Accidental Romeo: A Marriage Mistake Romance

by Snow, Nicole

  “Some friend you turned out to be,” I snap, scanning the back seat for anything I can use as a weapon.

  It's a cold day. So blustery, the Minnesota wind slams against the windows, rocking the truck, but it's nothing like the glacial, killing chill emanating from the man in the driver's seat.

  “Shut up. Don't make me hit you again. I really don't enjoy it, Sugarplum.” Sloan snarls back. “You fucked us both raw. Screwed, blued, and tattooed. Gonna be a minor miracle if we both make it out of this alive.”

  Alive. The way he says it should scare me to my core.

  Oddly, it just makes me more defiant.

  Try, you neanderthal. Bet you can’t reach me, I want to chant back, drive him into a rage, make him do something incredibly stupid.

  But then he might pull the truck over so he can show me what a sickening brute he really is, and my jaw is still throbbing from his last blow. It was mostly a show of force, not meant to do any lasting damage.

  I almost believe him when he says he doesn't enjoy it. There was a dark look of shock in his eyes after he struck me across the face.

  A look like he's simply exasperated. Trapped in total disbelief that it's gotten to this point. And he's furious that I've exposed the sick, evil thing hiding inside him, the thing no one else saw while he pretended to be best friend and family to Hunter and Ben for all these years.

  My stomach acid churns, making me nauseous. I don't know what's scarier.

  Sloan, the psychopath? Or Sloan, the wounded beast I've backed into a corner?

  If only I was in the front. I’d take a chance, maybe, throw open the door, jump out, and pray. But the back doors don’t open until the front ones do with the way this locks.

  Which is why he put me back here, with my hands zip-tied together.

  Ben’s safe, at least. That’s all that matters.

  Sloan didn’t believe me when I’d said Ben had left with my parents, but after searching the bakery and running out of time, he had no choice. Thank God Ben stayed hidden.

  Thank God he fit inside that cupboard. He wouldn’t have if he’d already put all the cake pans he’d washed in it.

  “You'll be happy one thing works out,” Sloan growls, weaving through traffic. “Hunter’s will says if anything happens to him, it all goes to Ben. He'll have a fat paycheck for college or whatever the fuck after the Feds get through picking the bones for breach of contract and espionage.” He laughs, just a low, bitter, hideous chuckle. “Landmark lives on, one way or another, just like old Cory wanted. And I'll have my own island, sipping mai tais or whatever the fuck it takes to get my dick wet with the locals. Just gotta take out the trash before I find my way out of the States.”

  I'm dead silent. Glaring. Hating how he's all demon smiles and dark, soulless eyes.

  His hand slaps the wheel. “This isn’t the way I planned it, you know. Always supposed to be a damn backup, if Hunt ever caught me fleecing more than my fair share. But then you came along, telling him Ben needs to know the truth like a goddamn girl scout. Wrecking the good thing we had going, where everybody was happy.”

  “Not happy. Living a lie, you freak,” I spit back.

  His whole face tightens and his next words hiss through his teeth. “Living, woman. Living without that horrible fucking pain we all got rammed down our throats the night Juno died and that asshole, Cory. I loved him like a brother. I loved Ben. I loved her. I would've taken care of them if you hadn't shown up. Looked after Ben like my own goddamn son, knowing he was the last piece of her left. And you, Wendy-bendy, fucked up everything. You destroyed my family.”

  So, not a wounded beast after all.

  Now, I see the eyes of a straight up psychopath in the mirror staring back at me. A man who let his jealousy, his loss, his reckless greed for something that was never his drive him insane.

  “Damn good thing I'm king at improvising,” he says, his voice suddenly lighter. Hiding behind that stupid, wise-cracking demeanor that made him seem so harmless for so long. “Gonna buy myself a gold fucking medal after all this is over. I'm too good at this, Wendy. Think you'll agree, doll, when you're down in hell, shaking your little fist at me.”

  Bastard. “Yeah, too good. Just like you’re too good at sneaking in people’s houses? Letting their cat out?” I know it was him. Totally. “What the hell was that about, anyway? You wanted Jingles to get hit or freeze to death? It's one thing to pick on people, but animals? Really?”

  Hate pours out his eyes and I hear him take a sharp breath. “Fuck you, ma'am. We needed a little diversion. It's a cat. Thick fur. Hardly any risk of turning into a damn cat-sicle. And if he did? Fuck it. Maybe a little tragedy would've kept Hunter and Ben locked up real tidy in their little mansion there, where they were happy, before you came along.”

  I knew it. I know something else, too.

  “So you could go on draining accounts and selling company secrets. All so you could pretend you ever mattered to a dead woman.”

  Snarling, he snaps his neck around and glares, not even watching the road. “Oh, you really think you’re a smart little snatch, don’t you? Think you've got me figured out just because you got under Hunter's skin, under Ben's, under – fuck!”

  We're both screaming for a solid second.

  He barely gets the truck back on the right side of the road before a blaring semi sideswipes us.

  Holy hell.

  I don’t answer. My heart pumps so fast, I think I'll be sick. Well, sicker.

  He gets his rage back under control as he drifts farther and farther away from the Twin Cities.

  Traffic grows sparser. We’re clearly heading North, into smaller towns and tall trees. Cabin territory. In another hour or so, we'll be in truly remote territory.

  Hunter will never find me. Neither will anyone else.

  My heart clenches. I look down.

  Honestly, I should hope he doesn’t find me. Find us.

  Sloan’s plan is to kill us both, using me as bait. That much is obvious.

  For the first time since we met, I truly wish I'd stayed dateless. Not because I regret anything.

  Because it has to end like this. The worst part is, I keep thinking about Ben.

  Abandoned. Alone. No more me, no father, no evil scheming uncle. No family at all.

  “Who told you about my fucking business plans anyway?” he snarls through the quiet.

  “Told me what?” I ask, playing dumb.

  I have to consider my answer, although I'm not sure it matters. If he knows Hunter told me, he’ll be that much angrier and betrayed, but if he thinks Hunter kept one more secret, he’ll think he still has that power over him.

  “Talk to me, Sugarplum. I'm feeling sleepy. Next time, I may just let this bad boy roll over the line and won't bring her back in time.”

  I feel like rolling my eyes. He's insane, but clearly not suicidal. I know an idle threat when I hear one.

  “You did, Sloan. I overheard you telling Hunter about Cory...it didn't take a genius to figure out it wasn't Cory. It was you, and you showed your hand, after you went off your chain.”

  He chuckles sourly. “Fuck Cory! Did you know I had Juno first? I was still fucking her when Cory met her. That’s how they shacked up. She decided he was nicer than me, at least till she got sick of his little dick. Then I had her again as her dirty little secret. Only thing she craved till they had the baby and decided to see that fucking shrink to fix her fucked up marriage.”

  His smirk fades, into something like a tarnished scowl. “It drove Cory fucking loco when Hunter promoted me to CSO. He threatened to tell Hunter I was Juno’s ex, her hookup, but he didn't have the balls. I said I’d deny it, make him look like he was railroading me. That’s when they thought they’d just move out here. Open a branch of the family biz where I wouldn't follow. But they didn't count on me coming up to the new branch. They didn't think I'd keep on trying to bring Juno home where she belonged, away from that pussy who never made her happy.”

  I’m wat
ching the scenery out the window, trying not to shudder. It’s becoming more wooded. More desolate.

  “I would've gotten Cory in deep shit, too, until that fuck, Andre in IT, discovered the backdoor I’d left open in our system. Nice swift motorcycle accident shut his yap a short time later. Too bad Juno thought it was me. Said she'd figured out what I was, and she'd never forgive me. Said I ought to resign, and go on my merry little way. She was confused.” He twists and looks at me, eyes slitted like a snake.

  “She was like you, in some ways. Too damn smart for her own good. That's why I loved her. Except she had baby Ben and started worrying about everything if I stayed around. She was afraid to leave the house. I came to talk sense into her that night, you know.”

  Oh, Jesus. My heart starts pounding, staring at his poison eyes in the mirror. They're fixed on the road now, refusing to even look at me.

  “The fire?” I whisper, wondering if I even want to know.

  “A horrific fucking accident. I came to talk. To deal with Cory. To make her realize she'd be a thousand times better off with me.”

  Hardly. The worst part is, he sounds like he truly believes his own crap.

  I don't know whether to roll my eyes or get sick.

  “It was you, wasn't it? The fire, the gas leak...”

  Sloan looks at me again, cold and emotionless.

  Wait. Not emotionless. He brings his hand up a little too quickly, coughs, wipes at something guilty and red hot streaming down his weathered cheek.

  “Horrific fucking accident, the fire. My bad. I never meant to kill anyone that night.” His voice is shaking. “But you, bitch, were supposed to be long gone. I tried to save Hunter, Ben...everything.”

  Bastard demon. I grit my teeth, wondering how I can even stand the pure evil so close and personal.

  “Maybe I flipped my shit that night. Had one too many before I decided to drive over. Tore up asshole Cory's property, clipped a few power lines, and damaged his gas valve. If it wasn't for that fucking spark...Christ almighty. The neighbor, she saw me standing in the trees. Screamed for me to get Ben before it was too late. He was in the screened-in porch. I could see him. Hear him. Other neighbors were coming, so I had to go get him, before I could go back for Juno...”

  His lips stop moving and a vicious glint appears in his eye. Like he's caught himself saying too much. That urge to be sick just keeps getting worse.

  I'm not even scared anymore.

  I want to kill this sonofabitch single-handedly. Kill him dead.

  Hot, hurt tears tear at my eyes, but I hold them back. I’ve fallen in love with both of them. Hunter and Ben.

  I shouldn’t have, but I did. I know it now when I'm forced to confront my own mortality with this murderer.

  There's only one man I’d ever want to marry and live happily ever after with.

  Only one boy who could ever be the perfect son. A little bit of trouble and a whole lot of fun.

  “Now you get it, Sugarplum. Why I tried like hell to keep Hunter from spilling the beans to Ben. The whole truth, and nothing but, will damn sure help him remember that day. Every little detail. And then he’ll wonder why I was really there. He'll find out fast I wasn't there to kiss and make up with old Cory. I was there to get my girl and take no prisoners.” He slows the truck. “Enough of this bullshit, though. Our little joyride's coming to an end real soon.”

  We turn off the interstate. There are no houses. And it’s growing darker and colder and windier by the minute.

  “Don’t worry, Wendy-bendy. Hunter knows where we're going. It’s my hunting cabin. He brought Ben up here once, but didn’t want the little wuss to have anything to do with hunting, with killing things. I'd have shown him so much better...”

  Asshole. It's hard not to fight, not to scream, but I have to keep control.

  I have to buy time.

  So I stick my foot up farther under the front seat, hoping there might be something, anything I can use to defend myself. To fight him off a little bit.

  “Why?” I ask, searching for a distraction. “Why take the money? Why screw Landmark and your friend over? Hunter has to pay you well. You can't bring back Juno, but you didn't have to steal, Sloan.”

  “Pays me well? Peanuts compared to his coconuts!” He's quiet for a moment. “For all the fucking running and slaving I did for him, for Juno...I deserved my piece. A big ol' piece of pie with plenty of whip.”

  “Then you're pretty dumb for sabotaging Landmark, aren't you? Selling off secrets to spies?”

  He cackles. “I’m not sabotaging shit. Hunter would catch on fast. Up till recently, I just did enough to get a little cash on the side off to my special bank account, in case a shitshow like this ever came along and blew my cover. But it's ruined, and I've planned for it. I ain't stupid. You'd better believe I'm gonna pull the cord on my golden parachute.”

  My entire being quivers. He's so methodical, so torn between madness and cold, calculating evil.

  “Better send my boy Hunt a text,” he says. “I'm sure he's figured out you're gone and getting good and worked up over it. He'll rush up here in a rage, carrying a bullet or two with my name on it. Not gonna let it happen.” He pauses. “By the time anybody puts two and two together, I'll be long gone. And you'll be in the same ravine as my best friend. At least I can give him that, your scheming bones with his for all eternity.”

  “You wish, you fucking coward,” I snarl.

  He turns again, just as the road gets rough. Maybe the extra jostle makes me feel it.

  Something hits my foot. Something hard.

  I catch it with the tip of my boot, dragging it from under the seat. A tire iron.

  A weapon. Finally.

  Now if I could just figure out how to get my hands out of this zip tie...

  My arms have gone numb from being stuck in the same position so long, except for my wrists. I force them to move, despite the pins and needles sensation, in order to wriggle my wrists against the tie.

  “Hear that?” Sloan says.

  I listen, but other than the truck, it’s silent. “Hear what?”

  “Silence, Wendy-bendy. Beautiful fuckin' silence, quiet as the grave.” He jerks the truck to a full stop and lets the engine rumble. “Don't go and ruin it screaming your pretty little head off.”

  18

  White Elephant (Hunter)

  There are taillights ahead and I know it’s Sloan.

  This is where I knew he’d take her, this place tucked about ten miles outside Moose Lake and any civilization.

  I’ve been to his cabin once, years ago. Brought Ben along.

  He was only nine or ten. I remember how he loved being outdoors, roasting marshmallows over a fire while Sloan and I drained a case of beer. I'd had to lay down the law when that asshole kept trying to talk him into shooting a gun.

  Told Sloan he was too young. And the noise scared him.

  If I'd known even a fraction of that sick fuck's betrayal, years later, I might've gotten the gun myself and shot Sloan down in the woods years ago.

  It would've saved us all so much grief.

  It's a small miracle I could even find the damn place. Couldn't remember the address, but I see the sign now, on the side of the road where he's turned, leaving fresh prints from his truck in the snow.

  I shut off my lights before turning onto the road, and then punch it in my phone and hit send so Will can inform the cops. I’m not taking any chances on this. Never on losing Wendy.

  She’s changed my whole life.

  I see headlights, then glowing red taillights again as Sloan’s truck tops a hill far ahead. I gun my accelerator, pulling forward, lights off, focusing on using only the moonlight to see the two ruts he’d left in the snow.

  The Yukon has four-wheel drive, but the ditches are deep. If I slide over the edge, I’d roll before being able to drive out.

  It's a risk I have to take.

  The two-hour drive up here was pure hell, with so much playing over and over in my mind
.

  Sloan, being at Cory’s house the night it burned up. I never considered how wrong I was for taking it at face value. I only thought about how he’d saved Ben's life.

  Sloan, fucking me over. For years. And the hell he did to Landmark barely registers.

  He used me. He used my brother. He used my woman. He used my son.

  And it's what he did to Ben, putting him in tears, that tells me I have to make sure he winds up behind bars, if I'm gracious enough not to put a bullet through his head.

  For his sake, he'd better fucking hope he hasn't done more than scare Sugar out of her wits. If he's harmed so much as a hair on her head...

  I close my eyes, fighting back the insane urge to literally skin this turncoat puke alive.

  Other things crash through my head, too. Just bits and pieces over the years, right down to those wedding pictures Ben ended up with a couple of weeks ago.

  They weren’t in the garage. I know they weren’t.

  They hadn’t been until Sloan planted them there. Trying to scare me by dredging up just enough reminders of the past so I'd think telling Ben anything more was too dangerous.

  Odd little things like that have happened before.

  But Uncle-Goddamned-Sloan always had an excuse, a reason of how something out of place got there.

  How I must've been lost in the past and put things in odd places I didn't remember for Ben or myself to stumble across.

  Fuck.

  I top the hill and see the house, clenching my teeth. An old farmhouse with a little ramshackle hunting cabin next to it. Sloan’s put some money in it over the years since he bought the place, so it’s decent enough, and he owns several hundred acres out here.

  I’ve never questioned it before, but now I wonder if he’s used it to hide things.

  Things that kept coming up missing over the years, maybe.

  The boxes of things I hauled out of Cory’s office a few weeks after his funeral and hadn't seen since?

  The car he’d kept in storage in California? A '69 Mach 1 Mustang I’d had shipped out here.

  It was stolen three years ago from storage. That was one of the reasons I partly retired, too, so I could stop losing shit and try to find the last few bits of my missing brother.