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My mind was muggy. My thoughts weren’t clear. There were only pieces but those pieces were like shattered glass and didn’t make sense.
Cress, half-dressed. Another man. A gun. Her pleading with me.
The clearer the memories became the more labored my breathing was. I felt my temper spiking and my thoughts shifting to a dark place.
“You remember now?”
My eyes landed on my brother’s. His were narrowed now. Accusing and angry, concerned but I wouldn’t deny the most important emotion, acceptance.
“Tell me?”
“You pulled a gun on your wife.”
My body tensed and he continued, “You thought she was cheating. She wasn’t.”
The text. The pictures were now clear in my mind.
“It was all a lie. They wanted you to believe that she was.”
“Who?” I growled.
My memories were coming back. I felt the rage climbing.
“Reno, Samson, Temple.”
The names had me still.
“Yeah, all of them together. They fucked with you, Elias. Reno got pissed because you left. Samson was pissed because marrying Cress meant shutting him down…”
“And her…”
Temple.
“She wasn’t influenced one way or the other. They paid her enough to choose a side and she didn’t choose you.”
“I didn’t trust her. I did at first but then something didn’t feel right…”
“She fucked with your meds. Gave you something different than you thought you were taking. It was subtle enough that you didn’t notice the difference at first. I didn’t notice until it was too late.”
“They kept fucking with me.”
Ez nodded. “She didn’t betray you, Lias.”
I knew that.
Now that my mind was somewhat rational. It didn’t make sense, none of it, but when I got like this…
My thoughts came back. Slowly. The way I talked to her, the way I treated her. I hurt her and now my fucking heart hurt.
“When did she leave?”
There was no way she stayed.
We wouldn’t recover from this.
She wouldn’t forgive me. I wouldn’t forgive myself for fucking this up. I promised her I wouldn’t.
I lifted up from the bed. My body was sluggish. It was a struggle to stand, to move, to think.
