Chapter 29 Selene
SELENE
It rained the morning AJ died.
Fat, angry drops of water falling from dark clouds, covered my windshield, landing with heavy splats that competed with the sounds of a YouTube video coming from his phone.
Before he got out of the car, I told him to take the umbrella I kept in the backseat.
He had refused, saying he didn’t want to lug it around all day.
I insisted, even went so far as to try to reach it when I pulled into the pick-up line, but he rushed out of the car before I could force it on him.
I watched him dodge raindrops as he ran the short distance between the car and the door being held open by Mr. Manetti—his chemistry teacher— annoyed by his stubbornness and proud of his ability to advocate for himself.
I don’t know which emotion was more prominent when he looked back and waved at me, initiating a goodbye neither of us knew was going to be forever, but I like to think it was the pride.
God, I hope it was the pride.
“Do you remember the last time you saw him?”
My voice is a haunted, rasping whisper from all the screaming and crying last night, but the car is quiet so Aubrey hears me.
His brows jump in surprise that I’m the one who broke first. We’ve been in the car for a little over fifteen minutes.
I haven’t said a word since I agreed to come with him, and he had his men drag me out of the house.
I don’t know why this is the opener I’ve decided to go with, but it feels right because the only thing I want to discuss with Aubrey is AJ.
“Who?”
After everything I’ve learned about this man over the last twenty-four hours, nothing he says or does should surprise me.
And I’m not surprised by his question; I’m enraged by it.
I fly across the seat screaming curses as I scratch and claw and punch whatever part of him I can get my hands on.
Beating the fuck out of him is much more satisfying than slapping the shit out of Jordan, but it doesn’t last nearly as long as I’d like because a cocked gun appears at my temple after I send his head flying into the window a second time.
The cool metal awakens the quiet fear I’ve carried in my body since November, and I shrink away from it as fast as I can. I crawl back to my seat, noting how my knuckles ache and the skin on my forearms burns from Aubrey digging his nails into me like the little bitch that he is.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?” he roars, unraveling the knot of his silk tie with one hand while he pinches his nostrils closed with the other. He’s squeezing hard, but drops of blood still escape, splattering on the crisp white of his shirt the way the raindrops did to my windshield that day.
I smile at the correlation, finding an odd kind of peace in it even though there’s still a gun pointed in my direction and a man who’s proven he’s capable of murder glaring at me from across the seat. He balls up his navy silk tie, wincing as he presses it to his nose.
“You’re a fucking lunatic, you know that?”
“Me?”
“Yes, Selene, you.” The blood is flowing faster than the silk can soak it up, turning the luxurious fabric a deep purple. Aubrey throws it down and punches the headrest of the driver’s seat. “Fuck! Why can’t you just be normal for once?”
“What exactly would that entail, Aubrey? Orchestrating the murder of my only son in order to advance my career? Conspiring to assassinate a sitting President to protect that secret? Being dumb enough to say no to the man who bankrolled all of those endeavors and getting my girlfriend killed?”
The slap happens so quickly I don’t even see it coming.
One second, I’m pushing the last syllable of my question out of my mouth and the next his knuckles are colliding with my teeth.
That’s when it becomes real to me. The decision I’ve made.
The danger I’ve put myself in. The distance between the man I married and the one who just back handed me.
Black spots float in my vision as I bring trembling hands to my stinging lips and wobbling chin. Tears. There are tears skating down my cheeks, squeezing under my fingers, salt searing split flesh.
“You hit me.”
All these years. All these secrets. All the pain he’s caused and goodness he’s stolen from me, and still, I’m shocked. Hurt. Broken. My lashes flutter rapidly as I process this new reality that shouldn’t feel new at all. He’s proven himself a monster, so why am I surprised that he has claws?
“You’ve never hit me,” I whisper, voice breaking stupidly.
He’s been flirting with idea of it for so long.
His hands too tight around my arms in the hotel room after the debate.
His eyes wild and angry as he shoved me against the wall.
His fingers splayed wide and reaching for my neck in the East Sitting Hall.
The desire is not new.
Not at all.
But there’s a difference between seeing it on his face and feeling the force of his fury when he’s finally found the courage to act on it.
“You fucking attacked me, and you’re surprised that I hit you?”
A crazed laugh spills out of me, using the spaces between my fingers to find their place in the tense air. I drop my hands, sending blood and saliva flying in his direction when the laugh morphs into a cough because my throat is raw.
Aubrey’s disgust is palpable. “What’s so funny?”
I clutch my ribs, ignoring the way the cut on my top lip burns a little more with every passing moment. “You, Aubrey. You’re funny. Yesterday I found out that you had my son killed, and you’re surprised that I hit you? I should have done a lot worse. I’m going to do a lot worse,” I promise him.
His nose is no longer actively bleeding, but the evidence of my anger is still there. In the welts on his face and neck. In the red crust around his nostrils and dried blood on his shirt.
“AJ was my son too, Selene. Don’t forget that.”
Anger swells in my chest, pushing against my ribcage, and threatening to crush what’s left of my heart if I don’t let it out. It leaves me in a guttural scream that’s wrapped in maternal outrage.
“DON’T YOUR DARE SAY HIS NAME!”
“You need to lower your voice, ma’am,” the man with his gun still trained on me says.
“It’s fine,” Aubrey tells him. “Let her get it all out of her system. It’s best for her to be calm when she meets Phineas.”
“Phineas?”
“Yes, he wants to meet you.”
Threads of fear stitch together my organs as a wave of cool dread caresses my spine.
Phineas Gambit is not a man I want to meet.
Aubrey reads the panic in my eyes and smiles, settling back into his seat now that I’ve been neutralized.
The pad of my thumb finds the side of my index finger and before I can even get through the first flick, he sighs.
“Don’t start that shit, Selene.”
“Fuck you, Aubrey,” I spit, completing the motion he interrupted and doing it over and over again.
Not because it’s soothing, because nothing could be soothing right now except the sight of Cal and Beck appearing to save me, but just to annoy the fuck out of my husband while he delivers me to the man who made it necessary for me to bury my child.
“Why did it have to be him?” I keep my focus on the city streets we’re now navigating, counting the buildings blurred by my tears to keep my composure.
“It could have been anyone in your family. One of your nieces or nephews, your awful parents or your idiot brothers. Me.” My throat aches, throbbing around a sob I refuse to set free.
“You could have chosen anyone. Why did it have to be him? Didn’t you see his sweet little face in your mind?
Remember what it was like the first time you held him?
Did you think about who he would have grown up to be?
What he would have accomplished? What he and all those other people might have done with all the years you stole from them? ”
The sob builds and finally breaks, caving my chest in, and I have to look at him. I have to see his face when I say this next thing.
“Didn’t you think about how much you loved him, Aubrey? Did you ever love him?”
He drums his fingers on his thigh then flicks guiltless blue eyes in my direction.
“Of course I loved him, Selene. I just love me more.”
There are no words after that. Just acceptance for what has happened and what is to come. I married a monster and birthed him a victim, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.
However long, or short, that may be.
A chill runs through me at the realization that how much time I have left on this Earth isn’t up to me.
My life, my future with Cal and Beck and Isis and Imani, it’s all in the hands of the men who destroyed the last family I built, and just like last time, I’m powerless to stop them.
What’s different, though, is seeing it coming.
It’s standing face to face with the designer of your demise and forcing yourself not to flinch when he examines you with empty, green eyes from the other end of his dining table.
“Your husband sat in that same chair some years ago,” Phineas says, swirling around a goblet full of blood red liquid with lazy rotations of his wrist. “When was that, Mr. President? January 2018?”
Aubrey, who chose a seat to the left of Phineas, nods. “The 12th to be exact.”
Everything about their tone suggests significance, and they wait patiently for me to figure it out. It doesn’t take long, of course, because there’s only one reason that date would mean anything to them and me.
My stomach rolls. “That’s the day you decided.”
“And we had the loveliest meal.”