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I pick up the chair closest to me and throw it across the room with a roar.
Voices start calling my name. I hear Avery crying, but I can’t pull myself out of the need to destroy something, anything. Because if I stop for a second, I have to accept the fact that me and Creed were the ones to destroy our marriage. She was a victim in all this, and we made her out to be the villain. I can’t even blame Cooper. We knew he’d betrayed us, so why didn’t we look back at things and realize that he’d lied before that?
I pick up another chair and throw that, too, before I feel soft hands touch my arm. Avery’s gentle voice has me pausing. Turning, I look down and see her gazing up at me, tears streaming down her face.
My chest is heaving, each tear leaving a wound on my soul.
She reaches up and cups my cheek. “That’s enough.”
“It’s not. It will never be enough.”
“It has to be. You have to let go of the things you can’t change, or they’ll eat you alive.”
“How can you, of all people, say that after what we did?”
She offers me a sad smile as she drops her hand. “Because I have more life left to live. If I let myself drown in the past, I’ll miss out on what’s to come. I have to believe that everything I’ve been through helped shape me into the woman I’ve become. I was given those lessons, no matter how brutal some of them were, so I could learn from them. I’m stronger for it. I didn’t let life break me. I adapted.”
She steps back. I move with her, wanting to reach out and pull her to me. But she moves into Ev’s embrace, and some part of me already knows I’ve lost her.
“We need to talk. All of us, back at Apex. Cooper having a hand in all this changes things,” Greg says, watching me to make sure I don’t grab anything else.
“How? You knew he betrayed you. This can’t be a surprise, right?” James asks, looking at us. He didn’t know Cooper, so he only knows what we’ve told him. If nothing else, I’m thankful he didn’t have to experience that sense of betrayal that the man left us all with. And now, finding out his role in this just opens up old wounds that had barely begun to heal.
“Because we thought Cooper turned on us to save his dying wife. If this is true, then he turned on us long before then,” Creed answers as he sinks into the sofa, rubbing his hands over his face. “Cooper is dead Avery. So is Jan, I’m sorry, I know you loved them once.”
“They weren’t the people I thought they were,” she answers softly.
“He came to us,” I tell Avery, who looks at me in question. “Cooper. The day you left. He came to us late that night, telling us that he’d spoken to you. You’d told him that it was over between us. You wanted something more than a couple of retired SEALs who couldn’t let go of their glory years. He said he’d tried to talk you out of it, but you were adamant. You wanted out, and you told him to tell us to stay away, or you’d call the police and have us up on harassment charges. He told us to give you time to calm down. A week later, we noticed the money you took from our account and figured you had no intention of changing your mind.”
“Money? I didn’t take any money.”
I look at Creed, who just looks broken.
“Of course you didn’t,” I say, though I’m not so sure anymore.
“It’s true. Hell, I never even had your bank details. I had my own account. We never changed that after getting married. Sure, you might have bought me things, but I never took cash from you or used your card.”
“Cooper could have easily taken it and drawn the money out. It would have added credibility to his story, which it obviously did,” James adds.
“We didn’t know. We thought…” My voice trails off, my excuse sounding weak even to my own ears.
Avery wraps her arms around herself.
“If you can hear lies, then know this. I’m sorry. Sorrier than you’ll ever know.”
She nods before E looks from me to Creed. I can tell, despite everything, he’s still pissed. Or maybe it’s because of everything. And though part of me wants to kill him for even touching Avery, another part of me recognizes that he’s doing what we all failed to do. Take care of her. Put her needs above all else. Even men considered brothers. If we hadn’t taken Cooper’s words as gospel, things might have played out very differently.
“I’ll take Avery back. She can decide what she wants to do from there, and you will abide by whatever she says.”
I grit my teeth but nod. I can give her that, at least.
“I’d like to talk things through. I know you don’t owe us anything, but I think we should clear the air. There are things we should know and things we need to tell you too,” Creed tells Avery, who looks at Ev before biting her lip.
“Just give her some space for now, okay?” Greg offers before turning to Avery. “Go grab your things.”
She dips her head, and I can feel the embarrassment coming off her in waves. “I don’t have anything to bring. Can we just go?” She looks at Ev, who frowns before looking at Creed.
“What did you do with the stuff from her room?”
