Sweet fucking Jesus, I was glad I did.
I was back beside her when the alarm went off. We ate breakfast together and I dropped her at work when she insisted on going in as normal. I watched my beautiful minx smile back over her shoulder and blow me a kiss before she stepped in through the door and I blew her one right back.
And then I took my action.
Hell knows, there was enough of it to take.
I pulled up in the car park behind Lewton’s Consultancy and logged into my work office account from my laptop. I dropped a message to my team, saying I was too sick to make it in for the day, and then called up my Sebastian Maitland shitstorm from my embedded system files.
The police would do nothing with Anna’s word against his, and I knew it. I’d have relished the thrill of hunting him down and tearing his dick from his balls, but it wouldn’t cut it. Not to a son of a bitch like him.
Pain hurts most when it slams its punch straight into the heart – and Sebastian Maitland’s heart was firmly fixed in one position. So, I took it from him. I cut his fucking heart from his chest with one swift swipe and pressed send from my anonymous email server to seal his fucking fate.
And then I took my action, round two.
I drove out to Maya’s village and waited until she was back after Millie’s school run before I pulled up onto her driveway and stepped up to her door.
Holy fuck, I hammered that door to let her know I was out there.
To say she wasn’t expecting me was an understatement. She jolted back in shock when she answered, and then her shock turned to warmth with a glowing fake smile on her face.
Confused.
She was so fucking confused.
Smiling.
Fake.
Trying to fathom what the hell I was thinking. Doing. Wanting.
Just like fucking usual.
Just like the whole last fucking decade.
Her expression changed when she saw the rigidity of my shoulders as I stepped over the threshold and headed on through to her living room. There’s no way she could’ve missed the bristle of disgust in my jaw when I turned to face her.
“Well?” she said, as though I was the asshole, just like usual. “What’s with the impromptu call? I could’ve done some coffee, but some notice would’ve been nice. Millie isn’t home from school until three.”
“Yasmin Boyle is the impromptu fucking call,” I said. “I went to Newcastle yesterday. We had quite a chat.”
I saw the flash of fear in her eyes at Yasmin’s name, but she shrugged it off and pretended to busy herself picking some of Millie’s toys up from the sofa. “Yasmin Boyle talks a load of shit sometimes, Lucas. I hope you didn’t make that whole bloody journey just to hear her bullshit stories.”
“No,” I said, and pulled my phone from my pocket. “It seems I made that whole bloody journey to hear yours.”
I called up the screenshot and handed it over, and if I’d have had any concerns whatsoever that there was anything misleading about Yasmin Boyle’s version of events, Maya’s expression of guilty horror in that one heartbeat of recognition would have sealed the deal forever.
“It’s not quite how it looks,” she said, but her cheeks were already burning bright fucking pink.
“Really?!” I spat. “Because it’s looking pretty fucking bad from where I’m standing. So how about you fucking enlighten me?”
She dithered, and shrugged, and then the look on her face came up that I’d seen a million times over. Victim Maya. Poor Maya. Poor innocent Maya being judged so bad.
She sat herself down on the sofa, and acted like the whole world was on her shoulders, but this time I was done. I was done with the whole fucking lot of it and everything she stood for.
“Just remember before we start this,” she whined. “Just remember that we got Millie out of it. We have Millie, and she’s everything!”
“Don’t fucking tell me what to remember!” I hissed. “Just fucking tell me what happened!”
She took some deep breaths and told me I should sit down to hear her out, but I didn’t want to sit down. I was edgy as fuck, hands in my pockets, pacing, pacing, fucking pacing. My heart was thumping and my gut was wrenching, because no matter how much you know someone’s a self-centred bitch at the core of them, it’s another thing to have it slammed in your face beyond all denial.
I watched her read through the screenshot over and over, my gut twisting a little harder every time. Then, finally, when I guess she knew there was no easy way out, she shook her head and dropped my phone on the coffee table.
“It’s quite a story,” she said, and I cursed under my breath.