Page 7 of Carlos

Her shoulder connected awkwardly, causing her to cry out in pain.

Davis stood over her. He started to undo the buckle of his belt, and Zoe felt a cold dread seep over her.

“No, Davis,” she moaned, clutching her hurt arm to her chest. “Please, I don’t want to?—”

“I don’t care what you want,” he slurred. “You’re my wife. You don’t get to say no.”

Zoe did not sleep that night. Following what Davis would call her wifely duties and she called rape, Zoe sat numb on the kitchen floor. Her shoulder throbbed and it felt like she had a hot, burning stake sticking out of her.

As the sun started to rise, Zoe stood. She wasn’t entirely sure where her train of thought was. Her memories of the following moments was fuzzy and bleak. Like she was in a fugue state.

How had this become her life? When she’d been dating Davis, he’d been so sweet and kind. It wasn’t until she said, “I do,” that things changed. That he changed. Zoe knew that she had no family protection. Her parents were old; she’d been a later-in-life miracle baby. She could not risk going to them. His parents were even worse. His father the commissioner and his father a former judge. They owned Philadelphia. Their reputation was everything. There was no one she could turn to. No where to go.

The calculator app and the vitamin pill bottle never even crossed Zoe’s mind as she opened Davis’s gun safe. He thought she didn’t know the code, but she did. The man was not as cunning as he believed himself to be. There was no one in the world Davis loved more than himself. Of course, he would use his birthday as the code.

Zoe had never held a gun before. She’d never wanted to. Davis had never offered to teach her either. Television had taught her the basics.

Davis was asleep in their bed. God, Zoe hated him. She’d given him everything and the only good thing he’d ever given her was her son. A baby he had only wanted as a prop, something to tout about.

She recalled the first time he’d struck her. Zoe should have left then. How stupid was she that she actually believed his words that she had been at fault. That it wouldn’t have happened if she had gotten pregnant.

“You had one job, Zoe! One job!” His words from that terrible night rang in her head like a bell.

Zoe didn’t remember flicking the safety off the gun. She didn’t remember lifting her hand towards her sleeping husband.

She did not remember pulling the trigger until there were no bullets left.

Zoe sat in handcuffs in the back of a police car. The red and blue flashing lights over her head hurt her eyes. She had yet to be read her rights or be asked why she did it. No one seemed to care that her drunk husband had assaulted her the night before or that her shoulder was in pain. The cops all treated her like she’d taken the best man they knew from this world too soon.

The worst part was watching Davis’s parents carrying Davey out of her house. She did not want Davey to go to them.

Tears fell down her cheeks. Not for what she’d done but the consequences of what she’d done. Davis was dead. He was never coming back. But the universe had one more trick to play. She would go to jail for his murder and his parents would raise her son.

The tears continued to fall. More than the physical pain she was experiencing, she hurt for her son and the future she’d doomed him to. What have I done…

Zoe was being escorted into the courthouse. She could barely see with the flashes of lights from the press cameras. Her useless lawyer and the police did nothing to try to keep them back. Someone ended up pushing her and Zoe lost her balance on the concrete stairs.

Hands caught her and a voice in her ear said, “Make a scene. You need to get to the bathroom.”

Zoe’s head whipped around to see the back of a man walking away from her. But she knew that man. Her heart started thumping harder. Conner!

Once inside the courthouse, Zoe begged and pleaded to be allowed to use the bathroom. She showed the police officer the scrapes on the palms of her cuffed hands. He finally relented, though it looked like it pained him to do so.

No one, not even her own lawyer, believed her story. She could see it in their eyes. The Davis she knew was not the man they knew. His father and grandfather were encouraging the District Attorney to seek the death penalty. If they succeeded, Zoe would be the first person in over twenty years to be executed by the State of Pennsylvania.

She’d begged and pleaded, but no one would allow her to see her son. She didn’t even know if her own parents had been allowed to see him.

In the women’s room, a female officer escorted her to the sink. Even the woman showed no sympathy for Zoe.

“He never deserved you.”

Zoe looked up into the mirror at the officer. “What?”

“Davis, he never deserved you. I told him from the start that you weren’t good enough for him, but he didn’t listen.” She sneered, “He loved you and you killed him.”

Zoe looked back down at her hands. They weren’t that bad, but she still winced as she used soapy water to clean out the wounds. “He was a monster.”

“He was not!” the woman snapped, slapping her hand down on the counter by Zoe’s elbow. Zoe flinched away. The female officer leaned in close and whispered, “Did you know that he was sleeping with me too? My partner and I would share him. He was the best fuck I ever?—”