Page 86 of The Silent Hour

Those truths didn’t cancel each other out.

“I don’t think he wants her,” I said quietly.

“Neither do I,” Meg chimed in.

Carmen shrugged. “Nothing you’ve told us sounds like a man starting an affair, but he needs to figure out why he responded that way.”

There it was—the question I’d laid at Ethan’s feet. “That’s what I told him.”

“Until he does,” Carmen continued firmly, “don’t answer it for him. Don’t chalk it up to exhaustion because that’s easier. Don’t call it attraction because that’s scarier. Don’t pin it on curiosity or stress or ego. Make him sit with that shit.”

I nodded, the hard edge of resolve forming inside me. Toya leaned back. “And for the record, I’m still willing to beat her ass.”

“Toya,” I said, half-laughing.

“What? I’m offering appropriate emotional support.”

“Felony support,” Carmen teases

.

“I’m multifaceted,” Toya shrugged, and we all laughed, the tight knot in my chest loosening just a bit.

Later, when the laughter had died away, I found myself whispering, “You know what keeps fucking with me?”

“What?” Meg asked.

“Elena.” The name slipped out. “I keep turning over that conversation we had, wondering if I somehow...” I stopped.

Toya shook her head. “No.”

“But you don’t know what I was going to say.”

“Yes, I do. And it’s stupid as fuck.”

Meg smacked her arm. “Toya!”

“I was going to say I manifested it,” I finished.

“You didn’t manifest your husband making a poor choice. You had anxiety because something was already wrong. Lila was already behaving too familiar. Cortez was already weaving his web even if you weren’t sure of all the strands.

She reached toward me, palm up. “You noticed smoke before the fire. You didn’t start it.”

Her words were a salve to my frayed nerves. Acknowledging the possibility of disaster didn’t mean I’d conjured it, just that I’d seen the cracks first.

Meg swiped at her iPad. “So—what are we doing about Cortez?”

The question snapped me back to the present crisis. I closed my eyes. “I still don’t think you guys should be involved.”

All three women stared.

Carmen crossed one leg over the other. “We’re already involved. Damian is involved. Knox is involved. Ethan is involved. Serena is involved. You’re not sticking us back on a shelf because it’s dangerous.”

“I don’t have any ‘decorative-wife storage.’”

“You know what I mean.” They all did. And truthfully, I needed them—my fierce, loyal circle. Not to punish Lila, or to sabotage Ethan’s case, and definitely not to pry into things that could get any of us killed. But I needed eyes on the things Ethan couldn’t see, and my husband seemed to

“I want to separate Lila from Cortez in our heads,” I said.