say yes.
Have Sam off him, chop him up, and throw him into the ocean.
Not necessarily the Atlantic. That was too close. The Indian Ocean sounded good.
I’d never made such a request before, but in Veitch’s case, I was ready to make an exception. I’d refused to give my wife the only thing she’d ever asked from me—love—and sent her right into the arms of her ex-husband, who was probably waxing poetic at her all night.
I pretty much wrapped her up in a bow and handed her over to him.
Yet I couldn’t, for the life of me, do this to her.
Have her idiotic ex-husband killed.
No matter how much I wanted him out of the picture.
I shook my head, clutching the goblet so hard, it dented out of shape, the liquid raining down to the floor. Sam’s face remained unmoved, as if I hadn’t just bent a gold chalice with my own fist. I dumped it to the floor, turning to the bar and plucking a napkin. I patted my palm clean of alcohol and blood.
“Don’t touch him. Just find out as much as you can. Where he lives, what he’s doing, what’s his angle. I’ll deal with him myself.”
Sam nodded.
“Do it now. Drop everything else.”
Another nod. “Anything else you want to know?”
Yes, I wanted to know if I was truly losing Persephone, but that was beyond Sam’s scope.
“Just do your fucking job.” I turned around, ascending the stairway back to my office.
I cursed again.
But this time, no one was surprised.
I was beginning to unfurl, break, crack, and shatter.
I was changing.
Feeling.
And I hated it.
I spent the rest of the day pretending.
Pretending to be present, pretending to work, pretending not to give a damn.
“I should not have eaten the sashimi. It upset my stomach,” I complained when we parted ways at the entrance of the restaurant.
Devon barked out a laugh. “The sashimi was fine. The queasy feeling in your gut is longing. Is Persy still living in her Commonwealth flat?”
I didn’t even grace that with an answer. Longing was something teenage girls did with Armie Hammer. The only long thing about me was between my thighs.
At six o’clock, I called it a day. I drove back home, parked, then spotted Persephone’s Tesla at the front gate.
Killing the engine, I got out of the car, something weird and warm rattling in my stomach.
Food poisoning. Fucking raw fish. I saw a documentary about it. I probably had maggots the size of shits inside my intestines.
Taking measured steps to the front door, I glanced through the window. I spotted my wife standing by the stairway, her delicate hand perched on the bannister.
She wore a white dress, her blond hair tumbling down her shoulders all the way to the small of her back. A dirty angel with a golden crown for a halo.
Imaginary ants traveled up my toes, all the way to my skull.
I rounded the front entrance, trying to get a better angle of her. I saw her talking to Petar, her back to me. Petar was standing directly in front of the window I was standing behind. He spotted me. His face went from distressed to surprised in seconds. I wasn’t known for hiding behind bushes and watching people. Especially people who were inside my goddamn house.
His mouth opened, probably to tell her I was there. I shook my head. He clamped it shut.
Why was she here?
Take a wild guess, asshole.
She was here to thank me for the money, divorce, and enthusiastic dick, pack the remainder of her possessions and ride off with Paxton into the horizon in the Tesla I was dumb enough to purchase for her.
Unfortunately for Flower Girl, playing into her hands wasn’t in my plans. Not anymore. If she wanted to destroy this marriage, she was going to have to do it the long, slow, excruciating way. I wasn’t giving her the chance at a clean kill.