The not knowing was no longer acceptable; I need to do something. I grabbed my purse with my keys and pulled open the door, and came up short. “Co….” It was as far as I got before he wrapped his hand around my throat and pushed me back inside. Instead of fear, I felt excitement humming in my chest as my body came alive.
CODY
I kicked the door closed behind me and walked her backwards towards the wall with my hand squeezed tightly around her neck. “You really are evil, aren’t you?” I was tempted to keep that pressure up until she was no longer breathing, but common sense kicked in, and I eased up but didn’t release her completely.
My mind was filled with the vision of Lisa, shaking in fear, her beautiful eyes clouded with it. The words that idiot had rambled, the picture they’d formed, all came back to me as I stood there with her life in my hands. It would be so easy. No one knew I was here.
I’d put Lisa to sleep for that purpose, so I could leave without her knowing because even then, I think I knew there was a possibility that this could go too far. I wanted it, wanted to end her disgusting life not for me or anything she’d done, but for what she’d tried to do to that sweet girl.
My hand tightened with my thoughts even as she started to struggle. I felt the pressure in my arm as it traveled to my hand, to the fingers I had wrapped around her throat, cutting off her breath. Annalisa! Her face flashed before my eyes, and I felt a sense of calm come over me.
How ironic that it was Lisa who kept me from committing murder on this one. Because if I kill her, I might end up going away for life or close to it, and there’s no way I’d let her take that from us. As much as it pains me to let her live another second after the filthy shit she’d pulled, I had no choice but to let her live.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. How am I evil? Because I fell in love with you?” Her smile was as smug as always as she tried pushing her body into mine, and I wondered not for the first time if she was sane. She didn’t seem to understand the danger she was in, or she thought this was some sort of game.
I stepped back out of reach and glared at her when she lifted her hand to touch me. “Why did you send Jeff to our place? What did you expect him to do?” I didn’t respond to her asinine statement about loving me because it wasn’t worth my time.
“Jeff? I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Kill the crap; I know everything you did and more. If he’d touched her, this would be your last night breathing.”
“I said I don’t know who you’re talking about. Oh, wait a minute, why does that name sound so familiar? Ah yes, now I remember. I’ve heard the stories like everyone else; your so-called girl has been caught red-handed with another guy; there were even pictures I heard. If you’re looking for someone to blame for that slut, you’ve come to the wrong place.”
“Nice try, but I’m not buying it. As to calling her names, don’t paint my fiancée with the same tainted brush as yourself. You’ll never be half the person my woman is if you lived to be a hundred. I didn’t come here to listen to your lies, and the less time I spend in your presence, the better I’d feel, so let’s get this over with. Stay away from Lisa; forget you ever heard her name. If you don’t, things won’t end so nicely the next time you cross me.”
I was holding onto my anger by a thread and hoping against hope that I didn’t go too far. That she had enough sense to see the anger in my eyes and let it go. I say against hope because deep inside, I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. If it was, we wouldn’t be here.
“What if I don’t? Huh? What if I make it my life’s mission to torment her? Why should that little nobody get to have what I can’t? And who’s going to stop me?” She wasn’t high, not that I could tell, so my guess is her crazy was finally oozing out of her pores because there was no other explanation for the shit that I was seeing.
She wasn’t afraid of me; in fact, she seemed turned on by me being here, even with my hand wrapped around her neck threateningly. Or maybe she knows that I won’t kill her? That I wouldn’t risk my life, my future, by taking hers. She had me there, I admit, but only because that future would be one spent without Lisa. Just thinking about that shit made me feel empty, desolate like my heart was being ripped from its place in my chest.