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Sure, she wants me now. She even said she loved me … She thinks there’s nothing wrong with dating a murderer, but I know better. Right now, I’m safe because I’ve protected her, bought her things. But what do I have to offer beyond that? The shadow of fucking Ed hovering over the both of us, waiting for me to finish the job?
And what happens when she knows the truth?
She’ll go back to what we were before. I’ll become invisible again, but maybe this time with an added layer of heartbreak.
That might be fucking worse.
I turn quietly in my bed, shifting away from her to pick up the phone. The time, 2:36 a.m., glares painfully in my eyes just before I flick open the home screen.
A picture of Atlas greets me there. For the first time in my life I realize, if I were a normal person, it could be a picture of Atlas that I saved as an adorable-as-fuck picture to remind me of what I have in life. Instead, it’s something I took without her knowledge and consent.
And still she thinks I’m worthy of her. How fucking wrong she is.
I shake that sentimental little thought away as I pull open the pending text.
We need to talk. Seven am tomorrow.
Ed’s words are alone and commanding in the chat, and I don’t know why it pisses me off tonight. Maybe because a seven-a.m. breakfast with that senile old asshole isn’t as appealing as devouring Atlas’s orgasm first thing in the morning.
Fuck him.
My fingers pound across the screen without hesitation or deeper consideration.
Why wait? I’ll see you tonight.
Three dots appear across the screen, but I’m already storming through the room and opening the walk-in closet. Gentle lights appear at the baseboards, but I don’t need them. I grab a white shirt and a pair of folded jeans, and I’m pulling them on as I stride back into the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Atlas calls out, shy and uncertain, and the sound of her concern alone sends a new wave of fury through my mind that I have to deal with Ed right now instead of showing Atlas how much gentler I can be with her.
I can give her sweet and sensual if that’s what she’d prefer. It doesn’t always have to be a crime scene when we fuck.
But fuck me if I don’t want to see what she’d look like strapped down to my table too. The image of her perfect tits pressed against white straps slashes through my mind, and I have to clear my throat before I meet her at the side of the bed. I kneel there at the bedside, and her hand slides into mine beneath the cool blanket.
“I have to run an errand for work. I’m sorry, baby, but it’ll only take a minute. Get some sleep, and I’ll be back before you wake.”
Her sleepy gaze sweeps over my features, assessing all the things I’m not saying before she smiles lightly. I hate that we’re the same like that. We read into the words that aren’t written. And she knows there’s more to the story. But surprisingly, she trusts me...
I think.
“Hurry back,” she whispers, her lashes already fluttering closed once again.
Just like that, all the regret that soured my stomach all night disappears.
And I can’t stand the thought of my fucked life without this girl.
* * *
Ed’s house isn’t the one I grew up in. He sold that one during the housing boom for three times what my father bought it for the decade before. So yeah, you could say he’s fucking winning at life.
He actually never shared his new address, choosing to send my mother’s holiday and birthday cards from their P.O. box like I’m a fucking stain on his family name. He always forgets it’s my family name that he bought his way into. Without us, he wouldn’t be shit.
He also forgets how resourceful I am. He can scurry to his “secret” home like a gutter rat, and it won’t matter. No matter how careful a politician is, their life is never private. And yeah, it took some digging into the sold sign he posted on his social media when he moved to the city, but realtors, they’re proud of their shit. And that vague post aboutTime for a New Beginningwas his first slipup. I found dear old dad’s address before he even fully closed on his McMansion earlier this year.
I hop the fence on the north side of the gate, the side where his cameras don’t fully capture the right angles. The grass is soft and unnatural beneath my boots when I land. A fresh dew glistens on the surface like it has just been watered in the midnight hours.
I stride through the outlandish yard and avoid the red dot that’s recording the nightlife from the corner of the brick estate. His front door is large and heavily captured by whatever million-dollar security system makes this fucker feel safe at night.
He’s not. He could be dead tomorrow, and they’d never have a scratch of evidence linking him to me. I take a deep breath through my nose and type in his address information on my phone. With a click of a button, the red light on the two cameras fades out. They stop swiveling for motion and die then and there. The curving brick steps are enormous and still I take them two at a time as I jog up the front porch like a teen missing curfew. Brings back memories. The sleek black lock on the door offers a thumbprint scan just above the keyhole.
