When You Loved Me, I Was Gone

Chapter 4

Colton had no idea when Sofia left the bathroom. All he remembered was how painfully bright her smile had looked.

Benjamin's birthday celebration was never much more than a formality. It was just an excuse to gather the younger generation of the Gentry family under one roof.

Colton had never had much patience for performative family warmth, so he stepped out onto the second-floor balcony alone and lit a cigarette.

Through the ember's dim glow, he heard raised voices in the garden below.

He looked down and saw his cousin Claire Gentry standing with a cluster of other young women, boxing Sofia in near the hedges.

Colton narrowed his eyes and stayed where he was.

Claire planted her hands on her hips and looked Sofia up and down with open contempt. "I heard Aunt Hazel slapped you today. I mean, what did you expect? Trash is still trash. Marrying my cousin didn't magically make you one of us!"

"She's got a point. We dumped trash all over her on her wedding day, and nobody said a word. Colton didn't even go into the bridal suite that night!"

"And Sofia, how did you like the dead rats I've been mailing you? Cute, right?"

Up on the balcony, Colton's brow furrowed. He had never heard about any of this.

Below, Sofia did not look rattled in the slightest.

Instead, she gave them a mild little smile. "You know, you're right. Hearing all this, I'm almost scared."

She took a slow step toward them, then another. Her smile sharpened. "But the problem is, when nobody's ever protected you, there's not much point in acting fragile for the audience, is there?"

The girls' expressions shifted. Sofia kept walking until she was almost nose to nose with Claire.

"You're also right about one more thing. Putting someone like me in a mansion was never going to make me one of you. Coming into a family like this always costs something. So if I'm already paying with my life, why exactly would I keep putting up with a bunch of spoiled little idiots?"

She slapped Claire so hard the girl stumbled sideways.

Before the others could react, Sofia turned and slapped every one of them in quick succession. The garden erupted in shrieks.

The girls screamed and cursed and lunged at her, but they had spent their whole lives being pampered. None of them knew how to fight a woman who had grown up clawing for everything she ever got.

On the balcony, Colton watched the chaos unfold. To his own surprise, he smiled. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth just as Sofia looked up. Their eyes met.

The ember glowed orange in the dark, and for one strange second, reflected in her eyes, it looked like the last live flame in a dead world. Something about it held him there.

Just as Colton was getting drawn in, Sofia cupped a hand around her mouth and shouted up at him. "Baby, they're attacking me!"

Colton went still.

*****

Downstairs in the main hall, the room was packed with the elite.

What should have been Benjamin's family celebration turned into a full-blown reckoning.

Colton watched Sofia turn the entire situation around and cast herself as the victim in under five minutes. It occurred to him then that he might have seriously underestimated his wife. She was not just difficult to control. She was shameless, resourceful, and exceptionally good at surviving.

Before he could decide whether to admire or resent that, Sofia suddenly threw herself into his arms and turned toward Benjamin with tear-filled eyes.

"Benjamin," she said, voice trembling just enough, "I couldn't understand why someone kept sending dead rats to the house... I never imagined everyone hated me this much."

As she spoke, her hand slipped, as if by accident, and hit play on a recording. Claire's voice blasted into the room.

Then came the rest—the insults, the blood dumped on her wedding dress, the dead rats. Every vicious confession echoed through the hall. The air in the room changed instantly. People who had been ready to dismiss Sofia started looking at Claire and the others differently.

Right on cue, Sofia swayed. Then blood started streaming from her nose again. That sent the whole room into another panic, with people shouting for a doctor and calling for an ambulance.

Meanwhile, the girls who had actually been fighting were dragged and forced to face punishment according to the Gentry family's rules.

In the middle of the uproar, Colton looked at Sofia's bloodied face, pressed his lips together, and then made a decision. He grabbed her by the arm and took her straight to the hospital.

By the time they were in the car, Sofia was lightheaded from blood loss. She closed her eyes for a moment. Then she felt something warm settle against her forehead.

When she looked up, she saw Colton driving with one hand while the other rested briefly against her skin. "Why do you keep getting nosebleeds? Taking too many supplements?"

By now, Sofia was long past being surprised by his cruelty. She turned her face toward the city lights flashing past the window and brushed his hand away. "No," she said evenly. "I'm dying. That's all."