by Robinson, M.
Her laugh was humorless. “That’s rich since it’s always you! You hurt me! Over and over again. You protect me. You reject me. You give me hope. You take it away. You lie while you smile, and you do it constantly until I believe you. Until I lie to myself in order to love you! I hate you, Romeo! I hate you!”
“You still love me?”
“Let me go!” she roared.
My heart slammed against my chest as she struggled against me. “I would do anything for you, anything!”
“I know!” She burst into tears. “Because you did!”
Cold chilled down my spine. “What?”
“Let me go before I scream!” She struggled against me. “I can’t even look at you, I can’t touch you. I can’t, I can’t, Romeo, I just can’t—”
“Calm down!” I pulled back and cupped her face. “I will always have you—”
“Until you’re bored! Until my name comes up. Is that it? Until I’m no longer useful? What happens when I age? Is that another get out of jail free card? Is that how this works? You claim me until you no longer want me, and then I die?”
“Die?” I shook my head. “What the fuck, Eden, did you miss the part where I said I’d do anything for you?”
“I know what you did!” she screamed, nearly loud enough to break glass.
I dropped my shaking hands to my sides. My entire body went numb. “What are you talking about?”
“I. Know. What. You. Did.” She spoke with conviction.
“Red, you’re not making any fucking sense. You’re talking in circles. I can’t keep up with you.”
“No! I can see very clearly for the first time, and I know what and who you are. Finally! After all these years, I know who you truly are, Romeo Sinacore!”
I shook my head. “Eden, I’ve never pretended to be anything I’m not. Especially with you.”
“Bullshit!”
“I’ve done everything for you. Everything.”
“Oh, I’m fully aware. Don’t you worry about that.”
“Can you stop speaking in code and just spit it out already.”
“I know who killed Tristian.”
I stumbled back. I could see it in her eyes.
All these years.
All this time.
I was protecting her from me.
Only to have her figure what I was capable of, destroying both of us when she seethed…
“YOU!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“What we call evil is simply ignorance bumping its head in the dark.” —Henry Ford
Eden
Then: Right before the funeral
It seemed all I did in that living room was wait. It used to be for Romeo. Then it was in fear of seeing him. And now? Now it was for my own husband. I both wanted to see him and wanted to be left alone.
But it was time.
It all came to a head. I finally saw the evidence I needed.
They said time healed all wounds. Was that true? Was it false?
More lies.
No truths.
I made my way out of the living room and walked into his office. Thinking about the times when I used to look forward to coming in here after a long day. Tristian would be at this desk, working late with a drink at his right hand. I’d announce dinner was ready, and he’d pull me into his arms and kiss me like I meant something to him.
I had been a partner.
Not a pet.
Now I felt as though he’d owned me and used it as a manipulation while he went out and did exactly what he accused Romeo of.
In Tristian’s quest to win my heart, to beat his brother, he actually managed to become worse, and I knew I would never forgive him for it.
For only thinking of himself, when all I’d ever asked of him, was his love.
It should have been so easy.
Instead, he couldn’t see past this invisible competition between him and the guy who gave me away. He couldn’t see that I had made my choice that day because, in his head, it was an ongoing thing and always would be. He would always have to fight to win me; no matter how many times I tried to convince him, I’d already been won.
The front door shut just as I sat in his leather chair.
I used to spin in this chair.
He’d laugh and playfully tell me to get out.
We’d kiss.
I imagined Tristian would now just tell me to get out while on his way to shower off whatever skank he’d just slept with.
I had followed him.
Women’s intuition was wholeheartedly a powerful emotion. It overcame me, and before I knew what I was doing, I was watching him get out of his car and into another woman’s arms. I watched them all morning.
Tears burned the back of my eyes.
Why?
Where had we gone wrong?
Since when did the safe choice turn into your worst nightmare?
“Eden?” Tristian called down the hall.
I took a deep breath, replying, “Your office.”
Footsteps sounded. I blinked, and he was standing there, filling up the doorway.
The man who used to be my best friend.
The man who had said he’d love me in sickness and in health.
The man who had claimed to be the better choice.
The man who had promised never to let me go.
The man who had hated the person his brother had to become for The Family.
The man who no longer had my heart.
The man who had singlehandedly crushed my soul.
“Why are you in my office?” He braced his hands against the door frame, his biceps visible through the black button-down shirt. His black slacks were tight against his thickly corded thighs.
He’d been working out a lot too.
I should have known. All the signs were there. I saw it with my own two eyes.
“Why am I in your office?” I repeated in a condescending tone. “I sent Naz to my dad’s for a sleepover.”
He scoffed. “Still doesn’t tell me why you’re in my chair.”
“A question for a question?”
From the moment I learned the truth of what he was doing, it felt like I never existed in his life; it was as if my memories of him, of us, were just a figment of my imagination.
Our connection.
Our family.
Our love.
Meant nothing to him in the end.
The man who had wanted me.
Who had been raised with me.
Protected me against all else.
Cheated on me.
Two wrongs didn’t make a right, but in that exact moment, I left behind the woman he married.
She was gone, and I had no idea where she was anymore, or if she truly ever existed to begin with. I’d once thought she would be with him forever. Tristian looked at me in the same way he always had. Bringing back hope and fear like she was still there…
Living.
Breathing.
Lurking under all that resentment.
Waiting to be brought back to life after his betrayal.
He looked at me like nothing had changed between us.
When in my reality, everything had.
I had to keep reminding myself of the way he’d treated me; otherwise, I’d fall for his words, and then what?
More lies?
More pain?
More bullshit that would never end.
It was a vicious cycle we were spinning in.
He still looked at me like I was his whole fucking world, while I stared back at a man who had become nothing but a stranger now.
It was all overwhelming.
More than anything, it was undeniably confusing.
I couldn’t decipher what was the truth and what was more lies anymore. He would say anything to get what he wanted.
Me.
I had to stay strong.
No matter what.
We. Were. Done.
He cursed. “Really, Eden? It’s been a fucking
long day, and you’re sitting there trying to flirt? Can we talk tomorrow—”
“I saw you. At your office. With her.”
His face paled. “What?”
“The woman who wears the same perfume you got me for our anniversary last year. I saw her. Kissing you. I saw you stripping her. I saw you…” Tears filled my eyes. “Fucking her like any good cheater does to his mistress.”
“Eden, listen—”
“NO!” I jumped to my feet. “You listen! I gave you everything, and you cheat? What the hell, Tristian—”
He burst out laughing and clapped his hands. “Wow, I should pay you for your performance. Everything? You? Are you fucking kidding me right now? Is this a joke? You came to our marriage bed fresh after fucking my brother!”
“That was years ago, and I apologized again and again. I’d been drinking and—”
“Nice.” He held up his hands. “Whatever, I’m going to bed—”
I finally snapped. “I’m leaving you.”
He froze halfway to the door, still turned away from me.
“I can’t be with you if you’re cheating. I won’t. I’m better than that. Naz deserves better than this. You’re never home; you’re literally fucking a woman under my nose. I can’t. I won’t.”
He turned to face me, lips twisted in a snarl, fists clenched. Rage evident on his handsome face. “You think I’ll actually let you go? After all of this?”
“You think you actually have me still?” I hissed, ready for a war.
He barked out a laugh. “I’ve always had you, and I’m fucking keeping you. You’re just tired. Go and—”
“No.” I grit my teeth. “I’m taking Naz, and I’m leaving.”
His nostrils flared, and he was in my face before I got the last word out. “Like hell, I would ever let you take my son from me!”
Maybe I’d been pushed too far.
Maybe I was just exhausted.
Hurt.
Done.
But I finally spoke the truth, yelling, “He’s not your son!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“A woman doesn’t realize how precious her voice is until she’s been silenced.” —Ursula
Eden
Tristian backhanded me across the face so hard that my body flew back, and I tumbled to the floor. I didn’t have a chance to catch my bearings; in less than a second, he was gripping onto the front of my shirt, holding me in front of his face.
My head spun.
My body trembled.
I saw stars.
Bright.
Big.
Blinding stars.
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” he roared in a voice I’d never heard.
If I thought I had been terrified the night he’d held a gun over my heart, it didn’t even come close to this. Nothing compared to this paralyzed state of panic I felt in this exact moment where his rage had completely taken over his reasoning.
“Tristian,” I whispered, as if his name was a sin off my tongue.
“Tell me!” he seethed, his face turning a daunting shade of red. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“You need to calm down.” I hated how weak I sounded.
How my lips trembled.
How I didn’t recognize this woman who was lying on the ground with her husband holding her captive.
“Calm down? Calm down?” He shook me.
Hard.
Fast.
Long.
I had no choice but to let him.
He was bigger than me. Stronger. Angrier than I’d ever seen him.
“You want me to calm down when you just told me that Naz isn’t my son?! Then who the fuck is his father, Eden?!”
“Tristian, please… you’re hurting me.”
He let me go, but not before he shoved me away from him. Causing my head to smack against the wood floor.
“You fucking bitch! You stupid fucking whore!”
My stomach churned, my mind reeled, and my body felt as if it was falling the fuck apart.
I was hunched over, placing all my weight on my hands and knees. Breathing in fresh air with tears streaming down my face. There was an unbearable amount of weight sitting on my chest from what was happening.
I didn’t expect it would come to this.
Me terrified of my husband.
The man who used to be my best friend.
My family.
The one I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.
“Fuck! Motherfucker!” he growled, pulling his hair away from his face.
Through a daze, I watched as he wreaked havoc around his office. Leaving a path of destruction in his wake. Swiping the contents off his desk, he shouted, “I loved you! I fucking loved you!” He tore the large picture of us off the wall, chucking it at the door. “I fucking loved you!” It shattered to the floor, marring our faces with nothing but glass and debris. Item after item flew through the air, striking the walls, the door, the floor, breaking into pieces.
“Please stop! Please!” I begged, but my words went unheard.
Nothing could stop him.
Especially not me.
“How could you do this to me?!” Tears streamed down his face.
A vase whooshed by my head, crashing behind me, sending me to cower in the corner. This wasn’t the end; this was only the beginning.
Would I wind up dead? Please, God, protect me.
“I trusted you! And you betrayed me!”
My mouth was opened, spewing my own poisons. “I trusted you, and you cheated on me! I trusted you, and you held a gun over my heart! I trusted you, Tristian, and you just fucking hit me!”
My words only heightened his wrath; he went after anything he could find. Knocking over the coffee table, the couch, the pictures on the walls, our life.
Our family.
Broken.
Everything we created together, he was destroying in a flash. When he pulled the tv off the wall and chucked it across the room, I backed into the corner further. Nothing but tears blurred my eyes, my body churned with the desire to fall apart.
I was stupid to not bring my cell phone in that office, just like I was stupid to trust he wouldn’t lose his mind and hurt me.
“Tristian, stop! Please! Just stop!” I broke down to the point of hyperventilating. Hugging myself, trying to hold what was left of me together. “Please, I’m begging you!”
He abruptly turned at the last second as another painting shattered to the ground. Walking through the chaos caused by his turmoil and my betrayal, he grabbed me again.
“It’s Romeo, isn’t it? He’s Naz’s father, isn’t he?”
I cried hysterically, and it didn’t stop him from once again shaking the shit out of my body.
“All these years! All this time! How could you do this to me?”
I opened my mouth to speak.
To say something.
Anything.
I couldn’t.
Not one word left my mouth; he backhanded me across the face yet again. My head whipped back so hard I thought he was going to break my neck.
“Look at me! Fucking look at me!”
“I can’t,” I whimpered, unable to move.
He let go of me, and my lifeless body fell to the floor. Crouching down close to my face, he sneered, “I’ve done everything for you, and this is how you repay me. Spreading your legs for my fucking brother only to wind up pregnant. Well, I’m going to tell you one thing and one thing only… Eden Sinacore. My wife. The mother of my child. You. Will. Never. Leave. Me. Do you understand me? NEVER.”
My eyes widened the minute he spoke with execution…
“I’ll fucking kill you before you ever leave me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter.”—Sophocles
Romeo
Then: Four days later
“Who are you sleeping with?” I asked, pausing for a moment.
&n
bsp; What was her name?
Tasha?
Natasha?
Who the fuck cared.
“I wouldn’t want to piss him off,” I added. Lying was part of the process.
I didn’t give a shit who she was deep throating as long as I got my answers in the end.
“Tristian,” she replied with no hesitation. “But he’s been really busy lately, especially since the Russians decided to turn and—”
“Wow,” I interrupted; “You’re just full of surprises, is that it? I fuck you hard enough, and you sing like a goddamn canary?”
She threw her head back and laughed; her fake brown hair slid off her shoulder before her ember eyes locked onto mine. “You have a certain reputation for bringing the little death, Romeo. How could I say no? Especially if it means that I get another night in your arms—I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Just don’t stop what you’re doing with your dick inside of me.”
“Hmm, you drive a very, very—” I thrust deep “—hard bargain.”
I didn’t let up. The slapping sound of my balls against her ass echoed around the room, along with the wet sucking noise of her pussy soaking down my shaft.
I waited until she was on the brink of the edge.
Hanging.
Ready.
Eager.
“Who’s he working for?”
“Tristian?” Her back arched off the bed.
“Yes.”
“The highest bidder. You know who that is.”
I thrust with more determination, hitting her G-spot.
“Oh, Romeo…”
Her mouth parted.
Her legs shook.
Her core locked up.
“I’m coming…” she breathlessly moaned.
“No shit.”
Her cunt clamped down on my cock.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
They all loved me; it was part of my charm.
I gave her a devious smile. “Thanks for the fuck.”
Our eyes connected, becoming one. Before she loudly gasped.
Toes curling.
Chest seizing.
Heart stopping.
I watched as blood oozed out of her mouth and down her chin. Getting lost in the symmetry of her death.