AURORA'S POV Henry: I hope you know that your husband is a jerk. Me: Trust me, You don't need to tell me because I already know. Henry: All polar bears are left-handed. Bet you didn’t know that. Henry: Also, related to that, your husband is a jerk who looks at his phone every five seconds. Are you two texting? Me: No. Henry: Weird. He always logs off during poker nights. Me: Can you do me a favor? Henry: What kind? I’m a married man. I know Kill is far from my perfection, so you missed out. Me: A: delusional. And B: not even if you were the last man alive. Henry: What’s the favor? Me: Watch him. Make sure he’s okay. Henry: And you care because? Me: He’s my husband. Henry: I thought it was just for show. Me: You’re wrong. Henry: Other than the phone thing, he seems like the same old Aiden to me. Smoking, drinking guy who just needs a hug and some good sex. Me: Night. Henry: Of course, silly. Aiden seemed fine in less than an hour. That was strange and worrying. But
AIDEN'S POV I stayed away from my wife for the rest of the week. That didn’t stop her from sending me daily messages about her dead aunt hiding in clouds every time the sky was clear. Her texts, like my prayers for a normal wife, stayed unanswered. She asked to meet a few times, even though I never replied. The idea of seeing her made me sick, so I ignored it until I felt calmer. But after seven days, my body still refused to settle down. At night, I couldn’t stop thinking about her under me. Realistically speaking , meeting her only once a week could still get her pregnant in a few months. To be safe, I made a chart of her possible ovulating days and decided to change the days I saw her each week to make sure I didn’t miss any chance but next time we met, I had to do a better job of controlling myself. I never meant to lose control the first time we had sex. But when I saw her naked breasts moving with each thrust and her lips open in pleasure, I lost all control like a
AIDEN'S POV. The sweet smell of her skin reached my nose, even with the strong barn stench around us. "Washington." I lifted the hoof pick, pointing at the stalls behind him. "The others are Hamilton, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Jay." "The Founding Fathers." She walked smoothly to the barn, leaning against the wall with her hands behind her back, watching me. "Good job, you just passed a third grade history test." I tapped Washington’s leg so he’d lift the other one. "Fifth," she corrected with a smile. She liked arguing with me. "I studied in another country," I mumbled. All my American history lessons came from tutors. "I know," she said softly. "Unlike our kids, who will stay close to us until they’re old enough to decide where they want to study." Yeah, sure. Keep telling yourself that. "Over your dead body, huh?" I groaned, digging deeper into the hoof with the tool. "No," she said calmly. "Over yours." I quickly looked up at her, then went back
AIDEN'S POV "The lawsuit is very strong. I read it many times," Devon said the next day. He gave me a bunch of papers while we drank coffee and ate eggs and pastries. We sat outside on the back porch, watching the horses run around the field to get ready for the day. I took a sip of coffee and looked at the papers. "I’ve spent way too much money on the Arctic oil project. I’m not giving it up just because Landon wants to see me fail." "We won’t go broke," Henry said while putting jam on his bread. My silly brother had left his wife just for this breakfast meeting so we could talk business. "I checked the money stuff. If we stop drilling in the Arctic, it’ll hurt us, but we can handle it. We won’t grow for the next four years, but we’ll still make money." "I’m not here just to make money. I want to rule the world," I said. "You might not get to choose," Devon said. "If you lose the lawsuit, you’ll have to stop anyway. Then you’ll have big lawyer bills, another public mess, and yo
AURORA'S POV My husband did a great job staying away from me the whole first day at the ranch. He skipped all our meals, didn’t join the group walk on the trail, and spent most of his time with the horses. Was I sad about it? Yeah. But I wasn’t going to let it mess up my weekend. I hadn’t traveled much outside of Boston in all my years, so I was going to enjoy this time with my friends. For once since marrying Aiden, I wasn’t broke. I didn’t feel scared walking down the street anymore. My life had gotten better even if it still felt lonely without Aiden really being in it. The last day of the trip, Annabelle said she wanted all the girls to go horseback riding. “But you don’t even know how to ride,” Ariella pointed out, always being the one to think logically. Annabelle just shrugged and popped a cherry in her mouth. “So what? You can show me how. I’ve had some riding experience before, just not the kind without a saddle,” she joked with a wink. “Always play it safe.” “Great.
AURORA'S POV Daniel stood tall, calm as usual. “So dramatic, Knight.” “So over confident, Sterling.” After a lot of arguing, we started walking on the trail. I felt nervous and excited, even though Henry was riding close to me on Jay and kept leaning over to pat Hamilton, giving me instructions with his words and by sight. Behind us, Annabelle was on Washington, Daniel on Madison, Ariella on Adams, and Devon on Jefferson. Devon and Annabelle seemed to get over their coldness. They were joking and getting along like old friends, while Ariella tried talking to Daniel but kept getting ignored. Thirty minutes up the trail to the mountains, I heard a horse running fast behind us. Henry turned his head and sighed then he pointed his finger at his head like a gun and joked like he was shooting himself with a silly "poof!" sound. “Please don’t tell me you didn’t tell your husband you’re riding.” “Ok. I didn’t tell my husband I was riding.” Then I stared straight ahead, trying to ignor
AURORA'S POV “You’re the worst husband any woman could ask for.”Okay, maybe that wasn’t fully true. Thomas still held the crown for worst husband this year, but I wanted to hurt Aiden the way he kept hurting me.“Are we just going to have sex once a month and hope I get pregnant? How is this whole thing supposed to work? Tell me now, because it’s clear you didn’t think your brilliant plan through!”My voice echoed through the trees, loud enough to startle Hamilton beneath me. From the nearby path, I heard soft voices.“…my sister!”“…she can handle herself.”“If he hurts her, I swear…”“She’ll hurt him back. You said it yourself, Annabelle. She’s not a little girl anymore.”Our friends weren’t sure if they should get involved. Now everyone knew how messed up our marriage was. Whatever hope I had that this could turn into something real just disappeared.“You’re acting like a spoiled kid,” Aiden said calmly.“And You’re acting like a coward.” I was shaking with anger.Hamilton grew r
AURORA'S POV I was crying loudly, and there was nothing he could do to make me stop. So he didn’t try. He just held me, letting me cry while keeping his arms around me like he was holding me together. “I don’t even know what I did wrong. Ariella said Hamilton is your best horse for beginners.” He saw I was too shaken to ride back, so he sat down on the grass, keeping me on his lap. My arms stayed wrapped around his shoulders. Franklin stood near us, watching quietly while chewing grass. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Hamilton’s had a rough few years. His back legs got swollen and he wasn’t ridden much. When winter came, he couldn’t handle it. I knew I had to retrain him in the spring. He wasn’t ready yet. When I saw you on him without a helmet…” Aiden closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. “I’m going to tear Henry apart and throw him to the polar bears he keeps trying to protect.” “Henry doesn’t like oil drilling in the Arctic either?” I asked with a hiccup. “Don’t ev
AURORA'S POV I couldn’t lie, so I gave a small smile and shrugged, trying to look confident. “Your secret is not really a secret anymore. That’s not good for someone who is the head of Green Living. Anyway, I’m here to tell you that was the last time you hit your son. I’m going to report this to Child Protective Services. I’ve done this before, so I’ll tell you what will happen. I’ll file a report, and CPS will come to your house within a day to check on the kids. They’ll see the bruises on Tinder and find other signs of abuse or neglect. When they do, they’ll take the kids to a foster home and charge you with a crime.” Morgana looked like she was going to choke. “I’ve worked with many schools and know some people at CPS. I can probably help Morgana get full custody, since she didn’t hurt the kids. Now, as for you” I looked at Morgana. She slid down the wall, crying hard on the floor and face was wet with tears. “You should always put your kids first.” “I did.” Morgana he
AURORA'S POV “I’m leaving after today, but things are going to change here. I wanted to tell you.” I sat Tinder down in front of the burnt cookies. We didn’t eat them. His big brown eyes looked at me like I was the only thing keeping him safe. “Change how?” he asked. “Your dad isn’t being nice to you. He’s doing bad things, and I can’t always be here to help you. One day, you’ll grow up and think about what I’m going to do. And even though there's a possibility that you might hate me, or thank me in the future.” I shook my head as my eyes started to fill with tears, but I didn’t let them fall because Tinder needed me to stay strong. He deserved more. He deserved everything. “No matter how you feel about me later, I’ll understand. I think your dad is going to get into big trouble soon because of me. But you will still have your mom and your brother. They are the ones I want you to think about, okay? They are what matter most.” He nodded slowly. It was a lot to hear. Even I didn’t
AURORA'S POV When Daniel knocked on the door, I pulled him inside really fast. He was wearing a black shirt, jeans, and had his usual serious face. “His laptop will probably have a password,” I said, still holding the door, my heart beating fast. I never broke the law. Not for anything or anyone. I didn’t even cross the street when the light was red. My love for my husband was making me crazy. Daniel walked past the living room without looking at the boy and went up the stairs. I followed him and pointed at Herold’s office. Daniel put on some gloves, took a tool from his backpack, and opened the locked door easily. We both went inside. I kept thinking about Tinder, who was downstairs watching TV, waiting for me. I felt very bad. I was about to change his life forever. Even though I knew it was the right thing because of his bad father, I also knew Tinder might hate me for it. “So Aiden was right,” Daniel said with no feeling, turning on the laptop and sitting in Herold’s chair.
AURORA'S POV I couldn’t stop thinking about the time Herold shook his son when Tinder had trouble talking. “No.” Tinder picked the salt off his pretzel without thinking. “One time, after a party where I made him mad, he put my head in a sink full of water. In and out, in and out. He-He-He said he would only stop if I stopped acting weird. Bu-but it worked because I stopped for a whole week.” I couldn’t blink,swallow or even breathe. It felt like my world crashed down on me and suddenly, everything made sense. I had stepped into a mess Aiden was trying to keep me away from. I found out a secret I wasn’t supposed to know. “Does your daddy treat your mommy and brother like this too?” “No. He loves Tree and says he will send him to a fancy school in England. I th-think he loves Mommy too. Even if sometimes he pushes her around. He never pushes too hard.” Tinder stopped and frowned, thinking hard. “Only once he pushed her off the railings and she fell down the stairs but she fell o
AURORA'S POV "My goodness, Tinder, how did you get this hurt?" I bent down and gently touched the big cut on his knee. We spent the day together, just the two of us. Morgana and Herold went to a charity event and decided to only take Tree, the "normal" child, the one who didn’t make any funny noises or get attention. Morgana looked guilty when she asked if I could tutor Tinder by myself today. I knew the decision to leave him behind wasn’t hers. I couldn’t help but feel upset with her for not standing up for her principles. For her son. If I could go against one of the strongest men in Boston, a man I loved, why couldn’t she fight for her boy to be treated the same as his brother? I promised myself I would make it a special day for Tinder. A fun day, not a punishment. We went to Mia Sterling’s fancy diner for breakfast, ate pancakes and waffles, then relaxed by Charles River, watching the clouds while I told him stories from Greek mythology, just like Auntie Tia used to do with m
AIDEN'S POV Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. All I know is that Aurora and I had a good thing going. I fucked up, but she’s a good girl. She could still forgive me.” That meant she hadn’t forgiven him yet. My heart slowed for the first time since I saw him enter her apartment. I grabbed the leather gloves from my back pocket, slapped them over my thigh, and put them on. His throat moved as he swallowed. Good. He needed to know I wasn’t afraid to get dirty to make my point. “Don’t mistake Aurora’s goodness for being naive,” I warned. “She’s past forgiving you.” “You don’t know her like I do.” He shook his head. “What I do know is that you tried to pay Peter Vory with her as a deal, and that’s why I’m here. Now, you’re going to listen closely and follow my every word, and I’ll let you keep your miserable life. If you go off track, I’ll make sure you crash into a ten-ton truck and feed whatever’s left of you to the hyenas. Got it so far?” He grabbed the ed
AIDEN'S POV Thomas Reynolds’ temporary place to stay was just a small room in the back of a shady poker club in Southie. From the look of the old two story building outside, he was probably sleeping on a dirty cot made of trash, hair, and diseases. Instead of knocking, I kicked the weak screen door down and walked right in. Three tables full of men with dirt and oil on their faces looked up at me, their eyes leaving their cards. “Thomas Reynolds,” I said in a low voice. No need for anything else. The room went silent.I knew showing off my fancy suit and clean haircut would cause trouble, but I didn’t care. Then I pulled out my wallet, and held up a hundred-dollar bill between my fingers, waving it around. “I’ll ask again, where’s Thomas Reynolds?” The men must have noticed the crazy look in my eyes because they shifted in their chairs nervouslyblooking at each other. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, we don’t even know him, why are we protecting him? He’s in the back room!” one man
AIDEN'S POV Yes, I wanted to know if I was really losing Aurora, but that was beyond Daniel’s skills. "Just do your fucking job." I turned around and walked up the stairs back to my office. I cursed again but this time, no one was shocked. I was starting to come apart, break, crack, and fall to pieces. I was changing, developing feelings and I hated it so, I spent the rest of the day pretending to be there, pretending to work, pretending not to care. I went to meetings, yelled at workers, checked our quarterly reports, and had lunch with Devon, where we talked about how to fight Green Living in court. "I should not have eaten the pasta. It made my stomach hurt," I said when we left the restaurant. Devon laughed loudly. "The pasta was fine. The bad feeling in your stomach is longing. Is Aurora still living in her Commonwealth apartment?" I didn’t even answer him. Longing was something teenage girls felt for Armie Hammer. The only long thing about me was between my legs. At si
AIDEN'S POV "You dumb piece of cock sucking shit." I punched Daniel Sterling in the face the second he walked through my door, hitting his nose that had already been broken three times. I had texted Sterling at five in the morning, telling him if he didn’t show up at my house in fifteen minutes, I would buy every building in Southie, both government and private and tear down every place he loved growing up, just to ruin his day. He got to my house in nine minutes and didn’t even look tired. I, on the other hand, went from saying no bad words to saying only bad words. "Good morning to you, too," he said calmly, pushing his nose back into place without even flinching, even as blood poured out. The crack of the bone was enough to make anyone but the two of us want to throw up. "Why the warm welcome?" "Because you’re a bullshit private investigator and a terrible fucking friend. You messed up. Guess how my wife spent her night yesterday?" I pushed him against the front door and