Torture to Her Soul(109)

Not good.

Not good at all.

Not fucking good.

The front door is unlocked, the knob turning smoothly. As soon as I shove it open, I nearly run into the back of a man. Before I can say a word or even get a good look at my surroundings, the sound of hysterical sobbing slams right into me. My eyes dart toward the source, seeing Karissa. She sits on the couch, hands covering her face, crying as a familiar man sits beside her.

Jameson.

In my house.

On my couch.

With Karissa.

"What's going on here?"

The second I speak, Karissa chokes on a sob. She lifts her head up, meeting my gaze. Her eyes are bloodshot and her face is splotchy, distress weighing her down. She opens her mouth, her words cracking as she forces them from her lips. "My mom," she cries. "She's dead."

I don't react for a moment, trying to force down the anger that rushes through me. It mixes with the unexpected swell of regret inside my gut, making me feel sick. They came to notify her. They put together the pieces.

"Get out of my house," I say, eyes darting between the officers. "Now."

They try to argue, but I cut them off.

"I'm asking you nicely to leave my property," I say. "It's within my right to remove you."

"Remove us?" Jameson asks, slowly climbing to his feet as the others walk out. "Is that a threat, Mr. Vitale?"

"No, it's a fact."

"Is that so?"

"It is."

He nods, strolling my way, and pauses right in front of me. He stares dead in my eyes, unwavering, unblinking, not an ounce of apprehension in his expression. He has me this time, he thinks. He's got me all figured out. But he doesn't know me like he believes he does, or he'd know there's no way I'm ever going to be taken down by a man like him. We're enemies.

Men like me?

We see the end at the hands of a friend.

"You want to know what I think?" he asks.

I don't respond. I don't move. I don't care what he thinks about anything.

"I think it's curious," he continues, not needing any urging, "that you don't seem the least bit surprised. A woman you grew up with, your fiancée's mother, is dead, and you're not surprised at all, are you?"

Again, I say nothing.

"Curious," he says again. "It's almost as if you already knew."

He slips past me, and I watch as he makes his way out the door, closing it behind him. The crying has quieted, strained silence overtaking the room. I turn back to the couch once we're alone, meeting Karissa's gaze.

Horrified eyes regard me.

She heard what he just said.

"You knew." Her bottom lip trembles as she tries to hold herself together, but she's failing horribly. She's a flimsy house of cards that's about to collapse under her own weight. All it'll take is a single breath, the force of a few wrong words, to sending her crashing down. "You… Oh God, no… you didn't. Tell me you didn't!"

Tears stream from her eyes, coating her cheeks. Wordlessly, I step toward her, ignoring the fact that she flinches when I come close. Sitting beside her on the couch, I pull her into my arms, not loosening my hold when she tries to shove me away. Her quiet tears once more turn to hysterical sobs as I hold her tightly, restraining her.

"Tell me you didn't do it," she cries, fighting me. "Tell me it wasn't you!"

"Shhh," I whisper into her hair. "It's going to be okay."

"No!" she yells, choking on the word. "Tell me! Tell me you didn't do this, that you wouldn't do this! After everything we've been through, everything I've been through, tell me you wouldn't do this!"

She doesn't wait for me to tell her.

She knows, deep down, I can't.

I don't want to lie, and she doesn't want to hear the truth.

The silence is filled by her sobs as her hostility wavers, giving way to the devastation. She cries into my chest, her body violently shaking in my arms. I try to console her, but my words only make it worse.

The guilt nags at me until I can hardly breathe. The pain that coats her seems to seep into me.

I did this.

There's no way around that.

I caused this.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry, Karissa."

Those words bring back her anger, kick-starting her rage. She hits me, shoves against me, slipping out of my arms when I'm momentarily stunted by her aggression. She climbs to her feet, still crying, her eyes wild and face flushed.

"Are you?" Her voice trembles. "Are you sorry?"

"I am," I admit, surprised by how much I mean those words. "I never meant—"

"You never meant to hurt me," she says as she throws her hands up, masking her pain with the fury I can see burning in her eyes. "You're not sorry you hurt her, are you? You're not sorry you killed her, that you took her life, that you took her from me, are you? No, you're not! You're not sorry at all!"