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Tara—the woman I didn’t know I wanted until she opened her soul to me. Until she kissed me.
I’ll do anything to get her back. She won’t have to live her life in fear ever again—even if I have to die to make that a reality.
Zayan better watch his fucking back—hell, even Nix should. There’s no stopping the fury I’m about to rain down on anyone who gets in my way.
Tension ripples through my body, as I lean my head against the headrest and blankly stare at the dismal gray wall of the garage in front of me. I can’t seem to find the care or the desire to get out and go inside.
How did this day go from being so full of hope and promise one minute to me drafting divorce papers the next?
Fuck.
Nothing makes sense right now.
I’m so fucking confused.
I’ve had a brief moment to think about everything that just happened and I’m not sure I like where my mind is going. Part of me wonders if I was being rash, too quick to jump to conclusions, but in the heat of the moment, the evidence was there. It was all there, mockingly glaring at me right in front of my face. You’d think my job would’ve taught me to not jump to conclusions, that evidence isn’t always how it seems. Except everything about Tara pushes me into being irrational, illogical, and senseless.But you saw the messages, didn’t you? All about how much she loved him and wanted to be with him.Zayan even had messages between them about the Snakes, things that he shouldn’t have known without some inside information. Everything pointed to what he was saying being the truth. It would be the greatest con I’ve ever been tricked into. Make me believe she needs safety from her ex who she doesn’t want to marry and make me think she’s falling for me just so she can get all the dirt she needs.
But the disbelief, along with the raw vision of hurt and pain etched across Tara’s face, haunts me to the core. She looked at me with such fear and agony that it sliced me apart to see, yet how the hell do I know that she wasn’t just acting?
Do I even truly know her?
Any time we’re together, it seems like she wants to kill me. It wouldn’t be a far cry to think she was playing me the whole time. If that’s the truth, she got me good. I’ve been falling for her even before I realized it myself, just to have it all ripped away by some fucked up game.
But would she do that to Reilly too? Would she scheme and bring him into it too just to get to me?
Shit.
I don’t fucking know.
Everything about this is messing with my head.
I retrace every single moment. Every single second that passed flashes through my mind as I try to piece it together like a puzzle. Chaos. Pure fucking chaos rips my brain apart, leaving everything fuzzy and unclear.
There has to be some truth to it. Right?
Maybe not everything that Zayan said, but it all adds up too much to be a lie. I can’t just sit back and believe he’d make this all up just to get her back. Tara is absolutely incredible, but that seems like an extreme length to go to just to have her get with him again. Honestly, it’s a shit plan. Knowing who Tara is, if it was a ploy to get her back, there’s no way it would’ve worked.
I can’t ignore the clear connection between the Draaks, either. If they’re working with the Draaks, then all those threats against us were fake. Then it would mean she’s not in any real danger.
What the hell am I supposed to think right now? What’s the truth?
Rush wasn’t having any of my shit when I tried to get him to leave. I told him I called the Snakes to come to watch the house even though I hadn’t. By some miracle, Viper happened to be coming down the street and stopped when he saw me. I asked him if he could watch the house for twenty minutes to see if any suspicious cars drove by, and then I told him to take off after. It was a two-fold plan. One to get Rush off my ass about her needing protection and the other to see if Zayan would have any Draaks show up after he had her.
Viper seemed confused by my request yet complied. He texted me right before he left, saying he didn’t see anything suspicious so I told him he could go. Maybe I should have had him stay even though she ripped my heart to shreds. Maybe I should’ve kept a detail on her.Too late now.
After destroying the piano, I couldn’t stay in the house any longer. The walls were closing in around me, filling me with panic whenever I saw something that reminded me of Tara. Which was absolutely everything. The pictures, artwork, the colors. The house even smells like her. So, I did what I do best. Bolted out of there and ran to the place I felt most like myself, my office, to bury myself in work.
I stormed in there like a possessed man ready to burn the world to the ground. Unsurprisingly, even though it was late, Kate was at the office working her ass off. I’m convinced she has started living there from how often she’s there. She’s here on the weekdays, weekends, and all hours of the day.
When I came into the office, Kate took one look at me and wasn’t having any of my shit. She’s a hard-ass when she needs to be, and maybe I’ll thank her for that later. She refused to help me until I calmed the hell down and got my head on straight, right after she called me out for being clouded by my emotions and acting like a fucking prick.
An angry roar that left my body had me swiping shit off my desk like an insolent child, demanding she help me draft the divorce papers. She’s not attached to this like I am; she would have a clear head. But she refused. Instead, she called me an obnoxious child that needed to go home, take a nap, and sort my shit out.
As fucking pissed as I was at her, too, she was right. I’m way too deep in an abyss of chaos right now to think clearly. I’m not sure I can even go through with drafting the divorce papers. My gut is screaming at me not to do it, telling me that I fucked up, that I was being irrational, that it was a mistake. I feel physically ill thinking about watching Tara sign the papers, except my head isn’t listening.
My head wants destruction. To rip apart anything and everything Tara and I could build together, everything we’ve already built. Betrayal soaks deep under my skin, but my heart still calls to her.
How messed up is that?
