Chapter 80

CHAPTER EIGHTY

ASHLEY

Everyone looks at me—Zain, his mom, his dad, and Marissa.

Why are they looking at me? What does he want me to say?

My mind blanks. I blink. The silence stretches.

I'm going to tell them. I'm going to tell them he's blackmailing me. I'm not keeping quiet any longer. This is the only opportunity I'll have. They're already angry with him. They're questioning his behavior. They'll believe me.

But what about last night? Didn't that change things?

I open my mouth to speak, and someone's ringtone shatters the silence, and the moment is broken.

Zain lifts his cell to his ear.

"Hello?" He frowns. "When? … Okay, yeah. I'll check. Give me an hour." He ends the call and pockets his cell. "We have to go."

Before anyone can say a word, he walks over to me, grabs my hand, and pulls me out of the door.

"Wait!"

"Not a chance." He throws open the passenger door to his car. "Get in."

"No. Who called you?"

"Did you really think I couldn't guess what you were about to do? You're lucky my phone rang. Get in the car."

"Where are we going?"

"I already told you that."

I get into the car, and wait for him to join me.

"If you know I didn't accuse you out of spite, and you know someone has been arrested, why are you still treating me like this?"

He doesn't answer, focusing instead on starting the car and driving away from the house.

"Zain, answer me. You've admitted, more than once , that you know it wasn't my fault. So why? "

"Put your seatbelt on."

"Answer me!"

A muscle pops in his jaw, but he still doesn't answer my question.

When we pull up outside his house a few minutes later, he cuts off the engine, but doesn't move. I recognize the house as the one we got married in. The fact that he owns it shouldn't surprise me. Everything he's done so far has been carefully calculated, so why wouldn't the location he chose for our marriage be something he controls as well?

He gets out of the car. I stay where I am. When the passenger door opens, I don't look at him.

"You're not being fair."

He leans across me to unclip the seatbelt.

"You're not in prison for perjury, are you? I'd say that's fair." He straightens, and turns away .

I stay where I am and watch as he walks to the front door and lets himself in.

My thoughts are a chaotic mess.

I want to yell at him. I want to demand he listens to me. I want him to acknowledge that things happened that I cannot be held responsible for. But I can't … because I understand why he's behaving the way he is. His lawyer made that clear to me in a way no one else would have been able to.

But I need to know who has been arrested, and with what evidence.

Sitting in the car isn't going to give me that information.

Now that I've confirmed it's not my mom, I can think a little clearer. He said to the journalist that I raised things that he hadn't considered before.

The problem is I've said that many things, I don't know what it is that he's latched onto … or do I?

I think back to his reaction after he forced me to watch his interrogation.

Oh my god.

I almost fall out of the car in my haste to chase Zain's disappearing figure.

"Who was arrested?" I have an idea, but I need to hear him say it.

He stops in the entrance hall, and taps the keyboard which I assume turns off the alarm, but doesn't answer me.

"You said I supplied information that helped. What was it? I have the right to know, Zain. "

He's behaving like I'm not even here. When he walks across the hall toward the archway which I know leads to the kitchen, I lose what's left of my control … and my temper.

Looking around, I grab the nearest thing … a blue china vase, which seems very not Zain-like … and throw it at him. It sails across his shoulder, hits the wall and smashes.

"Don't walk away from me!"

He turns slowly. "Or what? What are you going to do about it?"

I snatch up a second vase and launch it at his head. He ducks, and once again, it hits the wall. Annoyance at my lousy aim mixes with my anger at the way he refuses to tell me anything, and any filter I've ever had falls away.

"You throw out your demands, and your threats. You drop the bombshell that you've figured out who murdered my brother. Yet you refuse to tell me who it is! I thought you were evil with all the things you've done to me … but this proves it."

"Evil?" His voice is soft. "You think I'm evil, Ashley?"

"Aren't you? You blackmailed me, then you forced me to marry you. You locked me in the room where my brother was murdered . What kind of monster keeps a room the way it was when someone was killed in it? You might not have killed Jason, but you sure as hell aren't the innocent victim you're pretending to be. Not anymore. You've become the monster I said you were."

He takes a step toward me. The way the light hits his face turns him into a devil with gleaming eyes and sharp cheekbones. The anger falls off him in almost visible waves.

"And who turned me into that monster?" His voice is silky .

My self-preservation instinct kicks in too late.

I need to stop talking, before I push too far.

But I can't, and the words just keep on falling from my lips.

"What really went on between you, Jason and Louisa, Zain? Everyone always thought that she was your girlfriend, not his. And then it turns out that she's dating Jason, and pregnant with his baby … not yours. So if you didn't fly into a jealous rage and kill both of them, then who did?"

"Stop talking." There's a look on his face, a light in his eyes, that should scare me.

He's furious. Even I can see that. And yet I don't care. I don't fucking care.

"You didn't kill them, I know that now. But someone did. Why? Why did they do it? Why are you keeping the name from me?"

He advances on me. I hold my ground.

"Why won't you tell me?"

"I said shut the fuck up."

"No! I have a right to know."

"You have no fucking rights other than the ones I give you!" His shout echoes off the walls.

"This isn't the dark ages, Zain. That contract you forced me to sign isn't legal. I'm not stupid. You may have scared me with your threats about my mom, but you don't have that any more. If I wanted to walk out right now, I could."

"Try it. See what happens."