Page 84 of Tamed Enemy
“Pyotrrammed through a marriage with your sister. Do you honestly think there’s a man on Butchers Hill who won’t dowhateverNikolaidemands. You’re my wife. I’m not giving him any chance to take you.”
“Then you’re ruining my life and yours.”
Logic. Calm. That’s the way to convince her. “So he releases his files. The press will have a field day for a week or two. You saw what happened with the indictment. Everything went back to normal in no time.”
“Normal?” She shouts, so loud I wonder if Granny heard her upstairs.
“There hasn’t been a reporter outside the gate in days.”
“I don’t care about feckin’ reporters! Lone Wolf is decimated. The company may never recover.”
“Business ebbs and flows,” I say stubbornly.
Her snort of disdain is epic. “It willflowstraight down the toilet once my Red Cap records are released. I can see the headlines now: You married a heartless hacker. You put her to work on Lone Wolf accounts. How can any of your clients—past, present, or future—be certain we haven’t defrauded them for millions?”
“Listen to me.” My voice is very low. Perfectly even. “First: I don’t give a flying fuck about Red Cap. You covered your trail as a Raider. No one will ever prove a case against you in any court of law. I know. I tracked you for years.”
“No hacker is perfect.”
I huff, dismissing the possibility that she might have left evidence behind. “Second,” I say, as if we’ve thoroughly debated the first point. “That motel video Pyotr took doesn’t matter.”
“For the rest of my life, I’ll be?—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I repeat. “Certainly in a perfect world, I’d keep it under wraps. But it’s a flash in the pan. A temporary embarrassment. It’s not perverted enough to have any real staying power.”
“You’re not the one?—”
“Third,” I say, raising my voice just enough to drown her out. “The video from Kynk will ruin Tarasov. Not you. He’s the one showing his true self.”
“You look like a feckin’ rapist!” The word is filthy, tearing from her lips.
“I—”
“Youhurtme. And the video makes it look even worse than it was.”
I don’t have an answer for that. I know exactly what I did. I know what’s on that recording.
She responds as if I’ve continued to argue anyway. “For the rest of your life,” she says. “That stain will never go away.”
“Jesus Christ, Kate. You sound like youwantto file divorce papers. Is that what you’re really saying?”
She slaps me with all her strength.
This is when I’m supposed to hit her back. After all, she thrives on being hurt.
But I’ve hurt her in ways no woman could ever desire.
My cheek stings as she snarls, “Fuck you. And fuck your fucking question.”
We’re both breathing like we’ve gone fifteen rounds in the ring. She’s never looked more angry. I’ve never wanted to take her downstairs to the dungeon more—let our actions bring us together now that our words have failed.
Instead, I toss off one last argument. “Even if Iwantedto file, I don’t have the documents.”
She whips her phone out of her pocket. Taps on the screen. Swipes across the surface three times. “There,” she says. “Uncontested petition for divorce. I’m not asking for anything—not a penny, not the house. We don’t have kids. This is easy. Simple.”
I want to tell her there’s not one thing that’s simple about it. But, somehow, she’s right. Our crazy, impetuous, disastrous marriage has all come down to one glowing screen.
“So that’s it,” I finally say. “We just give in to him.”
