The Villain by L.J. Shen

“My goodness, Tin, how did you get this boo-boo?” I leaned down, brushing a nasty, open wound on Tinder’s knee.

We spent the day together, just the two of us. Joelle and Andrew attended a charity event and decided to only bring Tree, the “normal” child, along. The one who didn’t make any funny noises or made heads turn. Joelle looked guilty when she asked if I could tutor Tinder alone today. I knew the idea to leave him behind didn’t come from her. I couldn’t help but resent her for not fighting for her principles. For her son.

If I could go against one of the most formidable men in Boston—a man I loved—why couldn’t she demand her boy be treated as his brother’s equal?

I vowed to make it a memorable day for Tinder. A treat, rather than a punishment. We went to Sparrow Brennan’s high-end diner for breakfast, where we shoved pancakes and waffles down our throats, then lounged by Charles River, watching the clouds as I told him Greek mythology tales, just as Auntie Tilda used to do with me.

Tinder chewed on the shark necklace I gave him, sniffing as he pointed at an almost identical injury on his other knee.

“T-This one, too,” he stuttered.

I kissed both knees better.

“Let’s go to Walgreens and get super cool Band-Aids for them. What do you say?”

“Y-Y-Yes! Maybe they’ll have Puppy Dog Pals.” His nose twitched. I slipped my hand in his. We walked past the green bannisters, kayaks, and pedal boats. The sun pounded on our faces.

“So what happened?” I asked. “Did you fall off your bike? I hope you know it happens to everyone.”

“No,” he answered quietly. “It wasn’t t-the bike.”

“What was it, then?”

The silence that followed was crammed with the thoughts teeming in my head. Like that weird letter I got from Paxton, that sounded nothing like Paxton, and his mirage-like disappearance, that happened as quickly as his reappearance.

Or how my husband had been avoiding me the entire week, not only refusing to accept my house calls every time I dropped by, but also dodging my text messages. I was days away from showing up at his office and embarrassing us both. The only thing keeping me from doing so was I understood his need to be fully focused on the Green Living lawsuit against Royal Pipelines ahead of the trial.

But I needed to tell him about Paxton. About Andrew Arrowsmith and my plan.

“It was Daddy.”

The words hit me in the chest, cracking it open and spilling a feeling I’d never felt before. Not even to Byrne. Or Kaminski. Or Paxton.

Pure, consuming hatred.

I stopped in the middle of the busy street. A woman walking a French bulldog bumped into us, making a cyclist who whizzed by swear. Ignoring them, I crouched to my knees, holding Tinder’s arms, my eyes leveling with his.

“How did he do this to you?” I asked, in a voice I just barely managed to keep steady.

Tinder looked down, drawing a circle with the tip of his shoe in the sand. He flinched, his movements jumpy.

“I-I-I-I…” He tried, then stomped his foot and bit his tongue. “Oof! I can’t get the words out. N-N-No wonder he hates me.”

“Tinder,” I whispered. He was having a tic attack. The first I’d witness him having. He recoiled in the same manner every few seconds, a repetitive movement, pinching his shoulders together and thumping his head. He couldn’t stop.

“I’m not your father. I’m your friend. You’ve got all the time in the world to tell me what happened. I just want to know so I can help you. You are not in trouble.”

I let him ride the tic out, taking a step back to allow him as much space as possible. The tics subsided after a few minutes, melting into small, familiar nose twitches. I scooped him in my arms, stopped at a street vendor, bought him apple juice and a soft pretzel, and sat him on a bench.

“Tell me everything, Tin-Tin.”

“He used a ruler.”

Saying nothing, I waited for more while my heart looped around itself, rolling into a pile of painful knots.

“He-He-He-He said that it works. He said he could c-c-cure me. Said he did it b-before. He told Mommy we will both be grateful when it-it was done and over with. He-he let me read the ABCs and then some n-n-numbers, and every time I stuttered or ha-ha-had a tic, he hit the metal ruler on my knees. He did it until I bled and M-M-Mommy told him she would call the police. I cried even though Mommy asked me no-no-not to.”

Feeling like I, myself, was on the verge of an attack of sorts, I forced myself to keep my voice calm. There was no need to scare Tinder any more than he already was, but the violent urge to take him away from this family left me gasping for air.

“Is this the first time your daddy has done this to you?”

I couldn’t let go of the memory of Andrew shaking his son when the latter had trouble explaining himself.

“No.” Tinder picked off the salt from his pretzel absentmindedly. “One time, after we came back from a party where I embarrassed him, he put my head in a si-si-si-sink full of water, in and out, in a-and out. He-He-He said that he would only stop if I stopped a-acting like a weirdo. Bu-but it worked because I stopped for a whole week.”

I couldn’t blink.

Swallow.

Breathe.

My world collapsed under the weight of the unspoken truth that landed on my feet, and suddenly, everything became crystal clear.

I stepped onto a mine Cillian was trying to keep me well away from. Unraveling a secret that wasn’t for me to find.

“Does your daddy treat your mommy and brother this way, too?”

“No. He loves Tree and tells him he will send him to a fancy school in England. I th-think he loves Mommy, too. Even if sometimes he pushes her around. He never pushes too hard.” He paused, contemplating his words with a frown. “Other than the time he pushed her off the railings, and she fell downstairs. But she fell to the couch and was-wasn’t hurt. And she laughed about it so maybe it was a joke.”

Or maybe she didn’t want her sons to know what a piece of work their dad was.

I knew I had three problems to deal with.

One was to keep Tinder safe.

The second was to execute my plan as soon as today while I was still welcome in the Arrowsmith household.

And the third was to confront my husband about what I’d suspected all along.

I checked the time on my phone. It was two o’clock. The Arrowsmiths weren’t going to be home until at least six. I had a key, though I was expected to pass the time out of the house with Tinder.

They did trust me enough to give me a key in case of an emergency. After all, I was in their camp. Supposedly. Living separate lives from my husband and despising him as far as they were aware. The different bank accounts, the strategic complaining about Cillian, and letting them in on our separation had paid off.

Now it was time to kick my plan into third gear.

To save Tinder.

To save Cillian.

And who knew? Maybe even my marriage.

I typed a quick text message to Sam Brennan. The first time I’d ever contacted him. I asked Sailor for his special access code shortly after I’d been hired by the Arrowsmiths, knowing there were some things I simply wasn’t equipped to do. Once the message had been sent, read, and replied to, I looked up and smiled at the little boy.

“Hey, Tin-Tin, feel like baking some cookies at home while watching Peter Pan?”

“S-Sure do!”

I stuffed him into his booster in my Tesla with burning eyes and headed to the Arrowsmith residency for the very last time.

The cookies were going to be almost as bad as the meal I’d tried to cook Cillian on our first “date.”

I knew that when I tore open the ready-made mix without bothering to read the instructions. I dumped the powder into a bowl and grabbed the ingredients on the package hurriedly. Tinder protested when I didn’t take the time to do everything together with him—crack the eggs, measure the milk, count each drop of vanilla. I kept glancing at the overhead clock, waiting for the doorbell to ring, feeling like a criminal. I was a criminal. What I was about to do was against the law. But it wasn’t just about saving my husband’s company—it was also about Tinder.

We scooped uneven balls onto a pan, shoving it into the oven before it reached the right temperature. Tinder’s irritation morphed into confusion. I’d always been the one person he could count on for patience.

“W-What’s happening?” He frowned. “I-I don’t like doing everything quickly. Are you going anywhere?”

“Not before I make sure you’re okay,” I muttered, frantically throwing a bag of popcorn into the microwave. I put Peter Pan on Disney Plus and sat Tin-Tin in front of the movie with his popcorn and juice.

“I’m going to be a little busy in the next few minutes, okay? But when I’m done, we’ll sit down with cookies and some chocolate milk and we’ll have a talk. I need to tell you a few things. Don’t worry, you are not in trouble.”

But his father sure was.

When Sam knocked on the door, I jerked him inside at the speed of light. He was wearing a black dress shirt, jeans, and his usual no-bullshit frown.

“His laptop is probably going to be password protected,” I warned, still holding the doorjamb, my heart in my throat.

I never broke the law. Ever. For anything or anyone. Hell, I didn’t even jaywalk. My obsession with my husband was turning me inside out.

Sam passed the living room, not sparing the young boy a look, and ascended the stairs. I followed him, pointing at Andrew’s study. He slipped a pair of elastic gloves on, produced a foldable door lock opener from his backpack, and opened the locked door effortlessly.

We both entered the room. I was hyperaware of Tinder sitting in front of the TV downstairs, waiting for me. Guilt wrecked me. I was going to turn his life upside down, and even though I knew it was the right thing to do, considering his abusive father, I also knew Tinder might never forgive me.

“So Kill was right,” Sam said tonelessly, powering up the laptop as he took a seat in Andrew’s chair. His fingers were gliding on the keyboard. He shoved a USB drive into the device. “You’re not completely useless, after all.”

“You don’t think very highly of women, huh?” I turned outside, to the hallway, craning my neck to look downstairs and make sure Tinder was okay.

“I thought you were a gold-digger,” Sam said bluntly, clicking away on the laptop, his eyes glued to the screen. “Shit, there’s a lot of stuff in his cloud. Amateur mistake.”

“Copy everything. I want to sort through all of it,” I instructed him, standing at the door, returning to our initial conversation. “And I’m not a gold-digger.”

“No shit.” He chuckled. “You’re risking your ass here. You know that, right? You can get a lot of jail time for what you’re doing.”

“Really?” I widened my eyes comically. “I had no idea. Dumb it down for me. What’s jail? The one with the bars, right? I think I’ve seen a movie.”

Sam’s eyes drifted from the screen to me. He smirked.

“So that’s why he kept you all this time. You talk back.”

I glanced through the window, hugging my midriff, speculating whether Andrew’s house was wired like Cillian’s or not.

“The coast was clear.” Sam read my thoughts. “The house is wired, but the idiot’s cameras have crappy street view due to overgrown trees. Apparently, his conscience wouldn’t let him trim the fuckers.”

He stood, handing me a disc-on-key.

When I reached for it, he tilted it away from my reach.

“You sure you don’t want me to go through it myself? That’s a lot of data. You can’t mess it up.”

“I will do a thorough job.”

“Let me make a copy for myself. Just in case.”

“If you make yourself a copy, I’m going to make sure you lose your job with the Fitzpatricks.” I tilted my chin up warningly. “There may be some private things in there I don’t want anyone to see.”

“Like a sex tape?”

Men.

“Sure.”

Sam Brennan was a handsome man. Then so was Ted Bundy. I didn’t find him attractive, especially seeing as his weekly body count surpassed Ted Bundy’s entire career. I honestly couldn’t see what Aisling’s fascination was with him. Then again, the same could probably be said about Kill and me.

“You do understand the concept of an arranged marriage, correct? Nothing about what you have with your husband is real.”

“Samuel,” I used his given name, my tone haughty, as I did when one of my students was misbehaving, “give me the flash drive, please.”

He tucked it into my dress pocket, laughing softly.

“I didn’t get it at first.” He dipped his head down, scanning my face. “I thought he wanted Emmabelle. Every time the three of you were in the same room, his eyes were on her. But then I realized,” he dropped his voice, “the timing was peculiar. See, Kill always looked at Emmabelle exactly at the same time you looked at him. He wanted to throw you off. To make you jealous. The first and last human thing I’d ever seen him do.”

Sam took a step back, looking around the room.

“I’ll relock the study. Andrew will never know we’ve been in here. Proceed as normal when they get here.”

He turned around, tapping the doorframe.

The oven dinged downstairs, and I heard Tin-Tin yelping in delight.

We were running out of time.

I thought Sam was going to say some parting words.

About my bold move.

About the risk I’d taken for my husband.

But that would imply Sam Brennan was impressed.

And if there was something I knew with every bone in my body, it was that, unfortunately for Aisling, my friend, woman-hater Sam Brennan would never be impressed by the other sex.

“I’ll be going away after today, but things are about to change here. I thought you should know.” I sat Tinder down in front of the burnt, disfigured cookies. Neither of us touched the sweets. His big brown eyes clung to me like I was a lifeline.

“C-Change how?”

“Your father is not treating you well. He shouldn’t do the things he is doing, and I cannot—will not—be able to be here all the time to protect you. There will come a day when you grow up and make your mind up about what I’m about to do. You will either hate me or appreciate me.” I shook my head, feeling the tears welling up in my eyes, but held myself back. Tinder deserved more. He deserved my composure and reassurance. He deserved the world. “However you choose to feel about me, I will accept and respect it. I think I’m going to put your daddy in a lot of trouble soon, but you will still have your mommy and your brother, and they’re the important part, you hear me? They’re the part I want you to focus on.”

He nodded slowly, taking it all in. It was a lot. Even I wasn’t sure if I fully grasped what I was about to do. I dropped my forehead to Tinder’s, breathing him in. If I inhaled really deeply, I could still detect it faintly. That elusive baby smell that made my bones melt.

“Have I ever told you about The Wish Cloud, Tin-Tin?”

He shook his head.

“I’m about to gift you one wish. Something to remember me by. But you’ll have to choose your wish carefully. You only get one. And you can only cash in on the wish when you see a lone cloud in an otherwise clear sky.”

“I know what I’ll ch-ch-choose, Auntie Persy,” he said, smiling. “I’ll choose what I always choose. I’ll choose you.”

Two hours later, the rest of the family returned from the charity event. I stood from the couch and walked over to the entrance. As soon as Andrew walked through the door, I pointed at him with my finger, my expression very possibly manic.

Joelle backed away, stumbling with a gasp. Tree looked back and forth between his father and me.

“What’s going on?” The young boy sniffed.

“I know what you did to Tinder,” I whispered to Andrew. “I need to talk to you two. Alone.”

Andrew’s eyes zoned in on mine, his nostrils flaring.

“Tree, take your brother and go up to your room,” he instructed. The boys bolted up the stairs. Andrew opened his mouth, but I held my hand up. We were still standing at the doorway.

“Save it. I know about the ruler. About the beatings. How you pushed Joelle from the railings.”

Joelle shrieked behind her husband, covering her face in her hands and sobbing. Her carefully staged world was collapsing.

“I know about Cillian,” I finished softly. I was mostly bluffing but knowing with certainty that burned inside me that he did to my husband something that made him the way he was. That changed him beyond recognition.

Andrew’s face paled, his jaw slacking. “He told you?”

I couldn’t bring myself to lie, so I smiled in what I hoped resembled confidence, shrugging.

“Your secret is becoming not so secretive. Doesn’t bode well for your role as the chairman of Green Living. At any rate, I’m here to tell you that was the last time you hit your son. I am taking this to Child Protective Services. Since it’s not my first rodeo with CPS, let me tell you how it’s going to play out. I will file a complaint, they’ll visit your house within twenty-four hours to check for the wellness of your children, and once they find signs of neglect or abuse—which they will, because Tinder is physically injured—they’ll remove the children to a foster home and press charges against you.”

Joelle nearly choked.

“Since I’ve worked with numerous schools during my short career and know quite a few CPS agents, I can probably help Joelle get full custody since she wasn’t complicit in the abuse. Now, as for you—” I turned to Joelle, who buckled with her back against the wall, crying on the floor. Her face was wet with sweat, tears, and snot.

“You should put your children above all else. Always.”

“I did.” Joelle grabbed ahold of my dress, tugging at it desperately. “I do! Do you think I liked what he did? Do you think it’s my fault? I had no idea it was going to be this way. I would have never married him, Persy. Ever.”

I didn’t think it was her fault. She wasn’t the abusive party. If anything, she was a victim, too. But I knew her children might not see it that way. They might grow up to resent the woman who clung on their father’s arm with a big smile on her face, knowing what he did behind closed doors.

“Doesn’t matter what you thought. It’s time you take responsibility and step away from this toxic relationship. Put you and the twins first. Consider this my official resignation. Oh, and Andrew? Drop the lawsuit against my husband. You’ll either have to resign or get fired within the next few days, and you have bigger legal fish to fry.”

I grabbed my keys and bag, glancing behind my shoulder. What I saw broke my heart. Tinder and Tree were huddled together on the last step of the stairway, gaping at me with tears in their eyes.

I broke down, falling to my knees, letting all the tears I kept at bay loose. Starting this job, I knew I’d get attached, but I never thought I was going to love them so fiercely.

“Come here, boys.” I opened my arms.

They ran to me, yelping. As always, I fell back from the momentum, from the storm of their embrace, allowing them to bury their heads in my shoulders, crying along with them.

Later that night, I sifted through the material on the disc-on-key Sam gave me.

It took me three hours and two glasses of wine to find the file I’d been looking for. It was simply named. CFF.

Cillian Frances Fitzpatrick.

I double-clicked it, downed the wine, and said a prayer.

I didn’t know what I was in for.

I just knew I wasn’t ready for this.