Capture Me

Walk Away If You Have To, But I'll be Two Steps Behind And Gaining

"You're taking me back to my apartment, right? I already told you the address a hundred times since you pushed me in your car. Are we taking a long cut?" Thalia asked without looking at his direction as they drove through the city lights of New York.

He glanced at her then back to the road, a grin plastered on his face. "No, I'm taking you home, back to our house."

Our house? Her just-calmed heart started pounding again. "There is no 'our', Ryder. That's your house." She averted her eyes on the side of his face that the dim light hid. "Are we just going to ignore the fact that you just killed a man?" That I was supposed to kill. She left out.

She studied the half of his face. He changed a lot in the five years of their separation, his face looked harsher—crueler. She couldn't help but compare what he was like before to the man beside her at the present. His eyes seemed to have turned hard, like it saw things that a person couldn't bear to even take a glance. The eyes that used to stare lovingly at her, the eyes that she fell in love with. Sweet memories about them flooded her mind, but it shattered the moment she heard his voice.

"I killed him because I had to." He said it like they were talking about the weather, like it was the most normal thing. "Why were you there with him, Nara, and with a gun?"

She clutched her purse with her hands and averted her gaze to the window when he glanced at her. "I was just there." As vague as it sounded, it was true. She would not risk exposing her team and the mission that she compromised. What face was she going to show them? She just hoped they got out safely.

She took out her phone and texted Jesse, I'm fine just ran into something. Contact you when I can.

She was about to turn off her phone when it vibrated, attracting the attention of the man beside her.

Without a word, the driver snatched Thalia's phone and threw it out the car window.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" It didn't slip her mind that her company was driving so she resisted smacking him in the face.

"Are you a prostitute now?" As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he immediately regretted them.

Thalia gasped and snorted, her phone long forgotten. "Do not lump me with your mistresses, Ryder. I wouldn't stoop to that just to eat. I'd rather starve to death, and kill than let stranger hands and other body parts touch me." She frowned and faced him. "Is that how you see me now, that without your billions, I wouldn't manage to find a decent job to keep myself alive and resort to selling my body?" She turned her head to the window, not liking to show any weakness from him as the tears welled in her eyes. She watched the blurring lights instead to keep her mind off of the hurtful words he'd just flung at her.

I'd rather kill than be touched that way. She repeated in her mind.

Ryder sighed. "I'm sorry, I-"

She cut him off, "I've been wanting to contact you, to tell you this, Ryder. Since there's really no point on keeping the title of our past relationship," she told him in a low voice.

He almost knew what she was going to say but he scrubbed it out of his mind, told himself that he was just thinking too much.

"I want a divorce."

He felt his heart drop to his stomach and the car nearly swerved to the other lane. "Fuck no!" No, no, he wouldn't be able to live—he wouldn't let her. Their five-year separation was long enough—too long, an eternity. He's got her in his car now, and there was no way he was letting her walk away this time.

Thalia snorted still not looking at him. "After all you've done you think you have the right to say 'fuck no'?" She frowned.

"I didn't cheat on you." Ryder resisted putting his hands on his head and pulling out his hair. "I've told you so many times that it was work!" His chest ached knowing that his wife didn't trust him at all, didn't even bother to doubt. She just left.

She looked at him, but his glassy eyes were on the road. "A work, to what? Make out with a fuckin' stripper?" The fucking bitch knew I was there, she knew who I was! She wanted to add.

He ground his teeth. "I was on an undercover mission." He growled. He wasn't at liberty to tell her anything, but what about his relationship with his wife? Will he let a piece of information drift them farther apart?

"Undercover?" She was yelling now. "So that's what you were doing every time you got home late. Going under cover with your whore!"

Ryder met her gaze with an angry one, then back to the road. "She's not a whore," he gritted out. "She's-"

She stared at him feeling like she had been slapped, Thalia clenched her jaw and turned to the window, saw nothing outside but the black of the night, illuminated by sparks of light from the buildings and streets.

"You love her," she said after a long, heavy silence. Her head whipped to his direction, eyes wide. "How long?" Thalia's voice shook with unshed tears.

Her husband looked at her, confusion marring his face. "What? No!" He slowed and stopped in front of their house. A modern victorian that was almost made of glass, the exterior painted in white with the exception of the doorframe that was painted of the same color as the door—mahogany red. Wide and tall windows lined the second floor, the inside obscured by the thick-looking, gray-brown curtains. "I told you so many times-" Before he could finish, Thalia unbuckled her seatbelt and was out of the car in a flash.

"Nara," Ryder called. "Nara get your ass back here!"

Thalia didn't listen, she kept on walking.