Page 87 of Ruin Me
I dialed a number I’d memorized by heart, praying it was still good.
“Do you know what fucking time it is?” Sansone answered from the burner phone number he’d given me.
“No, and I don’t care. You promised to get me Carol when we found her. She’s dead, but I have someone else I need you to get in her place.”
“What? This person… She touched your woman?”
“That’s what I aim to find out.”
My footsteps echoed on the concrete floor of my dilapidated building. As soon as Sansone called with the information he’d delivered my quarry, per my request, I gave Madison an excuse for leaving. I hated the needy glance she hid from me after hearing my reason, and I vowed to myself I would fix what I’d broken.
And I had broken something. Despite her reassuring smile that she was okay, I knew she wasn’t. I’d become an expert in Madison’s smileology and physiognomy, able to distinguish the difference in her smiles down to the lumen per watt. And she was no longer giving the full intensity that held me captive and solidified my purpose as her man.
But once I got my answers, I intended to run straight home and dedicate as many hours, days, weeks, even years, to bringing the brightness back to Madison’s heart and smile.
“Whoever you are, you’ve made a huge fucking mistake. My name means something in this city,” the voice of the woman I was here to meet screeched through the empty halls, gaining in volume the closer I got to her.
“Does your name carry more weight than mine, Paulina?” I asked as I walked through what remained of the crumbling doorway.
“Kent? Wh-what’s the meaning of this?” She shook her shoulders from side to side, her mobility hindered by the ropes binding her to her chair.
I prowled around her, seething while keeping my face neutral. “Is something wrong with your accommodations?”
She swiveled her head, never letting me out of her sight. “You’re joking, but this isn’t funny. Untie me, now!”
“You’re pretty demanding for someone who attempted a coup of my company.”
She froze for a millisecond before flipping her bob away from her face and scoffing. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, aren’t you confident? You think I wouldn’t link you to all those anonymous LLCs and trusts you used to hide your identity as a shareholder?” I ran down a list of five to prove she couldn’t hide from me. “I bet there’s an ethics violation somewhere about you not disclosing what companies you own shares in, but that’s neither here nor there. I want to discuss some of our mutuals.” I ended my saunter in front of her again.
She watched me warily. “I’m sure we have many mutuals. Douglas society isn’t that large.”
I grinned at her deflection, although it didn’t meet my eyes and lacked warmth. “True, but only two have tried to harm me and the women in my life.”
“Women?” she sneered. “None of those pieces of trash could ever be called women, especially your new Oyingugu replacement.”
“What did you say?” Shock choked the words through a tiny hole from my mouth.
“You heard me.” She stretched her neck until a crack broke the stunned silence, and she dropped her mask. “Oh, my God! You have no idea how long I’ve held that in. After all these years, you haven’t changed and neither has your shitty taste in women.”
The woman before me bore none of the characteristics I’d seen over our many years of interacting with each other. Even as she sat tied to the chair, devoid of her earlier rage or fear, she sneered her disgust at me.
“What does my love life have to do with you?”
“Do you even remember we attended the same high school?” From her tone, the question was more rhetorical than curious. However, no memory of her came to my mind.
“Why is that important?” I asked, unable to connect any logic with her line of questioning.
“Because I saw you first. On the first day of ninth grade, I told my friends I would marry you. Had our meet-cute all set up. I’d already amassed a following and they were happy to spread the word about how great I was so you’d hear it before we physically met. Everything was going to plan, then fucking Oyingugu passed by you in the hall and ruined everything. You didn’t notice anyone, even though I crashed into you and we almost fell to the ground. That bitch didn’t say a word to you and you couldn’t keep your eyes off her then, even while I stood in front of you. Me, the most gorgeous girl the school had ever seen. Winner of Miss Teen Douglas.”
“You’re telling me you’ve held a grudge since high school? You’re sick.”
She threw her head back and laughed. The sound was healthy, lacking the crazed touch I expected of someone who’d confessed to an unhealthy fixation. “You’re mistaken. You confuse an illness with dedication. I follow through on my goals, and when you never broke up with that woman after senior year, and I had to see the two of you lost in each other at college, I vowed to take everything you loved and destroy you.” She shook her head ruefully. “It’s taken me a long time to get traction, but every time I’d get close to destroying you, you bounced back. But the joke’s on me. I keep relying on failures. First Trent, then mycousin, Carol, and lastly, Hal. What will it take to cut you down to your knees?”
“Did you say, Trent? As in Duncan Trent?” My heart pounded as memories from Lola’s bloody confession and the painful years after she died replayed themselves.
“Ooh, you didn’t know I had a hand in that, too, huh? How much did you find out? Did you discover the affair?”