CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Achilles
Drive, motherfucker. Don’t look back.
I hit the accelerator and forced myself not to glance in the rearview mirror.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“I can’t get pregnant, Achilles. I have no uterus.”
Things clicked into place.
You dumb fucking FUCK, how could you have missed all the signs?
In all of our time together—and the time after, when I was stalking her—Tierney never behaved like someone on their period. She never stocked up on tampons, never had cramps, never experienced a discomfort, an ache, a mood swing. I chalked it up to her being her—flippant, badass, untouchable.
I didn’t have to wonder when and how it happened. I knew.
In that damn Siberian camp where she grew up.
I’d wanted to hurt her one last time, to have the last word. Craving to show her I could live without her.
The worst part? It was obvious that I couldn’t. But turning around and apologizing for being a dick was the last thing she needed. I promised her freedom, and the truth was, she deserved it.
I’d meant what I told her last night: I did forgive her for what she’d done.
But I hadn’t forgiven myself for the way I’d responded to it.
She deserved better than me. Whether or not she’d choose that for herself was another story.
My only consolation as I took the I-495 into Long Island to face the music was that we both got what we deserved in the end.
She got her freedom.
And I got a life of pure, unadulterated hell.