Page 112 of King of Ashes
As I stand up, I eye each of them, my gaze as hard as always so they don’t forget I am the fucking Boss and will remain the one in charge. I haven’t gotten softer or less alert with the loss. Betrayal means death, and my word is law.
My wife is in deep conversation with my cousin, but as if she senses my gaze, she lifts her chin, finding mine.
She hugs Noemi, then my aunt, and takes her rightful place. By my side.
In the car, I cock my head, bringing her hand to mine to kiss the inside of her palm. “Thank you, mi sol. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
26
ZARA
Ihate him.
I hate my husband so much that I would love nothing more than to stab him in his cold heart again and again and fucking again.
I imagine killing him so often that playing the part takes every ounce of willpower.
I hate. Hate. Hate. Hate him.
The man who caused me the biggest heartache.
The man who made me forget his betrayal.
I thought I was imagining things, slowly losing my mind, when he was the man I had loved once—the one who made me fall in love with him again. Vian is also the man who killed my father in cold blood. Both things are equally damning, painting him guilty.
There is no redemption. No forgiveness. Like a thief, he entered my home dripping with blood and shot my father right next to me. Shock morphed into agony, then ultimately panic. I tried to flee, too, but I didn’t succeed. Instead, I drove straight into a damn tree.
The rest is a blur of waking up in the hospital, of him trying to reach me while I shouted my lungs out. His attempts at explaining landed on deaf ears. What was there to explain when he had killed my father and desecrated my childhood home?
And what did the asshole do? He wiped my memory. Four years of my life.
And what did I do? I attached myself to him, bonding myself to him irreversibly.
In his home office, I yank at the drawers, knowing he has the keys to that house. I want to set it on fire before I leave and plan his downfall.
No, he won’t get a painless death. I want him to lose everything, and wallow in despair, not knowing what is happening to him. Just like I did.
Today the charade ends, and I can drop the act of being a supportive wife. I’m searching for the keys when I come across a shiny surface. It’s a picture of me before he caused me my deepest hurt—the betrayal that made me lose my damn mind, literally.
I don’t think; I act because I am done. I rip it to pieces just like he did me. Done with the pretense. Done with him. We’re enemies, and I won’t rest until I annihilate him.
I toss the ripped pieces back inside, and beneath a stack of papers, I find the keys. Pocketing them in my purse, I hear the elevator ping open.
I’ve been so deep in my head, playing him and pretending to stand by his side, that every time he comes home, I become a jittery mess.
I slip out of the office and plaster a fake smile on my face. It takes everything in me not to carve his heart out when he smiles back at me and my stupid heart reacts.
Thankfully, I have a powerful ally now: my brain. I wish I had trusted that inner voice, but I ignored it, too damn wrapped up in this monster.
Everything crashes down on me, burying me under a mountain of misery—the signs that were always present, though I disregarded them, not understanding my reservations toward him.
I stare at the reason my heart and brain have always been at war.
My breath hitches, nerves running rampant in my belly, knotting me up. “Home so soon?”
I need to escape his town. I can’t let anything jeopardize my plan. Knowing him, he won’t let me go.
He warned me. Time and time again. I feel so utterly stupid that I could applaud him for playing me so damn well.
