Page 26 of Twisted Love

I stare at her. What new scam is this?

She continues, her tone brittle, “We caught it late. He knew something was wrong for months, maybe longer, but he didn’t have the money to see a doctor. He thought he could manage until he couldn’t anymore. He collapsed at home one evening. That’s when we finally found out. By then the cancer had progressed, and there were other complications. They told us his time is limited unless we start treatment immediately. My mother remortgaged the house, but almost all of that money is gone now.”

I can see it—her father, proud and stubborn, brushing off every warning sign until his body gave out on him.

She takes a shaky breath, but her jaw sets, her chin lifting defiantly as if daring me to dismiss her pain.

Her voice cracks, but she keeps going. “I want to get his next lot of treatments scheduled as soon as possible, but I don’t have enough. All I’m asking for is help to pay his medical bills, Earl. I don’t want your pity. I don’t want a lavish lifestyle. I just want enough to make sure he gets the help he needs.”

I listen in silence. She’s not lying. I know that. I know her father—knew him when we were young, living in that crammed trailer park. He was the kind of man who’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it, always with a kind word, always working himself to the bone for his family. I remember seeing him at the wedding. He looked sickly —pale, thin, like the life had been drained out of him—but I was so consumed with Raven I hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

My first reaction is to go to her and hug her and tell her everything is going to be fine. I’ll take care of it all, but then another part of me feels like a fool for falling for her shit again. I push the sentimental fool away, back into the darkness and look at her with cold eyes. She’s asking for more—again.

“So you don’t want the lavish lifestyle?” I ask derisively.

Her head tilts slightly, her brow furrowing. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “This is all I want. Handle this for me, and you can banish me to the maid’s quarters, make me a servant in this house if that’s what you want. I’ll gladly accept.”

Her words confuse me. Is this another plot to manipulate me? I don’t understand her. How could she be standing here, offering to live as nothing more than a shadow in this house just to save her father? It doesn’t make sense. Is it because she is far more cunning than I gave her credit for? She knows very well I will never allow her to do that.

I feel the anger bubbling up again, unbidden and wild. “So you don’t care?” I snap. “You don’t care for this life, the money, the power—all the things you seemed so eager to acquire for all the time I’ve known you? You just want money for your father?”

“Yes, of course, I wanted to live a good life when I was a young girl. Any person growing up as poor as I did wants that, but I don’t know where you got the idea that I’m a gold digger. I love my father, Earl, and the deal I had with Charles was that he would take care of Dad’s medical expenses. And I married you because he lied and you promised to take over that obligation from Charles.”

I stare at her in disbelief. This is the Raven I loved, the Raven I trusted, but I can’t reconcile it. I can’t reconcile the woman in front of me with the one who said those damning words all those years ago. Is she telling the truth? Her words circle like a noose around my neck. A raw, confused mess of emotions fills me. Have I been wrong about her? Is there some other explanation for what I heard?

And then it hits me. What the fuck am I doing? Falling at the first hurdle. Of course, she knows me—knows exactly how to play me, how to twist my emotions until I’m caught up in her web again. She’s done it before and I fell for it hook line and sinker. Even so, there’s something in the way she speaks now, something in her trembling voice and those pleading eyes that feels... different.

Maybe even her cold heart has the ability to love. Maybe she does care for her father.

I don’t trust myself to look at her, so I turn away and head toward a painting hanging on a wall. It opens to reveal the embedded safe. My fingers work the combination out, the clicks loud in the stillness between us.

The door swings open. Any normal man would simply transfer the amount she needed, but I am not a normal man. I have been driven mad with hate and jealousy. I pull out two thick stacks of cash—fifty thousand each. The crisp notes are bound in neat wrappers. This should be enough to start off her father’s treatment.

“You want this?” I ask, turning around. “Fine. Take it.”

But I don’t hand it to her like a normal man. Instead, the twisted monster in me tears the wrappers off the stack and flings the loose bills up into the air. One thousand one-hundred-dollar bills sail through the air, rain down on her, and scatter all around her like leaves after a storm.

She stares at the money, wide-eyed and stunned, and for a moment, I wonder if she’ll snap—if she’ll finally fight back and scream at me, call me the monster I’ve become. A part of me wants her to.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, she lowers her head, her shoulders hunching slightly as she murmurs, “Thank you.” Her voice is so soft, so broken, it feels like a punch to the gut.

Then she sinks to the floor.

My chest tightens painfully as I watch her gather the scattered bills. Her fingers tremble as she picks up the notes one by one. She doesn’t look at me—not even once.

I wanted this, didn’t I? Wanted to see her humbled, humiliated, crawling around on the floor picking up my dirty money while I stood above her. I thought it would feel good, like justice, like revenge.

It doesn’t.

Instead, it feels like someone’s taken a blade to my chest, carving out pieces of me with every move she makes. I wanted her to hurt, but seeing her like this—so small, so defeated—only makes me feel worse. The sight of her crouched on the floor, surrounded by money, is unbearable. It makes me want to grab her, to pull her to her feet, to tell her I’m sorry for every cruel thing I’ve done.

But I don’t.

I can’t see her like this though. Scurrying around for grubby money. The sight sickens me. I made her do this. The guilt is terrible. I can’t stay in this house. I turn on my heel, grab my coat with a jerky movement, and stride out of the room.

But the rustle of her fingers picking up cash trails after me like a ghost.

---