I owned half the house; she couldn’t change the fucking locks without me knowing, could she? I dragged a hand down my face and groaned, knowing Lila was completely ignoring me from inside.
This wasn’t like her at all.
Delivering me fucking divorce papers, then this?
I turned to see neighbours peering out at me from behind blinds and curtains, and rage welled within me.
“Have you seen enough?!” I roared, stomping to my truck. I’d come to have a civil fucking conversation with my wife, and she was behaving like a woman scorned.
Which she was, I realized, as rain fell on my burning cheeks.
But how were we meant to get past this if she wouldn’t even fucking talk to me?
I spied the side gate leading to the garden, but knowing her right now, she would have changed the locks there too.
But could I scale it?
I’m forty-six, but fairly fit. It’s nearly seven-foot tall though, and what would I even do? Smash the patio windows tospeakto my wife?
No. I’ll wait outside—she would have to leave the house at some point. Even if I waited here all damn night.
I sent her a text.
Victor: I’m not leaving until you speak to me.
Then I sat in my truck, glaring at my house through the rain-soaked windows.
It was around an hour later that my sister and mother showed up. My stomach dropped when my mother pointed a finger at me, then shook her head.
Lila called my fucking family?
Vanessa headed to the house without even looking at me, and my mother made a beeline for my truck, an umbrella resting on her shoulder, shielding her from the rain.
Her hair was perfectly made into a bun, her brown eyes narrowing at me as she rapped on my window.
“Get out of the car, Victor.” Her heavily accented tone told me she’d been speaking plenty of Italian, which she did when she was pissed off.
I sighed and opened the door, standing in the rain before my tiny mother who stood with a hand on her hip.
“No call?” she snapped, flicking a hand at me. “You don’t tell your own mother you cheated on your wife?”
I stared around us, which was the wrong thing to do. A finger jabbed into my chest.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
“Mama, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
Another jab.
“To me? Or your wife?” Her voice climbed with every word. She wanted a show. “Because I didnotbring you up like this!”
I bowed my head. “I came to apologise?—”
“Idiot!” My mother shoved me in the chest and I gaped at her. “Lila wants a divorce! There is no speaking now!”
“Mama—”
