8. Leo
CHAPTER 8
Leo
One Year Later
I’m sitting in the game room with Reed and Walter. We are playing a game of cards, and I’m winning, which is pissing Reed off, and he keeps calling me out for cheating. Walter, however, sits there with a wide grin stretching across his face, amused that Reed keeps throwing accusations.
If anyone were cheating, it would be Reed. He is the king of cheating when it comes to the games we play, so the fact that he is sitting here trying to call me out is comical.
Walter continues to shake his head, smiling as Reed goes on and on. Walt has been more social with me. He still doesn’t speak, but he nods or shakes his head when I attempt to have a conversation with him. I’m the only person who has gained that privilege, so I’ll take it.
“You never fucking win!” Reed snorts.
“That’s because you always cheat.” I laugh as Reed swipes the pile of cards from the middle of the table and shuffles them in with his deck.
“Do not.” If I have learned one thing about Reed since I’ve been here, it is that even though he has killed multiple men, he is a big, soft baby.
Before I can say anything else to him, I look up and see the door swinging open. Officer Colt finds my gaze, heads over to where we are sitting, and tells me, “You have a visitor.”
My brows furrow at his comment. My father and Myles are the only two visitors I’ve had, and they always let me know beforehand when they are coming to visit. So, this can’t be either of them. Maybe Chloe has decided to come see me after all. Dad said she had simmered down a bit.
I toss my cards on the table and stand from my chair. Since it is protocol, he cuffs me but walks ahead of me.
Following Colt down the halls, he opens the door to the visitation room and walks me to a window where someone is waiting for me.
A woman is sitting on the other side of the glass, who is definitely not Chloe.
This person has blondish, wavy hair. I stop moving long enough for Colt to remove the handcuffs, and as I stare down at this random woman, it hits me.
I’ve stared at this face for so long that there is no mistaking who it is, even if she changed her appearance.
This is Veronica.
My jaw ticks, and my blood boils. I’ve thought a lot about how she betrayed me this past year. The hurt from thinking she loved me turned into this fiery rage that has never died down. I would have run to the ends of the earth with her.
I would have done anything for this woman.
I pull the chair out and take my seat. Veronica brings the phone that is hanging beside her to her ear, but I hesitate at first.
Do I want to talk to her? I could easily get up and tell Colt I don’t want visitors. I should tell him that the woman sitting on the other side of the glass is a murderer who escaped from an insane asylum. But I won’t be doing that.
Why would I when I have the pleasure of making her life a living hell when I get released from here?
A huge part of me wants to leave her sitting the way she left me in those woods, but the smaller part wants to hear what she has to say.
I allow a few moments to pass as I take in her new look. This is not the woman I fell in love with. Truthfully, I’m not sure if the woman I fell in love with even existed or if it was all a game to her and was just part of her wicked little plan.
Finally, I pick up the phone and place it against my ear. “You look different.”
“Do you like it?” She twirls the dirty blonde strand around her finger. Her curls are gone, and her hair is shorter, sitting right above her shoulders.
“No,” I respond, and the ice in my voice is enough to give me chills. “What happened to your curls?”
She sighs. “Treatments at a salon. Had to get rid of the curls somehow. Oh!” Veronica leans forward, widening her eyes. “They are green now. Aren’t they pretty?”
“No,” I answer again, but this time, the chills are replaced with a flush of heat as I watch the expression on her face.
She shows no shame, no remorse for what she did to me. She is just sitting there, flaunting her new blonde hair and new green fucking eyes as if I could give a damn about any of this.
My eyes begin to twitch as I sit here and look at this woman. She might as well have driven that knife into my heart because that’s what it feels like she did anyway.
“Shame. I wanted them to match yours.” She falls back into her seat and drops her voice to a whisper, “These changes had to be made. I couldn’t very well roam around looking like I used to.”
“Nice to hear you’ve been pampering yourself this whole time,” I say with disdain.
She visits me in hopes of what, taunting me? Showing off her new look? Seeing how I am doing?
Does she not remember that she is the reason I am locked away in this cement building, stuck eating shitty food every day, sleeping on what is no better than solid ground?
That I’m counting down the days until I get to see my family again, all while she is out there, enjoying the sun and a life of freedom— freedom that we were supposed to have together?
The fact that she dares to show her face here ignites a flame inside me that I didn’t know I had. There had been one burning due to my ongoing rage for her, but this flame? It’s new, and I don’t think it will leave me anytime soon.
I mean, who does she think she is?
Her skin looks tan, meaning she has been in the sun. She’s been living her life and having fun while I’ve been stuck in here.
“Is it pampering if it was something that needed to be done? I don’t think so. Pampering is when you want something. It’s not like I wanted to lose my curls, but I had to do what had to be done.”
“What are you doing here, Veronica?” Although the question comes out with a hint of disgust, her eyes shine at the sound of her name.
“That’s not my name anymore. It’s Camille, now.” Interesting. “I missed you.”
I laugh bitterly. “You missed me? You could have had me, Veronica. This whole time, you could have been with me.”
“Yes, and I had time to think about it,” she says. “You would have slowed me down; that was the truth. I couldn’t be worried about either of us being caught. I had to think about myself.”
“The truth?” I scoff and lean back in my chair. “How about you give me another truth? Did you ever love me?”
“Leo… you don’t want me to answer that.”
I shake my head. “I don’t, but I need to know.” I lean forward in the metal chair. Squinting my eyes, I glare at her, and with a serious tone I’ve never shown her before, I say, “I need to know if all the time we spent together was a lie. Or if it was all honest, and you stabbed me because you were frightened of getting caught. If you betrayed me because you weren’t thinking straight.”
Part of me doesn’t want to know what her answer will be. I don’t think my already broken heart can handle it. If she admits that she regrets what she did or even sincerely apologizes for that matter, would it make this hurt any less? Or would it make it hurt more?
“I was thinking straight. I wanted to love you, Leo. I did. It just wasn’t in me at the time…”
“Stop talking,” I order.
I changed my mind. I don’t want to hear what she has to say.
“But I wasn’t lying when I told you I felt something for you because I did. I wanted it to be love so bad because I wanted to be capable of giving you that. But it wasn’t. It was attraction and lust.”
“ Stop. Talking. ” I drop my eyes, squeezing them shut tight.
She continues to speak, but I can’t hear her over the buzzing in my ears. My skin is growing hot, slowly starting to feel uncomfortable.
“I am sorry, Leo. For manipulating you from the start.”
My eyes fly open, and I look into her fake green eyes. “From the start?”
“Time’s almost up,” Officer Colt says from over by the door.
“I’ll explain one day,” she tells me, like it’s a promise. “When you get released and if you find your way to me.”
“Oh, I’ll find you, Veronica.” I laugh wickedly. Shifting forward, I lock eyes with hers and whisper, “Once I’m free of this place, I’ll hunt you down and make you pay for what you did to me.”
Veronica hangs up the phone, but I don’t miss the bob in her throat from how hard she swallows. She is too strong to show it, but I know that she could be worried about my threat.
I stay in my spot, the phone still resting on the side of my head. A devilish smirk forms on my lips as I watch her walk away from me. Veronica glances over her shoulder to where I am sitting and swallows hard again.
She has no idea what she is in for when I get released.
And I have years to come up with a revenge plan.