Page 23 of Remember When We
This couldn’t be the same guy, yet it was. The truth of this reality was that Marshall was dead, it also apparently held this man before me who was throwing salt on my open wound.
I had to know one last question, and that would be it.
I had to know.
“When we were apart … were you with anyone else?” It was the question. Trivial and meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but I had to know.
I had to hear him tell me.
“What do you mean? That’s such a fucking vague question.”
Now he was being spiteful and belittling me. He must have known full well what I meant. “Gio, did you sleep with anyone else? Did you have sex with anyone else?”
The darkness came back in to his eyes. “Of course I did I –”
He didn’t get to finish; I raised my hand and slapped him hard across his face. Slapped him so hard that it left a mark.
No more, no more shit. He could go. He could fuck off to wherever he was going and leave me alone.
I walked away from him, jumped in my car and drove away crying so hard I could barely see to drive.
My mind numb and empty just like my soul.
I hated him. I hated all of it … everything. I cursed the day when I first kissed him at the lake house.
That was all me, and clearly this whole thing was me the whole damn time.
A month passed and the numbness continued.
It got even worse when I found out I was pregnant.
Chapter 6
Gio
* * *
Present day …
I forgot that Philly could be on the chilly side at night, especially at this time of year.
The gentle breeze caressed my cheek as I walked down main street. Paul’s bar was just up ahead.
I’d wrestled with the idea of showing my face to Lyssa and Paul. I had decided on the bar. It was a public place, that could tamp down a person’s anger and force them into a spot where they could potentially see some reasoning.
I wasn’t here to make any form of amends. I was just … simply checking in on them.
Staying away was eating at my insides and making me lose focus. I thought, fuck it, get it all out of my system. Just see them that was all I was doing.
I spent the whole of yesterday and most of today going over the list I had made for Gibbs and all of the evidence he’d found.
I had a good read of the coroner’s report. I wasn’t any kind of expert, but I just wanted to see if anything stood out. I’d read only what was necessary before. It was enough to give me the picture of what had really happened. Something like that though needed a closer look.
What stood out to me was that Marshall had been injected with a lethal dose of ricin. It was a poison that was toxic on its own even in small doses. We saw it being one of the main methods of torture, the real nasty kind that crime families used.
The poison worked by shutting down the respiratory system and the organs. You’d die within hours from a small dose and it would be painful. I’d seen guys die from it. The quantities I saw in Marshalls report must have killed him quickly and he would have absolutely gone through some serious pain.
What stood out to me was the fact that it was injected in him. Only a certain type of people could get their hands on something like that, and I was one of them. It was the type of thing you’d have to be told about to know anything at all about it. You’d know the guy who supplied that shit, because only someone like a boss or someone higher would know the hook up for that guy.
