Page 111 of Mayhem and Minnie

Did she call him here?

Is it that soulmate of hers or is it someone else? Maybe a lover. Maybe she’s been lying to me all along and I was far too blind to see it. Maybe this was all just one giant set-up. Cozy up to me, learn everything about my house, then bring her lover so they can both rob me blind.

It’s not a far-fetched scenario.

I may be a very private person, but unfortunately, there’s plenty of public information about me thanks to my high-profile family. My family name alone would attract all kinds of attention, most often the negative kind. I suppose I should have thought about that before I picked up a stranger from the side of the road.

For fuck’s sake, there are no records about her online. None whatsoever.

Even knowing that, I’ve decided to ignore the rational side of my brain that was yelling at me that this is a disaster waiting to happen. She was a liability from day one and I could have kicked her out at any point after I found out about the inconsistencies in her story.

The more I think of it, the more mad I am at myself. But not as mad as I am at her and this betrayal.

Yet it’s not the thought that Minnie lied to me about her identity that guts me, it’s the fact that she may have colluded with another man to achieve this plan of hers—whatever it is.

The more I think of her and that shadowy figure together the more I find myself slipping.

I don’t do anger.

I don’t do disappointment because I never expect anything in the first place.

I don’t do emotions at all—they’re far too troublesome.

Yet since she came into my life, every fucking rule I’ve had for myself has gone down the drain.

I crack my knuckles as I march toward her. I hate the way tension knots in my gut, in my veins, in every goddamn organ. The urge to smash my fist against a hard surface is almost irresistible. I need to feel the physical pain as a way to make sense of this ineffable emotion that’s bubbling inside of me. Because physical pain is the only pain I should be acquainted with, the only one to fit the definition of pain.

Not…this.

My insides are getting twisted up in pain the closer I get to her.

“Marlowe, what are you doing here?” Minnie asks me in a soft, quivering voice when I reach her.

“I should be asking you the same thing,” I retort.

“I thought you’d left…”

“Who was he?” I ask, barely containing the rage in my voice.

Her lashes flutter in confusion.

“Who was…who?”

She’s a great actress, I’ll give her that.

She appears genuinely surprised by my question.

“The man you were meeting. Who is he?”

“What man?” She frowns.

“Cut it out, Minnie. I saw you. Who was he? That soulmate of yours? An old lover? A current lover? Who the fuck is he?”

She regards me with those innocent doe-like eyes of hers and my heart stills in my chest. Yet the image of her in that man’s arms is fresh in my mind—so fresh, it’s making my blood boil with anger again.

I grab her shoulders. Her skin is warm. Hot. She’s only wearing a shirt in this freezing weather, but she’s hot to the touch.

The rational part of my brain that would have questioned this is long gone. If I weren’t so mad, I may have paused to ask myself how this is possible—especially since it’s not the first time. But how can I think coherently about anything but this infuriating situation? How can I still have any thought in my brain when she is my sole focus? When I need to know whether she was meeting a lover or not more than I care to take my next breath?

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