My Dead Fiancé

Restraining the tremble in my hand, I pressed the barrel of the gun against his temple. A vein in his forehead popped, and his jaw tensed like it always did when he was uncomfortable. 

Good. I hope you’re fucking uncomfortable. 

Holding my breath, I cocked the gun and tightened my grip around the stock—the cold metal smooth against my skin. 

I wanted him to talk—to beg for mercy, for forgiveness—to tell me that he was sorry, that he was wrong. But no amount of willing through my gaze could pry his lips open. We both knew it. Though I suspected that even if a miracle occurred, and he did speak, I wouldn’t like what he had to say anyways. 

He sat in the leather chair propped in the back of his office behind his desk, hands clenched into fists on the table. With his dark hair, ice-gray eyes, and suit, you would have thought that he’d be the one trying to kill me and not the other way around. And yet…

“Stop the investigation, Weston,” I ordered, “and everything can go back to the way it used to be. We can go back the way we used to be.” 

I was met with a wall of silence. 

“I didn’t want it to come to this,” I continued, “but you’ve left me with no choice.” I leaned towards him, bringing my face close enough to his that I could lick his lips. I kept the gun cocked against his head. 

Still nothing. 

I grimaced and caught my lower lip between my teeth, smudging the cherry red lipstick my stylist had applied earlier. I jerked away from him, stood upright, and resumed the hovering stance that I’d adopted immediately after striding into his room uninvited and pointed a gun at his head. A part of me wanted to stop—to drop the gun and wrap my arms around him and say that I was sorry—that I was wrong. But that part was a mere twig in the wooden dam I had built—and I knew that if the twig loosened, water would come flooding down, destroying everything that the dam was meant to protect. 

Plus, I wasn’t the old Lilliana anymore. She’d died a long time ago—along with everything else that she’d cared about once: her family, her friends, her fiancé… 

My gaze darted back to Weston, and I saw that he’d fixed his eyes on me too, daring me to look away. 

“I don’t want to do this,” I murmured… so please don’t fucking make me. Please, Weston. I peered into his sharp, gray eyes, trying to find a trace of him that I’d once loved. A trace of him that I’d trusted to protect me, no matter the cost. A trace of him that loved me more than anything else in the world. For a second, I swore I caught a glimpse of that trace, but it drifted into the abyss of his irises before I could confirm. 

Still no response. 

“What do I have to do?” I tilted my head back and inhaled deeply. “What do I have to do to get back what I had? What we had?” I drew out the word we for the second time in the span of two minutes, hoping that I’d get a reaction from him. Even the slightest nod. But his face remained stone cold, his lips sealed tight. The only sign that told me that he was even alive was the steady rise and fall of his chest; it followed a rhythm that I knew all too well. 

I could still picture the two of us laying on the bed, my hand clasped over his chest as a morning breeze blew through the window on the opposite end of the room. Light spilled through the windows and the effervescent curtains as I stirred in the bed and pulled myself closer to him. Warmth radiated from his pale skin as he ran his fingers through my hair, then along my face. Weston traced my features gently, the corners of his lips ticking up, a glimmer in his eyes that turned them a bright shade of silver. 

“I love you,” he whispered as his finger traveled down my neck. I nuzzled my head closer to him and opened my mouth to tell him that I loved him too. But a sharp pain shot up my throat. My eyes widened. I gasped for air, clawing at my throat and his hand, which wrapped itself tightly around my neck. His fingers left a deep scarlet imprint on my skin. Still, he squeezed tighter. 

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe, Weston, I wanted to scream. But the air had left my lungs. My vision blurred, and his face became a haze. The loud clank of metal hitting the ground rang in my ears, and I blinked back tears, gasping for oxygen that had been scarce only moments before. 

Fuck. My eyes darted to the ground. I dropped the gun. 

Squinting, I scrambled to the ground, down on all fours like a rabid dog as I searched for my weapon. My leverage against Weston—all six foot three and two hundred pounds of him. 

Where is the fucking gun?

A creak sounded beside me, and I leaped up, coming face to face with Weston. He’d stood from his chair, his face maintaining its cold facade as he pointed the gun straight at my head. 

How fast things could change.

I stared at him, daring him to pull the trigger. I wiped the tears from my eyes and grounded myself and rampant emotions. The emotions of a weak, stupid girl that I’d left buried in the dust years ago. I was not that girl. She was dead. And I was alive—being held at gunpoint by my fiancé, who, if I survived this confrontation, would become my ex-fiancé; or better yet, my dead ex-fiancé. 

No! A voice inside me screamed. You can’t hurt him! I love him! 

I told that voice to shut-up and go to hell. Love was incorporeal. Fragile. Labile. Something that could be snapped as easily as the twig that held my dam together. 

Money was palpable. Power was everlasting. Control was constant. 

If you handled situations the right way, that was, and I was determined to do just that. 

“Weston.” His name tasted poignant on my tongue. “Drop the gun, and we can talk about this. We can talk about us.” 

His expression softened—if only a little—but he didn’t lower the weapon. 

“Are you really going to kill me?” I asked, trying to hide the strain in my voice. “After all we’ve been through together?” 

At this remark, he finally spoke, “I don’t even know you anymore.” 

The words were sharp enough to cut through the bricks of my million dollar house. Our million dollar house. 

“Fine, I’ll introduce myself, then.” I took a step forward. “I’m Lilliana, an investment banker at Sterling Bancorp & Partners on Wall Street. I also happen to be your finance and the woman that paid for the house you live in now—on top of numerous things you own that I won’t be disclosing in your office because I don’t think that would be very appropriate.” I eyed the gun. “Given the situation we’re in at the moment.” 

“I never asked you to do that.” He murmured. 

“Pardon?” 

“I never asked you to buy the house or any of the other things. That was never what I wanted, but somewhere along the way, you seemed to forget that. Somewhere along the way, you seemed to forget…” 

“I bought them for us. So that we could live the kind of life we’ve always wanted!” 

He shook his head. “I never wanted this life, Lily. And–and I thought that we were on the same page. But it seems that I was wrong.” 

“God damn it, Weston. What the hell are you talking about? Are you out of your mind?” I pursed my lips and edged closer again—almost close enough to grab the gun. But not quite. 

“I’m not the one who walked into my office and pointed a gun at my head.” His tone was cold, but somewhere between his words, I felt a scintilla of the warmth and kindness he used to have when we talked. 

No. He’d only ever used it with the Old Lilliana. Never me. Never me. 

“You shouldn’t have started that investigation,” I hissed. “You shouldn’t have interfered with my plans in the first place.” 

“What did you expect me to do?” He kept his voice low as the muscle in his jaw ticked. “You leaked false information about my company.” 

I flinched. It was true. The CWA, Weston’s non-profit organization, had been known for its transparent and ethical approach to advocating worker’s rights. They’d built a strong reputation for holding corporations accountable for their treatment of employees while advocating for fair labor practices. And with the snap of my fingers, I’d destroyed everything that he was trying to protect. I’d oversaw a merge that rolled in billions but laid off thousands of workers in the process. Workers with families that relied on that source of income to survive. And with the skills those workers had, they knew they’d be unemployed for a while—and the only thing left to do had been to strike. 

“I was only trying to help those workers receive the fair treatment they deserved, and you—” forged files on my company that suggested funds allocated for worker assistance programs may have been misused, I finished for him. 

A media firestorm had followed, with headlines accusing CWA of hypocrisy and internal corruption. And it had been my fault. We both knew it. 

“The internal investigation was only meant to prove our innocence.” I knew that when he used our, he was not referring to me—on any level. “It was never my intention to harm you.” 

He started lowering the gun, and I saw my chance. My body reacted faster than my mind, and I reached out to grab the gun. If he knew what I was trying to do, he didn’t resist. I snatched the weapon from him, and, once again, we switched grounds. 

“But you are harming me.” I whispered. “Don’t you see? If you go through with this investigation, I’ll be ruined. My reputation, career, and all.” 

He shook his head. “And what of those workers?” 

I stared at him like a deer caught in headlights. What did they matter to me? 

“Everyone has a job in this society,” I mused. “And mine is to maximize the chance of profits in every investment and project I take on. It’s not my fault if that doesn’t align with other people’s jobs. It’s not my job to babysit them.” The corners of my lips twitched. “That’s your job.”

Weston drew out a long breath, sat in his leather chair, and leaned back, breathing in the spring air that rolled through the windows behind us. 

“Will you stop the investigation?” I asked—one final time. 

He didn’t respond—not with words, at least. He closed his eyes and shook his head. 

My hands quaked, every fiber in my muscles taut. Taking one final look at the man who I once loved, I pulled the trigger.