Chapter 12: Rebel Revenge: Chapter 12

The only good thing about coming home was the beach. The golden sands ran the length of both Providence and Saint View, connecting the two towns in one beautiful spot. I opened the visor on my helmet and breathed deep, sucking in familiar lungfuls of salty sea air.

With the sun starting its descent, I weaved my way through other cars and took the road that led up to the bluff and the lookout. It was a popular spot with teenagers who wanted to make out, and I’d spent a few nights up here myself, back before I’d left for college, getting naked on the back seat with whoever I was dating at the time.

It was too early for that though, and the cliffs were quiet when I got there, nothing but the waves crashing hundreds of feet below to pierce the silence. I slowed the bike right down to a crawl, inching closer to the edge with every rotation of the tires.

I could just keep going.

Gun the engine.

Ride the entire thing right over the edge.

Rocks crumbled off the cliff face, and I sank down on my bike, letting it roll backward a few inches, away from the plunging cliff face.

But my heart hurt. Everything fucking hurt really, especially after all the binge drinking. I was sober now, but as soon as I got home, I’d be fixing that. I was steadily plowing my way through my father’s liquor cabinet, but it wasn’t like he was around to stop me, the way he would have back when I’d actually lived here.

What I wouldn’t fucking give to rewind the clock and have him scolding me when I stumbled in the door two hours past curfew, reeking of booze.

I’d do it all differently. Him. Kian. Brooke.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the thought of my wife. With a sigh, I pulled my phone from the saddlebag on my bike and punched the relevant buttons to call her cell. I hadn’t wanted to do this at home where Kian might hear. I didn’t need anyone knowing my business.

“About fucking time, Vaughn,” Brooke snarled down the phone.

“Hello to you too, my darling wife,” I replied sarcastically. “So lovely to hear the sweet, soothing sound of your voice.”

“Fuck you. You were supposed to call days ago. Did you get the money?”

I ground my molars together. “No. I’m working on it.”

“Working on it!” she screeched. “Not good enough! I need the money now.”

“Then ask your daddy for it.”

“You know I can’t do that!”

Yeah, because he got sick of bailing her out of her financial irresponsibility and cut her off too. I lost my patience. “Getting money out of a deceased’s estate isn’t as easy as just snapping my fingers, Brooke. Everything is frozen. And there’s…unforeseen problems.”

“Problems? What problems? That is not what I want to hear, Vaughn.”

“Apparently I have a sister who I have to share everything with.”

“You don’t even have a sister! You’re such a liar. Is this some ploy to screw me over? Keep all the money for yourself?”

I shook my head at the audacity. “Oh, that’s rich. I’m the one screwing you over? You’re the one who got yourself into this mess.”

I huffed into the phone, pissed with myself for letting her get to me, even though I’d sworn after our last argument I would be calm and matter of fact. Nothing good came from us both getting emotional. That only ended in her screaming and me shutting down, leaving, and riding my bike too fast to burn off my emotions.

Maybe she realized it too, because she changed tactics, and her voice turned syrupy sweet. “Baby, I’m sorry. I’m just scared. If I don’t produce that money, they’re going to come for me.”

I wanted to tell her to let them. That she’d dug herself into this mess and now she could get herself out of it.

But I couldn’t. I might only be half the gentleman my father was, but I couldn’t just let them hurt Brooke. I’d loved her once. At least, I thought I had. It had all unraveled pretty fast after we’d been married and I’d found out about her unsavory little ‘habits.’

Habits that had her blowing through my entire trust fund without me even realizing. Habits that had left us with crippling debts we didn’t have the money to pay. Habits that had people after her, ready to take their pound of flesh when she couldn’t produce the money she owed.

There was no point in leaving her to the wolves. If they killed her, it wouldn’t erase the debt.

It would just fall to me.

Like it or not, I was as much in this mess as she was.

“You don’t want them to kill me, do you?” She was using that whiny little girl voice she thought was all doe-eyed and innocent. But really was like a banshee scream in my head.

“Of course not.”

“Thank you, baby. I’ll make it up to you when you get home. In exactly the way you like.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll get you the money, Brooke. But I’m not coming home. I already told you; we’re done.”

“You don’t mean that. Once the debts are paid, we’ll go back to the way things used to be.”

“No. We won’t. I don’t want anything to do with you. My lawyers are already working on the divorce papers.”

“I won’t sign them.”

Of course, she’d try to make my life miserable right to the very bitter end. “Then I’ll see you in court. I’ll call you when I’ve worked out something with the money. Just…sit tight. Don’t answer the fucking door.”

I hung up before she could say anything else. I sat there on the bluffs for another hour, watching the sunset and wishing my life was as carefree as it had been the last time I’d been up here.

I’d made so many mistakes.

Eventually, darkness fell and the mosquitos swarmed in, so I pulled my helmet back on and rode slowly back along the beach, then took the turnoff for Providence.

I passed my mom’s house and noted hers and Karmichael’s cars in the driveway, but I didn’t stop. My dad’s place was only a few houses down the street from Mom’s. It had been great when I was a kid. If one parent pissed me off, I just walked down the road to the other. But half the time my parents had been hanging out together anyway. When my mom and Karmichael had gotten together, my dad had taken it like the true gentleman he was and told her that all he wanted was her happiness.

I still remembered walking in and catching my mother on the floor, begging his forgiveness, only for my father to gently tell her there was nothing to forgive if she was following her heart.

That’s the sort of man he’d always been.

My mother had been his best friend and fiercest supporter ever since, steadfastly standing up for him whenever the media decided to try to play him as some evil millionaire developer who didn’t have a heart.

A junky brown car sat in my driveway, right in front of the house where I always parked. I stopped behind it and hung my helmet on the handlebars, shaking my head in annoyance. The sooner Kian moved out, the better. He could take his friends and their shitty cars with him.

Inside, I half expected to find Kian and with a bunch of half-drunk buddies, lounging in the living room, watching sports on the big-screen TV. But when I stopped in the entryway, it was quiet. I moved to the back of the house, the outdoor area with the pool and barbecue was another likely hangout spot, but it was quiet too.

That really only left his bedroom.

I paused with one foot on the bottom stair.

Maybe it wasn’t a friend’s car after all.

Maybe it was a woman’s.

Or a man’s.

Kian hadn’t had a preference back when we’d known each other.

Heat flushed my body, then settled at the back of my neck at the thought of him naked with someone. I plodded up the stairs, my feet suddenly as heavy as lead. My room was right at the top. It would have been easy to just keep walking and go inside, shut the door, put on some headphones until Kian’s guest left.

But I was clearly a sucker for punishment. I turned left and tiptoed my way down to his end of the corridor.

The bedframe squeaking was audible even before I pressed my ear up against his door.

Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

“You’re wild,” Kian laughed.

“They don’t call me Rebel for nothing.”

Rebel? No fucking way. Jealousy speared through me, hot and fast, quickly turning into anger. Before I knew it, the doorknob was twisting beneath my hands. “What the fuck, Kian!” I bellowed.

Rebel froze, mid bounce on Kian’s bed.

Kian glanced over at me from the couch where he was flipping through an MMA magazine. His mouth lifted in the corner, amused, like he’d been planning this all along. “Oh, look. Vaughn’s home. Good to see you, buddy.”

The word was laced with a clear undercurrent of something else.

Rebel bounced lightly on her bare feet, the mattress dipping beneath her weight. She watched the two of us with interest, then laughed. “Oh my. What is going on here? Do I detect the sweet, sweet smell of two men who’ve seen each other naked?” She gave an overexaggerated inhale. “Truly my favorite scent. I have no idea why two men together does it for me, but damn, it really, truly does.”

Kian leaned over and offered her a high five. “Me too.”

She slapped his palm gleefully while I stared at them, dumbfounded. “Again. What the fuck? But same question for you too, Roach. Were you just jumping on his bed? How do you even know each other?”

“Roach?” Kian questioned. He wrinkled his nose. “That’s the worst nickname ever. I’m running with Little Demon.”

What the fuck was he even talking about?

Rebel flipped her feet out from beneath her and landed on her ass before scooting to the edge. “Settle down, psycho. First, yes, I was jumping on the bed. You should try it sometime. It’s fun.”

I was sure I was staring at the woman like she’d just grown another eyeball. “My head would go right through the ceiling.”

Rebel gazed up at it and shrugged. “Never have to worry about that when you’re my height. Yay me for being fun-sized. But anyway. Back to your questions. How do we know each other?”

“We’re besties,” Kian said, another dig, I was sure, aimed at hurting me.

Because once upon a time, it was me and him who’d been inseparable. Though that couldn’t be further from the truth anymore.

“Since when?” I demanded.

Rebel turned to Kian, and he made a show of checking the time on his phone. “About thirty minutes ago, when I found her moving into the bedroom on the other side of my bathroom.”

My brain was struggling to keep up. “At the risk of sounding like a record on repeat, what?”

“I moved in,” Rebel said with a grin. “I hope you don’t mind. I took the room at the end of the hall. You know, since I own half the property now.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, spitting out my words. “You do not own half this property. Or anything in my father’s name.”

A low growl came from Kian’s chest. “Watch the way you speak to my bestie, Weston.”

Was he for real? He’d known me for decades, her for thirty minutes, and he was taking her side? Hurt stabbed through me at how far our friendship had disintegrated.

Rebel cleared her throat. “I don’t want to fight. But I do own half this property, and I’m not letting you sell it.”

“If the will remains as it is, and that’s a big if, you’d get half the profits anyway. What do you care if I sell it?”

She glared at me. “I get that you’re Richie Rich and have no idea what it’s like to have no home of your own, but not everyone in this room was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Some of us think this house is amazing and can’t think of a single other place in the world they’d want to call home.”

“This is ridiculous.” I glanced at Kian for backup. “You cannot possibly want a stranger living here in your home?”

He cleared his throat, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Why not? That’s exactly what you are. At least she’s not threatening to kick me out.”

I flinched. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Yeah, but you did. So fuck you, Vaughn. I’m on the little demon’s side. She stays.”

Rebel softened a tiny bit. “I was evicted from my apartment. I have nowhere else to go.”

The fight went out of me entirely at the thought of her living on the streets. “You could have led with that.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So you aren’t calling the cops?”

I turned and walked away. “Don’t tempt me, Roach.”

I meant it in more ways than one.