Page 4 of Freedom’s Inferno

Lana

My ankles killed in those fucking heels. I fixated on the pain as I worked my way through the line of mourners, clasping hands and accepting words of comfort that meant nothing to me. Most of these people hardly knew my late husband beyond his portfolio and his net-worth. They had never seen the vicious rages that consumed him, or the way he managed to suck all of the oxygen out of the room with a single flash of his eyes. Listening to these people sing his praises and paint him as this gregarious philanthropist, when I would forever bear the scars he gave me, turned my stomach.

I’d braced myself for guilt tangled with grief and triumph laced with shame, but found only relief. As far as I was concerned, Richard wrote his own obituary the moment he first laid his hands on me. I slept better than I had in years in the days after his death. I didn’t have a drop of guilt for what I’d done. No, what haunted me wasn’t the memory of his water-logged corpse. Letting it go on as long as I did, mistaking endurance for strength, that was what stuck with me. My own weakness. I should have put an end to it sooner.

Now, standing in that line of mourners, their hands clammy in mine, I wanted to scream. Not because I regretted killing him, but because I regretted every year I hadn’t. Every day I’d let him turn me into a ghost of myself while the world praised his charm and generosity.

Not one face in the crowd was there for me. Richard had seen to that. A comment here about a friend who talked too much, a look there when I made plans without telling him first, until one by one the friendships disintegrated until he was the only person left.

The formality of the whole event was a joke, and I was ready for them to lower the casket into the ground and be done with it.

I looked up and my gaze landed on him.

Charles Sterling.

He made his way down the line. Thick, chestnut hair mussed with the wind, and dark eyes boring into me with a kind of intensity that picked me apart. He wore a tailored suit, but the motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm ruined the polish. He was Richard’s college roommate and his business partner, the other half of Blackwell Sterling.

I’d never liked him. Not because he came from nothing. I admired the kind of grit it must have taken to claw his way out of foster care and into an Ivy League school. The fact that he could swim with all of the sharks was a testament to his fortitude. No, I hated everything else.

He sucked the joy out of a place the way a draft steals heat from a room. He followed Richard like a brooding shadow, carrying his trauma like a badge, like it made him superior to the rest of us. He assumed he was the smartest man in every room, and maybe he was. But I couldn’t stand the way he presumed to know me from day one.

Still, I was content to let him think of me as the spoiled brat, the pampered little princess Richard scooped up.

Charles Sterling. Chuck, as everyone else called him. But not to me. I called him Charlie just to watch his jaw feather. He hated it, and that was the point.

Now, he was waiting his turn to take my hand.

“Charlie,” I murmured, sucking at my cheek, reigning in the smirk that threatened to tilt my lips.

“Chuck,” he smiled, wide and unnerving.

For the first time, I was unsure of myself. Something about the gleam in his eye made me question his intentions, like I was the punchline to a joke I hadn’t heard.

“Chuck,” I pretended to correct myself. “Thank you for coming.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” he said, leaning in closer than I wanted him to be. The earthy scent of his cologne mixed with the mint on his breath. “Funny, isn’t it? The three of us together in one place again. Reminds me of college. The dorm, ya know? You and Dickie. Me. Of course, back then I couldn’t have imagined you and I would be the ones left standing. But Dickie did always say you could outlast the worst of things.”

His words slid under my skin, piercing like a needle. My smile didn’t falter. It couldn’t. I kept my chin high, my hand steady in his, but inside, a spark of irritation flared hot and quick.

Of course he’d invoke college, that little shrine to the glory days when Richard made him feel like somebody.

“Richard always gave me too much credit,” I said, tilting my chin, tone smooth as glass.

“Mmm.” His gaze lingered, unblinking, searching for a crack in my armor. He studied me like a man trying to solve an equation, convinced the answer lay just out of reach.

I shifted the funeral program in my grip, the paper crinkling. Not a tremor. A choice.

Let him see what he wants to see.

“Well, he considered you his closest friend,” I murmured, my voice calm, sweet, the kind meant to carry enough for those nearest us to hear. “I know he’d appreciate that you’re here. Loyalty was so important to him.”

His mouth curved again, thin and cruel this time, satisfaction flashing in his eyes. “And he was lucky to have such a loyal wife. Right to the very end.”

An intentional pause followed. A knife balanced between us. My smile held, but the words caught at the edge of my ribs.

Ah. So that’s the game. Not condolences. Not camaraderie. A probe. A warning.

Then he leaned in, his lips grazing the shell of my ear, close enough that his breath ghosted against my skin.