I was done playing around.
“You’re right. He won’t stop until I see him.” I took another swallow of my coffee before reluctantly pouring out the rest and rinsing the mug. “Can I borrow a car so I can go over to his office and talk to him?”
“Maybe you should wait for Matt to take you,” Flick suggested, a worried frown puckering her brow.
I snorted at that. “Yeah, that’s not going to work. I need to talk to my father, and with those two in the same room together, all that’s going to happen is a hell of a lot of yelling.”
Raven grabbed a set of keys off the counter near the fridge. “Take my car,” she offered as she pulled a key fob off the ring and handed it over. “I have the SUV here too, so I won’t be without. Not that I’ll be going anywhere. Bash wasn’t playing around about being on complete lockdown. I can’t even leave the yard without two of the boys shadowing me.”
“Thanks. I’m hoping I can get this sorted and be back before Matt gets up. But if I’m not, try to cover for me.”
Raven nodded and gave me a ghost of a smile. “Just be careful. Matt is like Bash in more than just looks. It just takes more for him to hulk out.”
“Hulk smash!” Max said with a laugh as he pounded his fists into the tray of his high chair, causing noodles and spaghetti sauce to splash across the kitchen floor. “Hulk smash!”
Flick and Aggie laughed, while Raven groaned and reached for the roll of paper towels. While they were busy cleaning up the mess, I went out through the kitchen exit and found Raven’s black Dodge Challenger. This was the car I would have wanted if I’d been given the option. Well, at least something like it. Something with American-made power under the hood, built like a tank, unlike the little sports car my father had given me that would have turned into a tuna can if it so much as got tapped by the wrong vehicle.
The engine purred to life as I turned it on and drove around the side of the clubhouse to the gate. I had to open the door and show the guys up on the wall that it was me and not Raven behind the wheel before they would open it for me. She hadn’t been kidding about Bash putting her on complete lockdown.
It took twenty minutes to get to the mayor’s office, and during that time, I thought of what I was going to say to my father. I knew he wasn’t going to make it easy on me; he had never shown me special treatment for anything unless it was to get his own way. There were times when I was growing up that I had questioned if he actually loved me.
Now, I knew the truth. He didn’t love me. He only loved what I could do for him. The smiling, pretty face that voters saw when he was running for mayor. The money my mother had left me…
Which reminded me that I had to stop by Mr. Jenkins’s office to sign papers for my mother’s will. I made a mental note to stop there afterward so I wouldn’t have to make a second trip into town in the next few days. I didn’t want to have to put that off on Matt too. Not when he had so much else to deal with.
I parked outside my father’s building and calmly walked into the mayor’s office. His secretary was behind her desk when I entered, and she barely lifted one of her fake lashes when she realized it was me. The woman was professionally dressed, her hair always expertly styled, but her makeup looked like a YouTube tutorial fail. Someone needed to tell her that less was more at times.
“He’s been expecting you,” she said with a snide smile, surprising me when her face didn’t crack under the weight of her makeup. “Go on in.”
Nervousness tightened in my stomach, and for a split second, I wished I had waited for Matt to come with me. But that would have been pure chaos. Gathering my courage, I opened the door to his office and stepped inside. My eyes went straight to the desk where Derrick Michaels always sat. His office chair was like his throne, where he felt like he was at his most powerful. He wanted to rule all of Creswell Springs, and then once he had it exactly the way he wanted it, he planned on running for governor.
Which was exactly what California needed.
Not.
“Hey, Aurora,” a voice I hadn’t been expecting greeted, pulling my gaze from my father to the small leather sofa across the room. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
I was taken aback when I saw Steph Campbell sitting there, her father right beside her looking smug and like even more of a creeper than ever. I swung the door shut and turned my eyes back to my father, ignoring the presence of the Campbells for the moment. “I heard you wanted to see me.”
“I told you not to go near that boy again,” Dad said in a calm voice.
Calm, always so calm and collected whenever he had an audience. More often than not at home as well, but there were rare occasions when he had terrified me with his rage. Finding out my mother had left him without so much as a dime of her money had been one such occasion. But I wasn’t scared of him now, and I had promised myself a long time ago that I would never be scared of him again.
At least, not for myself.
Matt was a different matter. Matt was everything, and I wasn’t going to let my father touch him.
I lifted a shoulder in a careless half shrug. “I’m almost twenty-one, Dad. I really don’t give a fuck what you tell me. I make my own choices.”
“He’s a dangerous gang member.” His eyes were shooting fire at me, but his tone was still calm, if a little colder now. “Your mother and I raised you to respect yourself more than to want to be with some gutter trash like that Reid boy.”
Anger boiled in my veins, and I held up a finger. “Number one, don’t call him that. Your hands are dirtier than his, so just shut your damn mouth about him. Number two, my mother raised me. Not your lazy ass. Never you.” I lifted a third finger. “And number three, don’t bring Mom into this. She’s gone, but before she died, she approved of Matt. He treats me the way she always wished a guy would treat me.”
“By fucking your friend the minute your back was turned?” Dad shot back, and I had to lock my knees, because that question threw me completely off-balance. “I doubt your mother would have approved of that, little girl.”
“What are you talking about? What friend? I have no friends, thanks to you.” But something was already churning in my gut. That jealousy I’d fought down the first night I’d gotten Matt back tried to poke its ugly head into my mind as doubts and insecurities flooded back like a tsunami.
“That hurts, Aurora,” Steph murmured, sounding like I had actually hurt her feelings. But when I glanced at her again, I could see the malice in her eyes. “I thought we were besties.”
A picture of Matt with Steph flicked through my mind, and I had to swallow the bile that filled my throat. No. It wasn’t true. I didn’t believe it. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. He wouldn’t have done that to me. He wouldn’t have…
Right?
But with the malice, I saw the truth shining back at me from her face. That pleased look as she remembered her time with him. As she thought of how he had touched her.
The same way he touched me.
I made my face go blank as I turned my gaze back to my father, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing he had just scored a point off me. He might have made a direct hit, but it didn’t have the power to make me come back to his house. It didn’t have the mojo to kill what I felt for Matt. Even if it did feel like being stung to death by a swarm of angry wasps.
“That was in the past,” I said in a voice devoid of all emotions. I gave a careless shrug. “It’s none of my business.”
So what if Matt had said that, to him, it was like we were never separated, that the time apart meant nothing? That I had always been his and he had always—always, damn it—been mine.
So what if I was slowly bleeding to death thinking of him with Steph while I was gone. Was she the only one? I knew what kind of kink the other girl was into. She and her friend Casandra loved threesomes. Oh fuck, had Matt had them both? Together?
I gave myself a mental bitch slap. Stop it, Rory. Just stop it.
My father’s hands balled
into fists on top of his desk, the knuckles turning white. “I’ll have the boy arrested for rape, Rory.”
I rolled my eyes at the same old threat he had always held over me. “You have no proof. Not even the judges that are in your pocket will be willing to let a case that has no DNA or witnesses go to trial. Because I’m sure as hell not going to testify against him.”
Before my eyes, his face relaxed into a beaming smile, and everything inside of me turned to ice in a flash. “Who said I was going to have him charged with rape of you, my darling daughter? Stephanie here has been waiting years to come forward about her own experience with Matt Reid.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I have pictures of her from where she was beaten.” Royce Campbell spoke up for the first time, his tone almost gloating. “She and Casandra will both testify that he raped them both then beat them bloody and had one of his gang brothers drop them off in front of my house as a warning to back off his thug friends.”
“It’s a lie!” I snarled at him, but inside I didn’t know what to believe.
“Is it, though?” He grinned, enjoying having me right where he and my father wanted me. “How do you know for sure?”
“Because I know Matt. He would never hurt a woman. Never raise a hand to her and never, not ever, violate her.”
“But a judge and jury won’t see him as anything but a criminal. A loser who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but his gang,” the district attorney taunted.
“You can’t do that. I won’t let you.” But my voice was weak, because I knew he could. He would charge, try, and convict Matt. Steph was an apt liar and could come across as a sweet and innocent little rich girl if she wanted to. The jury would believe her, and those who didn’t could be paid off.
Royce only chuckled, and I bit the inside of my bottom lip as I let my head fall back and glared up at the ceiling, fighting tears. “What will it take for you to not go through with that?” Holding back the tears, I met my father’s gaze boldly. “What do you want from me?”
“Break it off with him,” Dad commanded. “You are never to see him again. Ever. Because if you so much as look at that boy again, I’ll have everyone in this town thinking he deserves the death penalty for what he did to Stephanie Campbell.”
Chapter Thirteen
Rory
ON AUTOPILOT, I LEFT MY father’s office and got back in Raven’s car. Once I was behind the wheel, I just sat there, staring off into space as the realization I was going to lose everything hit me squarely in the chest.
If my father had threatened me, I would have just laughed in his face and walked away. Instead, he’d threatened the one person in the world I couldn’t breathe without. I couldn’t let him do that to Matt, I had to protect him.
I’d told my father that I would do what he wanted, but that I had to break it off with Matt in person. If I didn’t, he wouldn’t accept it, and even if I did go back to my father’s house, he would find a way to get to me. Dad hadn’t been happy about it, but he knew he had me right where he wanted me, so he had given in.
Swallowing around the tightness in my throat, I finally pulled into traffic and headed back toward the clubhouse. A few blocks later, I saw Gracie standing on the sidewalk outside of Mr. Jenkins’s office with Hawk, and I remembered that I had to deal with the paperwork for my mother’s bequest to me.
I parked Raven’s car right in front of where they were standing, causing them both to turn their heads. Hawk frowned, thinking it was his sister, and moved over to open my door. “Everything okay?” he asked when he stepped back to let me out.
No, I wanted to sob. Everything is wrong. Everything I love is being pulled from my arms, and I’m helpless to do anything to stop it.
“Mr. Jenkins asked me to sign papers yesterday. I was already in town and decided to go ahead and take care of it now.” My gaze went to Gracie, who gave me a small but warm and welcoming smile. Unfortunately, it didn’t even come close to melting the coldness that seemed to have invaded every one of my organs. “Is he busy? I…I can come back if he is.”
She shook her head. “Even if he is, I can help you.” Standing on tiptoes, she kissed Hawk on the lips. “Be careful, okay? I love you.”
“I’m picking you up and taking you over to see Doc at four. Be ready.”
“I told you I’m fine,” she grumbled.
“You’ve lost too much weight. You’ve been sick, and you refuse to eat. You’re going, woman. End of discussion.”
I turned my eyes away when he bent his head to brush his lips across hers again. That kiss said everything that no words had the ability to. It said that Gracie was his light on cold, dark days. That she was everything sweet and good in his world, and that he would kill anyone or anything that ever tried to take her away from him. It was the kind of kiss Matt had given me countless times, and it broke my heart a little more to see someone else experience it now.
“Fine,” Gracie said with a breathless sigh. “I’ll be ready, but I’m telling you it’s just stress.”
“Love you,” he called as he got onto his hog.
She waved. “I love you too.”
Turning back to me, her smile still in place, she motioned me into the lawyer’s office building. “Jenkins told me he was putting everything together for you this morning so it would be ready. I think it’s all set to be signed. Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”
I shook my head and clasped my hands together to hide the fact that my fingers were trembling. Now that I was away from my father, the nervousness had faded, but I was still coming down from the adrenaline I’d been feeling during our meeting. I felt weak now, my legs barely holding me up. I hated how helpless I felt, how my father was making me feel.
And I fucking I hated that now I doubted Matt. That all I could see when I closed my eyes was him with Steph, doing all the things he did to me in bed.
“Okay then, let’s go into my office.” She stopped long enough to let the receptionist know what she was doing and then led the way into her office.
Gracie moved to take the seat behind her desk, shifting a few heavy files out of her way as she dug out the documents needed. “Jenkins told me the basics of your mother’s will. She left the majority of everything she owned to you, but other than a monthly allowance, it’s been in a trust until your twenty-first birthday. Which is next week?”
“Um, yeah. That’s it in a nutshell.” I was slower to sit down, but once I was off my feet, I felt like the weight of the world was pressing down on me. The reins of control I had on my emotions were beginning to slip, and I realized that dealing with this right now hadn’t been the best idea. Remembering my mother—aching to have her hold me and make all my problems go away—was not going to make the maelstrom of craziness already swarming around in my head any easier to deal with. “Mr. Jenkins said I needed to sign some papers.”
“Right.” She flipped through the documents, her eyes scanning over each page as she made sure everything was in order. When she got to another page, her eyes widened, and she lifted them to me. “There’s a note here that says your father has already been questioning Jenkins about the money. He’s provided a bank account and routing number for the money to be deposited. Is this really where you want the money to go?”
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but part of me was still stunned by what she had just said. My father was so desperate to get his hands on all that money that he was trying to trick my mother’s lawyer into putting all of it into an account I probably would never be able to access. This, on top of everything else, was too much, and I felt the tears well up in my eyes, impossible to hold back.
“I-I…” I swallowed, but it suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. Nothing would come in, nothing going out. I felt dizzy and knew if I had been standing, I would have fallen on my face.
Through the blur of tears and panic, I saw Gracie jump to her feet and race around to crouch down in front of me. “Easy, sweetie. You’re having a panic attack.?
?? She put her hand on my chest, her fingers tapping steadily. “Close your eyes and just focus on my fingers. Feel the rhythm.”
My eyes clenched shut and I tried to focus, but all I could see was a slideshow of the day’s events flying through my mind. Waking up beside Matt. Having coffee with Raven, Flick, and Aggie. Walking into my father’s office and finding Steph and her vile father there. Finding out Matt had slept with her—and probably Casandra as well, even though he had said he had considered us always together the entire time I had been gone. My heart cracking open, followed quickly by my father’s threats. Knowing that Matt was lost to me forever. Finding out that my father was trying to steal everything my mother had left for me and me alone…
Gracie slowed the rhythm of her fingers, but she made the taps stronger. I tried to clear my head, tried to erase it all, if only for a moment. My lungs burned from lack of oxygen, and the panic only increased.
“Listen to my voice. You’re okay, Rory. Nothing can hurt you here. You’re safe.” Her tone was soft, soothing, but commanding.
Tears slipped through my lashes and spilled down my face. My lips and chin were trembling so hard my teeth chattered together, but somehow, I was finally able to focus on her steady fingers and her voice, so full of authority, but so alluring.
When my lungs finally filled, I gasped in pain, my chest throbbing. I covered my face with my hands and just let go, tired of acting strong when I wasn’t. The sobs took over, but I was deaf to the sounds I was making. My heart was broken, shattered into even smaller pieces than it had been the first time I’d had to let Matt go.
It wasn’t fucking fair. Why did I have to give up everything, while my father got it all? Why was I the one left with nothing, while he got to play dirty and rule the goddamn world?