The Terms
869 Words
They put me in a room.
Not a cell, which somehow made it worse. It was a nice sitting room consisting of cream walls, heavy fancy curtains, a sofa that probably cost a fortune. There was a lamp on in the corner and a tray with water and coffee on the table. I stood in the middle of it all in my blood-stained dress and didn’t touch anything. Taking anything felt like saying yes to something I didn’t understand yet.
I had no idea where we were. The car ride was a blur. I’d sat in the back with two guys I didn’t know, staring out at the city lights, trying to memorize turns like I was in some spy movie. Be smart. Pay attention. I lasted maybe four minutes before my brain just shut down. Went somewhere quiet where Lorenzo wasn’t dead on our floor.
It all came crashing back the second the car stopped.
---
Rafael walked in about twenty minutes later.
He’d changed his shirt.
That pissed me off more than it should have. While I was sitting here with my husband’s dried blood on my hands, he’d gone and put on a fresh shirt. Like this was just a minor inconvenience in his night.
He sat down across from me without asking. Just dropped a folder on the table and looked at me.
“You should drink something,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t. My throat was raw and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking no matter how hard I pressed them together. He noticed. Of course he did. But he didn’t say anything about it.
“Lorenzo Romano was working against my organization for three years,” he said. Straight to it. No bullshit.
“He was feeding info to our competitors. Moving money. Building something he planned to use against us.”
I stared at him.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“You just killed my husband and now you’re telling me he was—”
“A traitor. Yes.” He said it like he was reading the weather. “I’m not asking you to believe it tonight. You will eventually.”
The f*****g nerve of him.
“What I’m asking you to do tonight,” he went on, “is listen.”
I let out this ugly little laugh. “You don’t ask. You said that yourself.”
He almost smiled. “Fair.”
Then he opened the folder.
I don’t know how long he talked. Long enough for the coffee to go cold and the sky outside to start getting that weird pre-dawn gray.
He laid it all out. Dates. Account numbers. Names I recognized from dinners and parties. People Lorenzo had introduced me to. People who’d smiled at me and kissed my cheek.
Three years.
We’d been married four.
Every time that math hit me, something twisted hard in my chest.
“You said I have two choices,” I finally said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. “What are they?”
He looked at me for a second.
“You can leave. Tonight. Car will take you anywhere. Your accounts are unfrozen, passport’s good. You’ve got family in Florence. That’s option one.”
“And the other?”
“You stay.”
I waited.
“That’s it?” I asked. “I stay and what?”
“And you become my wife.”
The word dropped between us like a brick.
I just looked at him.
“You’re serious.”
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
“You want to marry me. The woman whose husband you just killed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He was quiet for a moment. First real pause all night.
“Because people are going to come for you once they find out Lorenzo’s gone. People who knew what he was doing. They’ll assume you knew too. You need a name that makes them think twice.” He paused. “Mine does that.”
“So this is… protection?” I sounded bitter. Didn’t care. “You’re offering to marry me for my own protection?”
“I’m telling you the situation,” he said. “What you do with it is your choice.”
“That’s not a choice,” I snapped. My voice cracked. “That’s two different cages.”
He didn’t argue.
Just reached into the folder and slid something across the table.
My engagement ring.
I stared at it. That little gold band I’d worn for four years. The one I used to twist when I was nervous, the one I’d look at in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep.
“He bought that with money he stole from me,” Rafael said.
I didn’t touch it.
Couldn’t.
“Take some time,” he said, standing up. “You don’t have to decide tonight.”
He walked to the door.
“The ring stays on the table,” I said.
He stopped but didn’t turn around.
“I know,” he said.
Even as he left, I couldn't stop thinking about my memories with My Husband, while I'm here in his killer's house.....
- Writer
