“If there’s one thing that the elders managed to do by the end of the process, it was convince Adele that she was completely alone. The elders spent days with Adele trapped in a room with just them, and they beat it into her head that if she went out into the world and claimed the things she wanted to claim, no one would ever believe her. And if they didn’t believe her, they’d lock her up for being crazy. If they did believe her, they’d do tests on her. And not one person from the Clan would ever come to help her.”
Victoria was leaning forward, too, intent on the story now. “And they destroyed the footage.”
“They did.”
“And Cade?” Barrett asked. “What happened to him?”
“He wanted to go with his sister,” Norman said. “It broke your mother’s heart. And your father’s. He was humiliated. His child had betrayed the Clan and tried to violate our most honored principles. She had attacked one of her own, and she had been banished. He could hardly stand the thought of it.”
“Did he not have bigger things to worry about than his reputation?” Barrett asked. “What about his wife? What about the community? What about Candace’s parents?”
Norman nodded. “Yes. Your father is a selfish man at times. But Candace’s family wanted nothing to do with him anyway. They left the state, taking their daughter with them to a high-end facility in Texas.” Norman leaned back against the chair, clearly drained from reliving the memories. “Your father cut a deal with the elders. Nobody wanted to upset the Rockwell legacy. He agreed to stay on at the agency indefinitely, along with his chosen agents. And he agreed that he and Nola would have one more child. One more chance to get it right. But that child would not be given the opportunity to take over at the agency until he or she was thirty years old.”
Victoria looked over at Barrett, who looked back at her. “You’re not thirty,” she said, feeling sure that she was right.
He shook his head. “I’m twenty-nine, and I’ve been at the agency for well over a year now.”
“The elders were very pleased with you,” Norman said. “Your father was getting tired, and he wanted to retire. A Rockwell never stays at the agency so long. Usually they retire when their oldest is less than twenty-five, and they hand over the reins, but your father, of course, is in his mid-fifties, and he’s only been retired for a year. The elders agreed to let you take over early.”
Victoria shook her head. “But then …unexplained things began to happen.”
“That’s right,” Norman said. “All of a sudden—.”
“Wait,” Barrett interrupted, holding up a hand. “I know what happened to me, and now I know why everyone reacted the way they did. What I still don’t know the answer to is why no one has ever, ever thought it would be a good idea to tell me that I have not one, but two siblings out there in the world. How did they just get erased?”
Norman snapped his fingers. “Just like that. It was easier than you would think.”
Chapter 22
Barrett
“Erasing my siblings was easy?” Barrett asked, astounded. “How is that possible?”
Norman stood up finally, walking over to the window and looking out at the still-dark sky. “We expunged all records of them. We agreed, as a Clan, not to say their names. To never reference them or discuss them. It was like they never existed. And when Nola became pregnant again, everyone wanted to start over. What had happened had been traumatizing to our society, and it made us question who we were and the children we were raising.”
“So, you just erased them.”
Norman nodded. “Yes. I didn’t vote for that measure, actually, but I was the only one. Even your mother wanted to erase them. If she couldn’t have her children with her and love them, then she wanted to forget they existed,” Norman said. “You don’t remember, because you were too young, but in the first few years of your life, people did still talk about Adele and Cade from time to time. It’s hard to silence two generations—your father’s and your sister’s. But, eventually, it was as though people really began to believe that they didn’t exist anymore, and the older you got, the less anyone ever thought about Adele and Cade.”
Barrett stood, too, pacing the area in front of the couch. He was too wound up not to move around. He needed to do something—he wanted to go flying again, but he couldn’t indulge that impulse a second time in one night, no matter how much he wanted to.
“But my father never forgot,” Barrett said, stopping his pacing. “He never fully trusted me. He loved me, and he liked me, and he was glad when I proved to be worthy of taking over the agency. But he never fully let go of the past.”
“No, he didn’t,” Norman said. “I know that you’ve felt that all your life, no matter how much your father did try to love you and be there for you and give you his attention and support. He never got over what happened, because for Gideon, it was personal. Adele’s behavior was a direct reflection on him, in his mind, and he could never forgive her or himself for what she did to the family’s reputation.”
Barrett nodded. “So, now that I’ve fallen into disrepute as well …”
“He’s reliving everything from thirty years ago all over again.”
Victoria stood up, interjecting. “And it’s never occurred to anyone before now that perhaps this is Adele, back to cause more trouble? Why was that not the first thought in anyone’s mind?”
“Everyone forced Adele from their minds,” Norman said, shrugging a shoulder. “It’s almost as though she died. I sometimes wondered if she was dead, after twenty years of not hearing anything. I always expected her to come back—at least at first. To try to make things right or to finish what she’d started. When she never did, even I dismissed her.”
Barrett dragged a hand along his jawline, his strong fingers then gravitating to the back of his neck to knead the tense muscles. “I’m not going down for whatever agenda she has. I want a meeting called. Of everyone. The elders and their families—all the members of the Rockwell Clan. Even the ones who keep more to themselves. I want a meeting called, and I will address the whole assembly. I will put Adele’s name out in the open, as it should have been all along, and I will say that what has been happening with the agency is not because of me. It’s her, trying to finish what she began thirty years ago.”
Norman sighed heavily, as though even the thought of such a meeting exhausted him. But he nodded. “Yes, I think that’s the right thing to do. But you need to know that it will hurt your mother very much, and it will hurt your father, too, in a different way.”
“Neither of them has done anything to keep me from being hurt by any of this,” Barrett said, sharply. “I won’t go out of my way to protect them—especially not with my own reputation and position as head of the agency on the line. There’s a dead body in my house right now, Grandpa. A dead woman who was innocent and who died, so that I would be run out of town the way that Adele was. That’s my priority—not my father’s feelings or his reputation.”
“I understand,” Norman said, “and I am on your side, Barrett. I wish that I had been the one to tell you, but I didn’t want to see it. I suppose that I, too, am weak sometimes.”
Barrett wished, too, that Norman had told him the truth long ago, but he also knew that no one was perfect and that Norman had spent his whole life fighting for what was in the best interest of the Rockwell Clan. He also knew that Norman loved his son, and his loyalties had been confused by that love he had for Gideon.
He wasn’t going to hold it against his grandfather—not as long as Norman was on his side now.
Walking towards Norman, Barrett stuck out his hand in a gesture of goodwill. “You need to always be honest with me,” Barrett said, as Norman took his hand and shook it firmly. “I need to know that you have my back. I know why you chose to protect my parents. I’m not a father, so I can’t speak to the bond that’s there. But Victoria is a mother, and from what I’ve seen of her so far, there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to try to keep her daughter pr
otected and comfortable. She would side with Olivia over anything, and I respect that in her, so I won’t disrespect it in you. But sometimes doing the right thing by someone means doing the thing they don’t think they want, Grandpa. And as much as my parents think that they want to keep the past in the past, the best thing for them is to have it all out in the open—so that they don’t have to carry the secret anymore.”
Norman pulled at Barrett’s hand, so that the two men hugged instead. He clapped his hand against Barrett’s back and squeezed him before releasing. “My grandson is a man of much wisdom for his age,” Norman said to Victoria as he pulled back from the hug. “And he clearly thinks highly of you. So, I do as well.”
Victoria smiled and reached out, shaking Norman’s hand. “Thank you for telling us this story. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”
“The Rockwell Clan’s most time-honored principle is that it lives in the shadows, and it protects the people of Baton Rouge, and Louisiana as a whole,” Norman said. “We came very close to being exposed by a young girl who put her own hunger for power and fame above the welfare of the Clan and of the people. By a young girl who almost murdered one of her own to protect her grasp for power. And that young girl came from our own family. It was a very difficult time. What comes now will be difficult as well. But I think that with you two leading the way, and with Jordan and Ryan and Quentin and Hannah by your sides, we’ll come out okay on the other side.”
Barrett looked at Victoria as his grandfather spoke to her, and he heard the way that Norman included her in the group, as though it was Victoria and Barrett, together, working against the odds. It was a bit of a leap, given how well Barrett and Victoria knew each other and the short time they had been a team. But it also felt right. So much had changed between them in such a short time, and Barrett found himself hoping that it would be the two of them, as a team, seeing this through to the end.
And what would come after that …he didn’t know. But if he was still here and still in his position as head of the agency, he had a sneaking suspicion that the agency and the police force might be working much more closely in the future.
“I’d like you to call the meeting, Grandpa,” Barrett said, refocusing on the steps he needed to take next. “No one will miss it if you’re the one who calls it. Don’t say what it’s about—and definitely don’t say that I’ll be there, addressing everyone. But set it for this morning. No excused absences. Can you do that for me?”
“Consider it done,” Norman said. “Where?”
“Far away from anyone or anything,” Barrett said. “I don’t want to risk being overheard—and if there’s a conflict …”
Norman nodded. “Yes. I’ll call everyone out to Ryan’s old house, then. He still has that property, doesn’t he?”
“He does,” Barrett said. “That’ll be fine. Way out in the middle of nowhere. Sheltered. I’d like to meet at ten o’clock. No later than that.”
They finalized some of the details, but Barrett rushed through it. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, that Victoria was yawning consistently now, and he wanted to get her back to his house, where she could get a few hours of sleep before they had to tackle the next task.
Leaving most of the logistics to his grandfather, he put his arm around Victoria’s shoulders and led her towards the door. The sun was just starting to come up, and when he checked his phone, he saw that it was just past 5:00 in the morning. If they left now, Victoria could be asleep in bed by 6:00, and she’d be able to get at least two, maybe three hours.
He should sleep, too, and he knew it, but he also knew that he wouldn’t. He needed to prepare what he was going to say to the Clan that he supposedly led—even though he’d been removed from that position when he’d been removed from the agency. And he needed to talk to his friends.
There was so much to do.
“Thank you,” Barrett said to his grandfather again, as he and Victoria stepped outside. “Call me when it’s all set up.”
Norman agreed, and Barrett walked Victoria to the car, opening the passenger-side door for her. Once she was settled in her seat, he got in on his side and revved up the engine. “We’re going home,” he told her, firmly. “And you’re going to get a few hours of sleep before this meeting. No arguments. I can come up with what I’m going to say on my own.”
“So, you still want me involved?” Victoria asked, surprising Barrett.
He pulled forward, heading down the residential street towards the exit of the sprawling neighborhood. “Of course, I do. Do you not want to be involved?”
“I do,” she said, “but now it seems pretty definitive that you’re being set up, which is the answer that I needed to get. And it seems as though this is very much a Clan thing …and your grandfather said that the key principle is flying under the radar. Bringing me, a police officer, in on this meeting isn’t exactly flying under the radar.”
She wasn’t wrong, but he hadn’t thought about it like that. He knew that there were plenty of people who were also unhappy with the number of outsiders who had been brought into the fold of the clan lately—like Angela and Wes and Lydia and, most recently, Ryan. Now Victoria had been brought in as well, and bringing her to a meeting where they were not only discussing Rockwell Clan business, but the most well-protected Rockwell Clan secret might not go over very well.
Victoria took his silence as agreement.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t have to be at the meeting, Barrett.”
“I want you to be,” he said, honestly.
“But you have considerations bigger than what you want. Bigger than what I want.”
He did. If he wanted to really be a different kind of leader—not like his father—then he did have to take other things into consideration first.
“Let me think about it,” he said, turning left onto the access road that would lead him to the interstate and take them back to his house. “I just need to think about it.”
Chapter 23
Victoria
She was more tired than she wanted to admit. When Barrett pulled up to his house and killed the engine on the car, Victoria opened the passenger-side door and got out with no small number of aches and soreness. Apparently tumbling through the air and being dropped and caught by a dragon, could leave a woman tired and sore. Even knowing that, she didn’t regret the night at all.
Barrett was gentlemanly, placing his hand at the small of her back, as he walked her up to his front door. The sun was peeking over the horizon now, lighting up the world with a soft, orange light. She thought about Olivia and the fact that her daughter would be getting up for school soon. Or was it Saturday? She thought back, feeling as though she’d been in a time warp for the past day, and she wasn’t sure where she’d come out at the end.
Either way, she would soon call her daughter to check in. She was just going to get a few hours of sleep first.
“Come on,” Barrett said, guiding her back towards his bedroom. “Crash on my bed for a few hours. You’re getting wobbly, Crenshaw.”
She didn’t argue with him, walking with him into his bedroom and letting him turn her towards him. He looked down at her, and she looked up at him, and the tiredness faded from her as the spark that was perpetually between them flared again. They had kissed out in the bayou, and it had been electric. But flying together was even more intimate, almost as though they had joined in some way that no other two people had ever joined.
Now, as she stood there looking at him, and all of that intimacy came rushing back.
“You’re tired,” Barrett said, reaching out to stroke her cheek. The pad of his thumb was both soft and rough, skimming along her cheek and leaving a trail of warmth behind. “I should let you get some sleep.”
It sounded more like a question than a statement, as though he was leaving open the opportunity for her to say—no, she didn’t need to sleep. He should stay.
She did need sleep. But she also wanted him to stay.
His hand ling
ered at her cheek, and she lifted her own, resting it lightly against his chest. With his free hand, he stroked along her arm, and a shiver of pleasure bloomed inside of her. Her fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt, and her eyes flicked back up to his, staring at him through her thick lashes.
“Victoria,” Barrett said, his hand sliding back into her thick, red hair. His fingers tangled in the strands, and he lifted them to his lips, brushing a kiss against them. She leaned into him, and he rested his forehead against hers, his hands dropping to stroke along her back. Pleasure moved through her, and she gasped softly, leaning further into his big, strong body.
That was all that it took.
The moment that she leaned into him, his self-control seemed to snap, and he anchored his big, strong hands around her waist and lifted her up off the ground. Her legs moved around his waist instinctively, and he used one arm to anchor under her backside, holding her to him, and the other hand went to the back of her neck, pulling her down into a fierce kiss.
This time, when his mouth moved over hers, it was with even more intensity than there had been in the dark depths of the bayou. His lips were ravenous, his tongue searching, and his breath came hard and fast, as he kissed her over and over again, leaving her so dizzy with need that she could barely keep up with him. It was a wonderful feeling, giving control over to a man like Barrett, and she tangled her fingers in his hair and clenched her legs tightly around him, and dove headfirst into the sensations that he was sending sweeping over her body, wave after wave.
His mouth roamed her neck, and his hand explored her body, sliding from her waist, to her hip, to her ass, and then down her leg, then sweeping back up again, his fingers brushing the underside of her breast. As his knuckles skimmed along the sensitive, lower curve of her full breast, she sucked in a breath, and her sound of pleasure made him groan into their kiss. His hand cupped her breast fully, and he squeezed, his thumb brushing back and forth over her nipple.
Rockwell Agency: Boxset Page 109