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Even if I could forgive Jericho and move on, I’d be torn.
Conflicted and torn between my father and my husband.
Chapter32
Jericho
“Abottle of vodka, please,” I say to the bartender.
“Sure thing,” he replies and moves away from the counter to retrieve my drink.
I ended up at the Astoria because I needed to get out of the house. There was also no vodka in my drinks cabinet.
Luc is supposed to be joining me.
He messaged earlier and I ended up telling him everything had gone to hell. I didn’t go into details. Not that keeping things under wrap matters anymore. My life feels like an open book plastered on a wall for everyone to read.
And I don’t care. I lost the one thing I cared about when she walked out the door.
The bartender returns with the bottle of vodka and a glass filled with ice.
I take them and head over to the booth in the corner to sulk and truly drown my sorrows. Right now I can’t do much else.
A pair of heavy boots come into view when I pour the first glass. It’s Luc.
He sits in front of me, rests his hands on the table and gives me that look of pity that only a concerned friend could show when they know you’ve hit rock bottom.
“What happened?” he asks.
“River knows about the past.” I swallow hard and clench my jaw. I never made Luc aware that I’d previously planned to speak to River after I got back from Russia. I decided against telling him because I didn’t want him to discourage the conversation. It feels pointless to clarify those points now that everything has gone to shit. “She knows what I did. Her father found out. He found out about our marriage contract too.”
Luc’s brows snap together and he glares back at me as if I just spoke an alien language.
“What the hell are you saying to me? How the fuck did Neil find out?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” I’ve been trying to figure it out all day and I’m nowhere closer than I was when I first begun. “He’s a software engineer. A real good one, but I suppose he can do a little more than his job requires. Like me.”
I guess I finally met my match, even though it still doesn’t make one ounce of sense how Neil was able to find out all that information on me going back eight years. If it was just the marriage contract I might give that a pass, but the whole thing is suspicious as fuck.
What’s the point though? I can suspect things all I want, it won’t change anything. River is still gone.
Confessing to her was nothing like when I spoke to Knight. I never expected it to be. In fact, I didn’t know what the hell to expect, but I guess if I was to imagine her response then she acted exactly the way I thought she would.
I can’t blame her. If there was any leeway for understanding, then I’d hold on to the fact that I was tricked. My error is knowing that what I did was wrong. I didn’t need to take that job and I should have known that people like the men who hired me would have intended to wreak havoc with a device like the one I created. That was where I went wrong.
“I’m completely baffled.” Luc shakes his head. “So now that Neil knows about the past and that you had a fake marriage what does he want?”
Fake marriage? No.Our marriage was not fake. When I married River, Imarriedher. She became my wife and it felt like I’d had everything I ever wanted. That day was one of the best in my life. Now she’s gone and I wouldn’t know where to start in coming up with a grand plan to get her back.
“He got what he wanted. River left me.” I gulp down my drink. The harshness hits the back of my throat like acid. That’s the only feeling I get from it. Any hopes of numbing my mind aren’t working.
Luc sighs. “I’m sorry man. I… I’m drawing a blank. Maybe there’s a way things could still work out.”
I can see he doesn’t know what to tell me. I wouldn’t know what to say either in this fucked up situation.
“Maybe.” I give him a hopeful smile to humor the comment. “If there’s a way I’ll find it.”
He leans closer and levels me a hard stare. “This might sound pointless to you but if it were me, I’d want to know how the fuck Neil got all that information. He got into your personal files, Jericho. That’s hard enough and bad enough as it is, but it’s very suspicious that he would find out this information now and not years ago when it counted. Don’t you think?”
