Ruthless Creatures by J.T. Geissinger

When he stays silent, I prompt, “You mean he wanted the
trust money you gave me?”
“No.”
“Then what money was he talking about?”
The way he’s looking at me is frightening. There’s a
deadness in his eyes, an ending, but I don’t know what it
means.
He says quietly, “The one hundred million dollars your
fiancé stole from Max.”
My wildly beating heart falls deathly still.
Once, when I was ten years old, I jumped off the highest
diving platform at the community pool. Sloane dared me to do
it, so of course I did.
I meant to do a cannonball, because that was fun and
splashy. But I fucked it up, releasing my legs too soon and
tumbling forward so I landed flat against the surface of the
water.
Face, chest, belly, thighs—they hit together, all at once.
The impact was violent. It knocked the breath out of me. It
hurt like fire, like I’d been slapped against frozen asphalt by a
giant hand and shattered every bone in my body.
I was paralyzed. Every inch of my skin burned.
Stunned, agonized, I drifted facedown toward the bottom
of the pool until Sloane jumped in and saved me.
Until David disappeared, that was the worst pain I’d ever
felt.
I feel it again now, that hard-slapped breathlessness. That
shattered, suffocating pain.
I whisper, “My dead fiancé? David?”
Kage pauses. Looks at me with those empty, goodbye
eyes.
“His name isn’t David. It’s Damon. And he’s still alive.”