Chapter2

"Fucking hilarious. Aren't you the one who loves throwing tantrums? What's the matter, not happy on your knees licking plates?"

"Get down! The lower you crawl, the more we might believe you aren't the killer."

"What's the point of being born with a silver spoon? Why isn't your brother bailing you out?!"

In prison, being bullied was the norm. During those unspeakable nights, I learned to lock my mind away in an unreachable place, just waiting for dawn.

They forced me to dance in front of the male inmates again. One wrong step meant stripping off a piece of clothing. On the day I had nothing left to take off, they shattered my ankle.

"Dancer's feet, huh? What can you dance to now?"

Later, my nose began to bleed frequently. I cried and begged just to see Allen once. At first, he was still willing to send someone with a message. I told them I was sick. He sent word that he knew. I told them I was bleeding continuously. The response was that Allen was on a business trip. The third time, I begged the prison guard to contact my brother. The guard stood at the door.

"Mr. Vance says he'll discuss the wedding with you when you stop playing the victim for sympathy."

"I'm not pretending."

"Your fiancé has eyes in here. His informant claims you're just putting on a show, crying wolf every day."

The day of my release brought a torrential downpour. I walked right through the storm without going to a clinic—I didn't have a dime. The Greyhound bus headed east, and I lost track of how long it drove. Wiping glasses behind the counter of a rundown motel, I figured I would just survive as long as my broken body allowed.

A week ago, I passed out at the front desk. A coworker drove me to the only clinic in town. The doctor there reviewed my scans and told me something was growing in my liver. It was terminal. I had three months left at most. As he handed me the diagnosis, he asked a single question.

"Does your family know?"

I shook my head. Then I folded the piece of paper and slipped it into my pocket.

The next day, I went back to work. No one knew.

I thought that fleeting peace would last. Until Vance showed up in front of me again.

I had just handed in my resignation, preparing to work my final night shift. Vance stood in the parking lot, his FBI badge clipped to his belt. A silver chain now hung around his neck, sporting a silver ring pendant—Chloe's favorite design. She wore silver jewelry since childhood. I despised silver. There was no way he didn't remember that.

"Your brother said you'd rather die out here than go home," he said, stepping closer. "I didn't believe him at first. Now I do."

"Then leave."

He grabbed my wrist in a vice grip. "Did you forget we're supposed to get married this year?"

"What is that on your neck?"

His grip loosened by a fraction of an inch. "Can you stop acting like a petulant child?"

Was I the one acting out? On the night of my mother's funeral, he went into Chloe's room and rolled around with her on the very bed my mother bought. Factoring in the six years I spent in prison, they were together for seven years. I jerked my hand back. "When my ankle was shattered and I had to crawl back to my cell, the informant you arranged claimed I was acting. When I bled from my nose for three straight months, you said to wait until I figured things out."

He said nothing. A sudden wave of nausea surged up my throat. Clamping a hand over my mouth, I bolted for the restroom.

Vance barged in right behind me. His eyes landed on a blister pack of birth control pills resting by the sink. He snatched my hand again. "Who the hell have you been sleeping with?"

"Those aren't mine."

He refused to listen. "You're literally popping these pills!"

I drove my knee up, breaking his hold. "Everything looks filthy to you, doesn't it!"

Those belonged to the girl from the morning shift who left them behind. I turned to leave. He chased after me, half-carrying and half-dragging me before shoving me into his car and locking the doors.

"Let me out!"

"Allen is already at your place. Didn't you want to go home?"

That single sentence drained every ounce of strength from my body. "Why won't you just let me go?" I cried, my voice cracking. "Is torturing me that fun for you?"

A fleeting flicker of guilt crossed his eyes. "Stop talking nonsense. Once we're back in LA, I'm honoring our engagement."

"And what about Chloe?"

"She and I signed the papers. It's just a formality. It won't affect—"

"It won't affect me marrying you, just so she can raise our child?"

"You can look at it that way."

I slammed my fist into his car seat. "Then go be with her. And do me a favor—stay locked together. Don't ever separate!"

He remained silent. The car pulled up to the front of my trailer. I shoved the door open and stepped out without looking back once.

Inside, Allen sat on my folding bed. The screen of his laptop glowed in the dim room, playing a video of the dance choreography I left unfinished six years ago. The first act—half danced, half recorded.

"You used to choreograph," he said, looking up at me. "Why did you stop?"

He scanned the room—taking in the secondhand sofa, the three-foot-wide folding bed, the television propped up by wooden boards.

"You changed the name Mom gave you—but I won't get into that right now." His voice turned hoarse. "But look at the way you're living. How did you let yourself get like this?"