And Ray’s words. Video footage of us having sex? What? Playing videos of us for Ray? Torturing him? He shot him? Peed on him?
“Baby, come inside. It’s freezin’ out here.”
I’m numb. I’m totally numb. Tears are streaming down my cheeks. My hands are freezing. So is my face.
Killian lifts me up, carries me back inside, and puts me on the couch. Then he’s wiping my eyes with a Kleenex, a gentle look on his face.
“Talk to me,” he whispers, stroking my cheekbone with the side of his thumb.
Everything is ruined. Everything.
Everything is a mess.
I can’t believe this.
I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been.
8
Killian
This shit has twisted my gut into knots. These sensations started on the way here. Every fucking red light. Traffic crawled. So much goddamn time in my head. And I knew she was here, and I knew why. I fucked up on the weekend. I fucked up royally.
Why the fuck was I so lax about all this shit? I should’ve put him somewhere else. Or never brought her here.
I don’t check on her constantly on my camera feeds anymore, but something about her demeanor the last two days, instinct told me something wasn’t right. She went to bed early Sunday night. But when I came in, it seemed like she wasn’t asleep. Like she was restless, something on her mind.
And Monday night, I left late for an after-hours meeting at Exodus, but saw her when she was getting ready for bed. She was distant and then said she had a headache when I tried to get close to her. I teased that it was too early in our marriage for headache excuses, and she didn’t laugh – instead acted aloof. I ran her a bath, gave her a massage afterwards and she fell asleep while I did that before heading out. While she let me put my hands on her for the massage, something felt wrong with us.
This morning, I left early and when I called her to say good morning, I found her mood to be chilly with me again. It all nagged at me, so I checked the live camera feed that points at her cubicle and saw her desk was empty. I was then grateful I hadn’t yet put in the request to have those cameras removed. At first I figured she was in a meeting, and had initially planned to check later, but then I upped the volume and heard her boss Shara ranting to Violet’s friend Cammy. The bitch went off on a tangent about how Violet thought the rules no longer applied to her since she got a rich new husband. She then muttered about how Violet thinks she’s above the rules about office hours now that she’s spent a fortune on new clothes and red-bottomed heels with a fancy-ass new car, saying she’d be out on her ass if “this bullshit” didn’t stop.
Cammy tried to defend Violet, and then the bitch-boss got pissy with her and stormed off.
Violet didn’t tell me she was doing anything out of the office today and hasn’t called to say why she left early, so I opened my app to check her phone’s location and knew by the road she was on that she was heading for the house.
I called her and knew she declined my call by how it rang one and a half times and then went to voicemail. So I drove home from Genesis and saw that the keys to the beach house were gone.
I hoped I’d miraculously beat her there, but traffic was not on my side. Thankfully though, I wasn’t far behind her. I shudder to think about how it could’ve gone if I hadn’t arrived just as she opened that cell door.
I’ve let my rage at Iadanza cloud my thinking, obviously, and that’s not my style. This situation has been fucked up and I’ve let it fuck me up. And now… seeing what it’s doing to her?
I have remorse flooding my veins right now. A lot of it. It’s weighty. The remorse isn’t about anything to do with what I’ve done to him. This emotion in me is all about how I’ve handled it with her. I should’ve made it so she couldn’t find out.
He had to pay. He’s not done paying yet. But I never wanted her to feel any of it.
I want her to stop crying.
I wanna go down there and put my gun in that fucker’s mouth and blow his head off because he spoke to her again. Because he isn’t supposed to factor for her anymore and now he does. Because she had to breathe that stench. Because she’s now upset. I’m fucking pissed at myself right now. She’s looking at me like I’m a stranger. A stranger who has irreparably hurt her.
I hate that she’s been suspicious of me for days, hate that her suspicions are confirmed. And the feel of these knots in my stomach because of the look in her beautiful, sad eyes - I deserve to feel twisted up for not making sure she never found out. She doesn’t deserve to feel like this because of my carelessness.