Chapter 18: : Chapter 18

“YOU READY, PRINCESS?”

I lifted my gaze from the keyboard, the scowl still trapped on my face. “Yeah.”

“Something bothering you?” He stepped closer, peering at the mess of information scribbled across a hundred different colored sticky notes attached to the wall behind my desk. “Looks complicated.”

“It is.” I shoved upwards, stepped around him, and grabbed my bag. “I think I’m going to die of old age before I get it finished.”

“At least you have some extra time,” he said carefully. “Seeing as how you’re staying home the next couple of days.”

My cheeks burned with the memory. Last night Creed had told mom that I’d had some trouble at school and that it seemed to be taking a toll on me. I hadn’t meant to break down and cry in front of him. I hadn’t meant to cry in front of anyone. It had just happened.

But mom just nodded and brushed her fingers along my cheek and over my mark before pulling me close. I think it was the alcohol more than anything that made her hug me. But still, I took it. This was the mom I remembered, the one grounded in reality and not distant and cold.

She didn’t have a problem with me staying home, didn’t even cause a fuss when I said I wanted to visit dad, just nodded carefully. But she couldn’t hide her relief when I told her Nick was taking me. Instead, she seemed overjoyed, gushing about how the boys were taking care of me.

If only she knew.

I suppressed a shudder “I’ll just grab my bag and some snacks.” I stepped around him, reaching for my shoulder bag and jacket.

“Snacks,” Nick muttered, and shook his head. “What do you think this is, Ryth, a damn school trip?”

I shot him a glare. “I can’t have you spending all your money on food as well as fuel.”

He looked at me with a deadpan expression, then let out a bark of laughter. “All my money, huh?” He stepped close, capturing my gaze. All I saw was gold in his eyes. “You’d have to eat your bodyweight in food for the next hundred years to come close to tapping me dry, little sister. So, thanks for the concern, but I think I can manage.”

I looked at him, bewildered.

“You think I sit in there playing games all damn day?” He lifted his hand to brush the hair from the side of my face, his gaze boring into mine. “Little sister, I have enough money in Bitcoin to make sure I never have to lift a finger again…and my wife, or my damn kids, for that matter.”

My breath stilled.

My heart clenched tight with the words as the room around me swayed. I felt myself falling. Falling onto him, and for him…for this sick, hungry need that seemed to control me when I was around them, a need I knew wasn’t right, but that didn’t change what it was.

“You okay, princess? Kinda looking at me strange now.” Nick let his fingers trail down my neck, knowing exactly what kind of force he was exerting on me.

“Fine,” I mumbled, and swallowed.

He smiled, that cockiness rising before he dropped his hand and stepped away. “So that settled it, yeah?” he threw over his shoulder as he strode from my bedroom. “No goddamn snacks in the car.”

I gave a huff. That’s all he cared about, wasn’t it? His precious damn Mustang.

I followed, grumbling the entire away as we walked outside and climbed into the midnight beast. We backed out and were on the road before I knew it, passing the green view of the surrounding forest this side of the city and heading for the highway.

The last time I’d taken this drive, I was with Creed and mom, the day before they…

Before they…

I winced and stared out the window. “How long do you think it was going on?”

Nick glanced my way and shifted gears, overtaking other cars at a steady pace. They whipped past us in a blur, or maybe it was the other way around. I was too scared to look.

“Your mom and my dad, you mean?”

I nodded and turned his way.

He clenched his jaw. Maybe he’d never thought about it, or maybe he had and he didn’t like the answer. Either way, it didn’t really matter.

“Long enough, how’s that?” he said finally, shutting the conversation down.

But I wasn’t done with the heavy questions, and now that I had Nick trapped with me for the next few hours at least, I wanted to find out all I could. “What was she like, your mom, I mean?”

“Jesus, Ryth,” he muttered, surging toward the on-ramp that’d take us west. Silence filled the space for a while until he started talking. “You know how a storm can smother the sun, how it can get so dark that you’d swear it was night, and you stand there, waiting for that first clap of thunder and the downpour… then all of a sudden the storm changes. It breaks up and through the cracks of the storm, the sun that’d always been there shines through?” He stilled, then glanced my way, his words trembling. “She was that sun. She was everyone’s sun. That’s who she was.”

I still saw her name printed on that sticker wrapped around the stainless medical equipment.

“She was warm, loving. She loved Tobias hard and he loved her back just as hard.”

Did I hear an echo of sorrow? Like he wasn’t jealous of that love, but had still been left wanting.

“How did she love you?”

His smile was instant. “That was easy. She taught me to be independent. Sky diving, motocross racing, she even took me to get the shit beaten out of me learning MMA fighting.”

“Sounds gruesome.”

His grin grew wider. “I loved every second of it. More importantly, she taught me about cryptocurrency and how to be a trader.”

“Oh, that’s what that was…the stock exchange I saw you working on yesterday.”

He nodded. “Yeah, sold a heap, bought a heap more. She taught me what to look out for, a small company with solid groundwork and the ability to expand within their means. That’s what I do, I buy and trade.”

So that’s why he didn’t have a job to go to.

“Mom taught me that, all those hours sitting in board meetings and listening to her as she broke companies down and rebuilt them better from the ground up.”

I flinched and jerked my gaze to his. “Board meetings? But I thought…”

He met my gaze and scowled. “You thought what? You thought dad was the one with the money? That he was the one everyone looked up to?”

But all those cards, addressed to Creed. I’d just assumed he was the driving force in their family…it seemed I’d assumed wrong.

“Mom said they met at Harvard and that for her it was love at first sight. Dad, however, took a little convincing. But she’d never met a challenge she didn’t give her all to, so eventually they started dating and became engaged. When she graduated, she graduated with honors. It didn’t take her long to get snatched up by some big corporation, which she stayed with for a while, until she became pregnant with Caleb and went out on her own.”

“She sounds impressive,” I said in awe.

“She was…still is.”

I glanced toward the road. “No wonder Tobias hates us.”

“T is just T. He took her death hard, harder than the rest of us. Don’t take it personally.”

I shot him a look filled with daggers. It was easy for him to say. It wasn’t body his brother had violated under the table as our parents announced their engagement. An engagement that was coming to an end…and soon.

What then…

What happens after the wedding, when there was no way I could avoid Tobias, or Nick for that matter? I glanced across the seat to his black jeans and his thick boots and the silver rings he wore on his fingers, then to the hard muscles under his shirt. Muscles I knew he honed daily in the gym on the first floor of the house. I’d seen him come back, striding up the stairs to head to the bathroom, his shirt soaked and stuck to his skin.

Tobias I hadn’t seen. He preferred to leave, tearing out of the driveway early in the morning, to come home hours later and, when he was really pissed, strapped on his sneakers and headed out running. Caleb, too, although he left at night. Every time I tried to catch glances at him from the doorway of my bedroom, I wasn’t fast enough. No, Caleb liked the night, coming home at the first break of day.

I heard him, heard his light steps in the stairwell, heard when he lingered in the hall outside my door and finally left. I heard all of that lying in bed with my breath trapped in my chest and my pulse throbbing between my thighs.

I clenched my knees together and watched the landscape change as we left the city behind and headed for Mitchelton. It wasn’t too far out of the city, but far enough for me to watch Nick as he drove with expert skill. The longer I watched him, the more I saw.

I saw the years of sheer adrenaline recklessness, saw the way he drove hard and fast, how he didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought of him. I remembered how he’d pounced on me, hauling me over his shoulder the moment I’d stepped outside of school.

As though he read my mind, he muttered. “Still pissed at me for yesterday?”

“Yes,” I snapped. “I am, actually.”

He smiled. “Good. I liked you with a little bite.”

I lashed out, slapping his shoulder. “I’ll give you a bite.”

“I wish you fucking would,” he answered, his gaze drifting down my body before turning back to the road. “Bite, lick, swallow. All in that order.”

Heat rose to my cheeks, forcing my gaze away.

“I fucking love it when you blush like that, Ryth. It does things to me…dangerous things. Things that make me want to take a goddamn detour and find us another secluded park.”

His words only made me blush harder. “Not funny,” I muttered, and tried to keep my breathing under control.

“Not a damn thing funny about the bulge in my fucking jeans.”

I tried not to look…I really did. But he turned his head, glancing over his shoulder, and I did. My gaze fixed on that thick round ridge, wondering just how he really was…until he caught me looking.

His low chuckle echoed through the car, then quieted as he signaled and turned onto the road marked by signs for Mitchelton Prison. The sun was shining, bouncing off the rooftops of cars in the parking lot.

The Mustang carved through the spaces, finding a spot up close to the entrance before Nick killed the engine. “You want me to come in with you?”

I stared at the towering fences and the cold, ugly brick building and shook my head. “Thanks, but I got this.”

I didn’t wait, just shoved open the door.

“I’ll be right here,” Nick said as I started to close the door.

Those words stayed with me as I headed for the entrance. It was as though he knew I needed something to hold onto as I stepped through the automatic door and was stopped by the guards. I gave my name and details, then a brisk search and a check of the visitor records, and I was allowed into the room to see dad.

I waited, my knee bouncing with nervous tension that stopped dead when the door opened. But it wasn’t dad who came through. I waited…and the longer I waited, the more upset I became. What was taking so long?

The words hit me like a stab to the chest, until the doors finally opened and an old man shuffled out. It took me a second to realize it was dad. He was hunched, walking with a slow, limping gait and it wasn’t until he was close to the plexiglass barrier that he lifted his head and looked at me.

He was bad…real bad. One eyeball was black and bulging, the side of his face was grazed and bloody, his lips were swollen, and he was missing a tooth.

“Dad?”

There was no smile this time, no, There was just a wince and an achingly slow descent to the chair in front of him. Tears filled my eyes at the sight of him.

“Ryth, honey…don’t. Don’t cry.”

“W-who did this to you?”

There was a tiny shake of his head. Those swollen lips parted.

Slick warmth spilled down my cheeks. I made no move to brush the tears away. “And don’t tell me you have it under control.”

“It’s just a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

“The He flinched and jerked his gaze around, panic flaring for a second. “Ryth, I clenched my fist and leaned close to the barrier. “Then tell me? Who?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured, holding my gaze. “And that’s the God’s honest truth. Someone out there has set me up. I don’t know who or why. But I’ve got people working to find out.”

“You mean Creed Banks?”

Dad gave a nod. “He’s a good guy, Ry. He’ll treat your mom well, better than I ever did.”

“Don’t say that,” I whispered. But I saw the truth in his eyes. He believed it and that was dangerous.

A man with no hope was a man drowning, and that’s what I saw when I looked at him.

He wasn’t even reaching for a rope.

“Dad, I need you to keep fighting. I you to come home.”

“What home, kid?”

I shoved up, standing to press against the barrier.

Me “Sit down!” the guard called.

I sank to the chair once more. There was a flare of anger in dad’s eyes as he glared at the guard. I held onto that glare. He hadn’t given up completely, not yet. I still had a chance.

“I hear the wedding is soon,” he said quietly. “I need you to do whatever your mom needs, Ry. Do that for me, because I can’t. I can’t give her happiness, but you can.”

“I will…if you promise me you’ll keep fighting.”

the guard called.

I shook my head. “But we haven’t had our hour.”

Dad just shook his head and rose cautiously, without even a fuss.

“Dad, we haven’t had our hour.”

He gave me a smile and stepped away. “It’s okay, honey,” he said carefully. “We’ll have plenty of time once I’m out.”

He shimmered as fresh tears filled my eyes. I watched helplessly as he shuffled away. With a nod to the guard, he stepped through the open door and was gone. I understood then.

Understood what had taken him so long.

Understood why the visit was cut short.

A moan bubbled up from inside me and tore free. I clasped my around my waist and rocked under the weight of it. But it wasn’t enough…nothing was enough to ease the agony inside. I shoved up from the chair, and in a haze of agony, I stumbled out of the visiting room and along the hall.

I hardly heard the guards when they spoke to me, barely saw my hand move across the page when I signed my name. By the time I stumbled out into the sunshine, that agony bubbling inside me was turning into a scream. I stumbled forward, unable to see a thing through my tears.

I was going to break down…

Going to crack.

Going to fall…

“I got you.” Arms wrapped around me. “I got you, Ryth.

I dropped my head against him as the shudders tore free.

He was all I had to hold onto.

My anchor in a turbulent sea.

Shudders overtook me. Nick eased me back along the walkway to the Mustang. “Get in, princess. I’m getting you the fuck out of here.”

I didn’t fight him this time, just let him open the door and ease me inside before buckling the seatbelt across me. I flinched with the of the passenger door, then he was striding around the front of the car in a blur of black and climbed in behind the wheel.

The car started with a roar and the tires howled as we tore out of the parking lot and were gone.

“Hey.” He reached across the seat to grip my hand.

I stared at his fingers, my head dropped low. Tears fell to splatter on his arm, but he didn’t move, just steered the car with one hand, driving away from there as fast as he could.

I closed my eyes, my fingers clenched around his. By the time he slowed the car, making me lift my head, we were nowhere near the prison. We’d turned off somewhere and now were heading toward a diner in the middle of nowhere.

Nick pulled the car into the parking lot and stopped in a space shaded by a large oak tree, away from everyone else. The spot reminded me of our park where he’d tackled me to the ground.

He killed the engine, but made no move to get out. Instead, he turned to me and held my watery gaze. “That bad, huh?”

I nodded, the words stuck in the back of my throat.

The leaves on the tree moved above us, captured by the wind.

“I couldn’t speak either, the first time I saw mom strapped to those machines. I just froze, like a fucking kid, then walked out. I went to the nearest bar, drank myself stupid, then got into a fight.” His anguish hurt me, just as much as it still hurt him. “Still haven’t been able to say a fucking word to anyone. I’d rather a broken bone than to talk about it. You’re the only person I’ve ever told, the only one who knows what I did. But it fucking hurt, worse than anything I’d ever felt. I’m telling you this because I know what that kind of thing does to you. I know what loneliness feels like, even living in a house filled with family.”

This time, I was the one who reached for his hand.

His big, beautiful hand. I stared at the rings on his fingers as the damn wall inside me cracked, then crumbled. “He didn’t want to see me.”

“Fuck, he said that?”

I shook my head. “Didn’t need to. I waited for ages, then at the last minute, he came in. I didn’t even recognize him at first. They’d beaten him before, but this time it was different. This time, the beating wasn’t just to hurt him, it was to kill.”

“Jesus, Ryth.”

“His eyeball was black, the entire side of his face was scraped and bloody. He was missing a tooth and he walked with a limp, holding his arm against his body.”

Nick was silent.

“He’s giving up on me.”

“You don’t know that.”

I smiled, but it was full of sorrow. “Yeah, I do. He told me to make mom happy, that Creed will do a better job as a husband than he ever had.” I sniffled, releasing his hand to swipe the mess away.

“Everything’s going to be okay. Dad won’t give up fighting and neither will your mom. There has to be someone who knows something.”

“They set him up.” I didn’t care how ugly I looked right then. I needed him to understand. ‘Because there’s no way he wasn’t loyal. He’s more loyal than anyone I know.”

“For a drug dealer.”

My breath caught. Deep down, I knew…

“Yes, for a drug dealer.”

Nick nodded. If nothing else, he was forcing me to be honest, to tell it like it was. No pretense, no lies. The ugly, violent truth. Just like that tainted desire between us.

“They’re going to get married,” Nick said quietly. “There’s no escaping it, Ryth.” He brushed his thumb across the back of my hand. “You need to be ready for that.”

I was ready for that…I thought I was, anyway.

But was I really ready for them?

I didn’t know…

But I had a feeling I was about to find out.