Victoria’s cheeks reddened. “You think Martin still has a thing for her?”
“I don’t want to talk about them. This is our day.” I stole another kiss and twirled my bride through the crowd. The DJ announced a break. I escorted Victoria to our table. The evening moved on. We laughed and mingled. Guests dwindled. Martin never returned.
Victoria excused herself to the restroom. She returned smelling of cigarettes, igniting our first fight as a married couple.
Before the reception ended, Victoria had canceled the honeymoon.
“What did you find out?”
I swung the door wider, allowing my friend, Detective Waters inside.
Dark bags nested his sullen gaze. “You need to have a seat, Cole.”
“I’ll stand.” Arms crossed, I braced for what was sure to be bad news. “You found her?”
Waters scrubbed a hand over his face. “If you don’t wanna sit, can I?”
Fuck.
The sofa was a mere ten steps away. My legs grew heavier with each lift and drop, but I managed to sit, and Waters followed suit.
“Martin’s car was found at the bottom of a cliff in Monterey County a couple hours ago.”
“California?” I asked.
Staring at the floor, he nodded.
“What does Martin have to do with my missing wife?” Victoria had lied about a weekend trip with her girlfriends while Martin had ghosted days after the wedding. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in the two weeks since.
He nodded. Swallowed. Gave me a hard look.
“No. Don’t say it.”
Again he nodded, his jaw tensing before he forced the words through gritted teeth. “Martin’s body washed up on shore about a half mile down. They recovered Vic’s ID and a suitcase full of women’s clothing. Her body hasn’t been found, but that’s not uncommon in these types of accidents.”
The room blurred. Truths speared my chest, razor-sharp puzzle pieces slicing me wide open. Vic and Martin.
Jesus fucking Christ, what a fool I’d been.
Veins ice cold, I stared at the wall above his head, unnamable emotions rolling through me. “She emptied our joint bank account twenty-four hours ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They’ll keep looking for her, right?”
“Of course.” He ran a hand through his graying hair. “Most likely, though, the ocean claimed her body.”
“Understood,” I managed to say, though I would never fully comprehend. My best friend. My wife. My child. Fuck. Was the child even mine? Had there even been a child?
I stood and gestured to the door. “Thanks for coming by, but I...I um…” I couldn’t form a thought, my mind and body numb.
“Can I call anyone for you?”
“No. No, I just need a…” I couldn’t finish. My fists curled, the urge to strike someone overwhelming.
He came to my side, braced my shoulder. “We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll be back around nine. I called your pops. He’s on his way.”
“Appreciate that,” I choked out. And before he stepped outside, I warned, “We need to keep this out of the press.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said.
I closed the door and fell to the floor.
Father Christianson gave his final blessing, and the mass of mourners slowly rose and made their way toward the exit, leaving the gloom of the church behind, the procession mostly silent save a few sniffles.
My body, a thousand pounds of rage, remained glued to the pew. I stared ahead at nothing in particular, the room around me shrouded in a red haze, the pulpit, the cross, the flowers, colorless, lifeless, dead. Like my wife and my best friend.
“Son.” Dad wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
I shrugged him off.
“We’ll give you a few minutes,” he rasped before escorting my mother toward the aisle.
Seething and broken, I had watched Martin’s ceremony from the shadows. Victoria’s service, however, demanded my presence, and despite her betrayal, I set my mask firmly in place and played the grief-stricken widower while burning and churning and boiling over with ugly, vile hatred.
Maybe that hatred would eat me alive. Maybe I could join my friend and lover in Hell. I would enjoy watching them burn.
“Cole.” Natalie’s voice, a lowly whisper, cut through the dark, pernicious haze and sliced me open, demonic fury spilling from the wound.
“Get the fuck out.” My words echoed off the stained-glass windows.
A sharp breath, then silence. Soft footfalls retreated.
Finally, a target for my rage. I rose from the cursed bench and stalked behind, ignoring every well-meaning soul I passed. When Natalie reached her car, I growled, “Why the hell are you here?”
Shoulders bunched, she turned to face me. A black dress covered her body from neck to knees, hiding the seductive curves underneath. Her hair was pulled into a tight knot, not a fucking strand out of place.
Natalie met my eyes. Cleared her throat. “I’m not sure. I just… I…um…I just needed to come.”
She was beauty. I was spite. “To gloat?”
“What?” She hugged her handbag like the black leather would protect her. “No.”
“You hated her.”
“She hated me.”
“Why did you come?” Why did she ever let me go?
“I don’t know. It felt like it was the right thing to do.”
“Fuck the right thing.” I moved closer, craving her pain. “Look what doing the right thing has cost me.”
“Cole, I’m sorry.”
The sincerity in her voice broke me all over again. Sorry didn’t mean shit. Sorry wouldn’t right any of the wrongs. I’d chosen the devil. I’d suffer the consequences. “Sorry? Sorry for what? Sorry she’d been fucking my best friend? Sorry they’d stolen from me? Sorry Martin had gambled his way into a debt he’d never get out of, and used my wife, my fucking money, to run? I’ll never—” Anger clogged my throat. “I’ll never know if that baby was even mine. She lied so I would marry her. So she would have access to everything I owned. What the fuck? Who does that shit?”
“Victoria.” Natalie found her voice, her spine straightening. “Victoria does that shit.”
“You knew, didn’t you? You knew all this time that she’d ruin me.”
“I hoped she wouldn’t.”
“You knew her soul was poisoned, and you stood by and watched. Waited.”
“Cole, no. That’s not what—”
“Shut up. Just shut the
