Page 31 of Ruthless Regret

She blinks at me, her lips pressed together into a thin line. I look away. I don’t have the energy to go through all this shit again. Not so soon after my conversation with Esme.

“Do you think it’s related to the attack on Ashley?” my dad asks.

“The attack. The murders. Me. Maybe? I don’t know anymore. Everything is just …” I scrub a hand down my face. “I had everything planned out, and it’s just a fucking mess.”

“What do you mean you had everything planned out?” My mom jumps on my words. “What did you plan?”

I can’t help the laugh that breaks free. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

Silence falls between us, thick and awkward. The clock on the wall ticks, and the sound is obnoxiously loud. Each second seems to last longer than the one before. I shift in my seat.

I have no fucking idea what to do next. How I’m going to fix this. My plan seemed so easy. So black and white.

“You’re not the same person you were before they imprisoned you. It’s hard to reconcile who you are with who we remember. But,” my dad’s voice is low and measured. “But you’re also not the monster you think you’ve become.”

“You’re wrong about that.” The words slip out before I can stop them. I don’t look at either of them, just keep my focus on the pattern of the carpet beneath my feet. “I’mexactlythat monster. I made sure of it.”

“Zain.” The disappointment in my mom’s voice cuts through me. A second or two later, a shadow falls across me, and I look up to find her sitting beside me on the arm of the chair. She places a hand on my shoulder. “No matter what you think prison has made you, you can’t live your life thinking that you’re not worthy of being free. And you have donenothingto need redemption for.”

“You have no idea what I’ve done. Ashley—” I stop, then try again. “She’s gone. And you know what? I deserve it. I treated her like shit because I thought that was the only way I could make her pay for what I thought she did.”

Mom squeezes my shoulder. “She went back to New York because she’s scared. That’s understandable after what happened today. Maybe you both need some space to think. You rushed into this marriage so fast. You barely know each other.”

I laugh again. “She didn’t run because of that. She ran because ofme. Because of what I did.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“I forced her to marry me.”

“Forcedher?” Dad joins the conversation again.

I lift my gaze to him. “I had a plan for when I was released. I was going to track Ashley down and make her pay for what she did to me. That plan kept me going for years. I was going to ruin her life, the same way she ruined mine.”

“Zain—”

I lift a hand to cut off my mom. “Let me finish.” Because if I don’t get all of this out of my head now, I’ll never tell them. “She didn’t marry me because we hit it off. She married me because I gave her no choice. I threatened her, I threatened her mom. Iforced her to sign a contract, giving me control over her life for the next fourteen months.” My laugh this time is bitter. “And you know what? None of it is even her fucking fault. She was scared of me before we met, but now … now she hates me. And I caused that.”

“You don’t know that. You’re still very much in a prison mindset that you’re looking at the world in a way it doesn’t exist. Maybe Ashley does hate you, but she married you, Zain. That means something. Whether you forced her hand or not.”

“I married her because it was part of my plan,” I bite back. “It wasn’t supposed tomeananything.”

“Then why are you telling us? Why does it matter that she’s gone?”

His words hit me hard. I don’t have an answer. At least, not one I’m willing to say out loud. Because I don’t want to give voice to the fact that everything about this … abouther… does matter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ASHLEY

I giveup trying to sleep at around four. I’m too scared to close my eyes, in case I dream again, and every single noise has my senses on high alert. So, I get up. The house is dark and quiet as I creep along the hallway to the kitchen. Making sure the door is closed, I make myself a cup of cocoa, and sit at the table, trying to focus on the things I need to do once everyone wakes up.

I need to buy a new cell phone.

I need to call the landlord.

I need to replace my driver’s license.

I also need to decide whether I want to try and get my job back. It’s only been a couple of days, I doubt they’ll have already filled the position. But I’m not sure I want to go back to it. It was part of a life I was forcing myself to live. I was playing pretend, like a kid playing dress up.

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