Dead…Serious About You (Literally #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

ALMA

I’ve made a lot of questionable decisions in my life, but storing my soon-to-be ex-husband’s dead body in the trunk of my car feels like a new low. Panic floods me—again—as I stare at the awkward, discombobulated heap.

This is definitely not what my lawyer meant by cutting ties.

“What am I gonna do?” I whisper to myself, my stomach flopping around like a dead fish. “Why the fuck did you move the body?”

Great question. One I don’t really have the answer to. All I remember is fear and how it bested me in the moment, how it climbed into the driver’s seat and made the decisions for me…

“Retract it,” he grits between his teeth, fists balling at his sides.

It takes everything in me not to roll my eyes. He’s always been like this—quick to anger, quick to assume that if he says something with enough confidence, it becomes reasonable by default. Honestly, it’s such a turn off. Not sure how or why I ever thought I loved this man.

Chuckling into my glass, I shake my head and savor what remains of the wine. “No, thank you. It’s the least you could do after your little rendezvous.”

Lance opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He shuts it just as quickly and thins his lips, hazel eyes narrowing in annoyance. That look, the one that says I’m the problem for being upset he fucked someone else, finally does it.

“You know what really pisses me off?” I set my glass down with more force than necessary.

The stem rattles against the table, sloshing red wine onto the white runner my mother bought us as a housewarming gift.

“It’s not even that you cheated. It’s that you think I’m stupid enough to buy whatever excuse you’re workshopping right now. ”

“I’m not—”

“You are.” I stand, chair legs screeching like a paid actor. “You absolutely are. You didn’t trip and fall into her pussy, Lance.”

His jaw tightens, the dusting of salt and pepper scruff rippling beneath it. “You don’t have to be crude.”

I laugh, sharp and ugly, the kind that feels like it scraped its way out of my chest. “It’s not crude when it’s the truth.”

Lance’s gaze drops then to the manila folder sitting between us. “Retract it,” he says again, his tone clipped, professional, as if we were negotiating severance instead of a marriage.

I follow his stare to the divorce papers, to the alimony clause I tabbed in an aggressive neon pink. You know, so he wouldn’t miss it after I initially had him served with the papers. “No.”

“You don’t need it.” His voice drags my attention back up to his face. “You can work.”

Six months ago, he promised I wouldn’t have to.

He promised me the stay-at-home-wife life.

An escape hatch from student loans, credit card debt, cubicles, and pretending ambition was enough to keep the lights on, while simultaneously watching my older coworkers rot in their ergonomic chairs.

He promised me security, comfort, that I wouldn’t always be so goddamn tired.

Turns out what he meant was dependent.

“I gave up my job for you,” I remind him. “At your suggestion.”

“And I paid for everything,” he snaps, the same way he used to in budget meetings when someone questioned his numbers. “Your car, your phone, your—”

“Your credit card paid for your mistress too, so I guess we’re both into generosity and sharing resources.”

“I told you, that was a mistake.”

I laugh unintentionally this time, a flippant sound that slips out before I can stop it. “A mistake is forgetting to file a receipt, Lance. You fucked her three months into our marriage. In hotels around town, on business trips, on my fucking birthday.”

He shoves away from the island and begins pacing like a caged animal. “I can’t believe you went through my statements.”

“And like I’ve told you, I kinda had to when the card bounced during lunch with Noelle. Do you know how embarrassing that was?”

No answer. No acknowledgement. He simply continues pacing and waves his hand in the air. “She meant nothing.”

“Neither did I, apparently,” I retort, earning me a slow turn of his head before he charges and stops right in front of me.

Too close.

Always too close when he’s losing.

Towering over me like he’s better than me simply because he’s a wealthy man. It’s the same posture he used when he wanted compliance—looming, patient, certain I’d fold.

“Retract the alimony,” he says a third time, slower and more ground out. “You’re not entitled to it.”

Entitled.

I nearly laugh again because oh, the irony, but manage only to tilt my head back and look him in the eye. “We were married.”

“Barely,” he scoffs.

“You’re fifteen years older than me,” I add. “You married me knowing exactly what I was giving up.”

His face turns a vicious shade of red. “I saved you.”

If I were still in love with him, that would’ve stung. No, it would’ve hurt like a bitch. But I already had time to mourn this marriage, to mourn the man I thought I married, to mourn the fact I wasn’t enough for him. Now I just feel nothing. All I want is to be done, to know peace…

Inching up on the tips of my toes, I bring myself as close as possible. “I didn’t need saving,” I grit. “I needed a partner. Instead, I got a supervisor who fucks interns behind his wife’s back.”

Lance slams a fist onto the table, and while he was never violent, I flinch anyway.

“Retract it!” he shouts, his patience long gone. “Now.”

“No.”

He moves fast, too damn fast, and my body reacts before my brain catches up, instincts screaming for me to run. I bolt for the hallway, heart slamming violently against my ribs.

“Alma!” His footsteps pound like thunder behind me. “Get back here!”

The front door is right there, but for whatever the reason may be, I don’t take it. Instead, I turn and sprint up the stairs, bare feet slipping on polished wood. Every horror movie rule I’ve ever mocked flashes through my head, especially when I’m halfway up and Lance’s hand clamps around my arm.

I scream louder than I ever have in my entire life as fear shoots through my veins at lightning speed. He yanks me back, his grip crushing, fingers digging into my arm hard enough that I know it’s going to bruise later. I glance back and note his face is twisted with something ugly and feral now.

“You’re not taking my money,” he snarls. “You hear me?”

I don’t think. I don’t weigh options, consider the consequences, or remember that this is my husband and not some stranger who broke into my house.

I just kick.

Hard.

My heel connects sharply with his shin, and for a split second there’s resistance. Then my weight shifts backward, and his balance goes. His grip loosens, fingers scraping uselessly at my sleeve as his eyes widen—like this possibility never occurred to him.

Truthfully, it didn’t occur to me, either.

The next ten seconds happen in slow motion.

There’s a horrible, hollow sound as his body tumbles down the stairs.

Limbs hit wood at the wrong angles, shooting my shoulders closer to my ears with each round, until his head cracks against the banister with a sickening finality before he collapses at the bottom in a boneless heap.

And then—nothing.

There’s nothing.

The house goes eerily quiet. I stand there frozen, staring at the crumpled shape at the bottom of the staircase, waiting for him to move, to groan, to start yelling again so I can tell myself this isn’t what it looks like.

But suddenly a pool of crimson creeps out from beneath his head, and every drop of blood coursing through my being turns to ice. Dark and glossy, it spreads slowly across the hardwood like it has nowhere better to be, in a way that feels deliberate and irreversible…

“Lance?” My voice barely exists. “Lance, get up.”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move.

I blink through the not-so-distant memory.

A normal person would’ve called 911 right about then, and I almost did—I swear—but then I heard it; the sirens, the questions, the way fell would’ve turned into pushed the second I said we were fighting.

The way an accident would’ve turned into intent the moment someone decided I looked guilty enough.

I could already see the look on the cop’s face when he noticed the wine, the papers on the counter, my fingerprints everywhere…

Which is how we ended up here—with his body in my trunk.

But now I have no clue what to do, and despite knowing I shouldn’t involve anyone else in my mess, I do the only thing I can think to do.

I call my dad.

He answers on the second ring as if he’d already been holding the phone. “Alma.”

“I—” My throat closes nervously, unsure of what to say. “Pa, I need help.”

There’s a careful pause, and then he asks, “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Is anyone else there?”

“Yes. Him. He…fell down the stairs.”

Another pause rents the air, longer this time. My dad never cared for Lance, said there was something off about him, that he was sospechoso. “Is he breathing?”

I stare at Lance’s body for a moment, then squeeze my eyes shut. “No.”

The silence that follows is much heavier now, not shock exactly, but the sound of someone realizing just how bad this is.

“?Donde estas?” he asks quietly.

“At the house.”

“And he’s…?” He trails off, like he already knows he won’t like the answer.

“In my trunk,” I whisper. “I panicked. I didn’t know what else to do.”

My dad exhales, sharply this time, the first crack in his formidable armor of control. “Alma,” he scrapes out incredulously. “Why? Why would you move him?”

“I just… I don’t know. I didn’t think. It’s like my body was on autopilot and the next thing I knew he was in the trunk.”

“You tampered with a crime scene, you understand that, right?” he says, not asks. It’s not in an accusatory fashion, just stating the facts.

My throat tightens again, stomach roiling violently. I’m gonna throw up. “Yes.”

Another heavy breath filters in through the line, slower and steadier now like he’s forcing himself back into his body.

“Listen to me,” he commands, voice firm.

“There’s no going back now, but we can’t afford for you to make it worse.

Don’t call anyone else, don’t go back inside, and whatever you do, don’t move him anymore. ”

He can’t see me, but I nod silently, urging him to continue.

“I’m going to send you a location,” he continues. “You’re going to drive there like nothing ever happened. Follow the speed limits, use your blinkers, then park where I tell you and wait.”

“For how long?” I ask.

There’s a brief pause, not uncertainty but calculation. “Until I tell you otherwise.”