The Ritual: Epilogue

TEN WEEKS LATER

I ENTER THE cabin. “Blake?” I call out but am met with silence. “Blake?” I say a little louder but again get nothing in response. When I rush into our bedroom, the door hits the interior wall from my force. “Blakely?” I snap her full name.

Still nothing.

Entering the bathroom, I let out a sigh when I see steam coming from the shower. I start kicking my shoes off and undo my jeans, followed by my T-shirt. Opening the glass door, I find her standing with her back to me and her head under the water.

Reaching out, I wrap my arm around her and pull her off her feet, making her squeal. “Ryat!”

I spin her around and pin her back to the wall, cupping her face, and she laughs.

“You scared me.”

“Sorry.” I smile, and she gives me a face that says she knows I’m not the least bit sorry. “How much do you love me?” My hands drop to her growing belly. We just found out last week that we’re having twin boys. I couldn’t be more ecstatic, but a part of me feels sorry for my wife. The fact that she’s going to live in a house with me and two boys just like me. Good thing she’s stubborn and hardheaded.

Her face falls, and she stiffens against me. “What did you do?”

“I lied,” I admit.

“About?” she growls.

I had told her that I had an early meeting at the house of Lords, but that’s not where I’ve been for the past two hours. “I had a meeting, but it wasn’t with the Lords.”

She frowns. “Why would you lie about that? Haven’t I proven myself, Ryat? That I can handle this.”

“Of course, you have.” I didn’t want to get her hopes up just in case it didn’t work out, but it did. And now I’m dying to tell her. “I had a meeting with Gregory Mallory.”

Her frown deepens, tilting her head to the side. “I … wait, isn’t he the judge that you went to jail for?”

I nod. “He owed me a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” she asks skeptically.

“Remember how you said if you had the choice, you’d choose to stay living here in the cabin, in Pennsylvania?”

“Yeah,” She answers slowly.

“Well, I just cashed in my favor.”

“I don’t understand.” She licks her wet lips.

“He’s going to be retiring and when that happens, I’m going to take over his position.” Being a Lord is a fast-track to your career. But it’ll still be about ten years out before I’m a judge. In the meantime, I’ll be a high-priced attorney to get the courtroom time needed. If I start right out of the gate, it’ll raise too many questions.

She gasps, her hands going to her mouth. “Are you serious?”

I nod. “Yep.”

“We’re staying here?” Her hands hit my chest excitedly. “We don’t have to go to New York?”

“Nope.” I shake my head.

She jumps up and down before she slams her lips to mine. My hands go to her wet hair.

I never wanted to go to New York. My wife’s reluctance just solidified it for me. I can be powerful anywhere I go. The Lords want me to be a judge, so that’s what I’ll be, but they never said where I had to live. Everyone just expected me to go back home, but things have changed. This woman has become my home. She’s having my sons. And even more of my kids after that. I want a house full of them. I’m going to keep her knocked up. She deserves for me to give her the life that she wants. And that is here, in this cabin, with me and our growing family.

I can’t guarantee that I’ll grow old with her, but I will spend every second of every day that I’m alive proving to her that she comes first no matter what.

BLAKELY

I ENTER THE house I grew up in, in Texas. Shutting the door behind me, I walk down the hallway to my father’s study. Turning the doorhandle, I pause and knock on it instead.

“Come in.” The voice calls out.

Taking in a deep breath, I enter. LeAnne sits behind his desk, looking like the queen sitting on her throne, dressed in a black off the shoulder dress with her fake tits popping out the top. Her dark hair up in a tight twist.

I hate how much I look like her. It’s a reminder of how stupid I was all those years that I believed the lies I was told about my mother.

“Does Ryat know you’re here?” Is her first question.

“Of course.” Lie . “I don’t keep secrets from my husband.” There’s no way in hell he’d let me come and see her without him. He hates her! Doesn’t trust her. I feel the same way, but a part of me couldn’t turn down her request to see her today. Ryat got called away for an assignment late last night and I feel like that wasn’t a coincidence. Something tells me that this woman has a lot of pull with the Lords. I’m just praying that he’s too busy to check the tracker he placed in me after I ran. A part of me wants to rip it out. The other part reminds me that it saved my life and being a Lady means I’m never truly safe.

She smirks, gesturing to the chair across from the desk. “You’ll learn that even in a marriage, sometimes the only person you can trust is yourself.”

“Coming from the woman who left her family.” I bite. I feel bad for my father too, I wasn’t the only one she left behind. But she’s got him fooled. Considering he still seems to love her.

She opens up a drawer in the desk and hands me a piece of paper. “What is it?” I ask, keeping my hands in my lap.

“Have a look.”

Reaching out, I take it and read over the writing. It’s a marriage license with her and my father’s name on it. “I don’t understand.”

“Me and your father got married his senior year at Barrington.”

I frown. “What’s this have to do with me?” Tossing it onto the desk, I sit back in the chair. “Just further proves my point that you left not only your daughter but also your husband.”

“Bigamy is illegal in every state.” She answers.

My eyes drop to her ring finger and see a massive diamond on it. “So, you got a divorce and married someone else?” I nod. “Not sure why that was so important.” I remember Tyson and Matt discussing once a Lord dies, his Lady is given to a new Lord. I wonder if she requested my father since Ryat killed her husband last year, now that Valerie is dead also.

“I’ve only ever been married to one man, Blakely.” She opens another drawer and pulls out a picture, placing it on the desk in front of me.

Picking it up, I see it’s a younger version of her, but it looks like me. The guy she’s standing next to is my father. “I … no.” I shove it away. “You were married to the man Ryat killed.” I can’t remember his name. not sure anyone ever even told me that information.

She tilts her head to the side. “Your father’s marriage to Valerie was the lie. It was never legal because we were already married.”

I run a hand through my hair. “Why does this fucking matter?”

“Because I want you to know the truth.”

I snort. “Nothing is true. All I’m told are lies.”

“You think I left you behind because of your father. I left you because the Lords called me. And you never, ever tell them no.”

“Why would they tell you to leave him?” I scoff. I know the Lords have to obey their oath, but I’ve never been told that a Lady has to do with that.

“Because Nathaniel Myers was my assignment.”

My spine stiffens at her answer.

“An assignment that ended up lasting much longer than it should have. That’s why I had the hit put out on him. I was done and needed it to end.”

Swallowing, I shift in my seat. “Still not sure what this has to do with me.”

“Men come and go, Blakely. But your child? That’s where they get you. These Lords prefer arranged marriages because they refuse to fall in love with their wives because that’ll show weakness.” She snorts. “Men can get pussy anywhere. Woman can get dick anywhere. It’s the kids that makes us savages. You have already proven that with how you handled Valerie at the confessional. You took her threat of taking your child personally.”

I admit that I panicked after what I did set in. But if I had a chance to redo it, would I? Absolutely. In a heartbeat. “Is that what you plan on doing? Force me to do what you want or take my child?”

“Of course not.” She snorts as if that’s absurd. “I just want you to understand that I did what I had to do … for you.”

I slam my hands on the desk. “Quit lying to me!” Getting to my feet I lean over it. “You haven’t been around for twenty years! None of what you did was for me.”

She leans back in her seat crossing one leg over the other, not fazed by my outburst. “Ryat.”

My husbands’ name on her painted red lips makes my heart beat faster. “What about him?”

“That was me.” She tilts her head to the side.

“No.” I refuse to believe that. “Dad …”

“Valerie signed you up for a chosen in order to pay off her debt to Matt for killing me. But how do you think you ended up with Ryat?”

I fall into my seat. “Dad made him choose …”

“I made that decision.”

No. It can’t be. My father told me that he knew Ryat was the better choice. He was saving me from Matt. But my father has lied to me more than once. This woman who says she’s my biological mother has no reason to lie to me, right? “Why?” I’ll bite.

“I saw how he was that night. He got in, got the job done and he never told a soul about what Matt did. Or tried to do. That’s a great Lord.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m so tired of the fucking Lords.”

“And Janett?” She laughs. “Did you really think that woman was going to hire you? You had no experience. No ID, money. Nothing. Not to mention you were underage.” She holds her hands out wide. “I made sure that she took you in.”

“No,” I whisper. My father was mad when I got back. “No one knew where I was.” If she was aware where I was, then my father would have known. He would have never let me stay away as long as they did.

“Oh, I did. Of course, I kept that to myself.” She gives me a smile. “I wanted to see just how far Ryat would go to find you. He didn’t disappoint. That’s when I knew I had made the right choice.”

I sit frozen, listening to her. How much this bitch orchestrated everything. It played out like a game to her. “And the fact that dad and Mr. Archer wanted Ryat to confess to what Matt had planned on doing to you?” I question. It doesn’t make sense. When I was in the hospital, dad wanted Ryat to confess. If they knew LeAnne was alive, then they already knew the truth about what Matt did that night.

She throws her head back laughing like I’m too stupid to catch onto something that should be easy to comprehend. “He was being tested. See, the Lords are always making the Lords prove themselves. And well, the fact that he wasn’t a snitch saved his life.”

“So, his father was testing him, knowing that if he failed, they’d kill him?” That’s what they do to a Lord who goes against their oath.

She waves a manicured hand in the air as if it’s no big deal. Live or die didn’t matter to her what happened to my husband. “He had no choice.”

That’s the same thing that Ryat told me when I asked him about the divorce papers. The Lords had ordered it and that was that.

LeAnne reaches out and grabs a cigarette, lighting it up. lifting it to her lips, she goes to take a drag, but I yank it out of her hand, putting it out on the surface of the desk. “I’m fucking pregnant.” I remind her

“Oh, yes.” She smiles. “With my grandsons.”

I slowly sit back and the look on my face makes her laugh.

“I know everything.” She says matter-of-factly.

“What do you want?” I ask, tears building in my eyes. “I’m tired of games. Just tell me why you wanted me to meet with you today.”

She runs her tongue along the top of her teeth and then gives me a soft smile. “I just wanted to see you.”

My brows pull together.

“I wanted to tell you—face-to-face—that I’m proud of you.”

I hate the way my heart accelerates with those words. I don’t know this woman and I have no want to know her. “I don’t need your validation.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t tell you.” She shrugs.

“Unbelievable.” I shove myself up from the chair and make my way to the door.

“A Lord is nothing without his Lady.” She calls out, making me pause. I turn back to look at her. “Ryat without you, is just another ordinary man.” Standing, she walks around the desk and makes her way over to me. “You make him a Lord, Blakely.” Reaching out, I suck in a deep breath when her fingers grab a piece of my hair. “Don’t ever kneel thinking that you need to serve him. Kneel because you want to serve him.” I swallow nervously. “You have the power to make him hear, see and believe whatever you want to. Keep that in mind when he tells you he loves you.”

Knocking her hand away from me, I snort. “I’m nothing like you, mother . I won’t abandon my family or manipulate my husband.”

“Maybe not right now.” She agrees, her eyes dropping to my growing stomach. “But by the time they’re ready to start initiation, you will be.”

I slap her, the sound bouncing off the walls of my father’s study. Stepping into her, I press my chest into hers, my blood boiling at her choice of words. “You will stay the fuck away from me, my husband and my kids. Do you understand me?”

“Blakely,” She rubs her cheek, laughing softly. “It is inevitable.”

“No.” I refuse to believe that. “My children will not be a Lord, or a Lady. I refuse …”

“The only problem with that, darling. Is that it’s not your decision to make.” My chest tightens. “Why do you think me, and your father didn’t want you to know about our life?” She arches a brow. “Our real story?” Shaking her head, her eyes soften. “You cannot keep them from it, no matter how hard you try. You might as well accept that now.”

The first tear spills over my bottom lashes because she’s right. I know it. There’s no way Ryat can get out of the Lords and there’s no way I can keep it out of our future. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done.” I finally say.

A smile, making her look like the Cheshire cat appears on her face. “And that right there is what makes you me whether you like it or not.”