“Neither did I, apparently,” I retort, earning me a slow turn of his head before he charges and stops right in front of me.
Too close.
Always too close when he’s losing.
Towering over me like he’s better than me simply because he’s a wealthy man. It’s the same posture he used when he wanted compliance—looming, patient, certain I’d fold.
“Retract the alimony,” he says a third time, slower and more ground out. “You’re not entitled to it.”
Entitled.
I nearly laugh again because oh, the irony, but manage only to tilt my head back and look him in the eye. “We were married.”
“Barely,” he scoffs.
“You’re fifteen years older than me,” I add. “You married me knowing exactly what I was giving up.”
His face turns a vicious shade of red. “I saved you.”
If I were still in love with him, that would’ve stung. No, it would’ve hurt like a bitch. But I already had time to mourn this marriage, to mourn the man I thought I married, to mourn the fact I wasn’t enough for him. Now I just feel nothing. All I want is to be done, to know peace…
Inching up on the tips of my toes, I bring myself as close as possible. “I didn’t need saving,” I grit. “I needed a partner. Instead, I got a supervisor who fucks interns behind his wife’s back.”
Lance slams a fist onto the table, and while he was never violent, I flinch anyway.
“Retract it!” he shouts, his patience long gone. “Now.”
“No.”
He moves fast, too damn fast, and my body reacts before my brain catches up, instincts screaming for me to run. I bolt for the hallway, heart slamming violently against my ribs.
“Alma!” His footsteps pound like thunder behind me. “Get back here!”
The front door is right there, but for whatever the reason may be, I don’t take it. Instead, I turn and sprint up the stairs, bare feet slipping on polished wood. Every horror movie rule I’ve ever mocked flashes through my head, especially when I’m halfway up and Lance’s hand clamps around my arm.
I scream louder than I ever have in my entire life as fear shoots through my veins at lightning speed. He yanks me back, his grip crushing, fingers digging into my arm hard enoughthat I know it’s going to bruise later. I glance back and note his face is twisted with something ugly and feral now.
“You’re not taking my money,” he snarls. “You hear me?”
I don’t think. I don’t weigh options, consider the consequences, or remember that this is my husband and not some stranger who broke into my house.
I just kick.
Hard.
My heel connects sharply with his shin, and for a split second there’s resistance. Then my weight shifts backward, and his balance goes. His grip loosens, fingers scraping uselessly at my sleeve as his eyes widen—like this possibility never occurred to him.
Truthfully, it didn’t occur to me, either.
The next ten seconds happen in slow motion. There’s a horrible, hollow sound as his body tumbles down the stairs. Limbs hit wood at the wrong angles, shooting my shoulders closer to my ears with each round, until his head cracks against the banister with a sickening finality before he collapses at the bottom in a boneless heap.
And then—nothing.
There’s nothing.
The house goes eerily quiet. I stand there frozen, staring at the crumpled shape at the bottom of the staircase, waiting for him to move, to groan, to start yelling again so I can tell myself this isn’t what it looks like.
But suddenly a pool of crimson creeps out from beneath his head, and every drop of blood coursing through my being turns to ice. Dark and glossy, it spreads slowly across the hardwood like it has nowhere better to be, in a way that feels deliberate and irreversible…
