I take another sip and wait, needing to assess the situation and my fucked-up life with a calm mind. My other hand stays curled around the knife handle, blade pointed down, just in case tonight’s situation escalates.
But the ringing stops. Did they leave?
BAM.
Something slams into the door sounding nothing like a knock. The person outside really wants to break in.
Another smash, and I swear even the walls shake.
My heartbeat is steady, and my grip on the knife handle is tight. I’m in control. Whatever is about to happen, it will end just as fast as it starts. If it ishim, he’ll learn a valuablelesson tonight. If it isn’t—well, I’ve been craving violence since Tuesday.
Then comes the unmistakable voice.
“Open the fucking door.”
But he does it himself, letting in six-foot-three of fury and obsession, breathing like he’d sprinted through hell to get to me.
“Missed me, love?”
CHAPTER 21
AZRAEL
This place feels like hell on earth.
The air in her apartment hasn’t changed, the furniture is in the same position, and Cat is still zooming around. Nothing has really changed.
The only thing different is the woman standing in the center of it all, and it gives me chills. A statue that embodies every reason I should have turned around and run.
“Missed me, love?” I ask, my eyes scanning her body for any sign of a new wound that would explain her absence. Nothing. She’s just as perfect as I left her.
The words drop, but she doesn’t even blink. She just stands at the edge of the kitchen, arms over her chest in a sweater that is swallowing her frame, with a half-empty glass of wine in her right hand and a kitchen knife in the left one. The indifference of her posture is contradicted by the tremor of her hand.
I step closer trying to close the distance, but she just mirrors my movement, stepping back. With each step I take toward her, she takes one of her own, keeping an even distance between us,all the way until she reaches the kitchen island. Then she turns to it, like I’m not even here, and tops off her glass.
“Aren’t you going to offer me some?” I ask, in a poor attempt to get some sort of conversation going. And wine is one subject my Victoria will always enjoy discussing.
She sighs, like I’m bothering her just by existing in the same space as her. I want to scream, to tell her that I hate myself for what I’d done just as much as she does. That I would do anything—taking my life in the process, if needed—if she’d come back to me. I just need her to let me.
“Scotch’s in the cabinet. Same place.” she say as nonchalantly as ever.
Same place, same voice, but a different fucking tone.
I pour a double, moving my hands unnaturally mechanically. If I don’t, I’ll just throw the bottle and, as of now, I am not sure which direction it’s going to go. To the wall, to see it shattered and maybe calm my nerves down? Or maybe toward her, so I could finally get a reaction. Even my head is an option. Maybe it would get her out of my mind, and I could function properly again.
I want to ask her if she has any idea what she’s done, how it feels to be dismissed without a word, but starting a conversation before I figure out how fucked up the situation is, is a terrible decision. So instead, I drink. The burn is so weak and not nearly enough.
I walk toward her again. On cue, she jumps up onto the kitchen island with the same grace she’d used in the past to climb onto her bed. The image of her, on the bed…no, I don’t have time for that.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask. I put my hands on the counter next to her, to keep myself from doing something more stupid than what I’ve already done.
I expect venom, or some version of the hurricane she usually throws at me when things don’t go her way, but I don’t get that. I just get another sigh followed by the sound of her blade tapping on the edge of the island.
“Victoria?”
An almost furious expression shadows her face for a moment, but she quickly erases it and sips her wine, ignoring everything again.
Eventually, she answers, “I got bored.”