Ex Games

The next morning, I returned to Jackson’s apartment to find him sitting in silence on the stairs.

He was hunched forward, already staring at me with a wolf-like expression. Frozen, I briefly considered walking back out. But then I remembered that I was there for a reason. I was there to return my ring and to tell him that it would be my last time stepping foot in his duplex.

But the rage in his blazing eyes and rigid torso told me he had something to say as well. And after my run-in with Dane yesterday, I sensed that I knew what it was. I watched a sneer form on his lips as he began to speak. “I take it you’re coming from Sawyer’s?” Jackson said, his calm voice contradicting everything about the way he looked.

I tossed my purse on the floor. “No,” I answered, walking in neat steps to the kitchen counter, dropping my ring on the metal surface with a hard clack.

The sound brought Jackson flying to his feet. His sheer speed made me stumble backward in shock. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, snatching the ring off the table. “You think you’re going to cheat on me with fucking Sawyer and then fucking leave me? After everything, you want to humiliate me like that?”

“After everything?” I had to laugh in his face. “Oh, you mean how you hid the fact that you fucked your stepsister, cheated on me with Gabrielle and then hired a criminal to attack me in our own home?” My eyes were wild as I watched Jackson back down for a second. “Yes, I know about that,” the words seeped from my throat with revulsion. “I know that the son of a bitch who came in here and acted like he was going to fucking rape me was someone you fucking hired off of Dane McNulty. I mean do you actually feel good about that, Jackson? You manipulated me into loving you again by having a strange man put his hands on me and toss me around and put me through the worst trauma of my life!”

Jackson’s jaw was so tight I could hear his teeth gnashing against each other. “It wasn’t supposed to get that far. If you hadn’t seen his face, he wouldn’t have – ”

“I don’t care, Jackson! You hired a dangerous man to not only scare me but hurt me. I couldn’t sleep for a month after that. I still wake up with night

mares about that night and you know what, it’d probably happen every night if it weren’t for the fact that you’re constantly giving me new things to fucking wake up crying over.”

Jackson walked into me, a snarl on his face. “I love you, Lara.”

“You have a twisted way of showing it, then,” I hissed. But no matter how much I pushed him away, he came back.

“I told you the deal. I told you not to sleep with anyone I knew,” he muttered. “And the fact that it was Sawyer? I’ve watched you two flirt for years and I never said a word because I thought it was stupid. Harmless. But the second you get the chance, you go to house and suck his dick and let him fuck you however he – ”

“Oh my God, are you hearing yourself?” I gasped. “Surprise, Jackson, it wasn’t Sawyer. I know you go to Dane McNulty for a lot of shady shit but his word on who I fucked is completely wrong.”

“Funny, you sure believed him when he said that I slept with Gabrielle two years ago.”

“Sawyer saw you too so don’t even try to compare that,” I laughed bitterly, pushing past Jackson and storming up the stairs. I’d thought that when I left, there’d be nothing for me to pack as everything would remind me of Jackson, but there was in fact one thing left that I desperately needed. Ignoring Jackson’s footsteps, I paced into the bedroom and into my closet. When I emerged, he stood there, his frosty eyes locked on my passport.

“And where do you think you’re going?” he asked with an eerie calm.

“Away. You can sleep with whoever the hell you want now.”

Jackson’s strides quickened as he trailed me down the hall. “What, you need to run off with Sloane again?”

“No, I need to leave New York and never come back.”

My sentence barely finished before Jackson was in front of me, eyes wild. “You’re not leaving me, Lara. The world already knows that we’re getting married.”

“So what? This isn’t about your ego, Jackson, or your friends finding out that I left you. It’s about the fact that you’re as good as a fucking criminal and I’ll never for a second want to spend the rest of my life with you again,” I hissed. But when I stepped to pass him, he blocked me.

“I want you, Lara. I don’t want anyone else. I gave you that ring, I announced to the world that you were mine. We’re going to get married, and that’s that.”

I’d never laughed with fury before but this moment was as good as any for that first. “No. No, Jackson. We’re not getting married and we never will. So on top of being a despicable monster, I guess you’re fucking insane if you really think you can tell me what to do.”

With that, I pushed past him and down the stairs, traveling faster than I ever had in a pair of heels. Shoving my passport into my purse, I made a beeline for the door. But as I waited for the elevator, I could hear Jackson returning calmly from upstairs. My back turned, I heard his footsteps – one by one, slow and ominous as they returned to me in no rush at all.

“Here,” he said, a sneer in his voice.

I heard the whoosh of something flying through the air. Following that came the sound of something hard and something soft dropping onto the floor. I told myself not to turn around but with dread pitting in my stomach, I spun on my heel.

When I saw it, my knees gave out. My nails scratched hardwood as my stomach lurched forward, my heartbeat thumping harder and harder till my insides rattled.

It was my shirt spattered in Gabrielle’s dried blood. Beside it was a little jump drive.

“It has her voicemail in it,” Jackson said casually, hands in his pockets as he looked down at the shirt, the jump drive, and me. “I had it in a safe.”

The room spun as I looked up at him. “You kept all this? Why – why would you do this?”