Brutally Beautiful(103)

Jen had identified what was left of the charred body and personal effects, and so had the deputies. Dental records were pulled, compared and determined that without a doubt, the driver of the car was indeed Samantha Matthews, age 32. The same exact person that went missing from New York City almost six months before under suspicious circumstances.

Once the accident occurred, and after her identification was made, authorities had placed a call to her next of kin. We then waited for her estranged husband, Doctor David Stanton, and her father, Doctor Michael Matthews to arrive.

And they did. They arrived in a flurry of demands, ego and rage. The deputies and our hospital staff did everything they could to ease the turmoil of the situation and prove the identification of the deceased.

Through it all, I sat, still, with Jen on the right side of me, replaying the bittersweet images and sensations of the last time I had slipped myself inside my Samantha. Even though I had taken her away from him forever, kept her safe from him forever, my insides hummed with unimaginable violence towards him. Her death was simply not enough.

From where I sat, fists clenched white around the arms of the chairs, muscles pulled tight holding me in place, and I could hear the shallow breaths he took. I could hear the brittle sounds of his voice saying her name and all I wanted, more than I had ever wanted anything before, was to witness every ounce of blood spill from his body. The needs of violence hummed through my veins, causing my blood to pound faster and shifted my heart up into my throat, and my soul into my mouth. My pulse throbbed savagely in my ears, blocking out his voice and flooding my mouth with saliva; I was literally salivating for his death. Foaming at the mouth like a rabid beast.

His flat black eyes fixated on mine and claiming his territory, he asked Jen who I was and why the f*ck I was there for his personal family tragedy.

Blindly, Jen entwined her fingers with mine and placed a wet kiss on my lips, “This is Cory Thomas, my boyfriend,” she sobbed. “Whatever happened between you and Samantha is over, so go f*ck off now and leave me the hell alone or I will tell everyone you beat the hell out of her and me before she left your sorry ass.”

David’s brows furrowed and he turned his back on her, disregarding any other information she would give him. Brilliant, but it barely calmed my thirst to strangle his throat with my hands and feel his trachea crush under my fingertips. My fury blinded me with such an extreme corrosive feeling that my sight turned red, and all I could see was how much I wanted him dead too.

As I stood up to kill him, Jen yanked me by the arm back down into my seat. My insides raged with vengeance until she elbowed me in the gut, “Let’s go make the arrangements for her body to be transported back to the city for her father.”

“Really? Do I look like his bloody personal assistant? I rather make arrangements for those two sick f*cks to get buried.”

“Kade,” she sobbed into my shirt. “I can’t do this, please she was my best friend.”

So we made the arrangements.

We also attended her lavish funeral in Manhattan. Wall to wall socialites and the faculty of an entire hospital showed up. The most emotional part was the patients who had come to honor her memory. People she saved. I stayed for exactly eighteen minutes and left. It was too hard.

It was too hard not to completely lose my shit.

It was too hard not to kill David Stanton and that other bastard that she called a father.

I waited in the car for Jen and Dylan with Samantha’s little ribbon clenched in my hand. I just sat there and people watched, wondering what sort of life Samantha Matthews had, living in the raw intensity of New York City. Yet, all I could focus on was wondering if I did the right thing. I wanted to fast forward to a time when I would have no doubts about my actions. This bloody mourning was making me doubt everything.