The General (Professionals 4)

I’d been young and idealistic once, having fights with family members about how it was never okay to kill, how the death penalty was barbaric and antiquated. Though perhaps I hadn’t known those words way back then.

But that was when the world didn’t get to show me its ugliest sides.

See, when you think of the upper class, you think of glamour and comfort, beautiful vacations, fancy cars, lovely things.

But you don’t have to be in it long to see that it is no different from the lower class they so looked down upon because it was supposedly full of gangbangers and rapists.

Honestly, if you asked me, what I had seen hidden away in the closets of the rich was much scarier, much more terrible than what I had seen growing up around the lowest of low class.

They were just better at covering it up.

We.

I guess that was a we now.

It was no longer me and them.

I did something terrible.

I was paying for someone to cover it up.

That, more so than anything else, was a hard truth to swallow.

Water chilling, I pulled the drain, climbing out when the water was gone, drying, brushing my hair, pulling it into a long side braid I would never normally do either since – except for on rare social occasions and while working out – Teddy wanted my hair down and free, then dressing in the familiar, yet foreign, clothes.

It had been so long that I forgot how comfortable a sweatshirt was. Especially a new, never worn, never washed one. When the inside was still fuzzy and soft, brushing soothingly over your skin.

I went into the closet to grab socks and slippers, then feeling like I had no other reason to stall, made my way back downstairs in a house that felt different now.

Still a prison.

But at least the warden wasn’t there to torment me anymore.

“You stock up on tea like you’re worried they might stop selling it,” he informed me as I walked in, putting a steaming mug down on the island across from him.

As I moved to take a seat at the stool propped against it, I shrugged. “Maritza, who does the shopping, grabs one every week even if I am not running low.”

“Ah, staff,” he murmured, and I would swear I heard a bit of judgement there. Even though I couldn’t really even begrudge him it since I felt the same way once, I felt my spine stiffening, felt myself getting defensive.

I didn’t hire the staff.

I didn’t want the staff.

Because, see, the staff didn’t just wash and shop and cook and clean and tend the grounds.

No.

They reported back to Teddy about every single thing I did.

The walls had eyes in my house.

And they were looking for things that I did wrong because they got a bonus each time they found something.

I reached for my mug, seeing my wedding and engagement rings catching the light, then reaching to slide them off with an urgency I couldn’t have anticipated.

“Yeah. It will be nice not to have them around so much any… what?” I asked as he started shaking his head at me.

“Nothing gets to change right now,” he told me, sounding sorry for it. “You have to go on as if nothing happened. Of course, you are a grieving widow now and you shouldn’t be doing social engagements or hitting the gym, but you need to pretend that this life you have lived is the life you always wanted. You have to keep the staff. You have to keep in touch with the senator. You will need to resume some of your engagements after a few weeks. And,” he said, moving closer, reaching to snag my rings, holding them up, taking my left hand with his to hold it up, then sliding my rings back on, “you have to be the wife you would be if the man you loved ended up murdered. This is as – if not more – important as the show you put on earlier. Tomorrow, no one would bat an eye if you stayed in a dark room all day. And after tonight, I would imagine you need it. Do you keep any pain medicine down here?” he asked, seeming to sense the slamming in my temples, behind my eyes.

“The powder room. I can…” but he was already walking away to get it. He was back a moment later with the bottle as well as a bucket and rags. “What is that for?”

“A grieving widow wouldn’t be able to tolerate seeing her husband’s blood on the floor like that. She’d have tried to clean it up. But wouldn’t have finished. I am just going to put on that show too.”

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. Because the idea of having to put on that show myself made my stomach twist and slosh around.