Unfaithful: Web Of Betrayal

She was in a haze. Everything was blurry. It was as if her mind was filled with fog, and tears were filling up her eyes. Declan was talking. He held her by the side of her arms. She remembered screaming, and Declan put his hand over her mouth. This was not really happening.

The next thing she heard from Declan was, as the fog was getting clear, “We can do this … you and me … we’ll clean this up, get rid of the body, and no one will know.” He nodded profusely as if to get her to agree with him. “I did this for us … don’t you see? He gave me no choice … I love you, Olivia, this is the only way we can be together peacefully … he won’t leave us alone … he’ll never leave us alone.”

She pushed his hand off her mouth, “You’re crazy … you’ll never get away with this.” Her breaths were heavy from the immense pressure of his crime. “You killed him.”

“You did too … you think you’ll be free of this? I didn’t kill him … we did.”

The realization of what he said left her stunned. She felt something pushing up from her stomach. He was right. Even though she didn’t hold the gun to his head, she was a part of it too.

She shook her head, “I can’t do this.”

She had one hand on her head and the other holding her abdomen. She looked around the murder scene and what was left of the man she once loved, and maybe … she still does.

“We can’t get away with this … YOU! You can’t get away with this … I didn’t kill him, I never wanted him to die … you did this.”

He shook her, “We did this, Olivia, you know that’s true … they will look at our relationship, find we have every motive to do this, and put us in jail … and for what? For wanting to be free from him? He’d kill us if we didn’t do this.”

He always had a way of rationalizing everything, even murder, justifying his every action, but she was not convinced. “We don’t know that … he’s not a murderer.”

“I’m not a murderer! And look at what you made me do?”

The sudden spike in his voice startled her.

“I did this for you … you did this to me … to him … now we have blood in our hands, but we can get through this together … because that’s all I ever wanted, Olivia … I just want to be with you.”

His eyes softened, tears were pushing through their corners, “I can’t lose you, baby, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me … I’d do anything for you … you know that …”

His grip loosened, and he pulled her into his embrace. His whole body was shaking. He’s not a murderer. The fact that he had just killed another human being had just materialized in him. He was hyperventilating. He cried.

She stood still. Her brain froze. Her eyes stared into nothing. How did it all come down to this? How will they ever get through something like this?

She slipped her arms around his waist. The warmth of his body, the familiarity of it, soothed her. Is it love? Can she ever love a person who had committed murder? Let alone murder someone who was dear to her heart, no matter how bad it was, they were once deeply in love.Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

But this man loves her too, so much that he is willing to risk everything for her. She pressed her face on his shoulder and breathed his scent. This man would do anything for her, and he had proven it.

She clasped her hands together behind his back and felt the diamond ring on her finger. She sobbed. The ring was still on her finger. It had to mean something. She pulled back from him. She looked deep into his eyes, trying to find something to convince herself of what she had to do next.

He was half the man he used to be, lost in the chaos of what he had done. He needed her.

Just hours before, they had made love as husband and wife like they hadn’t been in a long time. Just hours before, he had chosen her over his own family. Something that she always deemed impossible. Declan had made the impossible possible for her. She glanced at the body on their living room floor. The hairs on her back stood up. This was his doing too.

She saw the despair in his eyes. She was the only person in the world that could help him. After what she had done to their marriage. After what he had done for her. Their 20 years of togetherness lay solely in her hands.

His face was wet with tears. She put her hands on his cheeks and looked into his eyes. “We have tarps and plastics in the storage … you have to wrap the body … ’cause I can’t do it,” she sobbed. “I’ll clean the rest,” she added.

There was instant hope projected in his eyes. He nodded. He held her hands and pressed his lips against hers. “I love you … there’s no one else in this world for me, Livy. You have to believe me.”

“We have to hurry. Turn on the lights, I’ll get the tarps from the storage room.”

She was about to take the step downstairs when the lights were switched on. Then she heard a gasp. She looked at Declan. He was staring at the body on the floor. He had one hand covering his mouth.

“It’s not him …”