Chapter 40

Lisa

After wrapping up the conversation with my accountant, I get up and stretch, feeling the loosening of tension in my muscles. Immediately, my thoughts turn to Jennie, and I pull up her location on my phone. I do that at least five times a day now, the habit as deeply ingrained as brushing my teeth in the morning.

She's in the house, which is exactly where I expected her to be. Satisfied, I put the phone away and close my laptop, determined to be done for the evening. Between all the paperwork for a new shell corporation and the interviews I've been conducting with potential guard replacements, I've been working upward of twelve hours a day. Once, that wouldn't have mattered—business was all I had to live for—but now work is an unwelcome distraction.

It prevents me from spending time with my beautiful, strangely distant wife.

I'm not sure when I first noticed it, the way Jennie's eyes constantly slide away from mine. The way she withholds something of herself even during sex. At first, I ascribed her withdrawn manner to grief and the aftermath of trauma, but as the days wore on, I realized there's something more.

It's subtle, barely discernible, this distance between us, but it's there. She talks and acts as if things are normal, but I can tell they're not. Whatever secret she's keeping from me, it's weighing on her, causing her to erect barriers between us. I could sense them during our training today, and it solidified my determination to get to the bottom of the matter.

According to the doctors, she's finally fully healed from the miscarriage—and one way or another, tonight she's going to tell me everything.

At dinner, I watch Jennie as she interacts with her parents, hungrily taking in every minute movement of her hands, every flicker of her long eyelashes. I would've thought it impossible, but my obsession with her has reached a new peak since our return. It's as if all the grief, rage, and pain inside me coalesced into one heart-ripping sensation, a feeling so intense it tears me from within.

A longing that's entirely focused on her.

As we finish the main course, I realize I've hardly said a word, spending most of the meal absorbed in the sight of her and the sound of her voice. It's probably just as well, given that it's Jennie's parents' last evening here. Although her father is no longer openly hostile toward me, I know both Kim's still wish they could free their daughter from my clutches. I would never let them take her from me, of course, but I don't have a problem with the three of them spending some time on their own.

To that end, as soon as Ana brings out the dessert, I excuse myself by saying I'm full and go to the library, letting them finish the meal without me.

When I get there, I take a seat on a chaise by the window and spend a few minutes answering emails on my phone. Then the puzzle of Jennie's uncharacteristic distance creeps into my mind again. The way she's been these past couple of weeks reminds me of when I first forced the trackers on her. It's as if she's upset with me—except this time, I have no idea why.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, I realize that it's already been a half hour since I left the table. Hopefully, Jennie's already gone upstairs. When I check her location, however, I see she's still in the dining room.

Mildly annoyed, I contemplate getting a book to read while I wait, but then I get a better idea.

Pulling up a different app on my phone, I activate the hidden audio feed from the dining room, put on my Bluetooth headset, and lean back in the chaise to listen.

A second later, Julia's frustrated voice fills my ears.

"—people died," she argues. "How can that not bother you? There were police officers among those criminals, good men who were just following orders—"

"And they would've killed us by following those orders." Jennie's tone is unusually sharp, causing me to sit up and listen more intently. "Is it better to die by the bullet of a good man than to defend yourself and live? I'm sorry that I'm not showing the remorse you expect, Mom, but I'm not sorry that all of us are alive and well. It's not Lisa's fault that any of that happened. If anything—"

"She's the one who killed that gangster's son," Alejandro interrupts. "If she'd done the civilized thing, called nine-one-one instead of resorting to murder—"

"If she'd done the civilized thing, I would've been raped and Rosé would've suffered even more before the police got there." There is a hard, brittle note in Jennie's voice. "You weren't there, Dad. You don't understand."

"Your dad understands perfectly well, honey." Julia's voice is calmer now, edged with weariness. "And yes, maybe your wife couldn't stand by and wait for the cops to arrive, but you know as well as I do that she could've abstained from killing that man."

Abstained from killing the man who hurt and nearly raped Jennie? My blood boils with sudden fury. The fucking bastard's lucky I didn't castrate him and stuff his balls into his bowels. The only reason he died so easily was because Jennie was there, and my worry for her was greater than my rage.

"Maybe she could've." Jennie's tone matches her mother's. "But there's every reason to believe the Sullivan's would've walked free, given their connections. Is that what you want, Mom, for men like that to continue doing this to other women?"

"No, of course not," Alejandro says. "But that doesn't give Lisa the right to set herself up as judge, jury, and executioner. When she killed that man, she didn't know who she was, so you can't use that excuse. Your wife killed because she wanted to and for no other reason."

For a few tense seconds, there's silence in my headset. The fury inside me grows, the anger coiling and tightening as I wait to hear what Jennie has to say. I don't give a fuck what Jennie's parents think about me, but I very much care that they're trying to turn their daughter against me.

Finally, Jennie speaks. "Yes, Dad, you're right, she did." Her voice is calm and steady. "She killed that man for hurting me without giving it a second thought. Do you want me to condemn her for that? Well, I can't. I won't. Because if I could've, I would've done the same thing."

Another prolonged silence. Then: "Honey, when you left the plane and there were all those gunshots, was that you?" Julia asks quietly. "Did you shoot anyone?" A short pause, then an even softer, "Did you kill anyone?"

"Yes." Jennie's tone doesn't change. I can picture her sitting there, facing her parents without flinching. "Yes, Mom, I did."

A sharply indrawn breath, then another few beats of silence.

"I told you, Julia." It's Alejandro who speaks now, his voice weighed down by sadness. "I told you she must've. Our daughter's changed—she's changed her."

There's a scraping noise, like that of a chair moving across the floor, and then a shaky, "Oh, honey." It's followed by a choked sob and Jennie's voice murmuring, "Don't cry, Mom. Please, don't cry. I'm sorry I've disappointed you. I'm so sorry . . ."

I can't bear to listen anymore. Jumping off the chaise, I stride out of the library, determined to collect Jennie and bring her upstairs. This guilt-tripping is the last thing she needs, and if I have to protect her from her own parents, so be it.

As I walk, I hear them speak again, and I slow down in the hallway, listening despite myself.

"You didn't disappoint us, honey," Jennie's father says thickly. "It's not that, not at all. It's just that we see now that you're no longer the same girl . . . that even if you came back to us, it wouldn't be the same."

"No, Dad," Jennie replies quietly. "It wouldn't be."

A couple more seconds pass, and then her mother speaks again. "We love you, honey," she says in a low, strained voice. "Please, don't ever doubt that we love you."

"I know, Mom. And I love you, both of you." Jennie's voice cracks for the first time. "I'm sorry that things have worked out this way, but I belong here now."

"With her." Curiously, Julia doesn't sound bitter, just resigned. "Yes, we see that now. She loves you. I never would've thought I'd say that, but she does. The way the two of you are together, the way she looks at you . . ." She lets out a shaky laugh. "Oh, honey, we'd give an arm and a leg for it to be someone else for you. A good man, a kind man, someone who'd hold down a normal job and buy you a house near us—"

"Lisa did buy me a house near you," Jennie says, and her mother laughs again, sounding a little hysterical.

"That's true," she says when she calms down. "She did, didn't she?"

Now the two women laugh together, and I let out a relieved breath. Maybe Jennie doesn't need my interference after all.

Another sound of a chair scraping across the floor, and then Alejandro says gruffly, "We're here for you, honey. No matter what, we're always here for you. If anything ever changes, if you ever want to leave her and come home—"

"I won't, Dad." The quiet confidence in Jennie's voice warms me, chasing away the remnants of my anger. I'm so pleased that I nearly miss it when she adds softly, "Not unless she wants me to."

"Oh, she won't," Jennie's father says, and he does sound bitter. "That much is obvious. If that woman had her way, you'd never be more than ten feet away from her."

I only half-listen to his words, mulling over Jennie's strange statement instead. Not unless she wants me to. She sounded almost as if she's afraid that's the case. Or is it that she wants it to be the case? An ugly suspicion snakes through me. Is that why she's been so distant in recent days—because she wants me to let her go? Because she no longer wants to be with me and hopes that I'll let her leave as a way to atone for what happened?

My chest tightens with sudden pain even as a new kind of anger kindles within me. Is that what my pet expects? Some sort of grand gesture where I give her freedom? Where I beg her for forgiveness and feign regret for having taken her in the first place?

Fuck that.

I tear the headset out of my ear, dark fury rolling through me as I turn and take the stairs two steps at a time.

If Jennie thinks I'm that far gone, she couldn't be more mistaken.

She's mine, and she'll stay that way for the rest of our lives.