Page 49 of After 5

“Yoo-hoo!” She called out. No answer.

I pocketed the key and shut the door behind me. The Scottish coat of arms hung on the wall opposite me. My Scot hadn’t moved out of his digs. I eased into the main room to join Gertie.

The apartment seemed tidy. There were no coffee cups in the sink, unopened mail on the breakfront, or dead bodies lying in the guest bathtub. I sighed with relief. In fact, it didn’t look like Caiyan had been home in a while. The apartment was entirely too clean. Caiyan wasn’t a slob, but he abandoned socks on the floor and liked to read theNew York Timesold school style, the daily sports section left strewn across the coffee table until his cleaning lady came by on Wednesday.

I looked down the hall that lead to the bedroom and cringed.

Gertie put a hand on my shoulder. “You take the kitchen and the study. I’ll get the bedrooms.”

I didn’t want to walk in on Caiyan and…Mahlia. In my anger, I forgot to ask him if he was sleeping with her. It should have been the first question to come to a woman’s mind when her boyfriend tells her he’s going to marry another woman, but the only thing I could think of at the time was why would he choose a key over me?

The study seemed untouched. His laptop wasn’t on the desk, but he normally took it to work. I went through a few drawers but knew he wouldn’t leave anything important in any of them.

I stood at the big window with my arms wrapped around me and stared out over Central Park. The busy lives below me rushed, and the ones who had time to enjoy strolled through the winding trails of the vast park.

Caiyan didn’t leave the sword here. He wouldn’t have hidden a vital piece of the puzzle at his home, but some part of me wanted to touch his things again.

I left the study and ruffled through a few papers on the coffee table in the den. There was a receipt from Bergdorfs for two thousand dollars. Was he buying her presents? I pushed the notion aside and moved on to the kitchen.

I opened the pantry in the kitchen. There wasn’t any food in the pantry. No surprise there, Caiyan always ate out. The refrigerator contained enough essentials to indicate a human was living here, but not a well-nourished human.

I moved to the door next to the pantry. My hand rested on the crystal doorknob of the closet Caiyan had built for me. I wished my things were inside.

There were so many reasons why I hadn’t moved in when he asked me the first time. Mainly because the Thunder key was influencing his judgment. Once he was free of the key’s energy, he built the closet as a promise we would be together after he obtained his key. The closet I hadn’t even been allowed to put a single shoe on the rack of because he ran off to join the Mafusos for the greater good—or so he told me. I was calling bullshit.

I turned the knob and opened the closet door. The automatic light flipped on and I blinked, then froze.

Clothes hung on every rod. The shoe racks were filled with designer shoes. Not mine. The dresses were not my size either. Nor were the colorful bottles of perfume displayed on the custom-made lingerie island, or the perfect line of designer purses.

I yanked open a drawer and rifled through piles of dainty lace panties, also not mine. I dropped to the white satin tufted footstool. My chest tightened, and I couldn’t breathe.

Gertie came around the corner. “Hey, I was—” Her eyes went wide when she saw me.

She plucked the white cheeky panties from my grasp. “Just breathe.” She pushed my head between my legs, and I panted for a few minutes.

“You OK?”

“I’m fine.” I said, raising my head.

Instead of tears blinding my eyes, I saw red. How dare he let Satan’s bitch put her slinky dresses in my closet. It was like giving the next girlfriend the same engagement ring. I wanted to rip the clothes from their hangers, toss them out the window, and watch them float down to Central Park West. Where they would lie helpless and crushed by the oncoming traffic.

“How could he let Mahlia move into my closet?”

“He’s scum,” Gertie said. “No, he’s below scum, a real rat bastard.”

Smoke and mirrors.

I envisioned Mahlia burning at the stake, surrounded by her designer undies.

“Whatever he’s involved in, it has to be really important to allow this to happen.” My words cleared my vision.

“You give him a lot of credit.” Gertie twisted her mouth.

“You should have seen the look on his face when he told me about Mahlia. He sounded worried.” I glanced up at Gertie. “When have you ever seen him worried?”

“Never. That’s his problem, the guy doesn’t worry.”

Gertie returned the expensive underwear to the drawer and we made haste getting out of Caiyan’s apartment.

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