Page 65 of Promise of Destruction
If Soren Palmer is damaged, Soren D’Anerio was flawless—at least, she wanted people to think she was.
Her round face, softened with the blush of first love, is smiling in every picture of her whether it’s one she posted or one a friend tagged her in. They’re not forced smiles; they light her eyes and transform her whole face. Not waif-thin, but she could have certainly passed for a swimsuit model with her curves in all the right places and a flat stomach. Pictures with friends at the lake, the beach, bathing in the sun. Videos of her and Marissa spinning each other in circles at a rock concert, doing karaoke at some seedy-looking bar, dancing on the top of a table.
I thought what I’d seen last night was the product of a mental breakdown, but the further I scroll through her pages, the more I realize it was just a glimmer of who she used to be. It disappeared slowly—her smile started to look like a shadow of itself some time after she announced her engagement. By the wedding photos she posted, it was more of a lift in one corner of her mouth. It faded away with time and was forced, but it was still there in the last posts she made.
And then it was gone entirely and her page turned to a living memorial until she disappeared completely. A few errant acquaintances would reach out on her page and wish her well, but they always went unanswered and Soren D’Anerio was thereafter wiped from the internet.
Why would a grieving widow abandon her husband’s last name and revert back to her own from birth?
I comb through everything that is available, but I can’t help get the feeling I’m missing something that’s been hidden in plain sight. My suspicion of Soren rises again. She’d put up a good fight with me earlier and genuinely seemed to believe I hadkilled her husband, but what if it’s a cover? A lie told so many times that she’s started to believe it.
When I’ve exhausted everything I can discover about my broken princess, I shoot a message to a friend asking whether her medical records have been updated yet.
And then I turn to her husband. Information on him is far more extensive.
Vincent D’Anerio. His certificate of birth and death both appear in tandem. Born September 27th. Died April 6th.
He was older than me—significantly older than Soren.
A thirteen-year age gap is the sort of thingmostpeople would be surprised by. After all, with that significant of a chasm between their ages, how had they ever met and connected?
I don’t doubt that age is just a number for many people without consequence, but the resentment that creeps up my spine feels instinctually protective.
Soren is still young and impressionable even now at twenty-two. She became widowed at the age of twenty one… almost exactly a year ago. Despite the non-existent marriage certificate, I can guess by the photos from her recovered profiles that they got engaged when she would have barely been nineteen.
Something about all of it feels distinctly predatory. It does, after all, take one to know one.
We’re two different predators, though, cut from entirely different cloth.
I didn’t choose this life, though I doubt that makes any difference to my victims.
I wonder if Soren knew she was married to a predator… or if she knows she’s caught in the web of another.
forty-four
Soren
EverythinghurtsandI’mdying.
Except, I’m not.
That would be too easy.
I pull the blanket over my head tighter, praying it will stop the pounding in my head. But the pounding doesn’t stop despite my attempts to smother it, and after tossing and turning forever, I sit up and fight the nausea.
That’s when I realize the poundingisn’tjust in my head. It’s coming from the front door, and given that the tempo has only increased, I’m guessing they won’t be giving up. It’s probably Khan, worried that I haven’t answered his fifteen missed calls and however many texts. I powered my phone down when the incessant buzzing wouldn’t stop, so I have no means of seeing the time. I’d venture a guess, given the harsh light coming through the open curtains, that it’s mid-morning which means I definitely overslept.
Pulling myself out of bed is a herculean effort, but when I finally manage it, continuing gets easier. I sway less with everystep, faintly aware of the cuts on my feet, as I pass the kitchen reminding myself to go the long way to avoid the minefield.
Except, the wreckage of last night is gone. The kitchen is clean…
I guess now I know why he took a few minutes to leave last night. Declan swept up the glass for me.
Pushing thoughts of him out of the way, I call out for Khan to give me a minute and then wince at the volume of my own voice as it makes my temples pulse angrily. Clutching my head in one hand, I try to massage relief from my cool fingertips into my scalp and open the door with my free hand, fully prepared to tell Khan to use his inside voice and praying Marissa isn’t with him. She doesn’t have an inside voice—or a mute option.
But it’s not Khan on my doorstep or even Marissa.
It’s the devil himself.
