Page 115 of A Vicious Love

Her herb garden sat off the kitchen terrace behind a low stone wall, filled with rosemary, basil, mint, thyme, lavender, and several plants that had turned brown enough to qualify as evidence.

Emmie killed herbs.

Constantly.

Everyone knew. Nobody mentioned it.

New pots appeared every few weeks. Fresh soil. Fresh plants. Little handwritten labels. A new watering system installed by professionals who had probably expected to solve the issue until they realized Emmie forgot plants existed whenever anything interesting appeared on television.

Marcel replaced them quietly.

No acknowledgment that half the basil had died under direct supervision.

Pathetic.

I stood by the terrace doors with a cigarette between my fingers and watched Marcel pace through the living room while Harrison raided the bar.

“You need to stop walking,” I said.

Marcel ignored me.

He had been doing that for twelve minutes.

Back and forth across the room. One hand in his pocket. The other checking his phone every few seconds as if Emmie had been gone for several weeks instead of ninety minutes.

“She went shopping,” I reminded him.

“I’m aware.”

“With Sienna.”

“I’m aware.”

“And security.”

His gaze cut toward me. “I know where my wife is.”

“Then why are you pacing?”

Marcel looked at his phone again.

“Because Emmie’s upset,” Harrison poured whiskey into three glasses and slid one toward me across the bar.

“I gathered.”

“Which means Marcel is upset.”

Marcel’s life revolved around Emmie.

Entirely.

He pretended otherwise because he still ran businesses, took meetings, handled Crow holdings, and made enough men afraid to keep his reputation intact. But the center of his existence had shifted the moment his wife became his.

Everything came back to her.

Her sleep.

Her appetite.