“Come in,” he called from the other side.

I twisted the handle and pushed the door open. Jack sat at the large wooden desk he’d had since I’d known him. He had it specially made, commissioned from local Amish.

There was no smile on Jack’s face, and he let out a long, low sigh.

“Nate, have a seat,” he said as he stood, then walked around to stand in front of his desk.

My blood ran cold as I looked up at him like he was the executioner.

“Is everything okay?”

I blinked at him in complete confusion, my brow furrowed. “Why?”

“Well, I’ve overheard some talk of your attitude this week. It seems the atmosphere around you is quite dark.”

“My attitude?” That was why I’d been called up? Because I was in a bad mood? Fearful of losing my job and my freedom because I fucking lost control of the beast and myself.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Jack. It’s a personal matter, and I didn’t realize I’d let my mood leak out in such abundance.”

“It’s been hard on me, too,” Jack said.

Hard on him?

Oh, fucking shit cock-sucking bastard.

How could I forget? How did I get so consumed by Delilah and what happened with her that I forgot my wife’s birthday? Grace would be thirty-four. Our son would be approaching his fourth birthday.

My jaw locked down and I stared at the floor, my breath becoming labored. Guilt flooded in, but for a different reason than before.

The loss of my family was what had consumed me for years, but I realized that for weeks I’d hardly thought about them. Instead, I’d been filled with a physical need for another woman.

“We’re headed to the cemetery this weekend to see her, bring her some birthday flowers,” Jack said with a sniff.

I kept my gaze from his eyes and shook my head. “I can’t, Jack.”

He nodded. “Yes, I know, but I hope one day you’ll join us.”

Only once had I visited their grave, a few weeks after I’d woken up. The pain of seeing her name etched in granite was too much.

Loving wife and mother, it said.

But she never got to be a mother, our son trapped forever inside her. They were locked in a wooden box buried beneath the earth, and he was never to take a breath.

As I left Jack’s office, I detoured to one of the empty conference rooms. My whole body shook as I stood against the window looking out at the street.

I’d fucked up my life, ended it for all intents and purposes, and yet still, in my purgatory, I could still wreak havoc on others. Stuck in limbo, I didn’t think things could get worse, yet they had.

It seemed rock bottom had many levels, and I had reached an all-time low.

What the fuck was the purpose of my life other than destruction?

CHAPTER 10

I spent all of Saturday staring at my front door, at the couple of holes I’d created. There was nothing but guilt that consumed me as I waited, expectant of some type of retribution. All week I’d waited, and I was somehow convinced the weekend would hold my punishment.

The sun rose on one side of my condo and set on the other, and nothing happened. There was no banging on the door, no phone calls. Nothing.

Silence.

It did nothing to assuage my feelings. Even the beast was silent. Being the unpredictable, emotional, violent side of me, he had begun to feel remorse, too.

Though even with the remorse was the itch. Soft at first, but as the day faded, it became almost unbearable. The notion that one time with her would be enough was obliterated the second I was inside her.

I didn’t sleep that night. I’d barely slept all week. By nine in the morning I was showered, dressed for some ungodly known reason in my slacks, shirt, and tie, pacing my condo, probably driving my neighbors on the floor below crazy.

Minutes before the time the clock turned to ten, I nearly had a burn on my neck from rubbing it and was agitated beyond belief. I couldn’t take any more.

I flew out the door to the elevator, my thumb pressing the button until the ding signaling its arrival sounded. It was one of the times I wished the stairs weren’t emergency only. All of my pent-up energy had no outlet, forced to wait impatiently as the elevator seemed to crawl down the few flights.

As soon as the doors opened I was out in the hall, forced to choose between right or left. Drawing up the memory, she’d headed to the right.

There were only two condos on her floor, creating little room for error that I had the wrong place. I slammed my fist on her door, knocking so loud, in time with the pounding of my chest. Through the thick wood I heard the click of the deadbolt and then the door swung open.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked as soon as I saw the smallest piece of her, my hands braced on the door frame for support as well as to keep me in place.

There was no anger, only confusion as she looked up at me. “Nathan?”

“Why?” I asked again.

Why didn’t she report me to someone, anyone? I needed to pay for my transgression.

There was a ping somewhere in the background, then her fingers wrapped around my tie, pulling me inside. “Idiot! Do you want the whole building to know?”

I didn’t fucking care about that. It was trivial. My pacing began again. “I don’t get you. All week long I’ve been waiting for Jack to pull me into his office and fire me, or the police to come, knocking down my door to take me away, and…nothing.”

Her brow scrunched. “Why the police?”

I pulled at my hair as I stared at her in disbelief. Was she that used to abuse? “I practically fucking raped you, Delilah.”

Her eyes popped wide. “Is that what you think happened?”

“Yes!” I yelled. She needed to see, to understand, because it was obvious it was lost on her. “I took you against your will against a wall. Fuck!” I glanced at her, my eyes stopping at her exposed neck and shoulder.

I was right that the one mark I’d seen wasn’t the only one. Faded patches of discolored skin were like leopard spots across her chest and neck.

Fuck!

Yeesssssss! We did that.

I swallowed hard and tried to ignore the beast who was now at the bars of his cage salivating at the sight of her marked skin.

“Listen, Nathan, I think we need to get some things straightened out because I thought you understood. First off, I asked for everything you gave me.”