Page 72 of Rest In Peace

"Mind if I come in?" I didn’t wait for an answer, stepping past her into the dimly lit hallway. My senses were on high alert, every shadow a potential hiding place, every creak a whispered secret.

"Of course," Sarah replied, but her tone was tight. She knew I wasn’t just there for pleasantries.

"Look, if you're suggesting—" Sarah started, but I cut her off with a raised hand.

"Where's Victoria, Sarah?" This time, my question was a blade, sharp and direct.“And Adam? He was here a minute ago. I saw you two. Kissing. You’re having an affair, the two of you?”

Her eyes flinched, guilt flickering like a shadow across her face.

"Agent, I swear, I don't?—"

"Save it." I started moving again, each step purposeful, closing the distance between suspicion and truth. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

"Easy," she whispered, her resolve crumbling. "Please."

"Then, start talking." I leaned in, my presence filling the space, leaving no room for lies.

Chapter 54

THEN:

The bottle of wine felt like a grenade in Sarah's grasp, her knuckles whitening as she seized it from the counter. It was a silent kitchen accomplice to her seething rage. With a swift twist, the cork surrendered, releasing a soft pop that echoed mockingly throughout the room. She slammed it down, her breaths shallow and ragged, the anger churning inside her like a storm.

"Come on; come on," she muttered, sloshing the dark liquid into the glass with more force than necessary. The crimson swirl promised a reprieve, a momentary ally against the onslaught of emotions warring within her.

Sarah wrapped her lips around the glass, tipping it back, the wine cascading down her throat in a fiery trail. She welcomed the burn and let it spread through her chest, imagining it as liquid courage pooling in her heart, steeling it for what was to come.

"Steven," she hissed under her breath, the name a curse, a battle cry. Her mind’s eye painted the upcoming confrontation with vivid strokes, each thought another layer of determination lacquered onto her resolve. He had pushed her to this edge, and she teetered there now, fueled by wrath and the heavy blanket of betrayal that had settled over her shoulders.

She took another gulp, larger this time, the glass barely leaving her lips before she refilled it. Sarah could picture him, could almost feel the weight of his deceit filling the space around her, suffocating her. Her hand shook, not from the alcohol but from the sheer intensity of her fury.

"Tonight, Steven," she whispered into the empty room, "tonight, you'll hear me."

The screech of rubber on the aluminum ramp tore through the silence, a harbinger of the storm to come. Sarah's spine stiffened, a primal alertness seizing her senses. The wine glass, now a fragile grenade in her grasp, threatened to shatter with the tension that gripped her.

"Steven," she whispered venomously, the name searing her tongue.

She hurled herself toward the door, her pulse hammering a frenetic cadence against her temples. With a swift motion born of rage rather than grace, she flung the door open and was met with the sight of him.

"Sarah," Steven began, but his voice was drowned out by the cacophony of her own heartbeats.

The wine, an unintended traitor, betrayed her resolve with its scent clinging to her breath. His eyes narrowed, the familiar accusation already forming on his lips before it sliced through the thick air between them.

"You've been drinking again, Sarah," he spat, the words cloaked in a bitter frost that could chill the warmth from any room.

Her voice, when it came, was a quivering blade—a tremble that betrayed both fury and anguish.

"How dare you accuse me?" she retorted, the irony of his judgment a slap to her face. Her hand, still clutching the glass, shook, not from the alcohol coursing through her veins but from the sheer force of betrayal that had compelled her here to this precipice where civility crumbled away like a cliffside under siege.

"Look at you, Steven," she continued, her voice climbing as though it could scale the walls of his indifference, "always so quick to judge."

The air hung heavy with unspoken histories, the silence a taut wire strung with years of grievances unvoiced and wounds unhealed. The standoff, a tragic dance of two silhouettes cast against the dying light, held the promise of a storm on the brink of eruption.

"Enough!" Sarah's shout echoed, her body a coiled spring released as she lunged for Steven. The glass slipped from her grasp, shattering on the floor, a crystal echo to their discord.

"Get off me!" Steven's arms flailed, seeking to ward her off, but determination had given Sarah reckless strength.

"Admit it!" Her hands found his shirt, twisting the fabric in a vise grip. "You think you're better than me?"

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