Page 86 of From the Embers
“Right. So you could take my company and use the kids to lead me around by my dick for the rest of my life? Fuck that. Married or not, I’d rather be dead than live another fucking day where I had to hand over my balls to you. And surprise, surprise. Here you are, fucking me all over again. I just needed a way out.”
“No. You needed a way out without looking like a failure!” she hissed, cradling Luna’s face in the curve of her neck. “Your poor, precious little ego. Prism was in the red. Your plan to off me and Eason backfired. You killed your own girlfriend. Everything you’ve ever touched has been one failure after another.”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” he roared, fighting beneath me, but I kept him pinned.
“I’ll shut your fucking mouth for you,” I rasped, my throat feeling like I’d swallowed a razor blade. “You thought, now that I got a little money, kidnapping my daughter would be your ticket to freedom?”
“Oh, Eason. You always were so fucking gullible. You honestly think that kid over there is yours? You and Jessica were fucking how often? Once a month? I took her daily. A few times when you were just in the other room. Why do you think Luna looks so much like Asher and Madison? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Luna Maxwell is actually Luna Winters.”
It was my turn to offer a smug smile. “Oh, Rob,” I mimicked. “You always were so fucking egotistical. Jessica may have told you Luna was yours, but you never did a DNA test, did you? You call me the gullible one, but all it took was a woman to put her mouth on your cock whenever you wanted and you just believed any line of bullshit you were fed. We found your extra phone. The texts, the fucking pictures. We knew about the affair and how you thought Luna was biologically yours. Only I wasn’t so stupid to blindly believe something I was told.”
I flexed my fingers around his throat as I brought my face so close to his that our noses were touching. With more pleasure than I’d ever experienced before, I told him the truth.
“Luna is mine.”
His eyes widened, and for the first time since this insane scenario had started, he looked shocked. “You’re lying.”
“Sorry. Unlike Jessica, DNA doesn’t lie. And you want to hear my favorite part? Now, Bree is mine too. Your boy Asher? Mine. Madison? Mine. A life free and easy, not rotting in a prison cell?” I dropped my voice low and declared, “Mine. So tell me, Rob. Who’s the fucking winner in this situation?”
With all the adrenaline that had been pumping through my veins, it wasn’t the satisfying sound of flesh on flesh as I punched the man who had turned our world upside down that set me free. It was the way Rob’s face ran through the gamut of emotions as he realized he’d thrown away his life for a woman who had done nothing more than manipulate us all.
I might have wanted to kill him a few minutes earlier, and if I were being honest, the urge still burned at the edge of my mind. But the sweet victory of knowing I’d been able to deliver the news that rocked him the hardest was all the justice I needed.
Bree and I were silent after that. She finally took Luna around the front of the house and waited for the police. Rob yelled a lot as we waited. Screaming and cussing. Slinging insults and death threats like they were his second language. But none of it mattered anymore.
Because once and for all, Rob Winters didn’t matter anymore.
Agent Garrett and his team arrived shortly. As soon as I was able to release my hold on that delusional psychopath, I took off around the house to find my daughter.
Luna dove into my arms, still quietly crying. Her warmth immediately thawed the ice that had formed in my veins the second I’d found out she was missing. “Shhh, Daddy’s got you. It’s over now.”
Even from the front, we could hear Rob continuing to struggle with the officers, yelling at me and Bree as if we had somehow caused his fall from grace.
Right after the fire, I’d spent too long blaming myself for the things I couldn’t control. I’d grieved the loss of a wife who had never loved me and a man who had posed as my best friend but had been ready to kill me to seize some bullshit idea he had about the perfect life.
Too many nights, I’d lain awake in bed, replaying the fire in my head over and over, the sour of guilt churning in my stomach because I’d thought I’d saved the wrong woman.
