Page 38 of Hold Me Before You Go

Monica shot to her feet, pointing her long, thin finger at me.“Bullshit.I know for a fact you have the fucking account number memorized. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have been able to leave St. Louis.”

“Monica,” Brandon warned.

She whirled on him, raising her finger into his face. “No, I’ve had it with your games. We’ve been on the road for two days, and all we’ve managed to do is keep her drugged. She’s supposed to be dead already!”

My stomach twisted.Jesus, this woman really hated me.

“How long?” I asked.

Both of them slowly turned their heads to look at me, but I only focused on Monica.

“How long were you fucking my husband?” My words came out calm. Truth be told, I didn’t care that Robert was having an affair behind my back. There were times I’d suspected it, but I was too blind with the need for him to love and accept me to see it. I didn’t want to see it. Back then, Robert was my only path in life.

Happiness was merely a myth, baby. Until you.

Grayson’s words echoed in my mind, and my heart fluttered.

“What did you just say to me?” she whispered, not hiding her anger.

“How long were you and Robert fucking behind my back?”

“You don’t know—”

I cut her off. “You’ve been stalking me for months and planned out this whole killing me thing.”

She scoffed, flipping her thin hair over her shoulder. “You know nothing.”

I held her gaze. “I can hear it when you say his name. The pain. Thelove.” My words hung in the air between us like a hangman’s noose, swaying back and forth as her dead eyes flashed when she jerked back.

Brandon whistled low. “Maybe she’s not as stupid as you thought.”

I ticked my head to focus on him. “Why were you kept a secret? Why didn’t Robert tell me about you?”

“You have a lot of fucking nerve,” Monica seethed, her chest heaving now as her body shook with anger.

I ignored her, keeping at Brandon. “You told me in the store that before you killed me, you would tell me all the things I didn’t know about Robert. If you’re really about to kill me, the least you do is keep your promise.”

A cocky smile stretched across his face. “Alright, sis. You got me there.”

The last thing I wanted was for him to call me that, but I needed answers, so I let that slide, waiting for him.

Monica looked at him, eyes wide. “You’re really going to tell her?”

He looked down to her, his eyes hard. “At the very least, she deserves to fucking know, Monica. Don’t act like a fucking saint. You were fucking him since high school.”

Thankfully, the two of them were too distracted to notice my small flinch. I wasn’t expecting that. At the most, I was expecting a two-year affair, thinking Robert had met her at work or something, but high school? My lips parted as I looked down to my lap. Our entire relationship had been a lie.

As the two of them continued bickering back and forth, I felt something snap inside me, the final flayed piece of the cord that tethered me to the old Carrie, the broken, abused woman who had been so desperate for love. I wasn’t her. I had nothing tied to her anymore.

Now, even bound to this chair, I was truly free.

I looked back up at them, watching as they argued, yelling in each other’s faces as my soul smiled.

The old Carrie wasn’t just dead. She was erased.

Monica shook her head and threw her hands up in the air. “I should have never called you,” she barked.

Brandon rolled his eyes and ignored her, turning to me. “Robert never loved you, Carrie. He always loved Monica here, and between you and me, I never understood why. She was always such a cunt, even when we were kids.”

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