Page 86 of Trial of Deceit

Reine gasped as Jediah turned the bottle to his head again.“Dimitri!”

Jediah yanked the bottle from his mouth.“Don’ call Dimitri name in a mi presence,” he warned.

“Huh?”Reine asked, her brows knitting.

Jediah abandoned the bottle on the counter and exited the kitchen.Reine trailed behind him, still demanding answers.Jediah spun around in a flash, startling Reine, who grabbed onto the staircase to maintain her balance.Her worry-filled eyes did not phase Jediah.

“If yu mention himonemore time…”

“W-wa yu mean?Wa happen to Dimitri?”

“That’s not your concern.”

“It is!”she hissed.Reine’s anger made her chest heave.

“Why?”he asked, his eyes narrowing on her.

Reine sneered.“Mi a go tell Miss B!”

Jediah scoffed.“Must feel seh we a still pickney.”He continued to the bedroom, hearing Reine’s yell for Bryony.He entered the room and closed the door behind him.Water ran from the pipe in the sink.He dragged the ottoman from before the bed, settling it in the center of the room.Removing his gun, Jediah laid it atop the ottoman along with what he asked the guard for.He shrugged off his shirt while saying, “Ash, when you’re done, come here.”

He knelt some inches facing away from the ottoman before her footsteps entered the room.She paused inches away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, quieting in hopes of an answer that didn’t come.He gulped hard.“You’re right.I shouldn’t have used what you told me over your head, but I wasn’t raised on love, Ashari.I was raised on survival, and that’s all I know how to do… even when it comes to the person I want to love how she deserves.But we have a life where…” He sighed, shaking his head as a crippling fear snuck up his spine.“I really am sorry, queen.The whip is there for you to break me like I tried to break you.I deserve it, but you didn’t.The gun’s there, too, if you want to…” He quieted, holding his breath for seconds while no movement came.

Then, he heard a shuffle.

And the flick of a safety pin.

His first instinct was to turn and restrain her, but he remained still.

Reine was pissed at him.Bryony had been disappointed since Acacia left.His closest friend placed an irreparable wedge between them.His father was ailing still.

Maybe if Ashari put him out of his misery, everyone would be better off without him.Maybe he’d get another shot at life where everything didn’t go wrong.Those scars wouldn’t be slowly healing on his wife’s back.His mother would’ve been alive.He wouldn’t have been living a life he didn’t want.

Jediah closed his eyes, balling his hands into tight fists atop his thighs and savoring the feeling.Maybe this pinch of pain would be the last thing he felt forever, but he didn’t mind.

After this, maybe there’d be silence.The mark of a new beginning.

Ashari pulled the trigger.

Chapter twenty-three

“Ah!”Jediahscreamed.Hishand darted to his shoulder, doing nothing to mask a hot flash of pain as he got the wind knocked out of him.Blood seeped through the creases of his fingers.He looked at Ashari over his shoulder, sucking cold air through his teeth while she grinned.“Yu just shoot me?!”

“Would’ve rather if I actually killed you?”she asked.

Jediah’s throat dried.He swallowed the bitterness that surged in his mouth.He couldn’t say the words that had formed on his tongue.He wasn’t sure how Ashari would react, and that scared him more than his admittance to himself.

Her grin faded as she placed the gun beside the whip.The door flew open, slamming into the wall.Ashari looked at Bryony and Reine.Bryony’s eyes widened as she froze at the door.

Standing behind Bryony, Reine demanded, “Ask him weh Dim—” A scream cut her sentence short.“Jed!”She almost pushed Bryony to the floor in her haste to maneuver around her.She rushed toward Jediah and dropped to her knees before him.Before Jediah could reply, she pried his hand away and inspected the wound.She pressed her hand against it.“Wa happen?!”she hissed at Ashari, who didn’t answer.

“Mi good.I made her do it,” Jediah gritted out, his shoulder numbing as Bryony appeared with a first aid kit.When had she left?Why were there two of her?He wasn’t losing enough blood to be this dizzy.What was happening to him?Jediah groaned and blinked away the dizziness.As Bryony searched for the exit point, his eyes narrowed on Reine.“Why are you so concerned about Dimitri?”

“I… I…” Reine fumbled for words, and anger coursed through Jediah.

Numbness and dizziness evaporated from him.He declined Bryony’s help and stood.He began to barge down the stairs with newfound strength while footsteps rushed behind him.