Page 56 of Vicarious

“And I’m sorry for that. But let’s both be honest here. You were never going to take the news that I’ve been with Dele all this time well. You would have accepted any other woman. Any other person. But never her.”

“How could I?” she demands. “Since the day you met her, since the day you brought her into my house as an outspoken fifteen-year-old with fucking blue and white hair, I’ve been competing with her. I thought I was crazy. I convinced myself that it was just some brother-sister relationship. Some mentor-mentee relationship. And then I let her into my house and life because I thought it would keep you happy only to find out I’d let my own competition in the door.”

“It started out that way. It was exactly what you thought it was at first.”

Phae scoffs. “I come from a mafia family and grew up around men with wandering eyes even for what society tells them they shouldn’t want. I certainly knew when my own husband was starting to get hot and bothered over a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“It wasn’t about her age.”

“Oh, Iknowthat. Otherwise she wouldn’t have you as wrapped around her finger now as she did then,” Phae says bitterly. “I thought I had it under control, though. I thought I was keeping you on a leash by letting you spend time with her. That your sense of loyalty would keep you from doing anything if I extended my trust to you about it. But how naïve was that?”

I’ve said it once already and she didn’t believe me, so there’s no use telling her that she was right. For all the ways the Phae didn’t understand or know me, she was right about that. She was always the reason I stopped short of cheating on her with Dele even when I was tempted to risk it all.

I say instead, “Phae, you used to be my wife.”

“I still am.”

I ignore her and continue, “You’re the mother of Dele’s and my children, and for a while, you brought me some joy in the hell of fighting and killing for one more day of living that was my life. I owe you for that. Which is why despite everything else, I’m not going to kill you. I can’t kill you. But you have no place in the future I’m trying to build. I’m sorry I had to lead you on and keep you here for me to realize that. But…” I shrug.

There’s no justification I can give her that isn’t just downright cruel. And while I don’t mind being cruel, it’s like I said. I owe Phae for some things.

Phae frowns and tilts her head at me, a hand coming up her chest.

“What are you talking about? What do you mean despite everything? What future are you trying to build?”

“I’m going to destroy Pray, and then I’m going to steal his entire criminal empire.”

“What?”

I continue, “And in order for me to be able to do that, it has to remain intact.”

“No,” Phae whispers, and then begins to shout, “No. No. No.”

She runs. I follow in a casual stroll because I know where she’s going. Even if I didn’t, there’s nowhere for her to run or hide from me here.

When I get to her room, Phae is there, furiously tapping buttons on the laptop I gave her. The phone. The tablet. But it’s futile. The machines have been locked. Any access to the internet or any online clouds revoked. Well, the online clouds access was already blocked. Phae just didn’t know that when she thought she was uploading and backing up her work. She didn’t know that all her work was being intercepted and sent straight to me.

“What did you do?” Phae demands.

“What I had to. I haven’t put all this work into stealing Pray’s empire to let anyone tear it all down. Not even you Phae. I’m sorry.”

“But you’re not. You’re really not.”

“Not really.”

Phae opens and closes her mouth a few times before her face crumples and she chokes out, “You’re really not the Adrian I knew anymore. You’ve really let Pray and the Soles turn you into a monster.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve always been a monster Phae. Pray and the Soles might have made me a stronger monster, but I’ve always been that. And I tried not to be one. For your sake. But this is who I am. You just never wanted to see it or accept it.”

Phae huffs. “That’s why it was always Dele. She let you become the monster.”

“No, she let me be the monster I already was and accepted it. The only thing she’s ever demanded is to let her point it in the right direction.”

“I don’t believe that. I don’t believe you have to be this way. I don’t believe it has to end this way. If you just help destroy Pray and his business, I can show you—”

“Maybe you can. But I don’t want to.”

“Adrian.”

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