The look in his eyes when I spoke…it was bloodcurdling. I never once thought he would actually kill me, but I had no doubt that if I’d gotten on that elevator with him, he’d slit my throat.
He was homicidal.
LIAM
12:32 PM
My wife.
My Melody.
She doesn’t die.
I had lost count of how many motherfucking times some fool had tried to take her from me, but each time she came back. It wasn’t some miracle and it wasn’t even by the grace of God. She didn’t die because Mel…she was a phoenix.
It was that thought alone that made me go to our room. I stripped down and changed into the fitted dark navy suit and green tie she had gotten me. I’d never forget it…it was too perfect to forget. We had had a huge fight hours before, yet I couldn’t remember what it was about, just her at the door of my closet, her dressed in nothing but panties and a robe.
EIGHT YEARS BEFORE
“I don’t like your ties.” She frowned, leaning on the frame of my door, her red robe completely open, thus defeating the purpose of having one…not that I cared at all.
“I’m sorry they offend you so much,” I muttered, looking her over before polishing my shoes.
“Yeah…well…stop being upset at me,” she blurted out.
“Of course, your highness, I’ll just do whatever it is you ask of me without thinking on my own.”
“Really? You’re mocking me now?”
“Mocking you? No, I’m mocking me, because apparently I’m a fucking idiot!” I snapped, throwing the shoe to the side.
“And childish, too.”
Rising from my chair, I grabbed her tiny neck. “You keep using my love for you as an excuse to run your mouth, Melody, I will kill you.” She drove me insane.
She smiled as she wrapped a tie I hadn’t realized she had around my neck, pulling me closer to her. “If you want to kill me then go ahead, but remember the unspoken rule between us. You are mine, Liam. You belong to me. Your fac
e, your body, your heart, your soul, you sold it to me and I sold mine to you. So if I die, you die. If you die, I die. As long as there is air in your lungs, there is air in mine. So don’t pretend, Liam. You’re not fooling anyone…not even yourself. So either let me go and kiss me, or kill us all and be done with it.”
I froze. “All?”
The smile on her face broke out into a full grin and her hands slowly dropped to the small space between us, resting on her stomach.
“All,” she repeated.
The anger I’d had, everything, was gone, and kissing her reminded me, again, that she was right. We were connected to each other. She was the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins; she was my whole life.
12:40 PM
Placing my guns in the shoulder holsters at my sides and another at my ankle, I opened the door to my room only to find Fedel dressed, black gloves and all, waiting. He didn’t need any order, he just followed me.
By now the house was already on lockdown. Silence permeated every corner until we stepped outside where a black Mercedes waited.
Taking a deep breath I reminded myself: she was alive. She was alive because I was alive.
“Keys.” I held my hand out, already at the driver’s door.
The only people who were going to die were the ones who fucking dared to cross me this way, to insult me this way. My wife was alive, and they were the dead ones.