Page 50 of The Guilty One

I swallow, watching as he pulls the watch box from his pocket. My pulse is pounding as I wait.

He senses that something is up, and I know he doesn’t want to open it, but he also has no choice. That’s the beauty of it. I have all the power, always have.

Slowly, he opens the watch box. His expression changes as he processes what he’s seeing. He drops the box on the comforter, holding the crumpled photographs in his hands as he unfolds them. When he realizes what I’ve given him, he shoves them into his pockets and steps toward me.

“What the actual fuck?”

I grin without my teeth. “Are you surprised? Really? I wanted her. You knew I wanted her. Turns out, she wanted me just as bad.” I whistle. “She’s insatiable, bro. No wonder you were trying to keep her for yourself.”

“You fucking asshole!” He launches himself at me, but I stand up, still as stone, and it stops him in his tracks.

“Watch it, because if you lay a single finger on me, if you even think of breathing a word of this to anyone…” A wicked smile crosses my lips as my gaze flicks down to the pictures he’s tucked away in his pocket. “Let’s just say those aren’t the only copies in existence, and I’m more than happy to share. Whether or not you take her class, I do, and I don’t think the dean would be too happy about one of his professors fraternizing with students, do you?”

“Are you threatening me?”

I click my tongue and wiggle my finger at him. “Promising. Better word. But don’t worry, I’ve gotten what I wanted. You can have her back now.”

“She’s not a toy,” he cries, his eyes filling with tears. My god, how pathetic. He’s seriously going to cry over this? What a loser.

“Could’ve fooled me. She was a lot of fun to play with. So much more exciting than blocks.”

His hands ball into fists again, and though we both know he wants to kill me, he can’t touch me. He never could.

“Shouldn’t have sent me back to campus, Mafia Matteo. That’s on you. What did you think was going to happen? Surely you knew she was there. I mean, you can’t blame her really. She saw what she wanted and went after it. Why would she want you when she could have me?”

“What’s going on in here?” Dakota appears in the doorway, and I jerk my head around to see him. I slide my arm around Matteo’s shoulders, and my hand plants right on his collarbone, applying just enough pressure that he tenses.

“Nothing at all. Right, Matteo?” He’s silent for a long while, and I squeeze his shoulder again, this time harder. “Unless there’s something you need to tell the class?”

He jerks his shoulder away from me. “Fuck off.”

I beam. “Same old Mafia Matteo.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CELINE

Two days go by as I sit in radio silence, not totally sure the entire phone call wasn’t a dream. If it wasn’t for the call in my call log, I could easily be convinced I imagined the whole thing. I spend the next two miserable days filled with stress and sweating and random crying fits. Two days where I plaster on a smile in front of the boys and a stoic face in front of my parents and pretend I’m still just holding on.

I haven’t gotten any new updates from the police, and I’m afraid to reach out to them because I’m terrified I’ll slip up and somehow let them know I spoke with him. Maybe I should. Some part of me worries that he only called because he found out I’d closed our bank accounts. Maybe he never thought I’d actually go through with it. Maybe he expected me to be the trusting, doting wife, sitting around waiting for him to return like he was coming home from war, rather than abandoning us.

Maybe he wouldn’t actually be wrong to think that because here I sit. In bed at the end of a long day, staring at the phone until my eyes are so dry I have to blink. Maybe he knows me all too well.

Every time my phone goes off, I jump up like it’s him. I want to hear from him like I want to live. No matter what he’s done, I can’t make myself be mad at him. I want to trust him, want to believe there could be some sort of explanation.

So when the phone finally goes off after two long days of waiting in silence, and those two words appear on my screen—Unknown Caller—my heart leaps into my throat as if I’m a teenager waiting for my crush to call.

I swipe my finger across the screen before the first ring has ended. “Tate?”’

“I have a plan.”

“A plan.” I repeat the words. “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to come home.”

“Okay.” It’s a kick to the chest I don’t understand. He’s coming home just like that? Like he just woke up and decided? Has he been able to come home all this time? “When? Now?”

“No. Tomorrow. I’ll come home tomorrow night.”

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