Page 27 of Merciless

She turned for her car that was parked in my driveway. I followed behind to wave her off when something in my periphery caught my eye.

Splatters of colour littered my lawn, plastic reflecting brightly in the sunlight. Puzzled, I sank down to pick up a handful of lollies when realisation struck.

My palm was soon bursting with Beth’s preferred candy—and there was only one other person alive who knew my wife’s unique taste in sugary sweets.

Colton? He was here. But when?

I heard an anguished groan from a distance, as if someone was on the verge of going into cardiac arrest… until I processed that the sound was coming from me.

Please, no. Not again.

I raced inside, barely able to think straight as I launched for my phone sitting on the TV cabinet. I aggressively swiped at the screen, which remained blank.

Stay calm, stay calm. I wasn’t calm.

When I was about to throw the useless device against the wall in frustration, someone snatched the phone out of my hand and hit the power button.

I barely registered Nikita returning it to me when multiple notifications began flashing. Not giving myself time to breathe, I swiped the message thread open, and my world imploded.

I swore the universe was against me, or someone almighty fucking hated my guts, because how could I have missed all the signs—every single one?

There was no text received. Only two images documenting Colton’s miserable day—the day I thought he had given up on me.

Those photos were branded into my brain matter, each one more damning than the last.

The first was of a flat tire and deserted road, the place barren. I recognised the location and knew something must have gone wrong, as my boy knew how to change a tire from the age of six. Colton hadn’t deserted me; he was trying to relay why he was running late.

Despite that being bad enough, it was the second photo that had my soul evaporating into ash. Nikita and I stood at the kitchen bench, eating my wife’s favourite cake as we stared into each other’s eyes.

I only caught a glimpse of the incriminating image before the phone dropped from my shaking hands. I tried lying to myself, thinking that the angle made the scene out to be worse than what it was. Except, not long after he’d captured that moment, Nikita had kissed me with her chocolate-coated lips, and we subsequently fell into bed together.

Another distant cracking pierced through the silence, and it took me a few seconds to realise that the breaking was internal.

How much did he see? How long did he witness his father acting like a fool again?

That didn’t matter. The answer was loud enough. Colton had left his mark by haphazardly throwing that candy he’d bought all over my lawn. He wanted me to know he had seen. Colton wanted me to know he had been here and left—for good.

Oh, god.

My familiar friend, Despair, soon made himself known, offering to drown me in a weightless abyss as I came to terms with the fact that I had well and truly destroyed any last chance of reconnecting with my son.

Take me. Take me away from here.

On the fringes of consciousness, I could distantly process that I was lying supine on my living room floor, comatose and unmoving.

Yet there was one form of warmth, barely a flicker, but there all the same.

“It’s okay, Will. I’m here, I’ll always be here. I’ll always take care of you,” she said, voice soft and soothing. That’s the last thing I processed before I let darkness enter.

Chapter 17

COLTON

Four years later…

My coffee grew cold as I sifted the thick, glossy envelope through my fingertips. I knew what was waiting for me inside. After all, I’d been preparing for this exact moment for nearly four years.

Despite the hidden bomb within, I remained eerily calm, as if nothing could touch me, like I was invincible. And in a way, I was.