Three Reasons to Leave

Chapter 5

Audrey's POV

I drove down to Preston's office with a brown paper bag resting on the passenger seat, filled with warm takeout from his favorite Italian deli.

I didn't even know why I was doing it. I didn't know if I was desperately trying to save the ruins of my marriage or if I was just trying to convince myself that the man I married seven years ago still mattered to me.

Preston had been cruel. He had been cold, selfish, and unfaithful.

Yet my mind kept dragging up the good years, the real ones, or at least the years that I still remembered as being real.

I remembered when I had that awful flu during our second winter together, and he drove across the city in a blizzard just to bring me chicken soup from the market.

I remembered the cold afternoon of my mother's funeral, how he stood outside the chapel in the freezing rain for two hours without complaining, waiting quietly until I was finally ready to walk to the car.

He had held my hand that night and whispered that I was the only person in the entire world he truly trusted.

Those few memories were like tiny, poisonous anchors. They were the sole reason I kept making excuses, forgiving betrayals and insults that should have been unforgivable.

I pulled into the parking lot behind his office building, spotting his sleek black sedan parked in his reserved spot near the glass side entrance.

I grabbed the food bag, smoothed down my sweater, and started walking across the asphalt toward the double doors.

Before I could even make it halfway to the entrance, the sudden, violent screech of burning tires tore through the quiet parking lot.

A silver luxury SUV swerved wildly around the corner of the brick structure, out of control. The front bumper caught me on my hip before I could even scream, the violent impact tossing me through the air like a ragdoll.

My back slammed hard against the rough brick wall of the building, the wind knocked out of my lungs with a sickening crack.

I slid down onto the cold pavement, the takeout bag tearing open and spilling food across the ground. My head hit the concrete, bright white spots exploding behind my eyes as I gasped for air that would not come.

Office workers rushed out of the side doors, shouting in panic as a small crowd began to form around the scene.

The driver's side door of the SUV flew open, and a woman stumbled out onto the asphalt, clutching her chest and crying hysterically.

My blurry vision focused on her face, and a cold shock cut straight through my pain. It was the exact same brunette woman I had found naked in my shower.

Then the glass doors of the office tower burst open with a loud bang, and Preston came sprinting into the lot, looking frantic.

My first instinct, my pathetic habit of relying on him, flared up as pure relief in my chest.

My husband was here. He would pick me up. He would protect me and make sure I was okay.

Preston's eyes darted across the pavement, taking in the crashed car, his crying mistress, and me crumpled against the bloody brick wall.

He didn't hesitate for a single second.

He sprinted right past where I lay bleeding on the ground.

He dropped to his knees beside the brunette woman, wrapping both of his arms tightly around her trembling shoulders.

"Lilliana! Lilliana, look at me," he pleaded, his voice cracking with terror as he cupped her face in his hands. "Are you hurt? Did you hit your head? Talk to me, please!"

I lay flat on my side against the freezing asphalt, staring at the back of my husband's jacket from five feet away, waiting for him to turn his head.

I waited for him to look at his wife, to see the blood pooling beneath my hair, to ask if I was still breathing.

He didn't even glance in my direction. He kept rubbing her back, murmuring sweet reassurances into her ear while she sobbed against his neck.

Right there on the dirty pavement, beneath the cold afternoon sky, something inside my chest finally went quiet.

The last burning spark of hope, the lingering memories of soup in the winter and hands held at a funeral, snuffed out into permanent ash.

With shaking, numb fingers, I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my phone.

The cracked screen was glowing with three missed calls and a dozen urgent messages from Tristan.

I hit his name with my thumb.

He answered on the very first ring.

I couldn't explain where I was. I couldn't tell him about the car, or the brick wall, or the blood dripping into my eyelashes.

My lungs burned so badly I couldn't even form a full sentence.

"Tristan…" I gasped into the receiver, my voice a ragged, broken thread.

"Audie-Bear? C'mon, baby. Speak to me, where are you?" His panicked voice blasted through the speaker, the background filled with the sound of rapid footsteps.

I couldn't believe it took me being on the verge of dying to realize how much I missed having him in my life. Having all three of them in my life.

I swallowed the metallic taste of blood, hot tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on my cheeks.

"Help me," I whispered.

There was a tiny, split-second beat of dead silence on the other end of the line.

Then Tristan's voice changed entirely.

"I'm coming," he said.

I let my eyelids slide shut as the pain in my ribs began to throb in time with my frantic pulse.

"Stay with me, Audie-Bear," Tristan commanded, his voice steady against my ear. "Do not hang up this phone. Keep your eyes open and tell me where it hurts. Talk to me."

In the background of the call, two car doors slammed shut, and I assumed Jude and Asher were following behind him.

Tires squealed violently over the speaker. They were already moving.

I forced my eyes to crack open one last time through the blinding pain.

Preston was still kneeling by the car, still holding the other woman in his arms, his back firmly turned against me.

And three men were definitely breaking every law in the city, tearing through traffic to reach my side.

For the first time in seven long, agonizing years, the fog in my mind cleared, and I knew with certainty who I wanted standing over me.

The world tilted on its side, and everything went pitch black.