My heart leaps up into my throat as I hear the front door slam open. I know when it hits the wall in the hallway, I’m in trouble. It could be something work related that’s pissed him off, or one of his friends has annoyed him, or occasionally it’s actually my fault… it doesn’t matter what gets to him, I’m the one to suffer.

“H… hello, honey,” I call out, trying to act like everything is okay. “Would you like a drink?”

“Fucking drink. Why the fuck would I want a drink? Especially one poured by you.”

My blood frees cold, I suddenly panic that maybe someone’s told him about me with Jayden today. I tried to be careful with where we went but I know the power that Bryan wields. He could be anywhere. I brace myself, expecting the worst and this time, I’ll know that I deserve it. Meeting up with another man isn’t great… even if my husband is a cheating asshole who treats me like shit. No one should act that way…

“I have had such a fucking bad day.” As he enters the kitchen, Bryan throws his brief case down on the table but he doesn’t come anywhere near me which is good. When he’s up my face I get scared. “Fucking work is just terrible at the moment. I can hardly stand that fucking father of yours. Honestly, who does he think he is?”

The man who made you, I want to say, the man who gave you your first job and gave you a chance.

“My… my father?” I gulp instead. “Why are you working with my father? You don’t need to, do you?”

Bryan glares at me, I can hear rage flowing from his tone. “I don’t fucking need to work with your father at all. I don’t know why I still give him and his shitty business a chance. I don’t need him anymore.”

I can’t keep my eyes on him, I drag my gaze away to the floor. There’s a real intensity to him, it almost hurts. The way he’s staring through me like he wants to crush me like a bug under his shoe.

“Your father is fucking useless, isn’t he?” He prods me, he wants to irritate me, we’ve been here before. “He’s shit at business, he was crap in raising you, and he was a terrible husband as well.” I can’t help but flinch at that remark. “Your mother probably didn’t die, she probably killed herself to get away from him.”

I gasp, I can’t help myself, giving him the reaction that he wants. I just can’t believe anyone would say something so horrible. Even after all this time, he finds a way to stun me. He must get a sick kick from it.

“Yeah, I bet she thought fuck this asshole and this whiny brat of a kid, I’m out.” He laughs loudly and nastily. Each sound makes me cringe inside. How did I ever think he was nice? “At least she didn’t get to see you grow up to be such a silly slut. She would be very disappointed to see what a state you’ve become.”

Tears threaten to make an appearance but I refuse to let them out. I won’t let him see how much he’s gotten to me. I try to lift my head up but as I do I see a lipstick stain on his shirt which causes me to dart my eyes away. That fucking asshole has been sleeping with someone else and now he’s going in on me.

“Where the fuck is dinner, anyway? Have you bothered to make anything yet? What’s the point of having a housewife if you don’t do any of the shit you’re supposed to while here?”

“I er… I’ve had lots of errands to run today. I’m sorry I didn’t get around to it.”

“Errands,” he scoffs. “What errands? You don’t have anything to do today?”

I don’t argue with him, mostly because I have nothing to say. I’ve been doing my own errands today with Jayden. I can’t exactly tell him that now, can I? ‘Oh sorry, I’ve been with another guy’. Yeah that would go down real well. It’s better for me to stay silent so I don’t wind him up.

“Urgh, this is fucking ridiculous. I’m going to my office. Bring my dinner there.”

I watch him walk away, my heart thundering as I do. He’s always been this way, but he’s become worse ever since Peter has gone missing. He doesn’t want me to spend any time grieving, he just wants me to go back to doing all the chores around the house. He doesn’t want me to feel sad at all. And he doesn’t care himself.

“Right,” I mutter to myself while attempting to calm down. “Get dinner done.”

The main thing I need to do is act normal. I cannot let Bryan get suspicious. If he thinks anything is out of the ordinary he’ll be like a hound dog, sniffing like crazy. He can get beastly when he’s desperate. I don’t want to be the target of that. Not today when I’m at the edge of my tether anyway. I just need to cope.

I switch the cooker on and make myself busy with food. I need to just bury myself in what I’m doing. I don’t want to think about anything that happened today, I just need to forget. I need to try and push Jayden’s gorgeous face down. He’s going to be my hero, I really think he’s going to solve this. I’m sure I’ll have Peter back soon.

A little smile plays on my lips, he’s the only thing right now that makes me feel anything like good. I miss him already. I much prefer being in his presence than Bryan’s. He makes me feel comfortable and happy. It’s like the last few years have vanished when I’m with him, I felt more like myself than I have done in a long while.

“I have dinner,” I cry out, hoping that Bryan is in a better mood now. “Shall I bring it through?”

He doesn’t answer me, so I free up one hand to open up his door. As soon as he hears me he hangs the phone up rapidly and he slams it down on his desk. It’s immediately obvious that I’ve done the wrong thing.

“What the fuck, Savannah? Is there something wrong with you? I’m working here…”

“Sorry, I just thought that you wanted dinner. That’s all. I’m sorry.”

He kicks his chair back until it slams against the wall and glares at me. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Okay, look I’m sorry.” I place the plate down and try to defend myself as best I can. “I’m just trying to do what you want me to. Sometimes I can’t get it right, however hard I try.”

“Oh, don’t be fucking pedantic. You’re an asshole, Savannah.” He throws his hands in the air, frustrated. “Honestly, I’m fucking sick of being stuck with you. It’s ridiculous. How the hell did I end up in this position?”

I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s because I’ve seen Jayden today and I’ve been reminded that my life could be different, whatever it is I feel brave enough to actually say something today.

“You were the one who persuaded my father to set us up, remember? You asked to marry me.”

Spittle flies out of his mouth, I can see that he’s utterly desperate to say something to me and to be honest I want to hear it. I’d like him to say something honest to me. When he’s nice, he’s fake, when he’s angry, he’s nasty. I don’t ever get to see the real truth of him. All this time and I don’t know who he is.

“Don’t you ever say something like that to me again.” He looms closer to me. My heart balls up in my throat as he closes the gap between us. He’s just so much bigger than me. “You have no idea what happened.”

“Then enlighten me.” I shrug my shoulders. “I want to know.”

His face turns such a funny shade of purple I half expect the truth to come out, but as always Bryan regains control of himself at the very last moment and he shuts himself down. Instead, he hooks his hand under the plate and he flips it up so the food spills everywhere, splattering all over me at the same time.

“It barely fucking matters anymore why we’re married, does it? We just are and that’s the end of it.”

“So, we’re just accepting now that there’s no reason for us still to be here? We don’t want to be married?”

“We?” He snorts nastily. “Fucking we? No, there’s no we, you don’t get a say in this.”

“So, I just have to live my life as is without complaining at all?”

“You have never had a right to complain. Why would that change now?”

He looks at me disgusted and makes me shrink in on myself. He’s repulsed by me and I feel that way about myself. Maybe for different reasons but the end result is the same. I hate myself as much as he does.

“I’m fucking getting out of here.” He grabs his jacket. “I need to get a drink now and I can’t look at your fucking ugly face for another moment longer. I want all this cleared up before I get back.”

He stomps away and slams the door so hard it nearly shakes the whole house. Once he’s gone, my shoulders slump forwards with sadness. I feel defeated, stunned, sickened. We’ve had many rows, but that one feels like the worst. Perhaps it’s because it’s just happened, or maybe it’s the words yelled.

“I have to get out of here,” I murmur to myself as I start picking up the mess from the floor. “This is…”

My words trail off as I spot something I haven’t seen before - not that I spend a lot of time in this office - there’s a stack of papers, one of which looks like it has blood on it. If I didn’t have all these suspicions with Peter, maybe I would have turned a blind eye to this because I wouldn’t want to know. Not because I’m uncaring but because I’ve had it drilled into me that it’s none of my business.

But now it could involve my son, so everything is my business.

I slide the papers out with my pulse racing and I run eyes over it. It’s hard to know what any of it means, I don’t know much at all about his business, but this seems all wrong. Money transactions that are absolutely massive, and that involve names I vaguely recognize, plus one which I know very well. One which spikes bitter anxiety everywhere, all over me.

My dad.

“Dad?” A sickness swirls in my stomach. This feels all wrong. And who’s blood is plastered across it? That’s weird too. I want to call my father, to ask him what his role is in all of this, but we don’t have that kind of a relationship. Not since he pushed me onto Bryan, taking me away from the man I really wanted, and even less so since Peter went missing. “Oh, Dad, what the fuck are you involved in?”

I feel like the life I’ve always known is a lie, none of it makes sense anymore. I regret every single day that I lived it with my eyes closed. Maybe I deserve all of this, this might be what I get for being so weak.

Well, people can punish me however much they want, but my boy doesn’t have to suffer.

Now, more than ever, I need to get him back.

“Oh, Bryan.” I stare towards the door he slammed through not too long ago. “We are going to talk about this, you won’t get away with it. Just you wait and see.”