This Love Hurts (This Love Hurts 1)

I click my phone on, wondering if I asked Marcus, would he tell me? Does he already know? Staring at his phone number listed under just the letter M, it feels like I have a direct line to the devil. It’s unused. Not a message has been sent back to him since the first text two nights ago… But I have it. I could use it. I could nail that son of a bitch if only I had more to go on. If I could get my hands on something definitive that no judge can dismiss.

A ping from my phone catches me off guard, my anger waning at the sound.

Are you doing all right?

The text from Cody stares back at me.

Am I all right? No.

Cody can tell I’m not and I hope he thinks I’m off because I came in close contact with Marcus. He’s got a hired man outside my door and it’s… at best, distracting. At worst it’s causing rumors and could be a potential lawsuit. “If the DEA allowed someone to come back to work while under protection…” Claire’s warning from earlier today echoes in my head. Telling her my boyfriend is just being protective earned a laugh and then a stern, “That better be all this is.”

Better than this morning, I message him back.

I don’t know what to think or really, what I was thinking when it all happened.

The shrink this morning told me to “jot it all down." As if it’s that easy. As if there are no repercussions. If I do, it’s evidence. If I don’t, I’m opening myself up to committing obstruction of justice. So, I haven’t written a damn thing.

I text Cody again, even as I stare at the bottle of expensive white wine that was waiting for me when I got in here. I’m fine. Not getting much work done, but I’m fine.

It’s a lie. When did I become such a liar? Every other sentence out of my mouth today has been a lie.

When Cody asked me if I was all right being alone. When Claire questioned if I was stable enough to come in. Not to mention the lying I did in the shrink’s office.

Just thinking about that session has me eyeing the bottle of Valley Pines Pinot, my favorite wine, wanting to uncork it and have a long, slow sip of the sweet addiction. Hide away in a bottle and pretend like this past week never happened.

How can a small series of events over such a short period of time drastically affect me like this? They make me question who I am.

For instance, the wine. I know who it came from… and yet it remains where it is and I have every intention of drinking it. Maybe I felt unsafe at first.

I did what any normal person would do, what the previous version of myself would do.

I asked who brought it to my office. The bottle of red came in a pretty bag with a bow—and a note. I thought you might need this.

First roses, and now wine. It’s another gift from Marcus. I know his handwriting now.

He watches me; he must. How else would he know that I keep wine in the office and more importantly, that I was out, confiding in the psychologist just so I could get back in here. It was the perfect opportunity for a delivery man to bring in a package and no one would object or question in broad daylight. No one was here who would have thought it was suspect. It’s clearly a gift from a friend who heard what happened. I’m certain that’s what they all thought. Bought and paid for by John Smith according to Greg, the delivery man who signed in and left the wine with security.

Instead of telling anyone, I added it to my growing pile of secrets.

Marcus gets into places he shouldn’t be able to. He hides his identity with disguises and multiple aliases. Marcus is truly like a ghost. Coming and going as he pleases with no obligation to the laws the rest of us abide by.

So when I heard Herman was dead, naturally my mind put two and two together and I stared at the bottle of wine, willing it to spill more secrets like Marcus had.

I should be grateful that the man who worked to help threaten me is dead. A piece of me is. A small, ragged piece that broke off right about where I’m standing now while my fingers grazed over the threat that was embedded in that note.

But another piece of me feels… sick. And responsible. I can’t help but to feel complicit in his murder. Not just because I wanted him to pay for what he did to me, but because I know things that no one else does.

No one but Cody… and Marcus.