The Seventh Casing

I gave him seven bullet casings once. Seven promises to forgive. I thought love could trump boundless favoritism. Then he changed the lock code on our home to the birthday of Lena, his long-lost savior and unrequited love. He let her tear apart the home I'd built. He let her steal the wedding gown I'd poured two years into. Six times I stepped back. When he held out the last casing, I threw it away myself. Dean. Seven was the end of it. Whatever the Don wants to lavish on someone else, I'm done fighting for it. I don't want it anymore. Chapter 1 "Beep. Incorrect code. Please try again." The automated voice repeated it for the seventh time. My fingertips had gone cold, and I finally had to admit it: Dean had changed the lock code on our marital home. But this was our marital home. The place I'd poured a full year of my life into. The floor plan, the paint on the walls, every single piece on display, I'd hunted them all down across a dozen countries. This was the home Dean and I had promised to grow old in. I called him. The other end was full of voices and the faint clink of metal, the particular noise of his men handling business. Dean sounded annoyed. "Ava, I'm busy." "You changed the code to our place?" I cut in, keeping my voice low. He paused, then rattled off a string of numbers like it was nothing. "Try 980206." My breath caught. That number was Lena's birthday. Dean's tone softened. "Her place is too damp. You know she still hasn't healed. She took that bullet for me, her leg never got better. I'm letting her stay here for a while." My nails dug into my palm. The sharp little pain couldn't hold back the cold rising in my chest. I said it slowly, each word shaking. "This is our marital home. Yours and mine." "Ava, it's a few days. We've got plenty of properties, one apartment isn't going to break us." His voice turned flat. "Look, stay at a hotel for now, I'll set it up. That's it. I'm busy." Then the line went dead. I'd had this conversation too many times. Lena said she liked it once, and the birthday necklace he'd given me ended up around her neck. "You have so much jewelry, one piece won't matter. I'll buy you another." Back then there'd at least been some guilt in his voice. Later, a dress I'd designed was on her body before the sketch was even finished. When I confronted him, he didn't care anymore. "My brilliant designer has no shortage of ideas. What's one dress? Lena loves it. She won't even take it off." She "accidentally" crushed a framed photo of Dean and me, and all he did was say, impatient, "We can always take more photos. Don't make a thing out of one picture." If it had anything to do with Lena, everyone else was forced to yield. Everyone in Westport knew it: Dean, the Don, had exactly one soft spot, and it was the woman who'd saved his life. What no one knew was that I was the one who'd been with him for ten years, the fiancee he'd already promised to marry, an independent couture designer with a name of my own in the industry. And a designer with both looks and talent has no shortage of men chasing her either. One of him isn't hard to replace. My finger found the keypad. I typed in another woman's birthday. The lock clicked and opened. A thick, cloying wave of perfume hit me. I held my breath, and the blood rushed to my head. The living room I'd kept soft and understated was gone. The greige walls I'd chosen with such care had been slapped over in a harsh candy pink. The oil paintings and antiques I'd gathered across Europe were shoved into a corner gathering dust, replaced by a pile of cheap, childish stuffed animals. On the main wall, dead center, hung a portrait of two people. Lena tucked against Dean's chest, a bridal veil over her hair, her expression all softness, as if she were the lady of the house. My eyes passed over it, and years of swallowed humiliation went off like a charge. I flipped the coffee table. China shattered across the floor. I tore the disgusting portrait down and the frame split apart on the boards. The room was wrecked. I sank into the couch. If he was going to let another woman foul the home we'd built, then he could have her. I'd hand all of it over. I hadn't cooled down yet when the lock turned again. Lena came in wearing that soft, coquettish smile of hers. And behind her, of course, the man who was supposed to be so busy. Dean. Chapter 2 Lena let out a gasp. On instinct Dean's gun was already out, the black muzzle leveled at me, and then he seemed to actually see my face. He froze for a single second, then dropped the muzzle. Something rare crossed his eyes: nerves. "Ava?" Lena's terror smoothed away in an instant, replaced by a look of deep, pitiful hurt, her eyes reddening right on cue. The switch was so smooth and seamless it was textbook perfect. "Oh, welcome to my marital home. Even if the code's your birthday now, Lena." I spread my arms, mocking. "I barely recognize the place. Don't you think, Dean?" "Ava, I told you to go to a hotel." Dean's face was dark with anger. "Look at what you've done to this place. Like we've been robbed." "You have been robbed. You've just forgotten this marital home is mine." I lifted my chin, fists tight at my sides. "And somehow it's become hers." "Ava, I'm so sorry. I just thought the old color was too cold, it didn't feel warm. I only wanted Dean to come home to something different. You know how exhausted he is, I just wanted him to relax a little. It's all my fault, okay?" Lena clutched my arm, pleading. The rehearsed hurt on her face alone was enough to turn my stomach. "Please don't fight because of me. I know I'm in the way everywhere I go. I never should have shown up in front of you." She dissolved into sad little sobs, and then her bare legs gave out and she actually sank to her knees in front of me. "Don't blame Dean. He's so tired, and he loves you, Ava." If she hadn't been gripping me so hard it hurt, I might almost have bought the devout little performance. I threw her hand off. She took the cue, stumbling back several steps, and, how convenient, fell right into Dean's arms. Dean's face went cold. "Ava, what do you think you're doing?" "It's my fault, Dean, just let me leave. I don't want to be misunderstood, I don't want the two of you fighting over me." Lena cried harder, as if she'd suffered some enormous wrong. "Apologize." Dean's voice dropped, and the whole room felt the weight of it. "Ava." Lena curled boneless against him, sniffling, but her eyes met mine in open challenge. "Apologize?" I stepped toward him, holding his gaze. "For what, exactly? For coming back to my own home? For finding the code changed, the place redone, a portrait of you and another woman on my wall?" Dean faltered, as if only now noticing the portrait of him and Lena on the wall. He let go of her and reached up, stiff, to loosen his tie. "Ava, it's not what you think." He pressed his brow. "Lena thought our engagement photos were beautiful, she wanted one of her own, so she had Reed paint it. You know she doesn't even have a boyfriend, so I—" "So you became her boyfriend?" I bit my lip, fighting down the anger climbing in me. "Don't be ridiculous." Dean's voice cracked out hard. "Lena's like a sister to me. It's one portrait. Can't a brother and sister—" "Brother and sister? In a bridal veil?" I laughed, the kind of laugh that only comes when you're past fury. "It's not like that, Ava. I just envied you so much, having a fiance like Dean, and I have nothing. He only wanted to give me one small thing I wished for." Lena's eyes glistened, all frightened, wounded innocence. I couldn't hold back. I raised my hand and slapped her hard across the face. “Don’t think I’m blind to your filthy schemes!” Without a thought, pure reflex, Dean pulled Lena behind him and shoved me, hard. The way you'd handle an enemy. I slammed into a standing lamp, then into the lounge chair behind it, and the pain shot through me. Dean's arm twitched. Regret flickered across his face. He came to steady me, his voice gentling. "All right, Ava. Let Lena stay one more night, tomorrow I'll arrange somewhere and move her out. Don't be angry. You're my fiancee. Don't lower yourself." I pushed myself up. The pain in my back brought a cold sweat to my forehead. None of it was as cold as the disappointment sitting in my chest. "Don't bother, Dean." My face had gone pale. I stepped back. "If you're going to play favorites this openly, then I'm out." His face went iron-gray. He spoke through his teeth, the threat plain. "Don't push me, Ava." I shrugged. "Too late. You already pushed me." I turned and left, and every step hurt down to the bone. This love had gotten cheap. I didn't want it anymore. Chapter 3 It was the wee hours when the hotel door opened and Dean walked in. Of course. Anywhere inside his territory in Westport, finding me was nothing. He pulled me in despite me, Lena's sharp perfume still clinging to him. "I've already moved Lena out. I'll have the place put back the way it was." He had lowered himself completely. "Don't be angry, all right, Ava?" Like a magic trick he produced a small bullet casing and waved it in front of me. "I chased you for seven whole years. When you agreed to be mine you gave me seven casings. You said if I ever made you angry, I'd get seven chances to make it right." He buried his face in my neck. "You know I was out of my mind happy that day. Take the casing. Don't be angry anymore." My fingers closed slowly around it. The good memories dragged at my nerves now like something blunt and tearing. But he seemed to have forgotten: this was the sixth one already. When I said nothing, the tension went out of him. He turned and went to the bathroom. My phone lit up. A message from Lena. "Dean, don't forget what you promised me tomorrow. You have to come to the graduation showcase. But I still don't have a gown." I let out a cold snort. The money he'd handed her this past year could buy a shopping mall. As if she couldn’t afford a gown. Yet Dean believed every lie and excuse out of her mouth. He came out, picked up his phone, and a faint smile touched his face, a tenderness and an indulgence I rarely got. He stepped back into the bathroom, lowering his voice on purpose. "Sure. Come by my office tomorrow, I'll take you to pick a gown." I rolled over, and the tears came anyway, and I hated them for it. The next day around noon, a photo came through, from my best friend, Suzy. Before I could really look, my phone rang. "Vee, look at it. Is that bitch wearing your wedding gown?" Suzy's voice was tight with panic. My stomach dropped. I pulled the photo up fast. It was Lena's graduation showcase. She stood in the middle of the crowd in a short white bridal dress, the center of everything. The gown was unmistakable. That moonset texture, the faded-photograph print along one side, the diagonal scatter of tiny diamonds, all of it familiar, all of it one of a kind. I'd spent two years on it. Drawn it line by line, sewn it stitch by stitch, by my own hand. It had been sitting in Dean's private lounge. I'd imagined it a thousand times: wearing that one-of-a-kind gown to marry the man I loved most. And now the skirt had been cut away, turned into a flirty little dress on another woman's body, passed off as her work. My blood went cold, and my mind went blank. I didn't know how I got into that hall, how I shoved through the crowd fawning over her. When I saw the gown up close, cut short, butchered past recognition, I wanted to kill her on the spot. People screamed. I kicked Lena to the floor and the gown tore to pieces. Camera flashes went off all around, and I was past reason, eyes red, slapping her perfect face again and again. "How dare you touch her? Are you out of your mind?" The first thing Dean did when he reached us was knock me down and yank off his jacket to cover her. Lena shook in his arms, and the second she saw him she grabbed on and wailed. "Ava, I said no one touches her. That includes you." Dean's eyes were red as he closed in on me. "You know what happens now." Breathing hard, I lifted my face and pointed at Lena, my finger trembling. "My wedding gown. Why is it on her?" Dean scoffed. "Over this?" That careless contempt cut straight through me. The gown I'd treasured, poured everything into, was worth nothing to him. "It's one gown. Lena didn't have anything to wear, so she borrowed it. I'll just buy you another. What the hell are you even throwing a fit about here!" He caught my jaw and dropped his voice. "When you're done losing it, get out. You're embarrassing me." "One gown?" I wrenched out of his grip, shaking so hard with rage I couldn't stop it. "I sewed it stitch by stitch. I drew it line by line. I designed it with everything I had, to wear when I married you." "My design, my gown, you handed it to someone else and let her put her name on it and wear it to a showcase." My voice tore. "She saved you, not me! You play favorites in broad daylight, you announce it to the world, you let her walk in and out of my home and trample everything I've built. But I owe her nothing. I'll see you in court." I'd never been this far gone. Dean's throat worked, as if he was trying to gauge whether I meant it. "My god. So she stole the dress." "That's shameless." "No wonder. Average work all this time, and suddenly something this stunning. Disgraceful." The whispers spread through the crowd. Red with shame and anger, Lena grabbed at Dean's sleeve and looked up at him, desperate. "Ava, it was all my idea." Dean ground his teeth, patted her hand to settle her, then came toward me. "I'll get you an identical one, I promise. Lena needs this grade. I'll trade you for it." In his hand was a bullet casing. "Now tell them the dress is Lena's design. You know how much it matters to her." His voice was soft and yet full of pressure, an edge of warning under it. It was the seventh. The last casing. The last chance, and he was spending it to grind down what was left of my dignity. "This is the last time, all right? I swear, once Lena's standing on her own, I'll never take her side again. We'll get married right away, okay?" Dean murmured it against my ear, gripping my shoulders, his eyes all anxious pleading. I gave a bitter laugh and stepped back. "We've known each other ten years. Together for three. You never once spent these casings." "After Lena saved you, she said one word, scared, and you rushed to her. Two in the morning, you left me alone on a road outside the city. I crouched on the shoulder for three hours, and it never crossed your mind that I might be scared. The next day you handed me the first casing." "Lena thought the ring on my finger was pretty, so you had me take it off and put it on hers, never remembering I'd designed it myself, carved it over two months, that it was a pair with the one you wore. That was the second casing." "My cat, the one I loved, Lena 'accidentally' lost out past the city, and I searched for a solid two weeks. You said it was just a cat. Where was the problem? The third casing." "On my birthday you gave Lena the necklace I'd had made, and handed me a bouquet, said you'd make it up to me. The fourth." "She smashed our photo on purpose, stepped on it a few times for good measure, and you said she was simple-hearted, she didn't mean it. The fifth." "Our marital home. You let her play the lady of the house. The sixth." I held up the casing in my hand. My eyes stung, but something in me had gone calm. Maybe it was the strangeness of that cold that unsettled him. Dean panicked in a way I almost never saw. "Ava, you said you'd forgive me." I dodged his reaching hand and said it coldly. "I did. I said that." "But Dean, not once, in any of those six times, did I really forgive you." "That was because I still loved you. Still cared. Still expected something from you." "This time, though." I looked at him and said it slowly. "This time I really do forgive you." "Because—" I threw my arm out. The casing struck the crystal screen and the sound of it breaking was sharp enough to hurt. "We're done." Dean stood frozen. At the corner of Lena's mouth, a flicker of triumph. I turned and walked, step by step. "Ava." His voice was barely holding the fury down. "You know who I am. You know what I can do. You're not going anywhere." Was that so. I laughed, somewhere inside. Out the doors, I called Sam. "Miss Ava." Sam sounded puzzled. "Tell Sam I'll come back to the family." Steady, certain, every word spaced out and slow.