Chapter 3 #2
“Chief Mayet?” Archer growls. “Now, please.”
“We’ll discuss it another day. Goodbye, Justin.” I offer the phone and allow Archer to place it in the cradle, then I settle back in my chair and take as much space as physically possible. Snatching up my coffee mug and glancing inside at the old, cold liquid, I sigh at my misfortune.
“Finally.” Archer stares at me across my desk. “We should—”
“How’s Steve?” I set the mug down again and steel myself, forcing my eyes back to Archer’s. Even when it hurts. Even when it fucking stings. “Is he well?”
His jaw ticks, and beneath the stubble he’s grown longer than usual, his pulse races. “Recovering. You should stay at the house.”
“I should—” Sit. Stay. Be calm. “I’m sorry.” I blink. Blink. Blink. “What?”
“Go back to the house. I was being impractical when I suggested you should stay at the apartment.”
Impractical? I narrow my eyes. “How so?”
“The apartment is hot. Steve is your guest. You should be at the house throughout his recovery.”
“You’re asking me to come back?” My throat aches.
My voice crackles. My entire world balances on whatever he might think to say, and yet, there isn’t a single response he could mutter that won’t compound the hurt I already feel.
Because he already asked me to leave. The damage has been done. “You wish to reevaluate things?”
He flattens his lips and brings one foot up to rest atop the opposite knee. “Sending you back to the apartment was wrong. I’ll stay away from the house in the meantime and keep out of your way.”
You’ll stay away… Away… “I see.”
“So you agree? I’ll pack a bag and clear out, and I’ll tell Mary to expect you at the house for dinner. Steve will be pleased to—”
“No.” I push up from my chair, the dumb thing rolling back and crashing against the bookshelves behind me, then I snatch up my phone and force the brightest, fakest, most convincing smile I can muster.
“We don’t agree. Honestly, I’m quite comfortable at my apartment.
” I stalk around my desk and stand over the man who knows, so easily, how to cut me down.
“We weren’t married for very long, so I hardly consider it fair that I take the home I lived in for exactly three nights. ”
I twist on my heels—please, for the love of God, let me escape—but Archer grabs my wrist and yanks me to a sharp stop, drawing a pained gasp from the depths of my chest and a whimper right after.
Because his eyes blister and burn. Desperate and aching.
“I love you, Minka.” His voice crackles, breaking with an anguish that almost undoes me. “I love you more than I love literally anyone else on the planet. More than I’ve ever—”
“It’s too bad that love still wasn’t enough.
” I tug free of his grip and fold my arms to keep him from grabbing a second time.
“I’ll tell you the same as I told Lawrence.
” I swallow the aching rasp in my voice.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve been alone my whole life; I learned early on how to deal with that kind of existence. ”
“You don’t have to be—”
“We gave it a really good go, though, didn’t we?” I loathe my croaking voice. My humiliating weakness. I want so badly to walk away with my dignity still intact. “Two weddings,” I murmur. “Almost two years. We’ve solved a lot of cases together. Brought justice and closure to a lot of families.”
“Minka—”
“We did great things.” I inhale a shaking, horrifyingly shuddering breath. “I hope we can maintain professionalism, even in light of…” Sniffling, I bring my shoulders up in a shrug. “Ya know. Things.”
“You wish to remain professional?” His lips quirk up on one side.
It’s an almost smile, though I know him well enough to know it’s the kind of smile a sociopath flashes immediately before doing something monumentally deranged.
“You think we’ll just… continue on, Doctor Mayet?
You, the chief M.E. Me, a homicide detective whose literal job will have me inside this building every single week.
Every single day, if I can come up with an excuse for it. ”
“You’re searching for excuses?” Fuck it. And fuck professionalism, too. “Archer, you’re the one who asked me to go! You’re the one who—”
“I want to discuss it,” he grits out. “At dinner. Tonight.” He fists the hem of my skirt and drags me six inches closer. “Seven o’clock. I know we had a fight, and I know we said some big, life-changing shit. Both of us did.”
“Yeah.” I tear my skirt from his grip and move a whole step to the left. “You asked me not to come back to the house.” Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t you fucking cry! “In plain terms, Archer, as plain as they come, you broke up with me.”
“No, I—”
“Yes! I questioned whether you were reconsidering our vows, and I offered you time and space to think about things. That’s on me, and though my intentions were well-meaning, I still did that.
I put the first wedge in our marriage. But when I realized my mistake and called to tell you I was coming home, you told me not to bother.
That’s on you. I intend to honor your wishes, and I’m fully prepared to continue our working relationship, placing the promises we each made—me, to the dead, and you, to justice—at the forefront of every decision I make.
Eventually, once emotions have calmed, this probably won’t hurt so much. ”
He laughs. It’s the mocking, cruel laughter of a true Bond villain moments before he blows shit up. “Look at you, trying to convince me this robot version of you is real.”
“Archer—”
“Or that you’re capable of maintaining a professional front when it comes to us.”
I tighten my eyes to slits. “Are you implying I can’t?”
He snorts and slowly, tormentingly, pushes up from his chair.
“I’m saying you’ve already made promises, Mayet, twice: Till death do we part.
I asked for time to think things through.
I did not ask for a fucking divorce, and if you think this robot act is convincing, even for a second, you’re more delusional than I ever gave you credit for.
” He inches closer, closer, so his chest stops a mere inch away, his body towering over mine, and his aftershave slams to the base of my lungs, just like it used to when we were new.
“Dinner. Tonight. Seven o’clock. We’ll talk about this. ”
My phone vibrates on my desk, an incoming text that drags me back to reality and the other promises I’ve made. The other plans I’ve committed to. “Unfortunately, I’m unavailable for dinner tonight.”
His eyes darken to a fiery, furious glare. “You have alternate plans?”
I do, actually. With another man.
“Alternate plans aside, I’m not convinced you’re in this for life.
” I swallow the aching, sticky lump of heartache stuck squarely at the base of my throat.
“We could hang out tonight, talk, and argue. Probably even angry-fuck some of the tension away. But ultimately, you don’t want this version of me.
Every single time I do these things—the Agosti types of things—you come undone.
When shit got real, instead of running toward me, you ran away. ”
“I asked for a minute to think things through! I’m doing exactly what you suggested we do.”
I take a step back and exhale a shaky breath. “My best and worst idea ever.”
“Minka—”
“It’s possible we’re just not suited.” Don’t cry. Please, for the love of God, don’t cry. “Maybe we rushed, and because you were so panicked about the very thing we’re arguing about now, you jumped headfirst into marriage, hoping a wedding certificate would be the glue that could hold us together.”
“We are suited,” he snarls. “And we didn’t rush. I waited thirty-one long years for you.”
My eyes betray me, spilling over and destroying everything I work so hard for.
Robots don’t cry! “What we are is special,” I rasp.
“It’s beautiful and wild and pure and being loved by you was so, so healing for someone like me.
” I move toward him, incapable of staying away, and place my hand on his thundering heart.
“I know it hurts right now. Breakups are always dramatic and emotional and painful. But eventually, things will get better. When they do, I hope you know how much I loved you, too.”
“Loved?” His face drains white, paler than I’ve ever seen it before.
Paler than that time inside Emilio Pastore’s house, and his older brother was dying on the floor.
Paler than the time I got caught up in front of another man’s gun, or the time he came to understand the reason for most of my trauma.
His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, while perfect, beautiful emerald eyes flicker between mine.
“Don’t give up on us so quickly,” he groans. “Don’t throw us away.”
Too late. I’m the woman whose own father didn’t love her enough to stick around for.
“Eventually, I hope to reach a point where looking into your eyes doesn’t make me want to tear mine out and throw them into oncoming traffic.”
“Minka—”
I turn and shove through my door, crossing the gleaming white tile and smacking the call button on the elevator.
I poke the button over and over and over again, even knowing it doesn’t make the dumb thing move faster, but when the neutral-cube-of-truth-telling-and-something-something opens, I come toe-to-toe, almost nose-to-nose, with Aubree.
Her smile drops into a frown the instant our eyes meet.
“Dammit.” I swipe my blurry vision, then I step into the elevator and gently—though I’d prefer to pick her up and toss her out—nudge her forward. “I want to be alone.”
“Wait.” She spins, even as I jab-jab-jab the close-door button. “Minka—”
“I’m begging for mercy.” I choke on my tears and jam my thumb against the fifteenth-floor button. “Please don’t follow me.”
“I want to come with you.” She takes a step closer. “Please, Minka. I haven’t seen you in—”
“I’m sorry.” I squeeze my eyes shut and back up against the cold steel wall. Finally, the elevator climbs, but for every floor I ascend, the anxiety in my belly grows larger, hotter, achier, at the prospect that someone else will summon the elevator and I’ll have to stop.
My stupid phone vibrates in my palm, incoming texts that distract me, barely, from my throbbing heart and my first-ever breakup.
The doors open on the fifteenth floor, revealing a messy space brimming with busted chairs, old computers, and countless microscopes I’ve been meaning to tell Raquel about.
Stumbling from cold steel to colder tile, I drag my feet and trudge through the chaos.
Archive boxes stacked against one wall, and filing cabinets lining another.
I choke on the tears bubbling in my throat and hastily scrub the moisture from my eyes, and when my phone bleats again, I bring the device up.
Soph:
Just so we’re all on the same page, I basically have access to every conversation you ever have.
I don’t abuse my power often, and I definitely never listen when you’re having relations with your man. Except that one time. And one time other than that. But the conversation you had just now…
I heard all that.
My hands shake. My fingers turn numb. My entire existence is on the ninth floor, stewing over all the hurt we continue to toss at each other.
The problem with being me, and the problem with knowing no man will ever truly stick, means I knew this day was coming.
If my father, a literal half of my DNA, wanted out, then why would any other man, one who doesn’t have to, stay?
Soph:
I’m around if you wanna hang. If you wanna be basic bitches and talk feelings, then we can do that. If you wanna talk business, we can do that, too. Otherwise, I’m at my desk, waiting for the geo-alert to place Abate inside the restaurant.
The hum of the elevator moving within the thick steel shaft twenty feet to my left brings me around. I lower my phone as the numbers rise. As it passes the tenth floor. The eleventh. Twelfth.
Groaning, I consider hiding. Running. Ducking under a pile of chairs and praying no one finds me. But when the number stops at fifteen and the ding, announcing a new arrival, plays through the otherwise still air, I hold my breath and wait.
Don’t be Archer. Don’t be Archer. Please, don’t be Archer.
The door slides open and reveals my five-foot, five inches tall, blonde with colorful streaks in her hair, best friend. And when she tilts her head to the side, sympathy shining in her eyes, I break.
“Oh God. It’s all ruined, Aubs.” I suffocate under watery, snotty tears and do the thing only one man on the planet has the power to make me do; cry. “Everything is ruined.”
“It’s going to be okay.” She strides across the room and wraps me up in a hug far tighter than her small frame implies, circling her arms around my torso and crushing me close. “Everything will be alright. I promise.”
“Like, the Aubree-knows-things promise? Or the Aubree’s-just-trying-to-make-me-feel-better promise?”
She hesitates, obliterating whatever last shards of heart I have left, and strokes my hair.
She can’t promise. Because the things she knows don’t align with the promises we wish she could make.
“I want you to stay home tonight.” She twines her fingers in my hair and pulls my head down, forcing me to rest on her shoulder. “Don’t go out looking for that man.”