Page 44 of Rich Forever: Zo & Remy

I shrugged.

“Remy, we could have been a power couple. I wasn’t the best man back then. But I loved you. For the first five years after what happened, I stayed away from you because I knew I would have killed you on sight. Twenty-two surgeries, therapy, learning to walk again, and learning to talk again. I hated you. But as soonas I made the decision to find you and I saw you with a man, holding children that should have my legacy-”

“Don’t mention my kids,” I gritted. He froze, then exploded.

“YOU’RE MY FUCKING WIFE!” His voice cracked as he strained it, screaming in my face.

He let go, stood up to his full height, then dropped back into the chair.

“When I saw you again, and I didn’t feel any of the hate that I had felt for the last five years recovering, I knew you were coming back home, baby.” He blew a deep breath.

“I am, home Karlos. I have a husband. One I love; one I married with my consent.” I didn’t care if he had a gun; I was antagonizing him. He couldn’t control me when I was in the Weston Mansion, and he can’t control me now.

“The cop killer?” He scoffed.

“So, you checked his resume?” I smirked.

He clenched his fists together so hard I thought he would break his hands. Then he turned away from me, with his chest heaving.

“I wasn’t the best husband to you, Remy.”

“You were never my husband.” I corrected him. He ignored that statement entirely.

“I should have treated you better.” He said, his voice cracking again, this time from emotion. I sat like I was in the Twilight Zone. Mind blown that he still possessed this same fantasy that he had had a decade ago. One that convinced him that we would have ever worked. It was sick.

I didn’t respond to that statement because it only took one person to go crazy, and he already had that position filled.

“We’re going to stay here for a couple of days. Then we’re going to go home.”

That was actually the best thing he said all day. Zo wasn’t human when it came to our children and me. I knew that bynow, he was probably already tearing up that carnival to find me. He wasn’t going to leave until everyone was either dead or he had answers that he was satisfied with. Staying in one place was better for me, because Zo would find me clear across the world. I’d bet my life on that.

He thought he had time, but he was really running out of it.

Sick, delusional bastard.

“Where exactly is home, Karlos?” I asked, confused.

“I have a whole compound built for us in Wyoming. A nice, quiet area, where we can get to know each other again.”

“And I’m just leaving my whole life behind?” I asked because I wanted him to know how stupid he sounded.

“You mean the bastard children?” He spat.

My body reacted before my brain could even process it. I sat back in the chair and kicked him square in the chest. “Don’t disrespect my fucking children,” I warned again, my voice as sharp as a blade.

“Easy, Mama Bear,” he chuckled as he coughed and steadied himself, so he didn’t fall backward. “You always had that fire in you that made my dick hard. I love how you put me in my place, wife. I didn’t think I would miss it as much as I did.”

I stared at him and wondered how he wasn’t in a white room with padded walls, humming to himself until it was time for his “happy shot.” He had completely rewritten history in that twisted mind of his to believe that we were anything more than two people in an unfortunate arrangement that never would have led to marriage if he hadn’t faked it.

“You know love will make you do some crazy things?”

He sat back in the metal chair and draped his elbow over the back of it. Like we were two old friends sitting on the patio and not in a basement that smelled like mold and bleach.

“I packed up, left the south, started a foundation, and got on your donor’s list just to make you happy. You have always had agood heart, baby. And I told you that it was going to have you in a fucked-up place. Was I wrong?” He asked as he waved around the basement to make his point.

“Yeah, you were wrong. My good heart is the reason why you haven’t killed me yet. And yours is the reason why you were kept alive and in that body. Maybe death was too easy for all the wrong things you did to people.” I shot back. His shoulders slumped, and the twinkle in his one good eye dimmed a bit. For a second, I watched him shrink.

Despite what he said, I was Remy, and I was going to stay that way. But the next time two children asked me to get on a roller coaster, they’d have to fight me first.