Page 47 of Ruthless God

If the car accident never happened, would I be fucking her? Would we even be where we are now?

If I had known what I know now, I wouldn’t have fucked her. I would have forced her to be my girlfriend, because she’s the only woman I saw myself with. Though the love I had for her was unrequited.

Once I make it to Professor Jesse’s office, I knock three times. He opens the door wide, inviting me in, and I lean against his oak desk.

“What brings you to my office, Mr. Williams?” he asks.

“I sent you an email about Lyrical, my fiancée. She has a learning disability, and I haven’t received a response. She needsto graduate because she wants to open up her own gallery. You wouldn’t want to stop a gorgeous girl from pursuing her dreams now, would you?”

“Like I told Ms. Haynes. It will be a while to get her documents approved, and if she can’t pass my class, then that’s on her.”

The devilish smile I give him makes him wipe the smirk from his face. Sighing, I reach into my bag, pull out a folder, and set it down on the desk. The one thing I love about North Haven? It’s so easy to find dirt on people.

“This is what’s going to happen. If you don’t give Lyrical enough time to complete her work, and if you fail her, I’m going to show the mayor pictures of you fucking his wife. You don’t want that. If you tell Lyrical I helped her pass her class, or anyone else, I’ll leak these photos online. And no one will ever work with you again.”

He swallows thickly, then proceeds to open the folder, searching through the photographs. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh yes, I would. I have an email on standby.”

“Fine, Mr. Williams. I will do it. I’ll make sure Lyrical passes my class.”

I tuck the photos in my backpack and head out the door.

Once I make it outside the building, my phone dings with a text message from Lyrical.

Blue: Are you following me?

Lyrical

I’m at Bailey’s storage, trying to find more evidence that her boyfriend exists and maybe get an address or a name. Something to prove his existence besides a faceless picture and the journal full of sketches.

This week has been a shit show. I’m going to get back at Savannah for trying to sabotage what little relationship I have with Snow. I have a plan, but I have to do this alone and not involve Snow. The bitch is going to pay for what she did.

I now know that Snow doesn’t care about her—that he chose me.

Me.

To be his wife.

He could have gotten out of this arrangement and chose her. I’m not going to read into it too much, and I’m not going to get my hopes up about our relationship because, after all, our marriage is still arranged. I’m realizing now that my feelings for Snow are slowly returning. I don’t think I can ever look past the way he treated me since the start of the semester, nor the fact hedoesn’t believe I’m telling the truth about me and Bailey being drugged, but I do know I can’t help how I feel about him.

I’m conflicted.

Confused about what our relationship is. Our marriage is less than seven months away and I don’t know if I’m ready for it.

After searching through Bailey’s things for thirty minutes, I don’t find shit, and it annoys the hell out of me.

I drop to my knees on the hard concrete, sighing, wiping sweat from my forehead.

There isn’t much to be found in the boxes, just her clothing, old school textbooks, a few folders with sketches.

Opening up a folder, my eyes stay glued to a sketch Bailey had drawn of herself with a baby dangling from her stomach. She went into great details drawing this picture. At the bottom, there is a picture of hands folded, a photo of the guy with his hands wrapped around her. I read the handwritten text in the corner.

I shouldn’t have aborted our baby, even though it was for our relationship. You said it was my choice, but have I been manipulated? I did this for you. I hope you know that.

She was pregnant. I don’t want to believe it. Why would she keep it a secret from me? I picture her being alone and scared while going through that awful experience.

I search through more stuff, find some old photos of us, so I grab those along with the sketch, lock the storage back up, and make my way to the parking lot.

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