Syndicate of Sin

Chapter 2

I sipped on my jasmine tea and stared at the dark TV screen, trying to keep my eyes open just enough to stay awake until Ben came home. The neon green light of the clock read 3:04 a.m. It was so late—so freaking late—and I had to be up in four hours.

My eyes fluttered closed, yet I willed myself to stay awake.

Every night for the past two weeks, Ben had been coming home past midnight. And every night, I’d fall asleep before he came home because I needed to sleep for work, but not tonight. Tonight, I was going to find out where the hell he had been because this wasn’t the Ben I had been dating for the past three years.

Another fifteen minutes passed, and I found myself coming in and out of sleep, accepting and rejecting the darkness that seemed to always creep up on me at this time. I had only been thinking and dreaming the worst about him lately, but maybe … maybe I was just getting cold feet before our wedding.

He had proposed a month ago, yet something felt off. And all I could think about was that he was getting cold feet too, that he was out, enjoying the last of his single life with another girl before he married me.

IOur apartment door creaked open, and Ben stumbled into the room, trying to be as quiet as he could. But he didn’t know that I had stayed awake for the first time this week. He didn’t know that I was freaking determined to know where he had been.

I mumbled his name, but instead of coming into the living room to greet me, he hurried straight to the bathroom and shut the door, the smell of alcohol, covered by cheap cologne, drifting through our small apartment.

When I heard the water start, I shot up from the couch and wiped my tired eyes.

“Ben!” I shouted, knocking on the bathroom door. “Ben, we need to talk.” He didn’t answer, so I banged on the door with the side of my fist. “Ben, open up!”

The water hammered down on the shower walls, so I hit my fist against the door, louder and louder until it was trembling. I was thinking the absolute worst. Ben had been out with another girl, telling her things he only told me, letting her touch him … and now, he was trying to hide the evidence, cover up her perfume with my lemon-scented soap.

“Now, Ben. We need to talk. This is serious.”

After waiting another two minutes, I found the key to the bathroom door hidden in the kitchen and unlocked it, stepping into the steamy room.

“Ben, we need to talk. Why are you ignoring me?” I asked.

“Go to sleep, Roxie,” Ben said from inside the shower. Our shower curtain was basically hanging by a thread at this point, and the room was small enough to barely hold two people. “It’s late, and you have work tomorrow morning.”

His clothes were sitting in the sink, and because I knew he’d never admit to cheating on me—what guy would?—I grabbed them and hoped to find a note, to smell perfume, looking for something that would give me a clue as to where he had been these past two weeks.

But as soon as they touched my skin, I saw the blood. My fingers trembled as I unraveled them. They weren’t soaked in blood, but instead splattered with it. I shook my head, my eyes wide, my heart hammering against my chest.

“What is this?” I asked, voice so quiet that I almost didn’t hear myself. “Why is there blood on your shirt?”

The water shut off, and Ben stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist. He snatched the clothes from me, jaw tight.

“I said, go to bed.” He stormed out of the bathroom, tracking water all over our dingy apartment floor to the bedroom.

After thrusting the clothes into a black garbage bag and throwing it in our trash can, he rifled through his closet to find something to wear. I followed after him every step of the way.

“Why can’t you tell me?” I asked. “I’m your freaking fiancée. I deserve to know.”

If there was one thing I hated the most in this world, it was men who lied. He could’ve gotten into an accident. He could’ve gotten into a fight at the bar. He could’ve f*****g killed someone, for all I knew. And I would be there for him. But I couldn’t f*****g deal with a liar.

“Are you cheating on me?” I asked. It didn’t explain the blood, but it was the only explanation I had come up with for his sudden coldness the past two weeks. “Tell me you haven’t been cheating on me.”

“I haven’t been cheating on you,” he said, his body completely tense. “I would never cheat on you.”

“Then where have you been?” I asked, staring up at the ceiling with tears in my eyes. “And why do you have blood on your clothes?”

“That’s none of your business,” he said to me, voice harsher than usual.

“It is my business, Ben. I’m going to marry you.”

He snatched my chin in his hand and slammed me against the wall. The air left my damn throat, and I stared up at him with wide eyes, never having experienced this Ben. He had never laid his damn hands on me before.

this “Leave it alone,” he said through clenched teeth, sounding out each word as if I couldn’t hear him.

After a few moments, he released my chin and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, walking away and shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Roxie. I didn’t mean to touch you like that.”

I stepped away from him when he came closer to me. I shouldn’t have asked where he was. I should’ve just gone to f*****g bed and woken up tomorrow like everything was fine. Sometimes, ignorance was f*****g bliss.

Instead of prying anymore, I slid into bed, turned onto my side, and stared into the darkness. “Good night,” I whispered, trying hard to keep my voice steady and unwavering.

Tears welled up in my eyes. The feeling of his hand closing around my throat so viciously like that haunted me.

The bed dipped next to me, Ben sliding under the covers with me. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, fingers brushing against my hip to pull me closer.

I pushed him away. If he didn’t want to tell me the truth, I didn’t want him to touch me.

“I’m taking you out tomorrow night. We’re going somewhere nice,” he said, then turned onto his side to face the opposite direction.

I pressed my lips together and refused to make any noise, any whimper, any sign of weakness. God, I did so much for this man. I worked my ass off to get us out of debt—or at least tried to—had stayed up late with him to watch him play those stupid online card games when we started dating, spent a weekend in Vegas with him when I should’ve been working. And he couldn’t even tell me why he had been coming home late and why there was f*****g blood on his clothes.

Before I could fall asleep, the bed shook slightly, and I could hear the quiet sobs coming from his side.

“I f****d up, Roxie,” he whispered so lowly, probably thinking that I had fallen asleep. “I f****d it all up.”