“Severe blunt force trauma consistent with his fall,” the coroner replied. “Multiple skeletal fractures—ribs, pelvis, long bones. There’s also significant cranial impact. Internal hemorrhaging would have been immediate.”
Each word landed harder than the last.
“He died on impact?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“Yes.”
At least he didn’t suffer more than that agonizingly brief moment. I inhaled a shaky breath into my lungs, then let it out.
“I’d like some time alone,” I said, because I didn’t trust myself to hold it together much longer.
He nodded and left, the door closing behind him with a quiet click that sounded far too final.Then it was just me, and Brad.
What remained of him.
I stepped closer, my hands gripping the edge of the table as it became the only thing keeping me upright. My legs grew weak, and I could hear myself hyperventilating in the cold room.
“Brad…” My voice broke on his name, the sound barely more than a breath.
I bent forward, my forehead nearly touching the cold metal, and everything I’d been holding back gave way. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Sorry for not handling us better and for not making his coffee that morning.Sorry for wanting a separation.But most of all, I was sorry for the terrible men in this world who did this to him and convinced the rest of us he’d died by suicide. That he’d tried to kill someone else. I was sorry I was such a coward that, even though I suspected the truth, I couldn’t tell anyone.
There was still so much I didn’t know. Who were these monsters at his workplace who had the capacity to cover this up? Brad didn’t speak much about his work, and I never asked him. I just knew that he did a whole lot of research even when he was home.
They claimed Brad jumped after being rejected and trying to kill his boss’s personal assistant. I believed only the part where the young man had rejected him. Brad had shared with me that he fancied his new coworker and wanted him in our bed. I’d told him more than once to let it go if Wren wasn’t interested, but he’d thought of it as a challenge.
I’d thought it was nothing but harmless fun.I never would have imagined his boss would have done something so cruel simply because Brad hit on his lover.
“They have to pay,” I choked out, the words shaking. “I swear to you, Brad, they’re going to pay for what they did to you.”
The memory released me as abruptly as it had taken hold, and I dragged in a shuddering breath, blinking hard as tears coursed down my cheeks. The bathroom felt too small, too warm, the air thick in my lungs as I pushed myself up unsteadily and gripped the sink. My reflection stared back at me, pale, with hollow, red-rimmed eyes.
“I need to pull myself together,” I said more firmly this time.
If I fell apart, I wouldn’t be able to go through with this revenge plan. I had a lifetime to grieve Brad, but for now I needed to vindicate him. And that meant dealing with Maxim Morozov. Not Wren, since I didn’t believe he had anything to do with the incident, but if I found out he had, it wouldn’t be too late to finish what Maxim’s former friend, Archibald, had started.
Cold water hit my face, dripping down my neck, grounding me. By the time I straightened, the trembling had eased. I crawled up the stairs, plagued by the memory of Sergei carrying me up them last night.
At the threshold of my bedroom, I stopped cold. The bed was still unmade, the sheets twisted and tangled. For several weeks, I woke up with no indentation in the pillow next to me. This morning there was one. The exact spot where I’d woken up pressed against him burned into my mind, the memory fresh and vivid. The weight of his arm. The heat of his body. The way he had unraveled on top of me last night as he rode my thigh.
My jaw tightened. I needed to get him out of this room. I’d spent over a decade of love here with my husband. He had no right to sully that. Anyone but him.
I crossed the room and yanked the sheets off the bed. The pillowcases followed, the fabric bunching in my fistsbefore I dropped them to the floor in disgust. But it wasn’t enough. It didn’t erase the memory of him.
The bathroom was worse. The moment I stepped inside, it all came rushing back. Sergei straddling me, riding me, and kissing me. My breath hitched, a traitorous spark flaring low in my gut that made me recoil inside.
“I can’t stay here.”
I gathered everything—the towels, the sheets, anything that held even the faintest trace of him—and carried them downstairs, dumping them into the laundry without care. Then I went back and cleaned. Every surface. Every inch. Scrubbing until my hands ached and the sharp scent of soap filled the air, drowning out everything else.
When I was done, I stepped into the shower again. The water was hot enough to sting, but I didn’t lower the pressure. I scrubbed at my skin like I could erase what had happened, like I could undo the way my body had responded to him, the way I had wanted him.
It was just a physiological response.
The thought wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. My hand stilled against my chest, my breath catching as the memory threatened to surface again—the way he had felt tight around me, the way he had moaned, the way I had?—
“No.”
