Page 130 of Jude

‘Damn, I look awful,’ I told the glass.

My reflection agreed, the weak light highlighting my bloodshot eyes and blotchy features.

Get it together, Sofia, I thought, gripping the porcelain basin. He’s a stubborn idiot, and you’re better off without him.

I wrenched away and slid onto the thin mattress, weariness settling deep in me.

Every so often, a diesel locomotive roared past the building, rattling the windowpanes.

Despite the profound fatigue, my mind refused to shut down, so I reached for my phone.

I lay beneath the scratchy wool blanket, the blue glow of my phone illuminating the cracked plaster ceiling as I scrolled through online employment boards.

Searching for any cleaning, commercial kitchen, or warehouse gigs close by.

At one point, I went against my will and scrolled through a series of entertainment news feeds, hunting for any updates about the Six Sinners’ European tour.

The gossip columns popped up with headlines of the band performing under the stadium lights in Rome.

Jude’s vocal performance was a highlight, with one journalist going on about how his crooning timbre and heartfelt tracks offered the perfect salve to a broken heart.

I scoffed at the contradiction even as my pain twisted into bitterness.

Our entire marriage had been a ridiculous fantasy, a temporary delusion born of desperation, and I knew I shouldn’t have believed in it for a minute.

I pulled a small, spiral-bound notebook from my backpack.

I used a cheap blue pen to sketch out the neat columns of a crude financial ledger, calculating the estimated cost of his attorneys, my stay at his house, and the flights.

It would take me years to clear the debt.

However, I was determined to free myself from him, reclaim my name, and ensure I owed that man nothing whatsoever.

Chapter 26

JUDE

After Sofia walked out of the restaurant in Rome, I sat frozen in my chair at the restaurant, seething.

Choosing silence, I ignored my bandmates’ questions and concerns.

After an hour of brooding, I lit out and headed to our suite.

Seeing her ring on the console in the living area ripped through me.

Her passport was missing, and with it, her clothes.

She left behind everything she bought on my credit card, and I cursed under my breath at the brutal message she was sending me: she was done with me.

A storm churned inside me as the question pounded in me: was I done with her?

We’d made love; we locked our souls together deeper than I ever had before with any woman in my life.

Was this really it?

My logical mind growled that I could never trust her after her lies, but then I wrestled with my own hypocrisy.

Why was I slamming the hammer down on her when I, too, was a fallen ex-con and a former addict?