Page 31 of Unlock My Heart

My only friend is splayed out on her desk, getting railed by my husband.

Jade cranes her neck, her eyes meeting mine. Those jaded eyes don’t hold embarrassment. Or regret. Or even an apology.

No, the old woman looks at me with pity while she stabs me in the back.

“Sienna, I wasn’t expecting you,” Michele says, continuing to screw my friend. “But please, stay. You can watch Jade get fucked; it’ll be a full-circle moment.”

“What are you talking about?” My voice is strange; far away.

Michele’s eyes fill with a gleeful cruelty. “Jade could have intervened that night in the alley, but your ‘friend’ didn’t want to get involved. Isn’t that right, Jade?”

Her silence speaks volumes.

With a guttural cry that I realize is coming from me, I sprint across the room and grab a box cutter that’s next to an unopened package. Extending the blade, I bring it to Jade’s neck, slicing from ear to ear.

Blood sprays everything within a foot’s radius as Jade’s head lolls to the side.

“Goddammit, Sienna!” Michele bellows as the blade slips from my hand. “I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes, and you’ve made the biggest fucking mess.”

Frozen in place. Unable to speak. Unable to move. I’m only able to watch as my husband pulls his unwrapped cock out of a corpse, tucking it inside his suit pants.

I grunt as Michele grabs a fistful of my hair, jerking my face inches from his. “You wanted something to do? Congratulations, my dear, you’re the new madam,” he hisses between his teeth. “You can start by sobering up and getting Jermaine in here to help clean up this fucking mess of yours.”

Releasing me with a shove, he storms out.

My high bottoms out spectacularly; all that’s left is a hopeless sense of despair and a bitter taste in the back of my throat.

Turning my palms over, I examine the gooey crimson.

Nobody in this business is your friend.

Eighteen and so fucking naive, I didn’t understand Jade’s warning back then. Oh, but I understand it now.

My eyes land on her lifeless ones, and I lurch forward, puking everywhere.

Chapter Ten

Fabien

The present

Entering the chapel with my bible tucked under my arm, I quietly pull the door closed, sliding into the pew beside my priest.

“Fabien. I have news…”

He falls silent when I jerk the rosary from his hands, making the sign of the cross. “Bless you, father, for you have sinned.”

My priest’s wide eyes reveal his confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“Thou shalt not lie. It’s one of the ten commandments, right?” I swing the beads round and round on my finger.

“That’s right,” he says hesitantly.

“Let’s see what the good book has to say about it.” I open my bible, revealing the shank nestled inside the hollowed-out pages. Grabbing the plexiglass chard attached to a duct tape handle—crafted this little beauty myself in the workshop—I make a show of slicing the air.

“Fabien, please⁠—”

I bring the blade to the exposed patch of skin above his collar. “You lied to me about Sienna.” The only reason I kept my distance all these years is that I thought that’s what she wanted. That she was better off without me. That she was happy. “I want to know why.”