Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Phillip looms over me, hatred radiating from every line of his body, from the fists flexing at his sides to the snarl curling his mouth.
“You killed her,” I say, my voice low and vicious. “I know you did. This is all your fault. Stop lying.”
He looks almost animal in his rage, the kind of man who has spent so long controlling his temper that when it finally slips, it becomes something feral.
Fear flashes hot through my system, chased immediately by adrenaline so sharp it leaves a thin sheen of sweat across my skin.
I can see the hate on his face, and some awful part of me recognizes it because it mirrors my own.
I know this man took my best friend’s life.
I know it with the kind of certainty that lives in the bones.
And for the first time, I understand that Whitney must have seen this side of him too, must have stood where I’m standing now and realized too late who she had married.
I wish I had known. I wish I had been there for her while she was still alive.
I wish I had gone with her that day, because maybe then I could have saved her from the watery grave that swallowed her whole.
Then his hands are on my throat.
They lock around my neck with brutal force, thumbs digging in as the pressure closes off my windpipe.
I gasp and claw at his wrists, trying to wrench myself free, but his grip only tightens.
Panic explodes inside me. I wonder wildly, stupidly, if this is how Whitney felt in her final moments, her last breaths filled with the terror of realizing the man she trusted was the one killing her.
“Mind your own business, you fucking bitch,” he spits, and then his hands tighten harder, crushing my throat between them.
I try to scream, but nothing comes out. Tears flood my eyes as the room narrows, blackness pressing in at the edges. This is it, I think. This is how it ends.
“Don’t touch me,” I finally choke out, my body rigid with the desperate, useless fight for air.
“Babe. Are you okay?”
Bennett’s voice cuts through the dark.
I jolt upright with a ragged gasp, my heart slamming against my ribs as I claw my way back into the room. The dream dissolves in fragments, but not quickly enough. The terror lingers, alive and electric in my body, making it hard to separate what was imagined from what still feels physically real.
“Bad dream?” Bennett asks, his voice gravelly with sleep.
I nod, tears already spilling down my cheeks. “The worst.”
He reaches for me instinctively, rubbing a hand over my back in an effort to calm me, but I flinch before I can stop myself.
My nerves are lit up, every part of me still bracing for violence.
The fear in the nightmare had felt so immediate, so complete, that even now I can feel its aftershocks moving through me.
“Another one about Phillip?” he asks after a moment, his hand gentler now as it moves to my hair. He always does that when I’m upset, smoothing my hair back, grounding me with touch. Usually it works. Usually nothing soothes me faster than Bennett.
As my breathing slowly begins to even out, I fold myself into him, tucking close against the steady wall of his body. “I’m sorry for waking you.”
“Don’t be,” he murmurs. “These last few weeks have been brutal.”
I swallow hard before I finally say it. “I had a dream that Phillip was choking me. And he kept saying I killed Whitney.”
Bennett lets out a quiet huff, but says nothing right away. He just keeps stroking my hair, and the steady rhythm of it, combined with the warm beat of his heart beneath my cheek, begins to pull me back from the edge in a way nothing else can.
“Well,” he says after a moment, his tone lighter than I expect, “if anything ever happens, I can defend your honor. I have a gun.”
I lift my head so fast it makes me dizzy. “What?”
“For self-defense,” he says, like this is the most ordinary thing in the world.
My eyes widen. “Since when?”
He shrugs slightly. “Since forever, I guess.”
“For as long as I’ve known you?” The question comes out sharper than I mean it to, but something cold has already begun to spread through me.
“Yeah.” He pushes back the covers and heads toward the bathroom.
I stare after him, stunned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I never thought about it,” he calls from the doorway.
My mouth goes dry. “Where do you keep it?”
“In a lockbox in the closet.”
“Oh.” The word falls flat. My mind searches frantically for some memory of it, some indication that a loaded gun has been sitting in our house all these years, but there is nothing.
Only the growing discomfort of realizing there has been something this significant, this dangerous, living quietly alongside us the entire time without my knowledge.
Bennett comes back out a minute later, already moving toward the closet to pull down a pair of running shorts. “I’m going for a run,” he says, glancing at me. Then he pauses. “This is really bothering you, huh?”
I nod, still caught somewhere between fear and hurt. I’m almost embarrassed by how shaken I feel, but I can’t help it. His not telling me feels bigger than the gun itself, as though I’ve discovered a hidden room in a house I thought I knew by heart.
Without another word, he turns back to the closet, digs through a stack of clothes, and then returns to the bed with a small black box in his hands. He sits beside me, spins the combination, opens it, and turns it so I can see.
“There,” he says. “That’s it.”
I suck in a breath at the sight of the sleek black handgun resting inside. It looks both smaller and more menacing than I would have expected, compact and quiet in a way that feels somehow worse.
“Is it loaded?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
“Yes.” He nods. “I keep it ready in case of a break-in or something.”
“Or something,” I repeat quietly. My voice sounds strange to my own ears. “I’ve never been around guns.”
I think of my parents, of Kathy Williams chasing vodka with anxiety medication, of Jon pretending order could fix every mess, and I have to laugh inwardly at the thought. The only things they ever shot were espresso and vodka.
“They’re not that scary if you know how to handle them,” Bennett says.
I look at him. “Do you?”
He shrugs. “I go to the range sometimes. Just enough to know I can hit a target if I need to.”
I stare at him for a beat longer than I should. “I don’t like that I’ve been living with a loaded gun in the house for our entire marriage and didn’t know it. That feels like something you tell your wife.”
“It just never came up,” he says.
“But I’m not exactly comfortable sleeping ten feet away from a deadly weapon.”
His expression changes slightly then, something more guarded slipping into place. “You don’t trust me?”
“No.” I shake my head quickly. “Of course I trust you. That’s not what I mean. I just…” I trail off, frustrated by how impossible it is to explain. “It feels strange. That’s all.”
“But what?” he presses gently. “I haven’t taken it out in over a year. Honestly, you’d probably be surprised how many of the men in this neighborhood have at least one gun for protection. And you’re the one convinced there’s a killer living next door.”
I let out a slow breath, my thoughts still reeling. “Yeah.” I push myself out of bed, the room still hazy with sleep and leftover panic, and watch him relock the box and slide it back into the closet. “I think I’m just on edge after everything.”
“Understandably.” He pulls a white shirt over his head, rakes a hand through his hair, and offers me a small, easy smile. “I’ll be back in a bit. Call me if you need anything, okay?”
He steps closer and places his hands on my shoulders before kissing my forehead. “Want me to grab bagels and lox from Fortino’s?” he asks, naming the deli he always passes on his route.
“Sure. That sounds good.” I rise onto my toes and catch his mouth in a quick kiss. “I love you. Thank you for taking care of me.”
“My pleasure, beautiful.” His eyes soften, warming in that familiar way that always sends a quiet rush through me.
“I’m so lucky you’re mine,” I say, smiling despite everything. “The day we met changed my life.”
He gives me that crooked grin I fell for years ago. “I’m the lucky one, baby.”
His lips brush mine once more, tender and unhurried, and then he’s gone, leaving me standing alone in the bedroom with the faint smell of him still lingering in the air.
For a long moment I don’t move.
It’s just me now. Me, the echo of the nightmare still clinging to my skin, and the knowledge that there is a loaded gun in the closet I never knew existed.
I love my husband.
I know I do.
But as I stand there in the quiet, with the morning barely begun and my nerves still jangling from sleep and fear, I can’t shake the awful feeling that trust is becoming a luxury I can no longer afford.