Chapter 2
Aspen
I don't have to see myself in the mirror to know just how blank my stare is. I've mastered the look of seeming not to care about anything in my life. There are days when my look is a true reflection of exactly how I feel. There are days I want to give up. Those types of days are coming faster and closer together, and it worries me.
My husband, Damien, doesn't give a damn about my happiness. If anything, he prefers me sad and weak, wondering if death might be a better option. It places me exactly where he wants me because he's one hundred percent the reason I feel this way.
I sit at the bottom of the stairs, the app on my phone for the front gate letting me know he has come home. Me waiting for him as if we're some happily married couple is the expectation. There have been a few times I didn't wait for him, and the consequences were dire. I do my best not to make those mistakes, although I think he tries to catch me off guard some days just so he can punish me.
I stand when I hear the crunch of gravel on the driveway out front and plaster the best smile I can manage by the time the front door opens.
It's ten in the morning, and he hadn't come home last night.
Unlike my father, the late Ivan Reese, Damien would rather party than cultivate the business. My father had late business meetings, but the man never compromised what he was doing to have a good time or to get laid. Criminal enterprise or not, he was a good businessman.
Damien, now the head of the family business, seems to want to run it all into the ground, and I know the men surrounding him have taken notice. They're biding their time before they form a mutiny and remove him from the top. There are days I wish I'd get the call that they found his body on the side of the road in a ditch, but as he opens the door, his eyes darting right to where I'm expected to be, I realize that I have to go yet another day without my wish coming true.
"My love," he says in a grandiose way as he throws his arm out in my direction. "Help me with my coat."
"Good morning," I tell him softly, without a hint of reprisal in my tone.
I don't care that he stays gone so often. If I had a choice, I'd have him forget this address.
I don't say a word about the guns strapped to his body or the lipstick stain on his collar. I don't mention the scent of another woman's perfume and sex on his skin, but the thought of him expecting the same from me makes my stomach turn over and over.
I pull his jacket from his shoulders and walk to the coat closet and hang it up.
"Good morning," he says, walking toward the kitchen. "What's for breakfast?"
"What would you like?" I ask, knowing he doesn't see me as a threat with the way he shows me his back as he leaves the room.
"Peach cobbler cinnamon rolls, bacon, and eggs," he says as he takes a seat at the dining room table.
I swear my teeth will be nubs from grinding them before I'm pulled from this earth.
I make a fresh pot of coffee because although he didn't ask for it, I know it's something he'll want.
Damien Gaines has hated me since the first day he laid eyes on me, and the feeling has been mutual on my end as well. We didn't marry for love. I could never love a man as violent and vile as him, but that didn't stop me from saying my vows. I was promised to him. My father was grooming him to run the organization. When my father wasn't moving fast enough, probably because he realized at some point he had made a mistake, Damien had him killed, putting him right at the top of what my father spent his lifetime building. It's been only a month since my father met his tragic end, and Damien has managed to piss off nearly every other family already.
I set to making the cinnamon rolls, which take forever because I can't simply stuff peaches in already-made rolls from the grocery store. I have to make the dough. He purposely has me do these things just to anger me and waste my time. He'll eat one or two, then leave the rest on his plate. If he wants the same thing tomorrow, Damien Gaines is much too important to eat anything that would be considered a leftover, so I'll have to make a new batch.
I fight the burn of tears as they sting the backs of my eyes and inside my nose. Crying won't help. If anything, it'll only make all of this so much worse. I don't have to look over at him to know that he's staring at me, probably considering what else he can pile on top of me so he can watch me break.
I've tried to be as strong as possible, but the weight of my life grows heavier and heavier every day.
I hate the choices I've made in life, ones that keep me locked away here like a prisoner with no bars on the doors or windows.
"We have a shipment coming in on Thursday," he says, as if we have normal conversations like this all the time.
My father never spoke of much business in front of me unless he needed to prove a point to someone. Damien doesn't involve me in business either, but these conversations are coming more frequently. I'd be a fool to think he wants me more involved. He is either testing me to see if I'll rat him out to the police or he wants me scared. Either way, I won't say a word to anyone. There's too much at stake for me that I'd never compromise.
"Did you hear me?"
I lift my eyes, giving him a tired smile. "A shipment."
"You don't have any questions?"
This could go either way. Asking could be what he expects or I could ask and he'll be angry that I did. The screwed-up part about all of it is no matter what I choose, he's going to go the opposite way and be pissed.
"Do you need my help with anything?"
This is as neutral as I can manage, and I'm still not certain that my offer will be well received.
His eyes narrow as if he never expected me to go that route, but when he pulls in a deep breath, I know that I somehow made the right choice.
My mind drifts to what life would be like without him, but even that isn't fathomable. There are no picket fences in my future. I've made my bed, so to speak, but that doesn't stop me from considering a different life.
I begin to gather ingredients for the quick dough I make on occasions when he's being extra shitty and wonder if poisoning him is possible. He seems to only want to eat when I cook, despite the fact that we have a personal chef. I don't know if he thinks the chef will hurt him or if he just likes being a giant asshole to me. Either way, if he got sick after eating, I'd be the one to blame.
There's no shortage of guns in this house, and the man is so confident in his hold on me that he doesn't worry for a second that I'll use one of them against him.
"Smaller," he grunts after I coat the rolled-out dough with butter before applying the layer of cinnamon sugar. "I don't like big chunks."
"Okay," I tell him, grabbing the knife so I can cut the peaches smaller.
Last week he complained they were too small, and that's just one more piece of evidence proving he's more than a little difficult all the time. There's no pleasing him because his pleasure isn't in me getting something right. It's in the fact that everything I do is wrong, always. It could be done to perfection, and he'll still find something wrong with it.
After cutting the peaches smaller, I sprinkle them on the dough, roll them up, and cut them to size, before placing them in the baking dish and into the oven.
"Do you want it all together or your eggs and bacon now?"
I've learned to ask because that puts the ball in his court rather than giving him another thing to complain about.
"Now is good," he says. "Extra greasy bacon. I drank too much last night."
I watch as he rubs his stomach and do my best not to show the disgust I feel inside, on my face.
My hands tremble as I get out the eggs and bacon from the fridge. It puts my back to him, and history has proven that I can't trust him, though I'm forced into this position often.
I hold every other breath, listening to make sure he hasn't gotten up from the dining room table. I never know when he's going to feel slighted and hit me.
A noise to the left draws my attention, but when I lock eyes with Kaitlyn, she knows that she isn't welcome in the kitchen right now. I don't know what he has on her or any of the other people who work here at the house, but they never leave. It's as if they're slaves to him like I am.
I know what he's holding over my head, but I've never been brave enough to ask them why they stay. Despite not being happy, they're all loyal to him. I have no doubt they would feed me to the wolves the second they had a chance in order to garner more favor from him.
Just as the bacon is done frying and the eggs are scrambled, the timer for the oven goes off.
Knowing he said bacon and eggs first, I take that to him before pulling the rolls from the oven. I plate two because despite knowing he won't eat much, he'll still complain if I bring him too little.
I don't know why today is different. Maybe he's too tired or too hungover to be an asshole, but he makes it through his meal, eating one of the two cinnamon rolls, before standing.
"Anything else?" I ask as he walks away.
"I'll let you know," he mutters before leaving the room.
After cleaning up after him, I sit down at the table with my own serving of cinnamon rolls and leftover bacon. I eat slowly because I know his routine enough to know he'll go upstairs, get a shower, and then he'll pass out until the sun starts to set.
The work ethic of my husband compared to what my father always had isn't much of a comparison. Dad wanted to expand the business. Damien seems hellbent on running it into the ground. When he does, I know it'll somehow be all my fault.