If I told her the truth of how I felt, then we’d be back to square one, and she’d wake up in my arms. Both of us betraying a man who’d die for her.
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to steady my mind.
My heart.
I spun and faced her, staring deep into her glossy eyes. Tears streamed down her gorgeous face. In five confident strides, I was standing in front of her.
She sucked in a breath when I leaned over, pausing inches from her lips. Pecking the corner of her mouth, I kissed away the tear that fell because of me.
She wanted me to fight with her.
She wanted me to tell her that it wasn’t true.
My words devastated her, but not because they weren’t true. They gutted her because they were true, every last one of them.
Hurt.
Pain.
Sorrow.
Of love and hate.
I loved Eden, but there were also times I hated her.
This was just one example of why.
“I do,” meant “goodbye.”
To the memories.
To the love.
To the woman I’d spend the rest of my life trying to forget.
“I do” was simply the end.
Tristian had asked me for this one thing.
One thing to be his.
Eden.
The woman we both loved more than anything.
So I fucking said it.
“You’re his.” I looked straight into her tear-stained face and cupped her chin. “You’ve always been his.”
I slammed the final nail in my coffin, spewing, “Go home, Red. I don’t fucking love you.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“People change, it’s just a matter of if they die before it happens.” —Orochimaru
Eden
Now
I don’t know how long I stood there, water pelting my shivering body until my teeth started to chatter until my body went numb like my heart. Until it felt like nothing was left of me.
I loved him.
I swear, I did.
Liar. My dark heart whispered.
For years he was my everything… until he started to change. Until we morphed into something unrecognizable. We shared a life, a home, a son. We had a future filled with happiness. I deserved that. He’d owed me that.
We both did.
Naz needed him.
His hero.
Now he was gone.
I watched with devastation as the shiny black casket was lowered into the hard, cold dirt. The heavens were raining upon me, weeping right along with me, raindrops seeping into my black dress.
Burning my core.
My heart.
My soul.
Little by little.
Deeper and deeper.
It became much more difficult to stand on my own.
But still, I stood there…
Not listening to the eulogies.
Not paying attention to the well wishes, and I’m so sorry.
Not caring for the prayers.
Not even reacting when people whispered under their breath that he deserved this.
Nothing would bring him back to me. Not even God.
There was nothing I could do, nothing I could say, no amount of hail Mary plays would make it okay. I could spend the rest of eternity on my knees, beating my chest, shouting toward Heaven.
And Heaven? Would punish me with its silence.
I lost myself until darkness surrounded me until all eyes were only staring at me until I wanted to die too.
With him.
Beside him.
One with my husband.
The only tether I had to this world was my son now, and even then, he was a constant reminder of what pieces of my heart would be forever missing.
I could feel the eeriness of the guests like a noose around my neck, just waiting to take my next breath. Waiting for me to react, waiting for me to breakdown, just waiting for me to do something.
Anything.
It could have been one minute, four days, or two months that had passed in front of my swollen eyes at the speed of a lightning strike. There was no saying how long I stood there staring at Tristian’s casket. If my puffy eyes and shivering body were any indications, I would have guessed a few hours. Time just seemed to stand still while my whole world shattered all around me.
Piece by piece.
One by one.
Now there would be nothing left of me.
Not the woman Tristian loved, married, had a son with. All they saw was a hollow shell of a person they used to know, holding onto the hope that I’d be that woman again. She was somewhere deep inside of me.
Hiding.
Scared.
Ceasing to exist.
Except I tried to pretend I wasn’t there. I tried to imagine that my life hadn’t been changed in a matter of seconds. That my whole world hadn’t been turned upside down and inside out in the span of a few hours. That everything I wanted to believe in wasn’t truly…
Another lie that would bring Tristian back.
It wouldn’t.
He was dead.
And nobody knew why.
His choices.
Mine.
Ours.
Good ones.
Bad ones.
It all spun together, forming a catalyst of chaos and questions with no answers.
There were no do-overs, no matter how much I tried to reach those invisible lines and put them back in order, fixing what was broken.
I couldn’t.
We were happy.
Weren’t we?
I didn’t choose this. I didn’t want this. I’d never prayed for this. My husband had been buried today, six feet under, where I would never see him again.
Not one smile.
Not one laugh.
Not one, “I love you.”
I tightly shut my eyes, listening to the rain beat down on me.
And then, I suddenly felt him behind me.
Everything about him hurt.
His composure, his scent, especially his love for me.
For us.
“I’m sorry, Red. I’m so fucking sorry,” he stressed in a tone that was filled with nothing but pain and remorse.
Guilt rolled off him; he radiated it. Consuming and bleeding into me. Holding me hostage, captive in the arms of a man who threw me into his brother’s bed.
I could feel it engulfing me, making it hard to breathe.
Hard to think.
Hard to feel.
Right now, at this moment.
My life ended in the arms of Romeo.
While men from all over New York City stopped by to show their respect to one of the most powerful families in the Sicilian Mafia.
I leaned into his embrace, trying to shove the guilt from the last fight between Tristian and me.
It was always the same.
Jealousy—the chip on his shoulder.
And working too much—the chip on mine.
I never believed it would come to this, that our last fight, our last words would be the end of us. I’d let him slam the door. I’d screamed after him in frustration.
There had been no goodbye kiss.
No kind words.
Just destruction.
And now, desolation.
Romeo was the last person I wanted to see. To feel. To have comforting me.
He would always and forever be the chasm between Tristian and me. The one bridge both of us refused to build, to cross.
“I’m sorry, Red,” he repeated.
“I know.” I barely got the word out before clenching my teeth back together to keep from sobbing again, to keep from screaming Tristian’s name like it would bring him back.
Romeo tugged me closer into the side of his body, and for the first time in years, I felt nothing for the man who once meant everything.