A year and a half, going strong.
My cash stash.
My possible escape plan if things got bad enough.
It wasn’t much, but it was more than I had otherwise.
Five grand.
See, Eren did check the credit card statements every month, but I never showed him the actual receipts from the grocery store. The receipts that said I’d been taking out cash every single week, twice a week, for a year and a half.
It paid to have a spouse who had no idea what the cost of food was. He never questioned the grocery bill.
And I had my stash in case I had no other choice but to use it.
I didn’t like the idea of using it now, but I had to agree that Judy was right. I couldn’t just start spending a bunch of money now that Eren was dead. It would look suspicious. And the last thing I needed was to be a suspect in his murder.
I had enough problems to deal with.
But I did need money to survive.
Get food, especially while at the hotel.
I had no idea what the hell was going to happen once I left the hotel and had to go back to the apartment.
How would the bills get paid?
What would happen to the money?
I hadn’t signed a prenup. I guess that had been Eren’s arrogance, thinking there was no way for me to escape him, so there was no need to protect his assets.
It had been short-sighted for him not to realize that he was much older and would die first.
Unless, of course, there was some way to disinherit a spouse after death.
I didn’t know enough about that kind of thing to have any idea. But I guess I would need to research it. I would need to get to the bottom of Eren’s affairs to better understand my future.
If he somehow managed to make it so I was left with nothing, would that mean I was actually free of his godforsaken family? Would my life be mine again?
No.
There was no way that was possible.
Eren might have been prideful, but even if he was that dumb, his brothers wouldn’t have been.
They had a stake in his life and income as well. They owned small parts of all the restaurants. And handled a lot of the other business as well.
No way would I get everything.
Yet, somehow, if I got something, that almost made it worse. It would attach me to the family for life.
I would rather be on the street and destitute than to have to continue to be involved with them.
On a sigh, I tucked the money away in the pouch once again, but this time stuffed it into the bottom of my purse for safekeeping.
Then, with nothing else to do, I dropped down on the edge of the bed, taking a slow, deep breath, and trying to give my mind a chance to catch up.
My future was uncertain.
Eren was dead.
And the man who had kissed me in an elevator had sawed off my husband’s hands while he was still alive, then left them for me on the kitchen counter like some sort of twisted present.
A part of me was, understandably, horrified and disgusted.
There was no denying, though, that a small part of me felt, I don’t know, something akin to… touched.
That was messed up beyond comprehension of me, of course.
But after so long of being so beaten down, of being so mistreated at the hands of a man, having another one step forward to put an end to it… it felt big.
It was huge, actually, if you think about it.
Brio had kidnapped and tortured, then likely murdered, Eren.
A part of me didn’t want to admit that it was about me, but there was no other way to explain the hands in my apartment.
If it was just a straight-up murder, I could see that being just business.
This was a message.
To me.
He wouldn’t put his hands on me again.
Because Brio took them off.
I should have felt guilt then. A man was likely dead because of me.
I couldn’t seem to muster the feeling of responsibility, though. Because if Eren had been a better man, if he had been a kinder husband, he wouldn’t have suffered that fate. He would likely still be walking around, living his life. His own actions led to his demise.
And that had nothing to do with me.
On a sigh, I got up, walking over to the nightstand to find the room service menu.
I probably should have felt too horrified to eat. But even the police, should they look into it, wouldn’t begrudge someone a meal, even if they were supposed to be grieving.
Pushing thoughts of other people aside, I placed an order, turned on the TV for some background noise to drown out some of my swirling thoughts, and ran myself a bath.
Room service said it would be forty minutes, give or take, so I figured I had enough time to try to soak some of the tension out of my body.