Out of Love(81)

“I wore a gray suit to my wedding. White shirt, pink tie. It was raining that day … felt symbolic of my mood … of my life. A friend married us. Two witnesses, no family or other friends. I’ve never worn that suit again.”

“Alrighty then. Interesting story.” Tricia chuckled and she released my shoulders and whispered in my ear, “I stand corrected; he’s the weird one.” She brushed past me. It took a few seconds for my legs to resume carrying my body to my office.

That night I attempted another bottle of wine, a white one. I didn’t like it either. Maybe I wasn’t a wine person or maybe alcohol wasn’t the answer. Exercise seemed like the more palatable and healthy option, so I took Jericho for a run to the park with his tennis ball and a launcher. A few smaller dogs were there, but they left soon after my beast of a dog started fetching his ball. I needed something like fetch to keep my mind occupied—a repetitive task that would keep me on track and not thinking about him.

Even when he wasn’t at work … he was there. His ghost invaded my new place of business. I still saw him standing in my living room every time I glanced at the red wine stain that didn’t come out of my rug.

When I tossed the ball again, he invaded my life again, walking toward me. He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be real. Then Jericho ran to him, again, and I knew he was real in the most painful and cruel way imaginable.

Alive … and married.

“Hi,” he said, sauntering toward me with the ball that Jericho dropped for him. My traitor dog right at his side.

I rubbed my lips together. That was the greeting he got from me—an obscured expression.

“Did you really know … that the gun wasn’t loaded?”

He heard me that day. He heard what I said just seconds before he died. Before I thought he died.

I owed him no apologies. I thanked him for saving my life—twice—and he married someone else. We were even.

“No,” I said with confidence.

“You thought I was dying, so you lied?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and flipped out a hip. “Sorry … are we keeping track of lies? If that’s the case, you lose. Don’t even get me started on all the lies you told to cover your ass. Including the one where you were hired to protect me. So yeah, I thought the gun was loaded. I pulled the trigger to kill the man who was hired to kill me. Call it lack of trust or self-preservation, I don’t care. But you can’t fault me for that.”

“Your dad killed my dad.” He narrowed his eyes a fraction.

“Your dad raped my aunt. So fuck you, Wylder … Slade … Alex … whatever the hell you’re calling yourself.”

He winced.

I lifted my eyebrows. “Ah … I see. No one ever told you that your dad was a rapist? Well, wake up. You turned us into a war over the sins of our fathers. But my father killed truly bad people. He didn’t rape women. He didn’t take out innocent family members as revenge. But that’s in your blood. Revenge is the reason your father raped my Aunt Jessica. He called it training, but that’s not training. That’s just a sick, fucked-up mind.”

After a few long moments of no reaction, staring at the ground between us, he slowly lifted his head. “Well, now you know.”

“Know what?” I canted my head to the side.

“Why I didn’t come for you.”

“Don’t,” I said in a thick voice as I shook my head. “It was our love story. Not my dad’s, not your dad’s. I loved the monster. I came back for you. I. Came. Back. For. You. And for five years you let me believe you were dead. You …” I swallowed and told myself I would not cry. He didn’t deserve any more tears. “You didn’t love me back.”

“I took a fucking bullet for you!” With his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, he leaned forward, shouting the words in my face.

“You…” the tears did their own thing, not caring whether he deserved them or not “…married someone else. It hurt less when you were dead.”

He nodded slowly, pain stealing his practiced no-fucks-given face. “Well, you’re the one who didn’t follow my instructions. You’re the one who must have called for help. Had you just done what I fucking told you to do, maybe I would be dead.”

“Oh …” I coughed a laugh. “And that’s a good thing? Saving you was the wrong thing to do?”

“I was an assassin. A man died where they found me that day. I had two choices … prison or a new life. New name. New everything.”

“Choices?” I shook my head. “How do you choose anything but prison?”

“Ask your dad.”

His words paralyzed me. It felt like the day I found out my computer engineer father was an ex-assassin. No more secrets. My dad promised me … no more secrets. “What does that mean?”

“His connections weren’t completely severed after he married and started living the boring suburban life. He knew the right person to make it happen. I had one hour to make the decision the day I was supposed to be discharged from the hospital. I could go to prison or I could be extracted and moved to a secure location in preparation for my new life. I just … I didn’t think my new home in Texas and my new job with Floyd Wright would one day land me in a conference room with you.”