Love Rekindled - Her Killer Husband

Chapter Thirteen

…

He loved her.

The words echoed in Katrina’s mind. She couldn’t get them out of her head.
And contrary to what she thought she would feel after executing her mission, Katrina only felt more miserable. In fact, she felt so miserable that her heart ached tremendously. And her eyes never dried after that.
Did Aaron just confess his feelings for her?  Was she missing out on something or what?
Even as the poison ate him inside, Aaron denied having a hand in her sister’s death. His face held the truth.
Had Katrina committed a great mistake? Had she been thinking wrong?
But those phone call conversations weren’t a lie. She hadn’t misheard those words he uttered.
Even as Katrina thought about that, she couldn’t help but wish in her heart that Aaron survived. She was so much confused and miserable at the moment, and also depressed.
It had been two days since she fed Aaron the poison. He had passed out after confessing his love for her and she had towered over his unconscious body, clueless about what to do.
To her astonishment that day, a knock came from the door and his driver had surprisingly entered inside. It was the driver who had taken him to the hospital. And till now, Katrina hadn’t heard any news about them.
Her anxiety grew by day and the strange feeling in her stomach didn’t cease, it increased.
She threw up continuously in the bathroom, and she felt sick to the bones. The nausea was too much to handle.
At nights, she would sleep on the cold empty bed and find herself thinking about Aaron. His sweet words and his endless pampering. And during the daytime, Katrina couldn’t leave the bed unless her hunger drove her downstairs to the kitchen.
Katrina buried her head in the pillow and held her stomach. This pain wasn’t only from hunger, she was very sure. She just returned from the kitchen a while ago. This pain was from something entirely different.
Katrina didn’t need to be afraid any longer of the repercussion. Because the repercussion had become true. She wasn’t used to this kind of pain, but she knew what it was.
Her eyes stung with hot tears as she thought about Aaron.
What the hell had she done? What trouble had she landed herself in?
True, she did her best to suppress those past emotions from resurfacing, however, Katrina had failed. She was deeply in love with Aaron, and she feared that poisoning him was her greatest misdoing.
Downstairs, the doorbell rang nonstop. Who was at the door? Katrina lifted her head from the pillow and sniffed.
She carefully left the bed, and her body felt light as she made her way downstairs.
The doorbell didn’t stop ringing and when Katrina unlocked the door and opened it, her heart dropped and her pupils expanded.
Four men were standing at the door. Three of them wore police uniforms and the fourth one was dressed in civilian cloth.
“Are you, perhaps, Mr. Jacksonville’s wife?” the man in the civilian cloth asked.
Katrina’s hand shook as she held the door open.
“Y-Yes.” she nodded hesitantly.
The four men exchanged glances and one of the men dressed in a police uniform asked, “May we come in, Mrs. Jacksonville?”
Katrina knew this day was coming soon, but she didn’t expect it to be so fast. The policemen were definitely here for her. Something must have happened to Aaron. Something horrible.
At the thought of that, Katrina’s heart sank and sank and she used her free hand to hold her stomach.
She made way for the men and lead them to the living room. She didn’t need to be anxious. She was already prepared for this.
“Mrs. Jacksonville.” the civilian man went to the point. “We are here because of your husband.”
Katrina stared down at her lap and fiddled with her fingers.
“Your husband has given us an assignment.” the man spoke on. “However.” he paused. “It has been two days, and we can’t reach your husband on the phone.”
“Huh?” Katrina looked up and frowned.
The policemen ignored her confusion and went on.
“This was going to be a secret assignment, but without your husband’s consent, we couldn’t carry on with the investigation. So if you please know where your husband is, let him know that we have found traces of his late wife’s murderer. We only need his permission to arrest the suspect.”
Her sister’s murderer? Arrest the suspect? A secret assignment?
What was going on?
Katrina sat in a  daze, trying to register the men’s words.
They weren’t here to capture her. They were here because Aaron had assigned them to capture her sister’s murderer?
Did that mean she had acted upon baseless assumptions? Did that mean the real murderer was someone else?
The men claimed that they had been communicating with Aaron. Was that the phone call conversations she had overhead?
The realization came with a formidable force and Katrina’s head spun with dizziness. Even after the men left, she wasn’t herself.
No sobs left her lips. The pain in her heart right now was unbearable. It was unbearable to the point that she could feel it in every one of her nerves.
Aaron wasn’t the real murderer, and her parents were right. What had she done?
And who was the real murderer? Who was heartless enough?
Katrina had misjudged Aaron. She had thought wrong of his actions.
And she didn’t need to continue hiding in the house. She had to find Aaron. She needed to see him right now.
No, she was willing to take any punishment, and she wanted to hear the rest of the story.
And would Aaron have told her everything if she had asked? He said he would never hurt her sister, he said he loved her.
Aaron’s love was real. His actions toward her were real. Katrina had been living in delusion. May she had been jealous of her sister.
He had always been in her heart. Katrina never got over Aaron. And now, she realized that her revenge wasn’t only because of the thought that he was her sister’s killer. Her revenge was also because of things that had happened in the past. Because of the rejection.