Adrianne …
He paid her to break up their marriage. Still … it didn’t excuse everything.
“You have a video of you and Evelyn. I saw it. You have nothing. The two of you already ruined everything on your own.”
“Evelyn …” He laughed again.
I married Satan in the flesh. How … how did that happen?
“I wanted her … I requested she look like Evelyn.” He smirked.
What? No. No, no, no!
Tremors attacked my body while a cold sweat trickled down my back. The vein along my forehead throbbed. And my racing pulse suffocated each breath.
I thought my world ended when I saw that video. I was wrong. My world ended with his revelation.
It. Wasn’t. Evelyn.
I let that happen. Revenge made me the temptress.
It. Wasn’t. Evelyn.
“Aw, baby … are those tears on your cheeks?” Graham leaned forward, reaching for my face.
I swatted his hand away. “DON’T … touch me.”
He paused, teeth clenched.
“You will never have her. Because deep down she knows what a fucked-up psychopath you really are.” The never-ending tears blurred my vision. “She will hate you.”
Whack!
Blood replaced the tears in my right eye as darkness and squiggly lines stole my vision. I think my eyeball exploded.
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
His knuckles connected with my jaw.
One. Two. Three.
The force of his anger knocked me onto the floor. A metallic taste spread along my tongue while a part of my tooth fell from my partially mangled mouth.
That’s it … just kill me. I know you have it in your fucking evil soul. Just … finish it.
He didn’t.
Graham didn’t kill me.
He locked me in my room and boarded the windows. I waited to bleed to death, but that didn’t happen. Completely blind in my right eye and unable to form words from my swollen mouth, I crawled from the floor to the bed—choking as my tongue worked to swallow the blood from my wounds mingling with stomach acid.
Silent sobs racked my chest.
Please let me die. Take me to my mom and dad. Take away this pain. And forgive me. Please forgive me for what I did.
I prayed over and over, shaking, chilled, and on the verge of losing consciousness. I prayed never to awaken. It was my time. I had nothing left.
Ronin
Mrs. Humphrey’s wet tongue painted my face. I didn’t blackout, but I felt like the one on the losing end of a street fight. Blurred vision, numbness in my tongue, a debilitating pain along my jaw that made it hard to speak. The only word I tried to say was Lila.
I moved my phone in front of my face, focusing with my good eye as I brought up Lila’s number. It rang and rang.
My thumbs moved across the screen, texting her.
Ronin: Call me! What’s happened?
“L-L-Li-la,” I tried to say her name, but my mouth fucked up the word. I dropped my phone onto my chest, closed my eyes, and waited for the room to stop spinning, for the pain to subside, for my lunch to stop crawling up my throat.
A few minutes later, my phone vibrated. My hands fumbled it a few times before I got ahold of it bringing it to my good eye.
Graham.
Something very bad happened to Lila. That was what he was calling to say. I knew it.
I slid the bar across the screen and brought it to my ear, having no clue if my mouth would give actual coherent words. It didn’t matter; he spoke first.
“Lila left her phone. Sorry, buddy.” Graham’s words held a different tone than I had ever heard from him before. Eerily calm. “I don’t know when she’ll be back. She was pretty torn up when I told her about the surveillance cameras in the library.”
No. Fuck …. Please no …
“But some of those books are incredibly rare, first editions. Not to mention the priceless art scattered throughout the room.” He sighed. “Anyway, she left. No phone. No suitcase. Her car is still here, so apparently she took an Uber or just ran off on foot. My people are looking for her. Do you want to leave a message? I’m sure she’ll eventually turn up.”
“Wh-what did you do?” I slurred the words, trying to say them without moving my jaw.
“You’re breaking up, buddy. Listen, I have to go. And for what it’s worth. I have no hard feelings toward you. We married the wrong people. Shit happens. I think what matters at this point is the world is on the precipice of righting those wrongs. For all I know, Lila’s halfway to some other state by now. Preparing to start a new life. Maybe you should think about doing that too. Maybe you should return to Canada. Great skiing there. I’ll handle things here. Best of luck.” He ended the call, the way he ended my world.
I heaved my phone across the room. It knocked a family photo onto the floor, shattering the glass. So very symbolic.
Mrs. Humphrey barked and jumped up on the sofa with me, whimpering a few times while situating herself between my legs and resting her head on my chest.
“I f-fucked up …”
When my family returned, I had planned on telling Evelyn everything. I never planned on Graham. I didn’t know what my chances were of her forgiving me, of her not leaving me. But after that call I knew the number.
Zero. Zero chance of not losing everything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Evelyn
Franz wanted to call Ronin the second he woke up on Thanksgiving. Ronin didn’t answer his phone the previous day. They received almost a foot of snow, so I assumed he was too busy to respond until after the kids’ bedtime. A text would have been nice.
I couldn’t keep my mind from wondering if he was with Lila.
Touching her.
Holding her.
Doing things that required him to take his shirt off.
“Now! Call Daddy now!” Franz handed me my phone as I finished pulling on my socks, perched on the edge of the bed.
“Fine. Go get Anya. She’s in the kitchen with Aunt Katie and Grandpa.”
As Franz ran out of the bedroom, I tried FaceTiming Ronin—to my surprise he answered right away.
“Hey.” I smiled. In spite of all that happened before we left, my chest felt warm and my stomach had butterflies just seeing his face. It had only been a few days, but I already missed him.
“Hey.” He sat on the bed, propping his phone up on the nightstand while drying his hair with a towel. No shirt.
“Good timing. Looks like you just got out of the shower.”
He nodded, hooking the towel around his neck. “I figured I’d get a call soon. Thought I’d at least shower for the occasion.”
“You okay? Your words sound a little slurred and weak.”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his damp hair. “Just tired.”
“I see you got a lot of snow.”
He nodded, not making any sort of eye contact. It had been a long time since things were exactly “right” with Ronin, but that morning something felt especially wrong—completely off—about him.
“Daddy!” Franz hopped on the bed and looked over my shoulder at the phone screen while Anya climbed into my lap, poking her dark head into the shot.
“Hey, you guys are a sight for sore eyes.” As he said those words, I noticed his eyes turning red, brimming with unshed tears. I rubbed my chest, trying to ease the ache. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen him look so emotionally tortured.
“We’re having waffles for breakfast. And Grandpa is cooking a turkey. Where’s Mrs. Humphrey? I miss you, Daddy. Is it snowing there?”
Ronin chuckled, turning his head to wipe his eyes, but I saw it even if Franz and Anya missed it.
“Daddy kisses.” Anya grabbed my phone and kissed the screen.
“Aw, muah to you too, baby girl. Here she is.” Ronin angled his phone to show us Mrs. Humphrey on the bedroom floor chewing on an elk antler.
“We saw the Golden Bridge. It was not gold,” Franz huffed
.
“No? Well, that’s too bad. Why name it the Golden Gate Bridge?”
“I don’t know. I’m hungry. Bye, Daddy.”
“Hey! Wait, buddy.”
Franz grabbed my phone as Anya again poked her head into view. “What, Daddy?”
Ronin swallowed hard. “I love you guys. Okay. Don’t ever forget that.”
I quickly wiped the rebel tears from my cheeks.
“Okay. We won’t.” Franz handed me the phone and ran out of the room with Anya running to catch him.
Before I held the camera to my face again, I used my sleeve to completely dry my cheeks. Finding my long-lost friend, that mask I wore for so many years to hide all the pain and fear, I slipped it on and raised the camera to my face. “Wow. That was a heavy goodbye.”
Biting his lips together, he averted his gaze to the side, maybe watching Mrs. Humphrey, and nodded. “Yeah. Life feels pretty heavy right now.”
“Why?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Everything will be fine.”
I didn’t feel like everything would be fine. It felt like my world was ending and he just couldn’t say the actual words. Before my mom died, she told my dad everything would be fine.
He wasn’t fine.
I wasn’t fine.
Nothing had been fine since she took her last breath.
“Do you have plans for today? Did Graham and Lila invite you to Thanksgiving dinner? Noah and Tami?”
“Work. Noah is covering for me. I didn’t want to miss your call. But I’ll be working the rest of the day.”
“Well, I won’t keep you, then.”
I love you.
I almost said it. I felt like he needed it. But I refused to believe we were there. So I swallowed and smiled. “Be safe up there.”
“Yeah.” Just before he ended the call, he looked at the camera, reddened eyes fresh with tears.
I tried FaceTiming him back.
He didn’t answer.
I tried calling him.
He didn’t answer.
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Lila hadn’t answered my calls or messages in over a week. So I called Tami. She was closer anyway.
“Hey. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Tami, I need a favor. I know it’s Thanksgiving, and I would never ask this if it weren’t an emergency, but I need you to check on Ronin. I just talked with him, but he’s not answering now, and I know something is wrong. I feel it in my gut. Please.”
“Sure. Take it easy. Just don’t panic. I’ll go right now and call you as soon as I get there.”
I wiped more tears. “Thank you.”
“Evie, breakfast—hey, what’s wrong?” Katie rushed to me, sitting on the bed and pulling me in for a hug. “Did something happen?”
“No. Yes. I have to go home.” I pulled away and wiped my tears.
“You’re scaring me. Did something happen to Ronin?”
“I can’t explain it. Something’s not right. He wasn’t right. He … he …”
“Shh …” She pulled me back in for a hug. “Okay. Whatever you need. We’ve got the kids. Do you want me to call Lila and Graham?”
I shook my head. “N-no.”
“Want me to see if I can get you a flight?”
“Yes.” I pulled away again and wiped my face.
“What do you want me to tell Franz and Anya?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“What if I say Ronin has a really bad cold and you need to take care of him? Too scary?”
“It’s … it’s fine. Yes.”
“I’ll let them know and see what flights are available. You pack.”
I already had flight information brought up on my phone. “There’s a flight out in two hours. I’m not packing. Just take me there.”
With a quick goodbye to the kids and a promise of giving their sick daddy hugs, kisses, and chicken noodle soup, Dad drove me to the airport while Katie and Tanner fed the kids.
“Is everything okay with your marriage?” Dad, a man of few words, finally asked less than five minutes from the terminal.
“I don’t know,” I whispered, temporarily out of tears as a general numbness settled over me. It wasn’t a lie. I had no idea where my marriage stood.
“Want me to come with you.”
“I … have to do this alone.”
“Call me as soon as you get there? The weather’s not great. I’m not sure you’ll be able to get to Aspen.”
“I’ll get there. Eventually.”
He hugged me goodbye. I ran to catch my flight only to have it delayed due to weather in Denver.
Two more hours. That brought a second round of tears.
Just as I finished drying my face again, Tami called.
“Tami!”
“Sorry it took me so long. He wasn’t home. And when I called Noah, he wasn’t there yet either. I called a few other people and even drove around town a bit, but Noah finally called me back and said he’s at work. He said he seemed a little quiet, maybe a bit under the weather, but he’s fine.”
He wasn’t fine.
“Thank you so much.”
“Can I ask what had you so worried?”
“Just a feeling.” I closed my swollen eyes and rubbed circles along my forehead.
“Well, thank God everything’s okay. Hug the kids. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Happy Thanksgiving.”
After a second delay, standing in line for a rental car, and navigating the snowy roads (which took six instead of three hours), I made it home by nine o’clock Thanksgiving night.
No lights illuminated the windows, and no smoke escaped from the chimney. Maybe Ronin didn’t think starting a fire for one was worth it. Maybe he wasn’t home. Maybe he was in bed already. Maybe he was with Lila.
A million maybe’s.
I parked the rental SUV in the driveway and sent a quick text off to Katie to let her and Dad know I made it home safely.
When I eased open the front door, it was quiet, too quiet. And dark. Too dark. It was all these feelings of something being just a little too off that brought me all the way home on Thanksgiving, leaving my kids behind.
I slipped off my boots as I turned on the light. My whole body jolted with a gasp when I glanced up toward the kitchen table.
Jesus … no … no …NO!
I froze, holding so still my lungs started to burn, begging me to take a breath. But … I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t sure I’d ever breathe again.
Those same teary eyes, that triggered the chain of events that day, stared at me. Glassy and lifeless. His arms rested on the table. One hand cupped a glass of whiskey with a half empty bottle next to it, and his other hand rested on … a gun.
In a blink, nearly six years of marriage bled from my eyes, washing away my hopes and drowning my dreams.
The eerie silence carved a deep hole into my soul. Where was Mrs. Humphrey? Where were the squealing kids? The crackling embers. The buzzer going off to remind me to take the cookies out of the oven.
The giggles.
Monster dad chasing after his little ones while making roaring sounds.
The whispers … the promises of all the things he planned to do to me when the kids were in bed.
I couldn’t hear my life.
Where did it go?
“I love you,” he whispered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ronin
Lila died.
No one told me. I just knew. Around six p.m., I veered off the road on my way home from work.
My head.
My ribs.
My back.
My leg.
Then … nothing.
No physical pain. And the world fell dead silent. No ringing in my ears. I couldn’t feel her anymore.
Lila died.
I cheated on my wife with her best friend. And she … died.
When I finally made it home, I realized the depression and desire t
o leave my problems behind—to leave this world—were no longer just Lila’s. They were mine. I purchased the gun while feeling Lila’s depression. I never imagined I’d use it without her influence over me. But that day in the library changed that. Her sins became mine and mine became hers. We would never be able to separate that. To make things right with Evelyn.
So …
I chose death over the truth.
I chose death over hurting my family.
I chose death over seeing that look in Evelyn’s eyes.
I’d been on borrowed time for years. It was past my time to leave.
“NO!” She gritted her teeth as the first sob ripped from her chest. “You do NOT get to say that to me now!” Tears covered her cheeks as her body shook.
A last straw. A final breath. That was what we agreed upon. We’d say it when there was absolutely nothing else to say.
I hurt her.
I lied.
I cheated.
I could never make things right.
There was nothing left to say.
And I refused to say something as pathetic as sorry.
I gave her the truth. She deserved it.
“I touched Lila.”
Her hand covered her mouth as if she could keep the pain captive. “What does that mean?” She choked on another sob.
The muscles in my face twitched, fraught with fear of hurting her. I had no choice. Nothing remained except hurt.
“We crossed a line.”
Her gaze flitted to my hand clenching the gun, and her hand slowly slid from her mouth. “You had sex.”
I shook my head slowly. “Almost.”
“W-why?” Her brow wrinkled as her head inched side to side.
On a hard swallow I blinked a new round of tears as my face contorted into as much pain and confusion as Evie’s. “Because I felt her feelings for me. And it triggered something. Like a drug. Like driving under the influence.”
Peeling the matted hair away from her face and tucking it behind her ears, she sniffled and hiccupped a ragged breath. “She let it happen too?” More emotion, more tears filled her eyes. “Why?” She choked out the word.
“I don’t know.”
The Life You Stole Page 24