A Family Affair
I killed someone when I was eighteen. Want to know the crazy part? I'd do it again.
Her name was Sofia. The au pair. My parents hired her to look after Forty and me while they were off doing whatever rich, absent parents do.
Sofia was pretty. Sweet. Everyone loved her.
And she was grooming my brother.
I saw them together. The way she touched him. The way he looked at her—confused and ashamed and desperate for approval. My twin. My other half. Being destroyed by a monster wearing a smile.
So I destroyed her first.
You can call it murder. I call it love. I call it doing what no one else in my family had the courage to do.
When Joe came into my life, I recognized something in him immediately. The willingness to cross lines. The understanding that sometimes, love means getting your hands dirty.
I thought he was my soulmate. I thought we were the same.
Turns out we were too much the same. Two predators can't share territory. One of us was always going to end up prey.
The Perfect Wife
I'm not crazy. I just love harder than most people can handle.
Joe thinks he's special. He thinks his little internal monologue makes him unique, his ability to justify murder as protection. Please. I was doing this while he was still fumbling through his first kill.
The difference between us? Joe falls in love with ideas of women. He projects perfection onto them, then gets upset when they turn out to be human. He doesn't want a partner. He wants a fantasy.
I wanted a partner. Someone who could look at all of me—the good parts and the dark parts—and love every piece. Someone who killed for the same reasons I did.
I thought Joe was that person. I revealed my truth to save him, to show him we could be together completely. No secrets. No masks.
But Joe doesn't want an equal. He wants a victim.
That's his pathology—not mine. I may be a murderer, but at least I'm honest about what I am. Joe hides from his own nature, plays the tortured romantic, acts like he has no choice.
We all have choices. I chose to fight for my marriage. I chose to be the best mother I could be. I chose to eliminate everyone who threatened my family.
And when Joe chose to become my enemy?
I chose to fight him too.