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“Are you still there?” I ask as the silence becomes too much for me. “Or did you walk away like you always do, coward?”
I expect my last word to send the door flying through the back wall, but I am met with nothing, not even a growl or the flick of a match against the wood.
“Van, are you out there?”
A knot grows in my stomach as the fear of the unknown, of this fallen kingdom, grows into panic. They say it’s better to deal with the devil you know than the one you don’t. I know Van Gogh, but I don’t know the others. And I definitely don’t know what’s on the other side of the door.
“My, my, Tennyson, what do we have here?”
The new voices at the door send shivers down my spine. I’ve seen enough scary movies to know that behind those deep tones lie chaos and unrestrained violence.
“I don’t know, Shakespeare, but it seems our brother has left his pet all defenseless.”
I could scream. Surely, Van Gogh would hear me, but the question is would he come for me? This morning in the bathroom wasn’t love; it was survival and maybe even a little bit of a power play, but it definitely wasn’t bonding.
Allowing two of his brothers to hunt me will not only teach me a lesson to watch my mouth when addressing my husband, but it will also show me what it felt like when no one came to his rescue or even visited him in prison. It’s not that I don’t understand his anger; it’s just that I can’t understand why he thinks it was me who put him there.
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” The voice I can’t place calls to me as a silver blade appears from under the door. “Come out and play. We won’t hurt you… yet.”
“Where is my husband?” I finally call, kicking the blade out the door.
“Your husband?” Someone snickers like I’ve just told the most hilarious joke.
“Your husband served you up in a gilded cage. Didn’t he tell you who we are?”
“I’m not scared of you.”
It’s one of the biggest lies I’ve ever told. I’m terrified of what lies behind the old oak door, but I will be damned if I go down begging these men. They don’t know who they’re messing with. I, too, am a killer, just not like them.
“If you’re not scared, then face us.”
They’re taunting me, and if I were smart, I would threaten them by pulling out my phone and live-streaming the whole event. I might not know who these guys are, but the Internet will, and the second they come through the door and show their faces, they’ll be exposed.
Unfortunately, I don’t do any of that. I simply scan the big office until I find what I’m looking for and drop down in front of the door, holding my escape in my hand.
“Tell Van Gogh that he has thirty seconds to get his ass here before I burn this house down and we all die together.”
I flip the lighter and hold it to one of the documents I found on the desk. “I don’t know whose office this is, but in a moment, it won’t exist.”
Several seconds go by before someone speaks—if you can even call it speaking; it’s more like laughing. “I can see why he is obsessed with her.”
Their words stop me. Van Gogh is only obsessed with me because of what he thinks I did to him. He’s always been adamant that we weren’t friends, even though at one time, he agreed to take me on the run with him.
“All right, love,” one of them calls sarcastically, “you win this round. We’ll bring you your husband.”
The air seems to calm as I stumble to my feet. I imagine they left and took their chaos with them, but it’s short-lived since I take no more than a breath before the door to the office swings open, missing me by an inch.
“What the fuck?” My words trail off as my eyes focus on the dark, imposing man standing in the doorway, his eyes hooded and angry as they flip from the lighter to the flame in my hand.
“Flower,” he says seductively, pushing through the empty space, “you should know that issuing threats here is a dangerous game.”
His eyes rake down my body like he’s never seen it before. “But using my own MO against me…”
He moves closer, stalking like the predator he is, and stands with a breath between us, holding my gaze as he plucks the lighter from my fingers. “That, my wife, will get you fucked.”
Reese
My wife.
