Page 8 of Twisted Promise

There was loaded silence, winded laughter from autumn twigs, and throbbing pain in his joints.

“You may rise,” Anya blurted, fidgeting in self-consciousness.

The corner of his lips twitched into a sneer as he pressed a palm on his left knee for support to stand. She snuck into the car and shut the door at neck-breaking speed as if there was a fire lit behind her, and he was the hellfire.

It was worrisome, in an eerily amusing way, how he glared at her through the tinted window.

* * *

After arriving at the house, Alessio noticed the polyamorous trio wasn’t back yet, but Meryl’s car was parked closest to the front entrance.

Anya hauled the bags and practically sprinted inside the house before he could even lock the car. He watched her disappear while leaning on the car hood as he welcomed the icy air into his lungs.

He wondered what he wanted to do next.

Anya wasn’t avoiding him like he thought she would; she was good at that, retreating into her shell and raised barricades and pretending everything was fine.

Through their relationship, Alessio had learned to read between the lines and understood her patterns of cowardice. Albeit after they broke up, but now, reading Anya felt like breathing air.

Her actions were deciphered and picked apart with a mere thought.

Four years together had merged them in a way soulmates were meant to be. Each piece of themselves fitted perfectly in a different picture—they had fragments of each other, irreplaceable and dutifully cherished.

Heat flared behind his neck. Irritation, he recognized, and he couldn’t stop it from thrashing under his skin as his temple pinched painfully.

All her fault, he thought bitterly, the taste of it sharp on his tongue.

He wouldn’t be here taking the brunt of thesefeelings, these disgustingly tedious emotions in his stomach, or the rising fervor of actually committing a crime.

They were perfect together. He didn’t think anything went wrong, and he was happy back then. It was odd to admit it, but the acknowledgment came too naturally that it was another passing thought before he caught it.

Alessio sighed, aggravated. His hair was already disheveled when he ran a frustrated hand through it, and it was made worse. He had no worries about looking untamed; he was lucky to even get a hold of himself.

He didn’t want to become a PR disaster because that meant he had to deal with the publicist team, and they were annoying cretins.

What slowed his mind was the realization that Anya didn’t file him under the “piece of shit” category, as many people oftendid with their ex-lovers. She treated him like any other person—polite and distant, somewhat graceless, but kind.

That wasn’t enough for him.

Greed would power his blood, and envy clouded his eyes whenever he saw clips of her with Meryl in those daily videos. Pride tested him to wait and see if she could survive without him.

Evidently, she could. He hated to admit that.

His phone rang, an incoming call from his manager flashed on the screen, and he supposed it was about time he talked to that man before he called for a welfare check. That man was dramatic, and Alessio had no doubt he would waste resources just for peace of mind.

His manager was shouting through the line the moment it connected, and in the middle of his rambling about Alessio’s irresponsibility, he heard a series of strangled snorts.

“Are you crying?” he questioned, his lips wrapping into a scowl.

The man sniffled, the noise statically loud, and denied the claim.

“An accusation,”he shouted on the line,“I have hypersensitivity.”

There was a moist whine, and Alessio wanted to hang up right then.

He listed every transgression Alessio had committed: violating his manager’s privacy for the reality show contract, lying about his location, and booking a plane ticket solo.

The man highlighted that it was his job to do all those nitty-gritty details like booking and scheduling. Then, he spentanother thirty seconds saying he had to rearrange the entire month’s schedule around the show.

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