Taking a step forward to get a clear view, I mentally run the pre-sequence in my head. It starts in the desert with Anya, Nikki’s wife, being dragged out of the car by one of his soldiers. Nikki then executes each man kneeling in front of the headlights with his revolver. Once he gets to his wife’s brother, she flings herself over him to protect him, pleading for his life. Nikki rips her away, pointing a gun to his head and shoots him point blank. Terrified, she runs away screaming and makes a beeline for an idling car and takes off. Nikki laughs manically, following behind her in his coupe which leads to an aimless chase around a desert she can’t navigate. Anya’s car screeches to a halt when she realizes she can never outrun her husband and resigns herself to confront him. It’s at this point they’ve set up the scene, where she’s accepted her fate.
The marker is snapped and “ACTION!” is called.
Anya immediately starts slamming her manicured hands on the wheel sobbing before she bounds out of the car colliding with Nikki full force, her fists pounding on his chest as she fights with her grief and the monster she married.
“You bastard! He didn’t turn on you, he didn’t say a word!”
Nikki smiles without an ounce of pity as she repeatedly strikes him. He allows her very little before becoming fed up and grips her by both her hair and the edge of her coat, dragging her toward his car.
Anya is still fighting as they struggle in front of Nikki’s hood.
“Kill me,” she screams. “Kill me too, you son of a bitch. Kill me too!” He stops and looks down at her with a sick sort of reverence. “This is a good look on you.”
“I’ll never love you again. Not like I did. You destroyed everything. You’re disgusting.” She fights him, scratching at his jaw, clawing at his shirt until she sinks into him, tears streaming down her face. It’s all too familiar until he licks the blood from her cheek and makes her taste it as she cries into his mouth. And with one swift move, he has her pinned to the hood, his kiss deepening as my heart and head begin the ever-present battle. Refusing to look away, I watch as their lips connect, their chemistry sizzles as she gives in completely and allows his assault.
I’m as ravaged as her and experiencing all she feels as she visibly weakens, the fight leaving her. Heartache shines in her eyes, making her declaration nothing but a lie, and in those seconds, I identify with her more than I care to admit. But in the next second, I am her.
“Come here, Mrs. Walker,” Lucas says from only feet away from where he stands half submerged in the lagoon. Tilting my head back to wet my hair, I take in the sight of him in front of the waterfall. Droplets of water rest on his thick black lashes while others stream down the sharp angles of his nose and jaw, his onyx hair slicked back to give me an arresting view. Brilliant green eyes glitter over me in reverence and appreciation. It’s unnerving just how breathtaking he is, but the ring on my finger and the look in his eyes are more than enough for me to embrace it. I’m irrevocably his, and we’ve been left completely alone to our own devices. It’s another perk I’m all too happy to take advantage of. We’re on a honeymoon straight out of a dream, surrounded by lush tropics in the cool blue iridescent water. I swim over to where he stands and wrap my arms around his neck.
“Yes, husband?”
He doesn’t utter a word, but I can feel the depth of everything he’s trying to convey before he slowly leans in and takes my lips. They part naturally in a gasp as he thrusts his tongue in, filling me up to the brink of something more than love, something close to supernatural. The slow thrust of his kiss coaxes me into the most blissful of states and my whole body sighs in to him. When he pulls away, we press our foreheads together. I’m too overwhelmed with emotion, too stunned at the daydream I’m still dwelling in, and the undeniable strength of our connection.
“Still surprises me too,” he murmurs, reading my thoughts. “You are my life, and I am yours.” Gentle eyes roam me. “Every piece belongs to me.”
Sliding my thumbs across his jaw, I nod. “And to me.”
He nods, his eyes imploring. “Only you, Mila, I swear it. You’ll be the only one who gets them all.”
“No,” I gasp through the distance between us, at the separation I feel from that moment to this one. Promises and actions collide as I lose myself in the agony of watching it unfold, his words twisting from the purest form stemmed from the deepest kind of love into an agonizing lie.
I tell myself I imagined the sight of it, that it didn’t happen, until it happens again and again. I see the same thrust of his tongue into her mouth. His hands are touching her, the hands that belong to me, my hands, my lips, my mouth. All the parts that belong to me now belong to her because he’s kissing her, he’s really kissing her and what’s left of my hope dismantles in ashes at my feet.
Rule number three: Every piece belongs to me.
A muffled sob escapes my lips, and I sense the stare of a man next to me but keep my eyes fixed on my deceitful husband. It took days, months, and years to build us, and with one final act, he’s destroying it all. It goes by in a blink, but the image burns itself into my memory desecrating my heart and destroying what’s left of my trust.
Lucas pulls away suddenly, a sinister grin in place as he sneers above her. “You don’t love me anymore? Shame,” he whispers a breath from her lips. “I’ll take loyalty instead.” Lucas flips her then, pulling up her skirt and savagely ripping her panties away.
In my head and heart, I’ve already departed, but I’m a hundred yards away when I hear the unmistakable, “Cut!” ring out in the distance.
Two hours later, I find myself in front of his hotel room. They wrapped shortly after a few more takes, and I’ve been forcing myself to try to get a grip before I confront him. At least that’s what I tell myself I’m doing. Another part of me thinks I’ve been waiting on Adriana to show up, but if that were the case, someone on set would have told her the wife had arrived, and the party was temporarily over.
Closing my eyes, I try to stifle back the tears. We hadn’t been intimate since that day in his trailer weeks ago, if you can call it that.
Is Lucas capable of doing that to me? Am I a fucking fool who let my husband hide his infidelity behind an acting job?
Fury surges through my veins as I open the door with the key card Nova gave me. I spot him on the suite couch with a half-eaten sandwich next to his script. He’s flipping that fucking coin in his fingers as if my world hasn’t just ended when his eyes drift up. He doesn’t look at all surprised to see me.
“I told you not to come.”
I step inside the room and shut the door.
“Did you know I was watching?”
Silence.
“Answer me! What are you doing?!”