Betrayal (10 page)

26

“No!”

Kali was frozen. She had to shake the terror way and when she did, she ran to her husband. She was sobbing, panicked, trying to stop the bleeding. But there was too much of it. The round had gone into his chest and must’ve struck his heart or an artery or something. No matter how hard she pressed, the bleeding wouldn’t stop.

“He’s gone, Kali.”

She didn’t pay attention to him. She took off her shirt and pressed it to the wound. “Call a damn ambulance!”

Sebastian’s hands came on her shoulders and she slapped them away. He sat on the floor, a few feet away from Adam’s body.

“He’s gone.”

“No, no
no no no no. This can’t be happening. This isn’t happening,” she cried.

Sebastian rose and
ambled into the other room. Kali removed the shirt from Adam’s wound. Blood coated her clothing and her skin. It was everywhere. She couldn’t breathe and the world felt like it was closing in around her. Squeezing her.

She leaned forward, and pressed her lips to her husband’s. “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t stop saying it. “I’m so sorry.”

Everything she’d done had led to this moment. Every choice she’d made. The second she let Sebastian take her to the hospital rather than calling an ambulance, she’d doomed Adam to this.

Sebastian came out and gently took her by the shoulders and pulled her away. She screamed and swatted away his hands. Her arms went around Adam and she cried into his shoulder. She didn’t know how long she was there, but Sebastian finally managed to pull her away.

He then took Adam’s body, and laid it flat on a rug.

“What’re you doing?”

He rolled the body into the rug. Kali ran at him, trying to get him away from the body of the man she’d promised she’d stick by through thick and thin, that she would always protect and love. But Sebastian calmly led her to the couch and sat her down. Then he went back to the rug, and finished rolling the body into it until it couldn’t be seen any longer.

“What did I do?” Kali said
, her face buried in her hands as she rocked back and forth. “What did I do? Adam, Adam!”

Sebastian lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall, staring at the rolled up rug. “We’ll wait until night and then take it out.”

She looked up at him in amazement. “You need to call the police.”

“What? We’re not calling the police.”

“You need to call the police.” She couldn’t form the thoughts or give the reason as to why, she just knew they had to.

“Yeah, that’s not
gonna happen. I shot the husband of the woman I’m in love with. They’ll never believe it was an accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” she said, venom in her voice. “You killed him.”

“It was an accident,” he said evenly. “He tried to kill me first.” Sebastian took a puff of the cigarette and let it out through his nose. “We’ll wait until night,” he said again.

Kali spent the day sobbing and staring at the walls. By the time darkness fell, she didn’t have any tears left. But her body would still jerk as though it did. Her mind
was numb. She felt like someone could stick a hot needle into her and she wouldn’t feel it.

She sat in the dark. Enveloped by it, swallowed by it. And knew that this was where she belonged. In the dark with a man that had taken everything she had ever had… and she still couldn’t leave him. She could’ve walked to her phone and called the police, or ran out of the studio screaming her head off until someone else called. But she didn’t. She sat in the dark and tried to feel something… anything.

“I think it’s dark enough,” Sebastian said, flicking on a light in the kitchen. “Let’s go.” He threw her a shirt that wasn’t covered in blood. “Put this on.”

He walked over and lifted the rug as Kali did as she was told. He was muscular and strong, and he lifted it like it was nothing. Hoisting it onto his shoulder, he held it in place with only one hand as he offered the other to her. She
grabbed it, and stood up.

They took the stairs rather than the elevator. The security guard wasn’t at his desk this late at night since the doors had automatic locks. They snuck out and found Sebastian’s jeep in the parking lot. He glanced around before dumping the rug into the back of the jeep. He pushed it in, making sure as little of
it as possible was poking out of the jeep, and then climbed into the driver’s seat.

Then, he jumped out and darted around to the rug. He unrolled it a little and reached in, feeling around until his fingers found whatever it was he was looking for. And then he pulled out the gun and tucked it into the front of his waistband.

When he climbed back in, he looked to her, but didn’t say anything. She couldn’t face him. Couldn’t even see his face. She just focused on her breathing and stared at a point on the wall in front of her.

Sebastian started the jeep and pulled out onto the road. Before long, they were on the interstate and headed to the desert.

Lots of nature surrounded Los Angeles, despite it being one of the largest cities in the world. After two hours of driving, it didn’t even resemble a city anymore. Just large, jagged mountains that tore into the sky like teeth. A blue moon hanging above them and illuminating the fields and valleys.

They pulled off the road and drove on a dirt path for a long time. The road was bumpy and jerked Kali around. Sebastian didn’t seem to notice.

When he finally did stop, they were far away from the city. Far away from the interstate or another living soul.

Sebastian went to the back of the jeep and pulled on the rug. Each tug felt like a dagger in
Kali’s heart. But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t move or offer to help and he didn’t ask. She just stood in the moonlight and watched.

He pulled the rug behind some boulders and left it. Taking a few steps back, he ran his hand through his hair and looked up at her.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No.
No I’m not… I’m pretty far from that.”

He looked down to the rug. “We should go.”

She grabbed him and brought his face near hers. He appeared surprised, his brow furrowed, until she kissed him. She kissed him harder than she had ever kissed anyone before. Her tongue lolled around in his mouth. Her teeth bit into his bottom lip. Her fingers caressed his chest and moved down his chiseled abs…

She pulled the gun out in one smooth motion. Taking a step back, she pointed it at his head.

“Kali, we don’t have time for this.”

“You’re going to die for what you did.”

“Oh, come on. Have some guts to face up to it. You wanted me to kill him.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

“Yes you did. How else would we have been together, huh? Would you have been okay losing that big house of yours or your car in a divorce? What about yours kids? This is the best way.”

“No! Don’t say that. I never wanted this.”

He took a step closer. “Yes you did. You may not have admitted it to yourself, but this is what you wanted. Now we can be together. Just me and you against the world. No one can come between us anymore.” He took another step. “Tell me you love me.”

She felt tears again, welling up in her eyes. “I love you.”

And then, she pulled the trigger.

27

For several days, Kali didn’t see or speak to anybody. She had locked herself in her room and sent the children to stay with Adam’s parents. She told them she was having some trouble right now and that she and Adam were taking a quick break. The grandparents took the kids in without asking many more questions.

Much of each day was spent drinking or sitting out on the patio. Elaina tried to come over several times but Kali didn’t answer the door. Partly, she didn’t want to see anybody. But she also randomly burst into tears for no reason and didn’t want anyone around for that.

A week or so after Adam’s death, she called the police and reported him missing. A detective came out and interviewed her. A man with a potbelly and a greasy 70s mustache. He asked her maybe ten minutes worth of questions and then said, “Well, no offense, but maybe he ran off with some chick?”

She missed Adam. And to her chagrin, she also missed Sebastian. They were both part of one whole. They both, together, gave her something that separately they couldn’t give. As emotionally wrecked as she had been cheating on Adam, she had felt whole. And she’d even say happy. The affair, in some ways, had made their marriage better. But it hadn’t been worth the guilt and the shame. And it certainly wasn’t worth the death of the man she loved… and the father of her children.

And that, ultimately, was the thing that pained her the most. That her two beautiful children would grow up without a father, and wouldn’t even know why.

But she knew she could
n’t do that to them. They had to know the truth. No matter how much they would hate her. No matter that, when they moved out, they wouldn’t call her anymore and would have nothing to do with her. They deserved to know that Adam didn’t abandon them.

She missed her kids dearly and when she picked them up from their grandparents, she wrapped her arms around them and cried. It lasted a
while, but she didn’t feel like letting go just yet.

When they got back to the house, the children went out and played with their friends as if nothing had changed. They asked about their father, but didn’t seem that curious or troubled. Kali stood by the window and watched them. The choices she’d made brought her here, too. A single
mom with two kids to raise on her own.

But that, in the end, gave her strength.
Her life would no longer be about what she needed. It wouldn’t be a quest to fulfill her desires. She hadn’t seen it before, hadn’t known it was required, but she knew now that she had a choice. She could take care of her family, or herself, but not both. Both of them could not be completely fulfilled and any energy given to one would take away from the other.

She had been selfish and shortsighted, and Adam had paid the price. But she wouldn’t make that mistake again. Not with them.

Over the past two weeks, her constant companion had been a cup of vodka and orange juice. But today, she went to the kitchen and dumped it out and replaced it with coffee before going to the front yard to watch her children play with Tami’s kids. They waved to her and she waved and smiled. She knew now that she was here for them, and they for her.

And there was no
one else in the world she needed.

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BOOKS BY ISABELLE ALI

Fatal Intimacies

Betrayal

Copyright 2013 Isabelle Ali

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Please note that this is a work of fiction. Any similarity
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