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Desmond's POV
I stared at Brenda, my eyes narrowing with simmering fury as her words echoed in my mind. The audacity. Did she honestly think she could threaten me and walk away unscathed? Her voice, sharp and venomous, had sliced through the air moments ago, and now, silence hung between us like a storm cloud about to burst.
“I’ll tell Lila everything about us,” Brenda had hissed, her lips curling into a sinister smile. “I’ll expose you. Let’s see how you’ll get your father’s property then.”
My hands clenched into fists at my sides, my jaw tightening as if it were locked in place. My breath came faster, angrier, as I fought the impulse to lash out. Brenda’s dark eyes glittered with defiance, and she crossed her arms as though daring me to make a move.
I hated being threatened. Especially by someone like her.
"Who do you think you are?" I finally growled, my voice low but laced with menace. I stepped closer, towering over her as I stared down at the woman who had once intrigued me but now filled me with a venomous loathing. “You’re a mistress, Brenda. Only a mistress. Nothing more, nothing less.”
She flinched, her eyes flickering with uncertainty for a brief moment before she masked it with a forced smirk. “Oh, I’m more than that, Desmond,” she snapped, tilting her chin up. “I know what you did. You killed your wife, and I stayed with you. I know everything, and if you think I’ll let you toss me aside like trash, you’ve got another thing coming.”
Her words were a slap to my face, a sharp reminder of the secrets I’d buried so carefully. My wife. Dead by my hands. Brenda had been there, yes. She’d helped cover it up, helped me build this illusion of control. But now, she was using it against me. That was her mistake.
My vision blurred for a moment as red-hot anger surged through me. Before I knew it, my hand shot out, and my palm connected with her cheek in a resounding slap. The sound echoed in the room, deafening in the tense silence that followed.
Brenda stumbled back, her hand flying to her face as her eyes widened in shock. Tears pooled at the corners, but she blinked them away quickly, her lips trembling as she struggled to regain her composure.
“You—” she started, but I cut her off, my voice as cold and sharp as a blade.
“You are nothing to me,” I spat, each word dripping with contempt. “You’re not a valuable item. You’re not my equal. You’re a mistress. Only a mistress. And you’d do well to remember that.”
Her lower lip quivered, and she looked up at me with a mixture of fear and hatred. It was almost laughable. She thought she could manipulate me, thought she could claw her way into my world and hold power over me. But she was wrong.
“Desmond, you’re making a mistake,” she said, her voice trembling but still laced with defiance. “You think you can scare me into submission, but you can’t. I have the upper hand here. If I go to Lila—”
I cut her off again, this time grabbing her wrist and yanking her close. She gasped, her eyes wide as I leaned in, my face inches from hers.
“If you go to Lila, you’ll regret it,” I whispered, my tone deadly. “You think you’re untouchable, Brenda? Think again. I’ve dealt with worse threats than you, and trust me, I won’t hesitate to do it again.”
Her breath hitched, and I saw the flicker of fear in her eyes. She knew I wasn’t bluffing. Brenda might have been bold, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew what I was capable of.
But then, something unexpected happened. She smirked.
“You think you can scare me, Desmond? You think I don’t have a backup plan?” she said, her voice steadying. “I already told someone. If anything happens to me, they’ll tell Lila everything. And then what? You’ll lose it all.”
My grip on her wrist tightened, and she winced, but her smirk didn’t falter. My mind raced, calculating, analyzing. Who could she have told? Was she bluffing, or had she really gone to someone else?
“You’re lying,” I said, though a seed of doubt had already planted itself in my mind.
“Am I?” she challenged, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t know, do you? You don’t know who I might have confided in. And that’s the beauty of it, Desmond. You’ll always wonder, always be looking over your shoulder.”
Her words ignited a new wave of rage within me, but this time, it was mixed with something else—unease. If she was telling the truth, then I wasn’t as in control as I thought. Brenda had managed to slip through the cracks in my armor, and that realization made my stomach churn.
I let go of her wrist and took a step back, running a hand through my hair as I tried to regain my composure. Brenda watched me, a triumphant glint in her eyes that only fueled my frustration.
“Leave,” I said finally, my voice low but firm.
“What?” she asked, blinking in surprise.
“Leave,” I repeated, pointing toward the door. “Get out of my sight before I do something we’ll both regret.”
She hesitated, clearly torn between pushing her luck and retreating. Finally, she scoffed and turned toward the door, her heels clicking against the floor as she walked away.
But just before she left, she paused and looked back over her shoulder.
“This isn’t over, Desmond,” she said, her voice dripping with venom. “Not by a long shot.”
And with that, she was gone.
As the door slammed shut behind her, I stood there, my chest heaving as I tried to process what had just happened. My mind raced with thoughts of Brenda’s threat, her smirk, her words. If she really had told someone, then I was in more trouble than I’d anticipated.
But I couldn’t let her win. I wouldn’t. Brenda might have been a thorn in my side, but I wasn’t about to let her derail everything I’d worked for.
I turned and walked to the bar in the corner of the room, pouring myself a glass of whiskey with shaking hands. As I took a sip, the fiery liquid burned its way down my throat, grounding me, steadying me.
This wasn’t the end. It was just another obstacle, another challenge to overcome.
And I would overcome it.
No matter what it took.