The location took me to a small sushi place in SoHo, the kind of spot with dim lighting and a cozy ambiance; candles flickered on every table, soft music played from hidden speakers.
I parked my car across the street, killed the engine, and sat there for a long moment, watching through the window as rage built inside me like a tidal wave.
Zara was sitting across from some guy with a cheap haircut and an ill-fitting blazer. Leaning in close, her hair falling over her shoulder in that way that made my hands itch to tangle in it.
A beast I’d been trying to keep caged since the day I met her unfurled in my chest. I’d been good. Patient. I’d given her space, given her freedom, told myself that ownership wasn’t love. That a marriage meant I had to respect boundaries.
But watching her sit with another man?
The beast broke free.
I was out of the car, across the street, and through the door before I knew I’d moved. The hostess said something, but I didn’t hear her. The world had tunneled down to one thing: the table where my wife sat with another man. All I could see was her. The way her lips curved. The way her eyes sparkled. The way she gave him something that belonged to me.
The second she saw me, her eyes went wide, the laughter dying in her throat. Her date started to turn, and I saw the confusion register, then the fear, then nothing at all because I had him by the collar of his cheap shirt and I was yanking him out of his seat.
“What the?—”
My fist connected with his jaw before he could finish. The impact sent a jolt up my arm, and I felt the satisfying give of bone and cartilage. He went down like a sack of bricks, hitting the floor with a thud that vibrated through my shoes and sent his chair clattering sideways.
“Lorenzo!” Zara’s voice cut through the red haze. Sharp. Angry. “What the fuck are you doing?!”
I didn’t answer.
I grabbed her hand, the one that wore my ring, and pulled her out of the booth. Her glass tipped over, red wine spreading across the white tablecloth like blood spreading from a wound. She stumbled, trying to plant her feet, but I was stronger.
“Let go of me!” She yelled, with no awareness of the audience building.
Good, because right now I didn’t care either.
I continued to drag her through the restaurant, past the stunned faces of diners, past the waiter who pressed himself against the wall to get out of my way. I shoved the bathroom door open with my shoulder, pulling her inside and locking it behind us.
She wrenched her arm free and spun on me, eyes blazing, chest heaving. “What the hell is wrong with you?! That was my friend, Lorenzo. We were just having dinner?—”
“Friend.” The word came out like poison, burning my throat. “You were touching him. Laughing at his jokes. Looking at him like?—”
“Like what? Like a normal person? Like someone who’s allowed to have a conversation without being stalked?”
“I wasn’t stalking you; I was trying to figure out where my wife was going, alone.”
“You’re delusional,” she scoffed.
She was breathing hard, her chest heaving, her cheeks flushed with anger. The dress she wore, a deep green that made her eyes brighter, clung to every curve, and I watched the pulse at the base of her throat flutter. God, she was beautiful when she was furious. The way her eyes sparkled, the way her lips parted, the way her whole body trembled with righteous fury.
I wanted to devour her, just like this.
“You don’t get to do this,” she said, stepping back and hitting the counter with a soft thud. “You don’t get to follow me around like some obsessed psychopath.”
“Says who?” I moved toward her, slow, deliberate, each step a predator stalking prey. “You’re my wife, Zara.”
“A marriage purely of necessity. Remember? That was the deal. No strings, no feelings, no?—”
“No one touches what is mine.”
The words fell out of me, low and dark, and I saw the effect they had on her. The way her breath hitched. The way herpupils dilated just slightly. The way her body responded before her mind could stop it. My eyes soaked her in—how her nipples hardened under the thin fabric, her thighs pressing together almost imperceptibly.
She hated that.
I could see it in her eyes.
