Chapter 18 – Cora #3
I need to get away, and I can’t leave, can’t hurt them like that, so my brain careens, back and forth, back and forth. My hands yank at my hair, trying to tear the thoughts out by the root, but nothing works.
I hear a noise at the door. I shove my hands under my thighs. If they see how far I’m gone, I’ll have no chance to run.
Drake strolls back in the room, blabbering on and on with his fake friendly face, but I can’t make out the words.
He piles food on a paper plate, sets it on the low table next to me with a plastic fork and a can of sparkling water.
Then he grabs a container, props his ass on the edge of his desk, and shovels shells into his mouth as he babbles.
His words mix up like alphabet soup. The roaring in my head rises to a terrible shriek. I have to do something. What do I do?
And then the door flies open. My overamped heart shoots into my throat. Adrian strides in like he owns the place.
Drake calmly sets his plate on the desk, unsurprised. He was expecting him. My lawyer’s not on my side, either.
Adrian’s hair is damp. He’s wearing the thin white hoodie he wears after he gets out of the river from rowing and navy athletic pants. He never wears his exercise clothes in public.
His face is dark with rage.
Drake slips out of the office like a coward.
“Come on,” he snarls. He holds out his hand and snaps his fingers once. “We’re getting out of here.”
I stare at him. His hoodie’s damp, too. He must’ve come straight from the river or the gym, not the shower.
Losing patience, he seizes my hand and hauls me out of the chair. My body is stuffed full of cotton, so I go easily. He pulls me along behind him. My feet, ten stories below my floating head, stumble across the carpet.
“Mr. Maddox—” Drake calls out from where he’s cozied up with Jules by the reception desk, their rat eyes glittering with the scandal of it all.
Adrian ignores him, and we sail into the hallway. Johnson falls in behind us. Where did he come from?
Vibrating with aggression, Adrian marches me down the stairs and through the lobby. Martinez opens the car door. Adrian shoves me into the back seat.
“Take us home. And close the partition,” Adrian growls at him and folds himself into the seat beside me. “What do you think you were doing?” he mutters, rooting in the seat cushions for the seatbelt to buckle me in.
The car pulls off into traffic, and Adrian settles back in his seat, glowering at the tinted divider. “What exactly did you think that third rate gigolo was going to do for you? I own him. I own everyone and everything around you. Get it, Cora? Or should I say Cara?”
My head swivels to face him like a weathervane in the wind. I have that little control over the movement. I blink at him, trying to see him clearer, but he’s a Picasso of bottomless eyes and snarling teeth.
I should be terrified. No one is ever supposed to know. That’s how I keep me safe. He’d never love me if he knew who I really am. A hysterical giggle slips from my lips. What does it matter now?
Adrian’s expression somehow darkens even more. “You think it’s funny? What were you going to do, Cora? Were you really going to walk away from your own children?”
Very far away, in a reflection of a reflection, a heart cracks open in a woman who is a solid version of me.
“They’re just babies. They need their mother,” his voice rises to almost a shout, and then drops to a bitter sneer. “Do you have nothing to say for yourself?”
Drake must’ve told him what I said about leaving town.
When I don’t answer, he grinds his teeth and turns to stare out the window.
We drive the rest of the way home in serrated silence.
I want to ask about Pearl and Winnie, and how he knows who I am, and tell him that he needs to rehire Delaney before she sics CPS on us—that he has to protect the girls—but everything wars in my throat, and nothing is connecting, not the words to the sounds or the thoughts to my muscles.
We stop at lights, and I could get out, I could run, but I’m a character in a video game, and the kid playing left without turning the TV off.
By the time we get home, I’ve done nothing, but tread and retread the same impossible terrain in my gummy head. I have to protect my babies, but no matter what I do, they’ll get hurt.
As soon as the car rolls to a stop, Adrian unbuckles me, jumps out, seizes my wrist, and drags me behind him toward the house. I trot to keep up. Behind us, I hear the car pull away.
Before we’re halfway up the stairs, Vera opens the door, her bland smile faltering as she sees us.
“Tell the staff to take the rest of the day off. You as well,” Adrian barks as he propels me across the foyer, past the red and white holiday roses, and into the library.
The Christmas tree is lit, the fire is crackling, and pine, smoke, leather, and books scent the air.
The room looks like a streaming video you put on to set the holiday mood.
“Sit down,” he snarls, thrusting me toward the sofa. I trip and end up doing exactly what I’m told.
He paces back and forth on the Jamshidi rug in the muddy barefoot sneakers he wears to walk from the dock to the house when he goes rowing. I hadn’t noticed before. He must’ve come straight from the river.
I’ve never seen him like this. He glares at me, opening his mouth and sucking down a deep breath, just for nothing to come out, and then grimacing, baring his teeth as he pivots to stalk in the other direction.
Every one of his muscles is strained. He’s holding his hands with his fingers spread like if he let them clench, he’d start throwing punches.
For some reason, the sight sends the blood that was inflating my head surging back down into my veins, speeding my pulse, grounding my body. He’s losing it, and my nervous system finds it calming.
Finally, he gives his head a furious shake like he gives up on articulation, and he stops in his tracks, faces me, and shouts, “What the actual fuck, Cora? Jesus motherfucking Christ! How could you— Why? Why, goddamn it? I had fixed it!” The last bit he roars.
His hands curl into fists. A wild delight fills my heart. He’s so incandescent with rage, he’s glitching.
I don’t know exactly how, but I broke him.
I basically float to my feet. “Why what? How could I what?”
“You lied to me!” he roars. “You betrayed us.”
My breaking smile almost splits my face. “How does it feel, Adrian? How does it feel?”
His chest heaves, his shoulders rising and falling, but he’s frozen in place, fuming, trapped by the punches he wants to throw but can’t and the scream he can’t afford to let out. Oh, I know how that feels.
I keep going. “I didn’t betray you. This isn’t a relationship. It’s a transaction. I look and act like the person you want me to be, and you don’t give enough of a shit to care that I’m faking. And if it falls apart, we part ways, and it doesn’t affect your life in any way.”
“You’re not going anywhere!”
“You have no say. You don’t own me. None of this is real.” Oh, this feels good. I’m not floating; I’m solid on my feet. I stalk over to the fire and pick up a framed picture from the Marmoso mantel.
“Put that down!” he bellows.
He starts toward me, and I grab a poker, leveling it at him while I examine the photo from our wedding day. I look impossibly perfect. My hair glows in the sun like a dandelion, and adoration pours from my eyes. Adrian beams down at me like the proud owner of a brand-new exclusive supercar.
I toss the picture into the fire.
“Cora!”
“All of this is because of you! I’m losing my girls because of you!” I grab another picture and fling it into the fire. Glass shatters.
“Get away from there!” he roars.
He hovers, shifting his weight from foot to foot, but he doesn’t make a move to grab the poker. He could take it easily. He’s faster and stronger, but he stays back. Why?
I toss another picture, and the fire spits.
“Just back up, for fuck’s sake!” He raises his arms like he’s guarding me in basketball, like he’s looking for his opening.
Oh, he’s worried because I’m so close to the open flame. Good. I hope he chokes on it. I hope he sweats, wondering what I’ll do next, what I’m capable of. I hope he thinks back on the pretty picture of his perfect wife and feels exactly what it’s like to lose a thing you never really had.
I reach for the next picture, but I’m pregnant with Pearl in it. I scan the rest. They all have the girls in them. I search the room. Christmas ornaments. Books. Lamps.
I’m not done, and I’m not out of control. I’m not in trouble. I am trouble. I’m not the lovely, sweet, amenable girl who never got anything but grief from it—I’m the whirlwind. I’m going to burn it all down, piece by piece.
My eye catches on a book shelf. Plato’s collected works. That’ll do.
I toss the poker at Adrian, and as he bats it away, I duck around him, racing for the shelf.
I grab the book and shake out the flattened bouquet.
Blue and yellow petals flutter to the floor.
I swoop it up and dart back to the fire.
Adrian steps into my path, his eyes zeroing in on the dried flowers clutched in my fist.
His blazing eyes rise to mine, something raw dawning in them.
I dodge to the side and spike the bouquet into the fireplace.
He spins.
Lunges.
He reaches into the fire with his bare hand and snatches the flowers from the smoking pile of shattered picture frames.
I freeze.
He hisses in pain as he drops the smoldering clump to the rug, stomping out the sparks while shaking out the arm he stuck in the flames.
“Why did you do that?” The question comes out as a whisper.
Ignoring me, he collapses on his ass beside the mess of charred petals and ribbon. His shoulders heave as he catches his breath, cradling his burnt hand between his bent knees.
“Jesus.” I drop to my knees in front of him. “What did you do to yourself?” I reach out, but I’m afraid to touch him. His thumb and index finger are red and shiny up to his singed cuff.