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“I have no interest in killing you,” I say, putting the gun back into my waistband and grabbing the signed contract. “You have forty-eight hours to get out of town. If I even so much as get a whiff of a rumor that you’re sneaking around here, I’ll make sure this gun of yours is dropped off on the Cook County Commissioner’s desk. And I can just about guarantee that there’s a string of violence and felonies associated with this firearm.”
I don’t bother giving him a second warning. I walk out of the club and head home where I sit patiently waiting all through the rest of the night and the sunrise for my wife to come home.
I have no idea what time it is when she finally walks through my office door, but her anger is palpable. She swings the door open, causing it to bounce on the hinges.
“We need to talk,” she demands.
I don’t look at her. I continue staring down into my glass of scotch. I swirl it around a few more times.
“Why’d you quit singing, Stella?”
“How’d you know I sing, Atlas?”
I finish the liquor, placing the glass onto my desk and turning to look at her.
“You’re my wife, darling. I know a great deal about you.”
“Yes, I’d say you do.” Her voice is calm. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am.”
“No.” She shakes her head, walking closer. “I know who you pretended to be. Who is the man who sat behind that light every Thursday for months and months on end and watched me.” She comes closer. “And then came to my job every Friday morning like you were some goddamn knight in shining armor that was going to save me?” She glares at me. “So I’ll ask again, who are you?”
“I did those things, yes,” I say, having no reason to lie or even try to sugarcoat anything at this point. “But you know who I am, darling.”
“No.” She shakes her head, a look of pure disgust settling over her face. “I know who you pretended to be, who you wanted me to believe you were, but you’re far from a knight in shining armor. You’re the devil.”
“You give me too much credit.”
“Why?” she shouts through tears of rage. “Why me?”
“No other reason than happenstance.”
She scoffs, “Happenstance? You ruined my fucking life over happenstance?”
“I was drunk. It was the night that Eleanor left. I wanted to forget who I was so I happened to stumble into a dive bar and I saw you.” I think back to that first night, the way her beauty beckoned me. “It felt like you were singing to me that night, only me.”
“This—isn’t real.” She sits down, shaking her head. “None of this is actually real. You—you stalked me and tricked me.”
“I’m sorry, Stella, I am. I wish I could say I didn’t mastermind every second of this, but I did. I knew that night, that second I saw you and you opened your mouth to sing… you were going to be mine.”
“I’m not yours,” she says through a snotty cry. “It’s all fake, all of it. How could I ever be yours when you lied to me about everything? You’re heartless.” She spits the last sentence at me.
I don’t argue with her because telling her that sitting here right now, watching her fall apart, is breaking my heart would be a slap in the face to her.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about your singing?” She doesn’t answer right away, silence hanging like a wet blanket between us. “I love that about you. I miss hearing you.”
“You don’t deserve to hear me sing. That was my special thing, my secret that you don’t deserve to know about. I kept it locked away from you because I knew—I knew that no matter how much I tried to tell my heart not to, I couldn’t stop myself from falling in love with you. And even though I told myself over and over that it wasn’t real, that I’ll only end up breaking my own heart, in the end I’d still have a tiny part of me that you didn’t hurt, that you didn’t ruin, but now that’s gone too.” Her head falls into her hands as her shoulders sag.
“You’re right.” I look up at her. “I don’t deserve to hear you sing. I don’t deserve you or your love but not because of the reason you think.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” I can see the panic growing on her face.
“I’m the reason you don’t sing anymore, Stella. I’m the reason Freddy fired you.” I watch as the reality of what I just admitted sinks in, her face going from white to red, then covered in tears as she crumples to the floor. If I’m burning this marriage down, I’m burning it to the ground. She deserves to know every single horrible thing I’ve done to her.
“Why?”
“Because I needed you, Stella, but I needed you to need me more so that you’d be willing to marry me. I saw the ambition on your face back then. I saw the way you poured your heart and soul into every line you sang. There’s only one reason a woman as beautiful and talented as you would stay at a run-down club owned by a wannabe gangster when you could go anywhere and make way more money. You want to buy Freddy’s, don’t you?”
