This Man Confessed(171)

“No, you don’t. You took my happiness, so I’ll take yours.” She waves the knife at me and Jesse shifts nervously, his haunted greens flicking over to me briefly before settling back on Ruth—or Lauren. I don’t even know.

“I didn’t take your happiness.”

“Yes!” she screams. “You married me, and then left me!”

I gasp and swing my eyes to Jesse. He’s chewing his lip, his eyes darting constantly between me and…his ex-wife? He was married? I’m choking on nothing, my mind racing in circles and failing to comprehend what I’ve just heard.

Ruth looks at me, snapping instantly from her angry outburst and smiling. “You didn’t know? Well, there’s a surprise. It might also explain why you’ve stuck around.”

Her smugness teamed with Jesse’s despair cripples me completely. “Nothing can break us.” My words travel through the air and wipe the smile from her face, but they also make Jesse noticeably tense. I hold his wary gaze and determine from the emptiness in it that he disagrees. My head starts shaking mildly, my bottom lip trembling. The feeling of my palm sliding across my stomach is comforting, but the look on his face isn’t. His eyes fall from mine to my navel and a wave of desperation travels slowly across his face.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs. “I should have told you.”

He really has saved the best shocker ’til last, but I don’t care. I mean it. Nothing can break us. “It doesn’t matter.” I try to assure him, but I can see defeatism swallowing him up.

“It does matter,” Ruth spits out, pulling our attention away from each other and back to the knife-wielding psychotic bitch who has invaded our lives. “She knows nothing, does she?”

I hope she’s mistaken. I hope Jesse nods and explains that I know everything. The Manor, the drinking, now her…everything. But his head starts to shake, quadrupling my uncertainties.

“She doesn’t know about our daughter?” The room starts to spin, and Jesse goes to move. “Stay where you are!” Ruth shouts, flicking the knife to him.

“Ava…” He desperately needs to get to me. I know I’m swaying on the spot as I try to let that information sink in. He has a daughter? My life is ending here and now. That tips the iceberg of shocks from this man. He’s trying to compensate for his lack of involvement in her life.

“Yes, we were married and he left me when I was pregnant,” she spits out.

“I was forced to marry you because you were pregnant. I didn’t want to and you knew it. We were seventeen years old, Lauren. We fooled around one time.” His voice is broken and unsure, like he’s trying to reassure himself that he did the right thing.

“Don’t blame your decision on your parents!” She’s burning with fury again, her hand shaking uncontrollably.

“I was trying to right my wrongs. I was trying to make them happy.”

The room is still spinning wildly while I try to piece together what I’m hearing. I can’t make any sense of it, especially now when I’m in such a hazardous situation. Through my confusion and alarm, I do, however, realize the importance of keeping myself safe. I need to get out of here. I start to back away, hoping her attention and anger will remain on Jesse as I quietly attempt my escape. I know this is going to end with her gunning for me, not Jesse. She wants to punish him, and she’s going to do that by making him live without me. She’s got it all worked out and so have I.

“Don’t move!” she screams, halting me dead in my tracks. “Don’t even think about trying to leave because this knife will be in him before you make it out the door.” That threat foils my plan completely. “You’ve not even heard the best part, so it would be nice if you stick around to hear me out.”

“Lauren,” he grates in warning.

She laughs—a sly, delighted laugh. “What? You don’t want me to tell your young, pregnant wife that you killed our daughter?”

He’s moving fast now, nothing will stop him, and I know it’s because I’m swaying, set on free-falling to the ground. My world has just exploded, splintering into a million pieces along with my overloaded mind. But I register her moving, too. I register the knife coursing toward me fast and with absolute intent. And I also register Jesse coming between me and the blade. He manages to break my fall before tackling Ruth to the floor and punching her straight in the face on an infuriated roar. She laughs. The psychotic bitch just laughs, goading him, pushing him on with her hysterical fit of amusement.

“I didn’t kill my daughter!” he punches her again, the sound of his fist colliding with her joyful face sending shockwaves through me.