Backstabbing Friend's Self-Inflicted Shame novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Mercy

Rafe's POV

I let the phone ring four times, because I wanted to be sure my voice would work.

Then I put it on speaker and laid it on the bedspread between Greer and me.

"Hello, Valeria."

"Husband." She sounded warm and a little tired. "I hoped you'd pick up. Is Greer there? I can hear her breathing."

"She's here."

"Hello, Greer."

Greer said nothing.

She sat up against the headboard with the sheet to her chest and her eyes on the screen.

"I won't keep you," Valeria said. "I watched that video of Tate on the kitchen floor all day. I thought, that is not a man who is going to look after me."

"Is that right?" I said.

"He sat in my kitchen and bled and smiled. I've known that smile since I was nineteen."

I let that go by.

"What do you want?" I said.

"Out."

"Out of what?"

"All of it. Tate is planning something for Thursday that I don't love. I'll give you the account where your money is, one point four to the penny. I'll give a statement against him. I'll sign any divorce you put in front of me."

"In exchange for what?"

"Nothing."

"Valeria."

"For a little mercy, then." Her voice cracked in exactly the right place. "I'm thirty-two, Rafe, and I'm tired. I never had the chance to be anyone else."

I looked at Greer.

She was watching my hands, not the phone, and she shook her head once, very slightly.

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