Page 291 of Rage

But Selene, forever the master of the one-night stand, was perfectly happy using men as playthings to boost her ego and nothing more.

She was sort of my hero right now. It was fucking badass that she knew herself so well, and knew how to get what she wanted even better.

Never dating, never chasing.

Always with the same type.

Clean cut. Rich. Athletic.

Never anyone interesting enough that she’d want to get attached—just enough looks or money to make her engine rev and nothing more.

Was I about to become just like her?

A widow at twenty-six, independently wealthy, ready to start life over anywhere that wasn’t here. Somewhere, preferably, where no one knew me or my name.

One nostalgic club hit blended into the next as I glanced at my watch.

With any luck, Charlie was already leaving to meet up with Sonya, or Charlotte or whatever trashy JC Penny version of me he’d decided to spend time with tonight.

It was crucial that this didn’t go down in my house. I didn’t want a fucking corpse rotting on my carpet all night, you know?

Did it look good for me to be out at a nightclub going home with some stranger? Hell no.

But I thought it’d really spice up the headlines.

Besides, it was all about what they’dbelieve. How quickly the investigation was wrapped up and my name cleared of any doubt. I really,reallydidn’t want the hassle of a wrongful death trial. It was going to be hard enough as it was to pretend to be distraught when they called me in a few hours.

Looking at it pragmatically, maybe I should’ve been alittleupset that my husband was going to die tonight. But really, he could’ve saved himself at any time. All he had to do was stop drinking, stop partying like he’d promised. Then, my carefully crafted biological warfare would’ve been made moot.

Hard to kill a rat if it won’t eat the poison, you know? Even better, Charlie was about to bring that poison right back to the nest.

When ingested, windshield wiper fluid was fatal, and nearly impossible to get to pull up on a toxicology report.

Unless you know to look for it, that is.

Which is why I couldn't let my beloved husband go into unexplained kidney failure. No, that would bring up too many questions, like why he was pulling money out of the college fund for our future children to spend on Bitcoin and blow.

Funnily enough, I had the same questions.

Though our vows clearly hadn’t meant anything to Charlie, they’d meant something tome. Especially until death do us part.

As far as I was concerned there was only one way out of this marriage: one of us was going to have to die.

And now that my wrist had healed, I was tired of waiting for Charlie to find the afterlife on his own.

But I’d never touched a gun before, and Charlie was staunchly anti-open carry. And he had a hundred points on me, not to mention over a foot and a half. It wasn’t like I could take him one on one.

A fact he’d taken immense pleasure in reminding me, over and over.

Instead, I went for a more simple solution. Adding just a bit of windshield fluid to his alcohol bottles for weeks. Apparently, it tasted like hell, but my gamble that the burn of liquor would mask it proved to be effective enough.

Now that I’d weakened Charlie’s liver all that was left was to set the trap.

I knew where he kept the drugs, it was almost too easy to swap his with my own supply, a special blend of fentanyl, cocaine and xylazine—a horse tranquillizer that suppresses the nervous system, my safety precaution in case one of his buddies tried to administer NARCAN.

This might’ve been my first murder, but I’d watched enough crime drama to know that setting the scene and having an alibi was just about the only way to get away with it.

So, I needed anaccident. One that no one would question.

---