She just doesn’t know it yet.
I’ll be whatever I need to be to get her close and then when she least expects it, I’ll destroy her the way she destroyed me.
Tit for tat.
It’s only fair.
She lied. I want to know why. I need to know what she saw. The past seven years led me to this moment, one I tried to avoid until it was actually unavoidable. Do I think it’s coincidence that the trail that led me here has her at the end of it? No. I just wish I could do it without having to deal with her directly without being forced to stare at what I stupidly once thought was my future. Even at a young age I knew what I wanted. I thought if I could just stand by her side, if I could just hold her hand, maybe I could face the future despite what my dad had planned for me. I wonder if my mom thought the same thing once about my dad. I wonder if he broke her slowly the way Lilah broke me, or if it was sudden, like one day she just woke up and she was married to a monster. Does it really matter? In the end she lost the daily battle, he won the war, and now I have an entire dynasty to bring down. Only this time, I’m not the one taking the fall.
She’ll be getting off easy after all, at least nobody will die. Though I have plans for that too. Suffering is always worse isn’t it?
I nod. “I’ll see you around, Delilah.” I use her full name on purpose; the name she’s always hated that truly fits now. The name of a betrayer. A name of someone who’s only out for themselves. A name for liars.
“Jude,” She takes a step toward me. “Why, why are you doing this, what do you want?”
I frown. “I already told you. I own the building.”
“I don’t need favors.” She says quickly her eyes darting to me and back to the ground. “I didn’t know you were in prison.”
Lie. I laugh. “Yeah, okay, I really don’t want to hear any more from that mouth of yours, Lilah. What’s done is done. I just hope you’re ready for retribution. Besides, who said giving you cheap rent was a favor? It’s more, I have you under my thumb and you can’t do shit about it. Don’t ever mistake my kindness for weakness…it would be extremely poor judgement on your part.”
“But—“
“I have an early class,” I say. “And so do you.”
I don’t give her time to say anything else. But I do see the look of confusion on her face. Damn, she’s a good actress. Did she really think that the minute I got out I’d search for her? That I’d find her? To say what? Why? Is that what she wants? Me to beg? And does she really think I don’t know about the bribe that my family gave her? I didn’t believe my dad back then and it was still hard to believe him now.
“She took it.” Dad grinned. “She wanted money. I told you she was just like your mom only after what you could offer her, could give her. Women like that are all the same. Your mom would betray me in a heartbeat never forget that.” He sniffed. “Good riddance. You’d think that she’d hold out for more but it was only ten thousand, imagine, she knows you’re worth millions but was so desperate she only took ten thousand. How does it feel to know your actual physical worth from your best friend? From the girl you said you were going to marry some day? The girl you love?” The knife kept getting shoved deeper and deeper into my chest until all I felt was pain, and then numb, that’s what was left, numbness. “She’s gone. Left town the minute she heard about your mom. Good riddance.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “She was there, dad, she knows the truth of what happened.”
“The truth is what I say it is. She testified, there’s nothing else I can do son. I’m sorry to give you this lesson but this is how you protect your family and those who truly love you. This is love. It’s better you see it now than later when it’s not just a year or two in prison. You’ll be out on good behavior, and you’ll be doing multiple favors at once. Think of it as a gap year to save your family, we have too much to lose.”
“Gap year.” I repeat. “Sorry dad, I don’t think that when college students think about gap years they imagine fucking prison!”
He sat back against his leather chair, it tightened and moved as he moved his weight. “Yeah, well, it’s either that or…” He drummed his fingertips against the table and chuckled. “The easy way out.”
I looked up. “The easy way out?”
He reached into the top drawer and pulled out his old revolver. “One bullet. You take the fall. A life for a life. The easy way out. Death.”
The hard way out. Life. Time.
Tears burned the back of my eyes. “And when I’m out.”
“Your life is still mine.”
“And hers?”
“She bought her freedom, you’re halfway there, Jude.”
I hated him. I hated him more than anything in the world. And I hated that he turned the one person I had with me against me. I had nobody to turn to. My mom was dead. My dad was a monster and my best friend just fucking sold me for thirty pieces of silver. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, so I closed my eyes and tried to find my peace.
Except, my peace was her smile, her eyes, her mouth, and I realized that peace was a lie, for me there would never be peace, because peace and Delilah were the same thing.
And both were dead to me.
I don’t turn around to see if Delilah’s still staring at me. Instead, I keep walking to my car and when I get in and start the engine I look up. Her light is on. She’s standing at the window. I say nothing. Adrenaline courses through me, so rather than go back to my place, I drive down the street and do exactly what I told her I wouldn’t do.
