from the photo, I glance up at an empty penthouse filled with all the things she used to love.
It has to be a fluke.
She will flash that real smile again in the next post.
She has been happy up until now.
Eight Months Post Marriage:
“Son a bitch. Please tell me you’re not looking at her posts again. I thought you got over that crap four months ago.”
My tongue is scraping my teeth as I turn my head to see Lincoln stepping up to me. We are on our weekly date as I started calling them, two to four hours spent with him grilling me. His questions are always the same.
How many women have you fucked?
Plenty.
How many contracts did you complete?
Also plenty.
How close have you gotten to the Cabot estate?
Nowhere near it.
How many times have you checked her social media pages?
Only once.
All lies, every time he asks a bunch of questions that are butting in to my life.
I’d been too distracted this time. Anger a vibration beneath my skin. Concern like ice water dripping down my spine. I hadn’t noticed when he walked up beside me. Lincoln saw the screen before I could turn my phone off and slip it away.
“What is that?” he asks, his brows tugging together much like mine do. “Why is she holding so many pills?”
It’s a photo of her hand, six pills held in the palm of it. No chipper message with a thousand exclamation points and a hundred different emojis. No explanation as to why she’s holding a combination of pills that look like a drug addict’s wet dream.
I close the app and open another, a chain of text messages flying past as I scroll through them, my muscles locking even tighter over my shoulders with each one.
A low whistle blows over Lincoln’s lips as he shakes his head.
“It’s not your problem, Ari.”
She doesn’t text her husband often, which is why I don’t know how they’ve reached this point. And since I’ve been unable to get close to their house, I wasn’t able to watch what went on in the bedroom of a wealthy man and his blushing bride.
I’d given her that privacy.
And look what happened.
Lincoln’s voice is a low rumble barely breaking through the white noise in my head.
“Maybe she needs it. We both know she had a problem. Maybe this is what’s best for her.”
I flip back to the image of the pills.
Uppers. Downers. Antidepressants.
“At least four of those are addictive.”
“It’s not your problem,” he reminds me.
“She doesn’t want to take them.”
The texts read like a child begging her parent to love her again.
She has narcolepsy, the sleep study she underwent proved it. Her neurologist just gave her the diagnosis.
I knew it had to be something. I’d seen the signs of it.
But based on the argument between the supposedly happy couple, she didn’t show symptoms during the first few months of their marriage.
Not until the fake smile reappeared.
Not until she’d given up everything she once was.
And now, Grant refuses to sleep next to her. Demands that she take whatever the doctor gave her. Spends too many hours at the office, and Adeline complains when he doesn’t come home.
He blames her condition.
What the fuck is he doing?
Not even a year since I allowed him to marry her and he is already screwing it up.
She is begging him to understand that she doesn’t want to live her life dependent on pills.
He doesn’t care.
But I do.
Lincoln pushes my phone away, his intelligent brown eyes pinning mine.
“It’s not your problem.”
I nod my head as if I agree with him. We both know I’m full of shit.
Adeline is crying in her sleep again.
Fighting.
Screaming.
Only this time, there is no longer a protective presence standing over her. No longer a darkness that keeps watch.
It appears it’s time for me to come out of retirement, if only to talk to her once and see what new nightmares the little monster is facing.
Fuck what Lincoln says about it.
And it doesn’t matter that he would be right to tell me to back off.
I haven’t pulled that girl’s ass out of the fire more times than I can count just to let her sink beneath the waters to drown.
Slipping my phone into my pocket, I try not to think that I am happy Grant has given me a reason to draw close.
And how interesting is it that this moment should happen only a week before the anniversary of her father’s death?
It feels like coming full circle.
Adeline
He doesn’t see me.
I thought he did. At one time. At