Never Bargain with the Boss: Chapter 26

Ten Minutes Ago

My phone rings through my car’s speakers and Grace’s name pops up on the screen on my dash. I push a button to answer. “Hey, honey. I’ll be home soon.”

“Dad!”

Her tone instantly erases the smile from my lips. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. It just felt weird, like when you walk into a room and everyone goes quiet and you think they were talking about you. That’s what it felt like.”

Grace is rambling, her voice going in and out like she’s not fully talking into the phone. “Grace. I need you to tell me what’s wrong,” I say sternly.

“We got home from the barn and Riley was making dinner while I got in the shower⁠—”

“Faster,” I grit out, trying to keep my voice steady. But my foot is already unconsciously pressing the gas pedal down.

“There’s a guy here. He acted like he knew Riley, but her face was wrong. I think she’s scared of him or something? She told me to call Uncle Cole and tell him that we’d be late for babysitting because her friend is here. But, Dad… we’re not babysitting tonight. She was already making dinner. That’s weird, right?”

Riley told Grace to call Cole? Not me? There’s something about that that bugs me, but also, calling Cole is signal enough that something’s wrong, especially with it being under the guise of skipping some imaginary babysitting gig.

“Where is Riley now?” I ask.

“The fancy living room. She’s in the doorway, and I can’t see the guy so he must be in there. But she told him to get the fudge out, but she used the real word.” She lowers her voice, barely whispering, “Dad, something’s wrong. Like really wrong.”

I don’t know what in the hell is going on at my house, but my priority is Grace. “Okay, I’m on my way. I’m going to call Cole. What I need you to do is, go into your bathroom and lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone except me or Uncle Cole, okay?”

“Okay, but Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m scared.” Her voice is small, and I can hear it catching in her throat.

I take a big inhale, her words a punch to my gut. “I know, but it’s going to be okay. Just hide for me, okay?” Telling my daughter to hide for her safety is a fear I’ve never known and a sense of uselessness I never want to feel again. Dread creeps through me, cold ice filling my veins.

“What about Riley?” She sniffles.

Another gut punch. “She’s strong. She’s tough. She’ll be okay. Now, hide, honey. I love you and I’ll be there soon.”

“Love you too.”

The line goes dead, and I slam my fist on the steering wheel, nearly swerving into the guardrail. I right myself in the lane, but instead of slowing down, I go faster.

What the ever-loving fuck is going on?

“Call Cole,” I tell my car. While it rings, I clench my jaw so hard my teeth crack.

“What?”

I don’t wait for anything else. It doesn’t feel like there’s time. “Something’s wrong at home. Grace said some guy is there and Riley’s acting weird. She told Grace to call you and tell you she has a friend there so she can’t babysit. Does that mean something to you?”

“Here, take him,” I hear Cole say, and there’s shuffling like he’s handing Emmett off to Janey, who I hear in the background. “A friend? That’s what she said? Riley doesn’t have any friends.”

“I know. What does that mean?” I snap.

I hear clicking through the line like he’s typing. “Hold on one second. I’m looking at your doorbell camera feed for the last few minutes.”

“You’re what?”

“Shit,” he hisses, obviously seeing something in the video, and any qualms I have about the invasion of privacy disappear. “That’s not a friend. That’s Austin. Call the police and have them meet us there.”

My heart, which had been racing, stutters to a stop. “The police? Who’s Austin?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” I ask slowly. Or it feels slow. It feels like slow-motion, but I think it’s just me because the scenery outside is whooshing past in a blur with how fast I’m going.

“Fuck, Cam. Are you on your way there? How far out are you?” He doesn’t give me time to answer. I’m not sure it matters since I’m not there already, which is what I want to be. “I’m getting in my car now, but I’m probably ten minutes out. He won’t hurt her. Or I don’t think he will, but I also wouldn’t have thought he’d bust into your house like that. It’s not his style.”

“Whose style? He busted in?” I repeat, not sure which question I want answered first.

“Austin Collins, Riley’s dad. Well, her legal one.”

“Her what?”

“Never mind. I’ll call the police so I can give them the rundown. Just get there, and don’t kill him. Not even Dad’s money can get you off if the police walk in to see his blood on your hands.”

With that graphic advice, the line goes dead. That’s when I get a text from Riley. The single letter X has me panicking more than anything else.

I bust into the mudroom, the door hitting the wall behind it. “Riley!” I shout.

“In here,” she answers, and I run toward her voice.

She’s still in the formal living room, and a quick scan tells me she’s uninjured, but her eyes are wild and she’s breathing too fast. She should look scared. I expected her to be panicked. But she looks furious. Whatever’s going on hasn’t made her shrink in fear. She’s in warrior mode, standing tall and sure. Still, I ask, “You okay?”

She nods once, saying yes, but I’m not fully sure I believe her, given the circumstances.

“Hey, man. I was just leaving,” a voice rough from decades of cigarette smoke says, and I look past Riley to see a blond man in baggy jeans, a dirty T-shirt, and worn boots. I’d estimate him to be in his late fifties, maybe early sixties, and he was probably handsome at some point, but those years have been rough and show in the craggy lines on his face. He’s broad-chested, with a belly that looks hard as stone and speaks to time spent with a beer in his hand, and I bet he’s one of those guys who packs a power punch you don’t expect. But what I see most is the shit-eating grin on his face. “Just came by to talk to Rye about old times, you know. But I’m going.”

“You’re not going anywhere until the police get here.”

I’d love to say that’s me ordering this guy around like a badass, but those words came from Riley. She cuts her eyes to me quickly, like she doesn’t want to take them off the other guy for long. “You or Cole called them, right?”

I nod. “I’d like some answers as well.”

“Sounds like you have a lot to talk about, so I’ll, uh… get out of your hair.” He tries to bypass Riley, but I step in his way, leveling him with a cold, hard glare.

This man busted into my home uninvited. He scared my daughter. He did something to Riley—I don’t know what, but there’s obviously bad blood between them.

I want to punch him. I want to go off on him until he’s bloody and broken. I can feel the violence building in me, my hands clenching at my sides as the need to protect my family overwhelms me. Cole knew I’d feel this way. It’s why he warned me not to kill this asshole. But the urge is strong.

Thankfully, that’s when my brother arrives. Later, I’ll wonder how Cole timed that so perfectly. But right now, I’m glad he’s here and four officers are streaming in behind him.

“That’s him. Austin Collins.” He’s directing the police around like he’s in charge of them, which is a dangerous game to play, but they seem on board with whatever he wants, and two officers grab Austin and spin him around, yanking his hands behind his back.

“Rye, tell them this is all a misunderstanding. It don’t need to be like this,” he pleads.

“It was always going to end like this,” she tells him woodenly. Whatever adrenaline she’s been running on is spent, and she’s starting to sag.

I should go to her. I know I should, but my tunnel vision hasn’t cleared and there’s still one thing I have to do. “I need to get Grace.”

“Grace!” Riley exclaims. “She’s okay, right?”

She starts to go with me, but one of the police call her back. “Ma’am, we have questions for you.” She freezes, obviously torn, but I wave her toward the officer.

I need to see my daughter, need to see with my own eyes that she’s truly okay. Taking the stairs two at a time, I force myself to slow as I open her door, not wanting to scare her any further. “Grace? It’s me, Dad. You’re safe to come out now.”

Her bathroom door flies open and she throws herself at me. “Dad! You’re here! Ohmygod, I was so scared! What happened? Is Riley okay? Is Uncle Cole here? Did I hear police sirens?”

Every word is another stab to my heart. My baby girl, my precious baby girl who means everything to me, is terrified and burying herself against my chest and climbing into my arms like a toddler.

I run my hand over her curls, soothing her. “Shh, it’s okay. Everything’s okay. You’re safe.”

In my chest, my heart is pounding hard and fast. This could’ve gone so differently. It could’ve been so much worse.

It could’ve been loss all over again. Only it would’ve been even worse this time.

“You sure you’re good?” Cole asks me. It’s at least the third time he’s asked and he’s still hovering near the door like he doesn’t feel good about leaving me. That’s sign enough that I don’t look well.

“Yeah. Fine. Just need to talk,” I tell him, my voice flat, even to my own ears.

He glances from me to Riley, who’s curled up on the couch in the family room. After the police left with Austin, promising a laundry list of charges against him, she stood in the doorway of the formal living room and stared at the couch in there for a few minutes, her eyes vacant. Suddenly, like someone hit fast-forward on a remote, she’d leapt into action, grabbing a rag and cleaner and scrubbing the coffee table glass like it’d mortally offended her. Janey, who arrived not long after Cole, finally had to take the supplies from her and push her into the family room, tucking her into a corner of the couch, laying a blanket over her, and making her tea. Riley’s still holding the mug, but I don’t think she’s taken a single sip of her favorite chamomile.

“Alright, we’ve got Grace for as long as you need us to. Even overnight if you want,” he offers, but I shake my head. I won’t be able to sleep without her being under the same roof as I am. Hell, I might sleep outside her door tonight just so I can peek in every once in a while and be sure she’s still safe.

I hear the front door close but stand here frozen like a statue, just staring at Riley. Confusion swirls in my head, but the thing that keeps resonating through the fog is Grace’s voice on the phone. She was so scared, and I felt so useless and far away.

“What happened,” I grit out. It should be a question. It’s absolutely an order to tell me everything.

Riley flinches as her eyes jump up to mine. And while I’m sure mine are as cold as I feel on the inside, hers are red-rimmed and puffy from the tears that came after they escorted Austin out. If I had to guess, I don’t think she wanted him to witness her falling apart, staying strong until he couldn’t see her anymore. “You might as well sit down. It’s a long story.” She sighs miserably.

I inhale sharply, trying to keep myself under control. But I do sit down… several cushions away from Riley, perched on the edge of the couch, with my elbows on my knees.

“I told you I ran away from my last foster home. That was Austin’s. I was sixteen. But before I left, he and Beth adopted me.” She swallows roughly, and I vaguely wish she’d take a sip of tea, but she doesn’t. And like she wants the pain, she does it again, swallowing any further explanation.

“So he is your dad.” The accusation is vicious, and I probably should say something else to temper it, but I don’t want to. I want it to sting.

“No.” Her pink hair flips wildly as she shakes her head hard. “He is not my father, not my dad, not my anything. I don’t care what some piece of paper they signed says. I told the judge I didn’t want that, but they kept telling me it would be good for me. They were wrong, so wrong.”

She’s ranting like I have any idea what she’s talking about, but none of that matters. Not now, it doesn’t. “Okay, that was a long time ago. What happened that led to his busting through my door tonight?”

I’ve seen the video now. I watched as Austin stood on my porch, waiting for someone to answer the doorbell. It was Riley, but it just as easily could’ve been Grace.

It could’ve been Grace that he pushed the door against, Grace fighting to close the door to keep the intruder out, Grace losing that battle as he forced his way inside. It could’ve been my daughter facing down that threatening asshole.

Goddammit.

Bile rises up in my throat and my heart beats faster, pounding in my ears.

“He shows up sometimes. I think it’s a fucked-up game to him. Like hide and seek or something. He gets some sick joy out of my reaction when he pops up someplace unexpected and I freeze. He enjoys putting that seed of fear in my head, keeping me looking over my shoulder. I used to think he wanted me running because, in his mind, he thought I’d eventually run back to him. Now, I think it’s just a game to him. Like poking the bear with a stick. It’s fun for him… until the bear bites.”

I think in this scenario, Riley is supposed to be the bear. But she doesn’t seem very formidable right now. She seems… tired.

I grind my teeth, my eyes unstaring at the wall across the room. “He’s done this before?”

“Not this,” she corrects. “Mostly, he shows up wanting money and tries to manipulate me into giving it to him with sob stories about the foster kids in his care. But even if I gave him every penny I have, those kids would never see any of it. It’s not about the money, not really. It’s the power he wants… power over me, power to take all the things that bring me joy away from me so that I’m just as miserable as he is because he wants me to remember that I don’t matter to anyone.”

“Have you seen him lately?”

He’s been out there, stalking her for nearly ten years, and she didn’t say a word. But I want to know. Did she know this could happen? That he was here, this close to her? This close to Grace.

“I saw him at the grocery store the other day. It was nothing. He didn’t even ask for money. He was just letting me know that he’d found me. I figured that’d be it for a while, especially with how far away he lives. Obviously, I was wrong.” She shivers like a cold chill is going through her.

“You saw him and didn’t say anything? To me? To Cole?”

Because I haven’t forgotten that Cole knew all this too. It wasn’t just Riley hiding this from me.

She shakes her head. “I was figuring it out. I always have before, and Cole’s been checking on the kids for me since I got here. That was why I called him in the first place. I needed his help to make sure they were okay. I can handle Austin.” She sighs and then whispers, “I thought I could handle him.”

The truth in that statement is heavy. She tried to do this on her own, the way she apparently has always done. And it could’ve destroyed everything.

“This is what you were talking about when you pinky promised that you were safe and that Grace was safe with you, isn’t it? And the whole time, you knew this could happen.” My voice is hard, the words sharp.

Her breath stutters. “Cameron⁠—”

“You. Knew!” I roar, standing up. I’m looming over her, and she shrinks into the couch, into the blanket, hiding behind her tea. But I can’t care.

I could’ve lost Grace. And it would’ve been Riley’s fault.

No. It would’ve been my fault for letting Riley in. I knew better. I shouldn’t distract my focus from Grace. She’s it. Singularly, the most important thing in my world, and yet, I brought in the biggest danger she’s ever known… not Austin. Riley.

“I never thought he would do something like this,” she shouts back. “Who would’ve thought…” She waves her hand toward the formal living room, or maybe the front door. “That?”

“What if you’d been out with Grace? What if she’d been at the grocery store with you? What if she’d been the one to answer the door today?”

That question stops time for both of us, and we stare at one another, panting and angry and wild-eyed.

I’ve been replaying the doorbell video in my mind, over and over. But every time I do, Riley’s determined face is replaced with Grace’s scared one. And then her voice on the phone echoes in my head.

“Cameron, I’m sorry. I should’ve told you,” she says, her voice filled with pain.

“Yes, you should’ve, right from the beginning. If I’d known, I never would’ve hired you. I never would’ve risked…” I slide my jaw right and left, fighting the tension there so I can say this, even though the rest of my body is coiled tight. “Grace.”

That’s not what I want to say. What I want to say is that I wouldn’t have risked my heart. But in the big scheme of things, my heart is unimportant, unlike Grace. My heart has been broken before, shattered and shredded, and I lived on. Grace, though? I’ve spent her whole life protecting her so that she would never know that pain, that fear, and yet, here we are.

The most important thing in my life was almost stolen from me, the same way Michelle was—by someone else’s mistake.

“I told you up-front that she is my priority, has always been, and will always be first for me.” My voice cracks, and I clear my throat. “I choose her. Her well-being, her happiness, and most of all, her safety. So I’m sorry, but you need to leave.” I stare past her, unable to meet her eyes as I say the words.

She surges to standing, the blanket that had puddled in her lap now falling to the floor, and she drops the tea mug to the table with a clatter. “You’re firing me?”

This is so much more than that.

A firing. A break-up. A death of a sort. It sure as fuck feels like I’m dying. Like someone is ripping my heart right out of my chest.

“Riley—”

“No, I’m not leaving. That’s what I told Austin, and I meant it. No more running away. I’m not leaving you, and I’m not leaving Grace. We’re a family.”

I can see the determination on her face, and in so many ways, I’m proud of her for fighting the hold her past has on her and being willing to dream of a future now. But I can’t. I’m stuck in the moment… the one where she lied… where she willingly and knowingly endangered the most precious thing I have, Grace.

I thought I could do this thing with Riley. Hell, I thought I was doing it… moving on, living life again, feeling hope. Falling in love. But not like this. Not at the expense of my daughter.

I can’t. I won’t. Ever.

“Yes, you are. It’s what you’re good at, right? Leaving?”

It’s a low blow, throwing her own past back at her, and she recoils as though I slapped her. I want to take the words back so badly, but I don’t. Not because they’re true, but because I think it’s the only way she will actually go. So I bite the insides of my cheeks, punishing myself while forcing myself to remain silent.

“I might be the one packing my bag, but I’m not the one leaving this time. I fought for this family, for you and Grace, and for the first time, even for myself, because you let me have hope that I could have a future here, something someone like me doesn’t get.” She laughs bitterly. “Guess I was right. I don’t deserve this.”

But she doesn’t glance around at the fancy trappings of my life. No, she looks right at me, saying that she doesn’t think she deserves… me.

“You’re like everyone else, leaving me eventually, one way or another.” She puts her hand over her heart. “Tell Grace I love her.”

She strides past me, putting so much space between us that not even the wind brushes me as she walks out. I don’t know how long I stand there, stuck in a loop replaying everything from tonight, but it’s long enough that Riley comes back down the stairs.

I hear her at the front door. “Bye, Cameron.”

And I’m alone.

Again.

I scream as loud as I can, the intense sense of loss too much to contain. Then I destroy everything that I haven’t already demolished, starting by chunking the damn tea mug at the wall. I see the splash of brown liquid on the white paint, and then all I see is… red.