He tried to embrace me.
I stepped back.
“Don’t touch me.”
Something hard flashed in his eyes before the concern returned.
“Babe, I know you’re scared,” he said, lowering his voice, “but you have to listen to me.”
“Listen to what?” I asked. “To you saying it was all a misunderstanding? That the men who set our house on fire using your key were random burglars?”
He blinked.
“You saw?”
“I saw everything. Kenzo and I both did.”
He went pale.
His gaze flicked over my shoulder, then to the path, then back to me.
“Not here,” he muttered. “Let’s go somewhere private.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
My pulse was pounding so hard I could hear it inside my own skull, but my voice stayed steady.
“Say it here. Why did you try to kill me?”
His jaw tightened.
“I didn’t,” he said. “Not like that.”
“What does that even mean?”
He dragged a hand over his face.
“Ayira, I’m in trouble. Real trouble. I owe money to people who don’t play games. They threatened you. They threatened Kenzo.”
“And your solution was to murder us first?”
“No,” he said quickly. “I was going to get you out. With the insurance money we could disappear somewhere. Start over.”
I stared at him.
“The insurance money,” I repeated, “that only pays if I’m dead?”
He froze.
For just a second, his entire body went still.
He knew he had said too much.
“Ayira,” he said, shifting immediately, “you took things from the safe. I need those back. Right now.”
“The notebook? The phones? The evidence?”
“You don’t understand what you’re doing.” His voice sharpened. “If you give that to the police, I go down. And if I go down, the men I owe come after you. Either way, you are not safe.”
“At least it won’t be you trying to kill me.”
That was when the last of the mask dropped.
His face changed.
Not drastically. Not theatrically. It was subtler and worse than that—just the disappearance of effort.
He looked at me with naked contempt.
“You were always so naive,” he said. “Did you really think I married you for love? You were a spoiled girl with daddy’s money. That’s all this ever was.”
The truth hurt even though I already knew it.
“And Kenzo?” I asked.
He gave a bitter laugh.
“That weird little brat? He was always watching. Always staring. Freak kid.”
