77

Nathan paced back and forth, pulling his hair in desperation.

Suzanne couldn't be there. Why would she be? It was impossible... Yet, the guard's words were filled with certainty, and he knew Suzanne very well...

He tried to enter the building, panic-stricken, but the firefighters stopped him. It took more than three men to restrain him.

"Let me go! My wife is in there!" he shouted desperately.

He tried to cross again, but they stopped him without hesitation.

Nathan began frantically asking if anyone had seen his wife. Everyone seemed to have seen her go up, but no one had seen her come down.

That day, one of the most powerful men in the country fell to his knees in front of hundreds of people, beginning to cry like a small child.

"Suzanne..." he whispered, beginning to sob and scream, "Suzanne, Suzanne! SUZANNE! NOOOO!"

His pain was so intense it took his breath away. After screaming, he lay there crying, regretting having let her go.

Everything seemed unreal. He refused to believe that his wife was dead.

Jamie approached him and lifted him up from the ground. He was pale and cold to the bone, his face a mask of ice, though the tears continued to run down his face.

Dylan was also there, but only because he had gone to confront Jamie for telling Nathan about Suzanne's whereabouts. Upon hearing the news, he cried with anger and frustration.

"This is your fault!" He shoved him, but Nathan did nothing to stop him. "She was better off away from you, she was calmer and had started smiling again!"

"You think I wanted her to die, you damned idiot?" he spat back with rage, glaring coldly. "I loved her; I would have given anything to see her safe and happy!"

"And did you tell her?" Dylan demanded, wiping his cheeks angrily. "She told me, you never told her! You never did, Strong!"

"Enough, Dylan!" Jamie intervened, but earned an icy glare from the accused.

"You shut up, traitor!" he shouted reproachfully. "Do you think I didn't know you told this idiot where my Suzanne was? You lied to me and betrayed my trust!"

"Honey..."

"Shut up and don't you dare call me that!" he yelled angrily. "We're done, understand? It's over!"

"No! Dylan, wait," Jamie called out, not caring that everyone around them stared in surprise at their clandestine relationship now out in the open.

All of their words were meaningless to Nathan, though he was a bit surprised to learn that one of his friends was gay. It didn't matter to him because his mind had almost completely disconnected from his body.

Anger, pain, and vengeance were the only things circling in his head.

The firefighters and police continued their work. Several groups of officers had been sent to find Suzanne, but there was no trace of her.

They had told him that the top floor of the building had collapsed and that it was most likely his wife's body was among the rubble.

Nathan had nearly fainted from this information. Jamie had to hold him up to keep him from falling, and the ambulance that had arrived to treat the injured had to attend to him because even his blood pressure had dropped.

His heart refused to believe his wife was dead. It felt like a damned déjà vu, and his heart couldn't bear it again.

"God, this is too painful. Why didn't you take me?" he thought, overwhelmed.

He thought he had to get out of there, but where would he go? No place would bring him peace, nothing could take away that pain. Only seeing his wife safe and sound.

It all seemed unreal, the screams, the fire, everything felt like it was a war movie or a terrible nightmare.

Nathan moved when he heard that the police had found the perpetrator of that horrible tragedy.

According to what he heard, the criminal was a man who had been released from prison a few months ago and had escaped from the police after breaking into a house and threatening the family.

Then Nathan immediately knew who it was. That monster had caused all of this. The man who was once his father.

They had located him in a cabin south of the city. Nathan knew that place perfectly; he had been there several times when he was just a child and later as a teenager.

The tires of his car screeched on the pavement as he drove off like a madman. He wanted to get there before the police so he could kill that damn murderer.

It was a miracle he had arrived alive, given the way he had driven.

Everything was different from what he remembered. The cabin was more rundown than it had ever been. It wasn’t hard for him to get inside the decrepit place; he did everything cautiously, like a thief in the night.

He noticed that the man was unarmed and drunk. The bastard was laughing out loud at what he had done, knowing there were millions in material damages but an immeasurable loss of lives.
Nathan told himself that the man was surely celebrating the atrocity he had committed.

Suzanne... that bastard had killed his wife.

He emerged from his hiding place, filled with rage and pain, determined to end that depraved man once and for all.

"You?" the man stopped smiling and looked at Nathan with fear. And he should be afraid, because the look in those green eyes was fierce, unhinged.

He tried to run, but Nathan was quicker and took him down with a single blow, making him groan in pain.

"Damn bastard!" was all he had time to say.

Nathan Strong was a businessman, but before that, he had been a boy who had lived through horrors that had left him scarred. He had endured seeing his little brother and his mother dead at the hands of this wretch who called himself his father.

He had taken martial arts classes, and the man who was his teacher knew how to demolish someone with punches. That was exactly what he was doing to the bastard Richard.

He didn't hear the police sirens, he didn't realize they were there until they restrained him and pulled him away from the miserable man, who now lay on the floor, bloody.

Nathan knew he was still alive and tried to break free from those holding him. He wanted to finish him off so he couldn't hurt anyone else, but they held him tightly and didn't allow it.

"Damn it, let me go!" he shouted furiously. "Let me kill this damned son of a bitch, he killed my wife! My mother, my little brother!"

He fell to his knees, feeling the weight of those deaths on his shoulders, for not having been able to stop that monster before he caused more harm.

There was no peace in his soul, no more room for pain in his heart, no antidote for all that was killing him slowly from the inside.