That’s unusual.
Twenty-Six
JULIAN
“They’re here,”Jack says at the doorway of my office, where I’ve been standing and staring out the window. I arrived ten minutes ahead of her because I texted Benji and told him to take the long way home.
I wanted to be waiting for her.
With a nod, I leave the room and stride out in time to meet Natasha in the kitchen, where she sets her shopping bag on the counter.
It seems that’sonething she didn’t lie about.
“Hi,” she says softly. She won’t meet my eyes as she rubs her hand over the back of her neck. She looks pale and shaken, and two days ago, I would have pulled her to me and demanded to know what’s wrong so I could disembowel whoever made her feel this way.
Right now, I’m telling myself that I don’t fucking care.
It’s a lie, but I’m telling myself anyway.
“You no longer live here.” I have to force the words out. I didn’t mean to start with that. I’d planned to interrogate her, to ask herwhy, to intimidate and do what I do when it comes to my enemies.
But at the end of the day, the answers don’t matter.Shewas what mattered the most, and she betrayed me. She put my family in danger. Because of this woman, some good men are dead. So I don’t give a shit about her answers. She went against me, and that means she has no place by my side.
I need her out of my sight.
At first, she doesn’t react to my statement at all, as if she’s lost in her own mind, and then what I said finally registers, and her head slowly comes up. She frowns at me, as if she’s sure she misheard me.
“What?”
“You. No longer. Live here. The belongings you came with the day I married you—the worst day of my life, as it turns out—are in the bags out front, which are being loaded into the car as we speak.” I have to shove my hands in my pockets, balling them into fists, so I don’t reach for her. Christ, my chest aches. I can’t believe she’s been lying to me,deceiving me, all along, while I was falling in love with her. Becoming addicted to everything about her.
“I don’t understand.” I’ll hear that voice in my dreams for the rest of my life.
“I don’t give a fuck what you do or don’t understand. I don’t live with traitors.”
She shakes her head, and I glare at her.
“You met with your father.”
Her jaw drops and then she swallows hard.Yeah, Angel, I fucking know.
“You were working, and?—”
“Get the fuck out of my house.” I put all the rage and disgust I have running through my veins into my voice and eyes as I stare down at her. She cowers back, as if she’s afraid I’ll hit her. It makes my stomach roll, but sheshouldbe afraid of meright now. “If I ever see you again, I’ll fucking kill you without hesitation.”
The gasp is small but unmistakable, and she stumbles back, catches her heel on the corner of a table, and falls backward, crying out when she lands on her hand.
Instinctively, I start to move toward her to help her up but then bite the inside of my cheek and stay rooted where I am.
I need her gone before I do something fucking stupid.
“Get up and get your ass out of my house, Natasha.”
She cradles her hand against her chest as she pushes up to her feet, watching me with terrified eyes. Her lips wobble. She’s shaking.
She’s an excellent fucking actress. Don’t forget that.
“Wh-where am I going?”
