Chapter 5 #5
Chapter 5
~ Shailyn ~
Footsteps thundered up the stairs. More staff appeared, pushing Tyler's wheelchair through the doorway.
"What the hell is going on here?" Tyler's voice boomed through the room as he took in the scene with the broken furniture, the blood, Dante's battered face, me on the floor. "I can't believe that on the first day of this family reunion, you two fought!" His eyes found mine, softening. "What happened to you, Lyn?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but Cynthia cut me off.
"Oh, nothing." Her voice was light, dismissive. "She was just trying to separate them and got pushed. That's all." She looked down at me with cold eyes. "Come on, stand up. What are you still doing on the floor, acting pathetic?"
I stared at her, shocked into silence.
Dwayne's head snapped toward his mother, disbelief written across his face. He looked between her and me, clearly waiting for me to defend myself. To tell the truth.
‘Say something,’ his eyes seemed to plead. ‘Tell them what really happened.’
My confidence subscription had apparently expired. The words died in my throat, and I just sat there like the pathetic doormat everyone thought I was.
"Come on, help her up," Tyler said to Mr. Harvey. "Take her to my room. This place is a mess."
The butler's gentle hands lifted me from the floor. As he guided me toward the door, I felt Dwayne's eyes burning into me.
He was probably wondering how someone could be so stupid. So weak.
I wondered the same thing.
…
One Week Later
My phone buzzed for the hundredth time that day.
Dante: Please come home
Dante: Shailyn, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it
Dante: We need to talk about this
Dante: Stop being childish and come back
I silenced my phone and tossed it onto the worn couch.
I'd left the Belmar manor in the middle of the night, still wearing my nightdress. Dante had taken my purse with my cards, my phone charger, and worst of all, my mother's letter back to our villa. By the time he'd come to the manor the next morning to get me, I was already gone.
I'd run to the only place Dante didn't know existed: my family's house on the outskirts of Kington.
He knew nothing about my family. He'd met my mother exactly once during our first year of marriage, she'd been asleep, and he'd stayed less than five minutes before making an excuse to leave.
Five years of marriage, and he'd never bothered to learn where I came from.
I didn't know why I'd run. I guess I was just scared to face him after displaying all that confidence. Scared of what he might do.
So I hid.
"Hey, lil sis!"
I cringed at Max's voice before he even appeared in the doorway. My cousin — Aunt Patricia's son — was twenty-nine, barely eleven months older than me, but he acted like it was a decade. He was everything I wasn't: loud, crass, entitled.
"When are you going back to your billionaire husband?" He plopped down beside me, his feet immediately going up on the coffee table. "I need my money back."
"Soon," I muttered.
Without my cards, Max had been "generously" funding everything — groceries, bills, his cigarettes and reminding me of it constantly. Aunt Patricia was at the hospital with Mom, whose health had been deteriorating rapidly all week.
I needed to go back. I knew that. I couldn't survive another week here, and I'd already missed a week of work.
But every time I thought about facing Dante, my throat tightened. I could still feel his hands around my neck.
"Actually," Max said, pulling out his phone, "I got tickets to this mask club downtown. My girlfriend bailed, so you should come with me."
"A mask club?" I frowned. "Max, I don't think…"
"Come on, when's the last time you did something fun? Something spontaneous?" He grinned. "Isn't that what those self-help podcasts you're always listening to say? Try new things?"
He wasn't wrong. The podcasts did say that. Doing something new builds confidence. And God knew I needed all the confidence I could get before facing Dante again.
"Fine," I said. "But just for a few hours."
….
The mask club was like nothing I'd ever seen.
Red lights bathed everything in crimson. Smoke machines pumped fog across the dance floor. Dozens of doors lined the walls, each leading to God-knows-where. And everyone wore masks. Elaborate ones, simple ones, masks that covered whole faces or just the eyes.
Mine was simple: black lace that covered the upper half of my face. Max had handed it to me in the car with a wink.
Two minutes after we walked in, he disappeared.
Typical.
I made my way to the bar, suddenly feeling very alone and very out of place. I ordered a drink, something fruity and strong… and tried not to think about how Dante would react if he knew I was here.
Who cares what Dante thinks?
I took a long sip, letting the alcohol burn down my throat.
The man beside me shifted, and I glanced over. He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing an expensive suit and a sleek black mask that covered most of his face. But something about him was... familiar.
The way he held himself. The set of his shoulders.
I found myself staring.
"You want to get a room with me?" he asked suddenly, not looking at me.
His voice. Oh God, his voice.
I knew that voice but I couldn’t be so sure, the music was loud.
"Yes," I said before I could stop myself.
He turned to face me then, clearly not expecting that answer. "I was joking."
He took a sip of his drink, dismissing me.
Disappointment crashed through me, followed by embarrassment. I let out an uncomfortable laugh, reaching for my glass.
But then he looked at me again, his dark eyes studying me through his mask.
"Do I know you?" he asked.
I laughed…a tipsy, reckless sound. "I don't know. You're wearing a mask."
Silence stretched between us. The music continued pounding.
"Still want to get a room?" he asked quietly.
My breath caught at the invitation and honestly, it could have been the drink but I wanted it badly.
I nodded.
He stood and extended his hand. I took it, his fingers warm and strong around mine, and let him guide me through the crowd. My pulse thundered in my ears.
I'm just trying something new. Building confidence. This will help me move on from Dante. This will help me go through with the divorce.
He spoke to someone near the back hallway and was handed a key. Then we were moving down a dimly lit corridor, past door after door, until he stopped at one and unlocked it.
We stepped inside.
He locked the door behind us, cutting off the club's pounding music. The sudden quiet was deafening.
"You want to take the masks off?" he asked.
Now, in the relative silence, I could hear his voice clearly.
There was no doubt.
It was Dwayne's voice.
My heart stopped, but there is a possibility that two people can have similar voices, right?
But then he started unbuttoning his shirt, and I saw the tattoos creeping up from his chest, winding around his collarbone in patterns I'd memorized at dinner a week ago.
It was him.
Oh my God. I'm about to sleep with my husband's brother.