Page 106 of The Sound in Silence

“You know, if she really can’t—”

My hand slices the air, silencing him. “Nothing, Caladin. What I told you today stays between us. No one else can now.” Even if he’s correct, there will be a time, others will have to be made aware. “I won’t lose her. I won’t let her go,” I admit, my tone losing some of the edge.

He nods slowly, rolling his lips together. “If any of them,” —He doesn’t definethem, nor does he need to— “learned this, they’d view it as a betrayal. That you’re choosing your wife over theFamiglia. And the fact of the matter is, you could very well be. Honestly, I never would have thought there’d come a day you did put someone above the organization.” He pauses, approaching by a single step. “But you got it, I’ll keep my mouth shut. All I know is, it sucks this is happening, but there’s no one more able to shoulder the pain than her.” He slaps me on my arm as he passes, heading for the door. “I wish you luck with my entire fuckin’ heart, man, and if you need to talk, you know where to find me.” I trail him to the door, working up some way to thank him when he speaks again, this time, lighter and more like the Caladin I’m familiar with. “But the next time you need to release some anger, come find me and we’ll spar.”

I whistle. “Death wish. You’d spar after watching what I did?” I tip my head toward the warehouse, indicating the death there.

He laughs and shakes his head, all but shoving me toward my car. “Go home, clean up, and be there for her. I’ll get him taken care of.”

My feet press firmly into the dirt for a second. “Any word on who paid Anders?”

Caladin frowns. “No, and it’s weird. No note in the apartment. Couldn’t even find the cash. His phone was gone too. No trace.”

“Keep searching.”

* * *

She’s in the same spot I left her, lying on her side, facing the window. The blanket’s pulled up to her hip, but then I hear her voice, and stop in the doorway.

“—maybe because I’m not actually face-to-face with you, I can. If this even counts since you’re not going to listen to these messages, are you? Why am I’m bothering anymore? If anyone will find you, it’ll be your sister. I miss you, though. Something’s happened…something heartbreaking, and while everyone here is giving me hope, it’s not the same, you know?”

My hand slides form the doorknob, heart hammering faster, if only to keep it working and not to shatter with her despondent tone.

“They’re showing me the light but it’s so difficult to drag myself from the darkness. Towantto. It’s only been a day since I received the news, but damn, this hurts. It feels like everything good in my life will be ripped from me soon and I have no control to stop it. Again. Erico made a lot of my negative thoughts go away, but they’re returning stronger.”

Negative thoughts?

“Getting out of bed seems impossible. Even thinking of my music or swimming isn’t doing it. The news might have put me into this mode, but I think my brain’s what’s keeping me here.”

Her brain?

“Anyway,” she sighs, “this is my verbal diary, I guess, and before your phone kicks me off, bye.”

She sighs again and I count to ten before entering, so she doesn’t realize I was lingering outside the door. When I finally enter, she hears me immediately and peeks over her shoulder. For a beat, her misery burns away into surprise as she sits up.

“W-what happened to you?”

I debated showering in a guest room, but the moment I arrived at the mansion, seeing her was my every focus, so the plan to hide my blood-caked clothing didn’t remain.

“Not my blood,” I reply and head for the bathroom. The shirt isn’t salvageable, so I toss it right in the trash, alongside my pants, and then enter the shower.

Beneath the hot spay, I wash all the blood from my skin. It tinges the water as it’s sucked down the drain. Standing there, I reflect on every interaction with Ariella, right from the beginning when I left her here alone and Sebastian reported her not getting out of bed for those days after.

Her mood’s ability to flick on and off.

The subtle self-hating comments.

Oh.

Ariella

Sometimes it’s easy to forget who my husband actually is when he only allows me to see the non-criminal side of him. But watching him stride through the bedroom, stripping his blood-soaked clothing on his way to our bathroom made my insides clench with desire, my stomach flutter.

Am I really this fucked up already? Or is this some trauma response to the misery? My body’s way of searching for something positive.

Erico’s presence has made me sit up, which is further than I’ve gotten in hours on my own. After my call with Della, I dragged myself to use the bathroom, but that was the last time I moved. My stomach feels hollow, but I’m not hungry. My eyes sore, but I don’t want to sleep.

I don’t know what I want.

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