What if Emily’s lying next to him?
My hands tremble as I park my stolen car across the street. So far, so good. The two-story brick house isn’t burning, and nodead bodies lie out front. In fact, Emily is walking to the front door from their car while Aron hefts packages out of the trunk with his good arm, seemingly oblivious to the events of the night.
I leave the engine running as I get out and trot over to Aron’s car. He whips around and levels a revolver at my head, but I pull down the cuff of my sleeve to reveal the rosary tattoo on my wrist. Aron holsters his weapon with a sigh, shaking his head as I shrug off the hood to show my face.
“Fuck, Matt, I could’ve killed you just now. What the hell are you doing dressed in that getup?”
Despite the peacefulness of the scene, something feels off. “Did you sweep the house?”
Aron looks at me like I just grew a second head. “Why would I sweep my own house?”
“Look, man, someone got to Dad tonight. He might be dead, and a lot of people in my apartment building just became collateral damage when my fucking penthouse blew up. Right before Beto tossed a live grenade in my living room, Dad called and said not to trust anyone—as he was getting blown up. So, again, I ask you: Did you sweep the house?”
Aron’s eyes widen with each word, and as soon as I finish, he races towards the door. I chase after him, but we’re both too late.
The house explodes in a shower of brick and mortar, knocking us both back, and I dive on top of Aron just as the second bomb ignites.
Chapter 7
Aron
My head pounds, and my ears won’t stop ringing.
Matt shouts something at me, but it’s so muffled, I have no clue what he’s saying. I watch with blurry eyes as he races straight into the inferno that was my home.
Emily … She had already gone inside …
I want to get up, to chase after him, to save my wife and unborn child, but the second I’m upright, I fall the fuck over again. Something in my inner ear must be fucked up; my equilibrium is shot.
I can’t get to her. I can’t save her.
Minutes later—though it feels like hours—Matt comes back out, hacking and coughing as he falls to his knees next to me. I grab his shoulders and yell in his face, I curse and threaten him, but he just shakes his head and mutters something I can’t understand. He holds out his soot-stained hand, and it takes my mind an eternity to process what I’m seeing there.
A wedding band.
Not just any wedding band; it’s the band I spent hours picking out, the band I put on Emily’s finger as I trembled withexcitement and nerves, the band I see every day as she washes dishes or folds laundry.
“Why did you take it off?” I scream at him. “She needs this! Why the fuck would you bring her wedding band and not her?”
The look on Matt’s ash-covered face … I could have gone an eternity without seeing that look in his blue eyes.
His sapphire blue eyes. The same blue eyes that Emily has.
Had.
Fuck.
There’s only one reason Matt would rush in to save Emily and come out with only her wedding band.
I’m shaking so hard I can barely grasp the ring to pick it up from Matt’s palm. Tears fill my eyes as I turn the ring over and over, like maybe if I look at it from a different angle things will be better. Nothing changes, though. It’s still just a ring—a ring pulled from a dead body.
Once I accept that, once my mind finally goes to that dark place, I break.
I throw my head back and scream into the night. Matt sits there, tears running wet trails through the dirt on his face, as I keen and wail. He lets me vent my grief and rage until my voice breaks, until a coughing fit ends my song of mourning.
The next few hours are a blur. Matt helps me stand and half-carries me to his stolen car. He puts me in the seat and buckles me in, digging my phone out of my pocket and tossing it in the yard. He drives off, away from the ruins of my home, away from my wife’s burned body. The car turns at random streets, weaving in and out of neighborhoods, running lights and speeding onto the highway.
In some distant part of my mind, I recognize what Matt’s doing. He’s evading, taking a route that’s hard to track, watching the rearview for any tail we might have picked up.
