Drink the wine, my darling you said, take your time, and consume all of it…

Securing the last strap on her dress over her warm skin, Astrid stares at herself in the full length mirror of the master bedroom, feeling that there is something missing. Whether it’s the shadow of a man behind her; that constant protection that her husband offers her, or the absence of jewellery on her skin, she doesn’t know. She can hear him coming, his sinister strides echoing through the thin bedroom walls, and from her ears spill an array of diamonds, a present from him. But her neck feels bare- and she’s already shivering with anticipation.

Because tonight is where it all ends. Not for her, but for him.

A pair of big hands, calloused and thick, stroke softly down her long neck, and Astrid arches to his touch as he steps into the shadows, their eyes meeting in their reflection. She hasn’t even heard him come in, but she knows he is there. The colour seems to drain from the room as that dark brown drowns out her pale blue gaze, and all that’s left is the black and white image she sees in the mirror.

“My darling…you look stunning, you will turn every head tonight- every man shall want you. But you are all mine” he almost whispers, his deep voice curling into her ear and making her knees weak. Years together, and he still has the ability to please her in ways she couldn’t even imagine.
He wears a black suit, white shirt and black tie, his traditional fedora hat covering up his raven black hair. The expensive watch she bought him for his birthday adorns his slim wrist, and in the pale moonlight floating through the window, something glistens in his palm. Something shiny.

“All yours” she murmurs in reply, bowing her head when his fingertips trail over her collarbone, draping cold metal across her. It’s a diamond necklace, and she can only guess that it’s something he’s paid for from his millions.
For her husband in Synyster Gates, famed billionaire and businessman. And she is the only one who can keep him on the straight and narrow.
“To make your bare neck a little more…alive, my darling” he tells her, leaving air light kisses where his fingertips have once been.

She can feel everywhere his touch lingers, and for a moment, she wonders whether killing him really is the way out of this trap.
He is inside of her head. He may not know it, but she certainly does. His words push their way into her mind, distorting and twisting until she goes insane. If she stays with him much longer, she’ll be drained of a soul.
So he must go.

“Thank you, my love. You don’t look so bad yourself” she says, brushing an invisible hair away from her head and turns on her heel to face him. He is tall, muscular- the complete opposite of his wife, but in her stilettos she just about reaches his eye line. Their gaze doesn’t break for a moment, and his hand crawls under her carefully positioned hair, gently pulling her up for a kiss. Their love in animalistic when it wants to be, but now it’s soft and barely there. She loves him, too much for her own sanity, and that’s why she must get him out of her body.

All his business associates are downstairs in their extravagant parlour, waiting for the man and woman of the hour to descend the golden stairway and show them the high life some of them can only dream about. The perfect couple- though no one can see the cracks beneath the shiny exterior.
She has it all planned out. The maid she’s bribed will bring them two glasses of wine, one with poison, one without.

Her husband will drink the poisoned wine, and be laid to rest on the bed. She will run downstairs in a state of shock, horrified that her husband is dead- and play the grieving widow for as long is needed, and she can get her money.
Rich people always play dirty. It’s their world’s worst kept secret.

There’s a small knock on the door, and the maid enters, two glasses of red wine in her hands. Synyster turns to look over at her and smiles, something he rarely does to any of his staff.
“Thank you Anya. That will be all” he says, taking the wine from her hands and handing one to his wife, the two of them clinking glasses before taking sips. She knows that her husband has just drunk the poisoned wine, and on tenterhooks, she waits for the moment he starts to choke.

But instead, her own throat begins to close up.

She drops the wine glass onto the cream carpet, the liquid flowing out over the material like spilled blood, yet Synyster doesn’t move to help her as she starts to cough and splutter. She has the poisoned glass, and he comfortably sets down his own glass and walks over to her, running his hands around her throat.

“Isn’t that the familiar taste of poison, my darling?” he whispers darkly, and in a sudden moment of realisation, she understands. He has poisoned her drink- he wants to kill her. This wasn’t how her plan was meant to happen, but she knows one thing.
They will live together. And they will die the same way.

“If I’m leaving, you’re coming with me” she gasps, and grabs him by the hair, kissing him with all her might. Poison stains her lips and teeth and she waits until it gets into his bloodstream and he too starts to seize up in pain, pulling away from her lips. He takes her hand and together they fall onto the bed in each other’s embrace, both of their lives slowly slipping away from their reach.

“Darling…I never meant for it to end this way” Synyster whispers to her, holding her tightly in her arms. If they die- they will die together.
“Our love wasn’t natural, my love. It was too animalistic, too carnal. But it didn’t stop me from…loving you…” she gasps, tears streaming down her once perfectly made up face, and suddenly her eyes close, her last breath torn from her lips- tear tracks still clear on her pale skin.

His heart jumps, but he pulls her slowly cooling body into his own arms and holds her, knowing she was right.

“I love you too Astrid” he croaks, a single, solitary tear making its way down his cheek, as his eyes close, just like his wife’s.

***
“Poison, sir. Her drink was laced with it, and there are traces on the man’s lips” one of the younger detectives says to the inspector, who is staring at the two lovers on their bed. Though they both are dead, their embrace does not falter, and he can only imagine that they were planning to kill each other. Marriage rivalry.

“The desire to be closer to one’s soulmate can be so powerful. They did not know how to control their emotions- and that is why they’re both without life now” the inspector says softly, and his hand brushes the woman’s.
It’s ice cold.

“Poison” he says to himself, his eyes falling over the curve of the woman’s body, the way the man’s hands seem to fit perfectly within the dip of her hips. He’s seen many poisoning’s in his time, between marriages that never seemed to quite work, but he’s never seen two of them go down at the same time.

Love, he concludes, could be the only thing that brought them together in their final hour.
“Have you identified the bodies, sir?” the same young detective says, coming to stand up next to his mentor. Tipping his hat forward, the inspector nods.
“Astrid Hale and Synyster Gates. A real-life Bonnie and Clyde, son”

“Then why are they both dead? Poison is only dangerous in the wrong hands, sir…”
The inspector shakes his head, and takes one last fleeting look at the dead lovers.
“Because both were familiar with the taste of poison before it hits their lips. If one would die, the other would too” he pauses.

“They are in love, son. And that’s stronger than any poison”