Tagged & Ashed(79)

She stalks around, her eerie footsteps tracing the sands under her feet, and she laughs a little.

“It’s like you have some divine intervention everyday. Your life is so fucking perfect.”

Perfect? She’s fucking crazy. Well, duh. That’s pretty obvious.

“My life isn’t perfect.”

She laughs louder, but there’s no one to hear her maniacal cackles but me. Then they cease as she turns to me with pain and fury in her eyes.

“My life was perfect once. I was in love, pregnant, and happy.”

My breath catches in my throat.

“I never knew you existed until that night. I swear I didn’t. I left him the second I knew he was married.”

She snorts derisively, and then turns back away.

“Oh, believe me, I know you left him. For months he obsessed over getting you back. We went out for our anniversary that night. Five years we had been married. I’d loved him my whole life though. I was about to tell him I was pregnant when I ordered water instead of a drink. Then, my world fell apart—because of you.”

She turns back to me, all of her pain replaced by hatred.

“He told me I was pathetic when I begged him to stay. He said I was weak, oh, but he thought you were so much stronger. That’s why he loved you, he said. I had to hear about how fucking incredible you were. When I told him I was pregnant, he told me I’d be a terrible mother, and I needed to go to the doctor to take care of the child he didn’t want.”

I shiver, realizing I never knew Dyllan at all. He was an even worse monster than I thought.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur through a crackle, my eyes flashing toward the silent child in her arms.

“Not yet, but you will be. You see, I decided tonight to do things a little differently. Instead of simply killing you and the child you don’t deserve, I’m going to take your life the way you took mine. You’ll still die, of course, but Trip here will become mine.”

“No!” I squeal while leaping to my feet, but she pulls out a gun and holds it to his head that still shielded from my view under the night sky and blanket.

I stop my rushing assault, and she smirks.

“Don’t worry, his daddy will still be involved. Tag Masters is a very attractive man. He’ll need someone to help him raise his little boy when he’s devastated by his love’s untimely death. He’ll be searching for a nanny, and Russell will quickly offer my name as a great candidate. It’s amazing what someone will do when they have dark secrets in their closet. I couldn’t have done this without him.”

Russell—that son of a bitch. He’s probably back home with Tag now, plotting my replacement.

“Tag will never fall for you.”

Her eyebrow cocks up.

“Oh really? Grief is a strong emotion that makes you feel a need for closeness. Trust me, I know. When Dyllan beat my child out of me, I grieved for over a year, wishing someone would care. When I tell your doting fiancé of my loss and who I am, we’ll bond. Like I said, grief is a very powerful emotion. It will drive him to fall for me when I show him how much I care for his son, the son you don’t deserve, the son you took the chance of having away from me.”

I hate her and pity her at the same time. She’s deranged, and that bitch is planning on raising my child. If I was her though, I’d be just as deranged and pissed. I can’t imagine losing my son, and if it costs me my life… so be it.

No matter what she says, Tag will never love her. Eventually, he’ll see right through her. I know he will.

“What are you going to do to me?” I ask, my body still trembling. “Kill me like you killed Dyllan?”

“Yes, and Rene,” she laughs.

“You killed Rene? Why?”

She laughs harder. “That girl was crazy. You should be thanking me.”

Did this lunatic really just call someone else crazy?

“She was the one you pointed the finger at when the police told you it was a woman. It worked out in my favor, and with her dead, security lightened up, making it easier for Russell to do my bidding.”

I shake my head, completely in shock. She’s definitely a coldhearted bitch.

“Why kill Dyllan if you loved him so much?”

“Because Dyllan was a son of a bitch who stole my child. Not to mention, after Billy Prize asked him if he was the one stalking and threatening you a while back, he came in search of me. When I killed him, it was in self defense.

“It was unbelievable. After he robbed me of my child and left me alone in the hospital to deal with my grief, he went off stalking you himself. He was trying to find a way back into your life. He didn’t give a damn about me or our dead baby.”