26. Zara
ZARA
Ihate him.
I hate my husband so much that I would love nothing more than to stab him in his cold heart again and again and fucking again.
I imagine killing him so often that playing the part takes every ounce of willpower.
I hate. Hate. Hate. Hate him.
The man who caused me the biggest heartache.
The man who made me forget his betrayal.
I thought I was imagining things, slowly losing my mind, when he was the man I had loved once—the one who made me fall in love with him again. Vian is also the man who killed my father in cold blood. Both things are equally damning, painting him guilty.
There is no redemption. No forgiveness. Like a thief, he entered my home dripping with blood and shot my father right next to me. Shock morphed into agony, then ultimately panic. I tried to flee, too, but I didn’t succeed. Instead, I drove straight into a damn tree.
The rest is a blur of waking up in the hospital, of him trying to reach me while I shouted my lungs out. His attempts at explaining landed on deaf ears. What was there to explain when he had killed my father and desecrated my childhood home?
And what did the asshole do? He wiped my memory. Four years of my life.
And what did I do? I attached myself to him, bonding myself to him irreversibly.
In his home office, I yank at the drawers, knowing he has the keys to that house. I want to set it on fire before I leave and plan his downfall.
No, he won’t get a painless death. I want him to lose everything, and wallow in despair, not knowing what is happening to him. Just like I did.
Today the charade ends, and I can drop the act of being a supportive wife. I’m searching for the keys when I come across a shiny surface. It’s a picture of me before he caused me my deepest hurt—the betrayal that made me lose my damn mind, literally.
I don’t think; I act because I am done. I rip it to pieces just like he did me. Done with the pretense. Done with him. We’re enemies, and I won’t rest until I annihilate him.
I toss the ripped pieces back inside, and beneath a stack of papers, I find the keys. Pocketing them in my purse, I hear the elevator ping open.
I’ve been so deep in my head, playing him and pretending to stand by his side, that every time he comes home, I become a jittery mess.
I slip out of the office and plaster a fake smile on my face. It takes everything in me not to carve his heart out when he smiles back at me and my stupid heart reacts.
Thankfully, I have a powerful ally now: my brain. I wish I had trusted that inner voice, but I ignored it, too damn wrapped up in this monster.
Everything crashes down on me, burying me under a mountain of misery—the signs that were always present, though I disregarded them, not understanding my reservations toward him.
I stare at the reason my heart and brain have always been at war.
My breath hitches, nerves running rampant in my belly, knotting me up. “Home so soon?”
I need to escape his town. I can’t let anything jeopardize my plan. Knowing him, he won’t let me go.
He warned me. Time and time again. I feel so utterly stupid that I could applaud him for playing me so damn well.
He drags a hand down his face, looking tired. “Everything can wait, for all I care.”
It’s been one week since we buried his uncle, and I said we should wait to inform the other families that I am going to be the Underboss.
I would rather die than continue supporting him. My dream of a family, of being partners in every way, has been poisoned, and my insides churn in the acid of his betrayal.
Grief has made him sharper to outside threats but mellow with me, which works to my advantage.
We never think the one we love could be the one to betray us the worst.
Yet, I am staring at him.
And he’s staring at me.
Only one knows the truth, and it’s me for the first time.
Play this right, I urge myself. My jet is waiting for me. Everything is ready for my escape, and then war will ensue—one the underworld has never witnessed before, between wife and husband. I don’t care about losing. I will either win or die. It’s that simple.
I can’t kill him because of that stupid blood oath, but I will dismantle him just like he did me.
I, who married to maintain neutrality, will send the underworld to the brink of war. But by then, it won’t matter.
I only care about taking everything he built apart, piece by piece, just like he does so expertly in his line of business.
He eats the distance between us, backing me into the wall, and kisses me with such ferocity that my knees go weak.
I wonder if he tastes my hatred while I melt under his toxic touch, moan my poisoned pleasure, hoping it will infect his blood and turn it black—black like the heart in my chest, black like my sight.
I hate him.
Hate his wicked tongue.
Hate his passionate mouth.
Hate his addictive touch.
But most of all, I hate that my body still reacts, like a captive grateful to her captor for not killing her.
He Stockholm-syndromed me so well that I never even dared to think him capable of such crass deceit.
I let myself be fooled, believing in asinine coincidences, interpreting his words to make sense when they didn’t.
“So hot and fiery for me,” he groans, drunk with desire while I am drunk on vengeance.
It’s what makes me give in to the kiss, grind against him, and claw my fingers into his chest when all I wish is to rip his heart out and stomp on it, leaving it bruised and battered at my feet just like my spirit.
This is not lovemaking. It’s a declaration of war hidden beneath a torn white flag.
He caused me so much pain, even if he made me orgasm a million times, flooding my being with pleasure, it would not suffice to forget.
Forgive the man who butchered my soul and splintered my rationality?
This man I would have made a father.
This man, whose side I would have stood by as his loving wife and devoted partner.
Tears well in my eyes, thick with frustration, my heavy lids closing against excruciating heartache. If I don’t look at him, maybe the pain will become bearable.
He nibbles along my neck, fooling my body into feeling pleasure while his presence is the worst torment.
Three and a half months. I’ve spent fourteen weeks married to the enemy.
I might be free of the shackles of this fake love, but I won’t ever escape him. It’s irrelevant. He owes me for living in pain, for playing me.
My father raised me after my mother abandoned me. I never cared about finding her, believing him when he told me she cared more about drugs than me. I didn’t ask why.
Vian knew how much he meant to me, and I wonder if his sick love triggered my father’s death because he wanted me all to himself. It could be, but I refuse to waste another thought on him.
I rip the shirt off him, scattering the buttons in every direction, just as I wish to do with my pain. Scraping my fingers down his chest, I mark him with fresh, angry red lines when the last ones have barely faded.
His throat rumbles with a deep groan, the sexy sounds causing the ache between my legs to intensify. How easily he can soothe that constant throbbing. My body caring only for its shallow pleasure.
I end up walking backward, following his lead, like he’s the master and I am only a puppet on his strings—helpless.
Reaching the bedroom, he pushes me onto the bed, and I fall back.
Fall into the abyss, but I won’t hit rock bottom again.
I survived him once. I will do it again. A hundred times if I need to.
His loving gaze meets mine. I itch to gouge out his eyes and wear them as a token around my neck. A surge of rage blinds me for a second before I regain my composure, remembering the stakes.
Fool him, just like he fooled me. Play him like he played me.
I peer into his deep blue eyes. The longer I stare into them, the more I drown in him, suffocating, though even death would be more merciful than loving him.
“You know what is sad?” I whisper, overcome by potent emotions.
A line digs between his brows, concern etched into his features. “What, mi sol?” he asks softly, that side reserved only for me, just to torture me more, I guess.
“Love hurts.”
“Does my love hurt you, or you loving me?”
My eyes tear up, wetting my cheeks. “Both.”
He cups my face, pressing his forehead to mine. “Talk to me. Let me in. You’ve been keeping me out. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
I shake my head, scratching at his hands to let me go, only to sink my fingers into him. “Not tonight. Make love to me tonight. Show me how much you love me.”
Show me how deep your betrayal runs, let me feel it in my marrow, so my hate can cement itself there.
He’s about to move, sensing something is wrong, but this is my show, and it will go accordingly. That stupid girl in love, who saw him as her everything, needs this night with him to say goodbye.
I was done with him the day I returned and wanted to stab him with the letter opener.
“I’ll die loving you,” he says, gripping my waist and lathering my chest in kisses, hot, wet, messy.
A fresh wave of tears gathers in my eyes, and I hate him even more for being such a spectacular actor. I dissociated to survive, but what is he? A damn sociopath.
He wraps his lips around my nipple, sending a jolt of pleasure through me. For a moment, there is nothing but bliss. For a moment, my world is fine. For a moment that passes way too soon, I hold on to the dream, knowing the nightmare will follow.
My hands fly over his back, gliding down the firmness of his sculpted body, and his hard ass––a hot marble statue I breathe life into with every kiss.
His body moves into a maddening rhythm, bringing me so much pleasure, I slip into euphoria while hell awaits me.
Because of him.
The stupid man who thought wiping my memories would be a good idea when his cock does a fantastic job.
This stupid man with whom I felt safe while he took me apart in the best way possible.
The stupid man who I thought was my home when he was the reason I lost mine.
The stupid man who makes me cry while simultaneously pleasuring me.