| |
December 18, 9:22 p.m. 05 seconds
(Lake St. Clair, Michigan)
––––––––
Kyle watched Juniper’s face go blank at his harsh words. He thought about a day stuck in his memory. An unlucky day. Three years ago, he had been visiting Ann Arbor for Thanksgiving, and on the flight from Chicago he had met Denise. It was a chance meeting. One he wished he could erase.
She had ordered a stiff whiskey and he had asked the steward for a non-alcoholic spritzer. Leaning across the aisle, Denise had asked why he was not drinking. After all, one needed alcohol to survive Ann Arbor, she had remarked.
The two had looked up and recognized each other.
Moving across the aisle to sit next to her, Kyle talked with Denise about the old times when they had been childhood friends. And he had made the stupid, stupid mistake of asking her out for dinner. It was the second biggest mistake he had made in his entire life—the primal one being Chloe. The next day they had met at the Chrome Fig.
It was the moment in time when Denise found an “in” to Royce and his millions.
It was the moment in time when the trajectory of Kyle’s war with her began.
And now, Kyle looked into Juniper’s hurt eyes with guilt. There were so many things about his past and future she would not understand.
She had been raised in a sterile social jail.
Her moral compass was limited and her universe brittle.
One wrong move and she’d vanish.
His only weapons were the guarded words he always chose carefully. That way he could control the narrative. Words were not an exchange of ideas for him but regulators of his wants and needs.
