by Palessa
To celebrate the end of the nightmare, Randy decided to take Kyle to his favorite restaurant. He even rented a hotel room for a couple of nights, just to get away.
Kyle had never thought Atlanta was a place to find high end Chinese food, but Hap Sing’s was a great treat as they found a nice quiet spot to just enjoy. She laughed so hard at Randy’s stories of his high school years and Randy listened intently about her future dreams, hoping those plans included him. It was a chilly night as they walked back to the hotel for what they both knew was going to be an intense night of lovemaking. Randy had never known just how much fun he could have in bed until he met her and he had every intention of enjoying every minute worshipping her body with his own.
Kyle had never been more at peace in his arms. It was like she had finally found home.
Deep in their own thoughts, neither of them saw the car speed up and jump the curb careening toward them. Randy acted quickly, shoving Kyle out of the way before he was clipped by the speeding vehicle. She hit her head and fell dazed while Randy crashed against the wall. He tried to raise his head, but the pain was too much and he lapsed into unconsciousness.
The car found its way back onto the main road and drove off.
The paramedics treated them both separately and rushed Randy to the trauma center. His father was out of country, but his uncle Gray lived less than an hour away.
Because of the names involved, Detective Sykes caught the case and went over to Kyle first. “Ms. Avery, how are you holding up?”
The medics were bandaging her head, but she appeared alert enough.
“Where’s Randy? He pushed me out of the way and no one is telling me what’s happened to him.”
“Mr. Hall is banged up pretty badly and they’re taking him to the emergency room. Can you tell me anything about what happened?”
“We just had dinner. We were headed back to the hotel when we heard a screech. The next thing I know, Randy pushed me to safety and that’s all I remember.”
“Okay, we are canvassing the area and I’ll let you know what we find.”
The medics indicated to the detective that they needed to load her in the truck and head off. Sykes stepped back and watched them drive away. Even without looking at the scene, he would bet his pension that Soraya Monroe was the culprit. Looking at that girl during interrogation, he saw a sociopath. She was incredibly controlled and the face she put on for the rest of the world was not who she was. People like her tended to retaliate if they were threatened or slighted in any way. This had all the earmarks of premeditation. Unless something was done, this girl was going to kill one or both of these kids.
***
Dr. Grayson Baxter ran through the doors at Huffman Trauma Center and found an attending. He knew more than a few of the doctors on staff here as several of them were his patients. He found Dr. Charlene Guevara, head of the trauma center.
“Charly, how is he?”
“He’s good. We’ve got him stabilized and waiting for the results of his scans to see if he needs surgery.”
Grayson found a chair and sat down heavily. Surgery. His nephew had barely had so much as a sniffle when he was growing up and now, surgery.
“What the hell happened?”
“Maybe I can answer that,” announced a voice of authority. Detective Sykes had navigated HTC so many times, he barely needed his badge to go through.
“My name is Detective Sykes,” he said, giving Grayson his hand.
“Dr. Grayson Baxter. I’m Randy’s uncle.”
“Well, Dr. Baxter, we’re still gathering evidence, but it looks like a deliberate hit and run. Your nephew and his girlfriend were coming from a restaurant when a car jumped the side walk and tried to run them over. We found the car, but preliminary results show it’s probably stolen and it’s been wiped clean.”
“Someone tried to kill Randy?”
“Your nephew recently saved a young lady from a sexual assault. They were together having dinner. He pushed her out of the way, saving her life, again.”
“That’s my nephew, the hero.”
“We suspect the two cases may be related. Eyewitness accounts can’t identify the driver, but to be safe, I’m going to suggest you take steps to protect Randy. She may try again.”
“She?”
Sykes nodded. “Off the record, my gut tells me that Soraya Monroe, your nephew’s recent ex-girlfriend, is somehow involved.”
“My God.” Gray sighed. Brandon was never really one to talk about his love life, but this entire situation was more than surprising.
Dr. Guevara chimed in, “We can’t move him until after we know what we’re dealing with.”
“I’ll speak to Cass. We’re going to hire some help. No one but family.”
Sykes watched Dr. Baxter and saw the look of worry he had seen on many faces. At least Randy wasn’t as bad off as others he’d seen...but then again, it depends on your definition of ‘bad off.’
Grayson arranged for a private room at the hospital as well as round the clock security. It took a couple of days for Randy to regain consciousness and his first thought was about Kyle. Kyle’s mother had made the decision that her daughter was leaving Metropolitan. Despite her protests about being so close to graduation and wanting to be with Randy, Virgilia Avery was not in the mood to argue. As far as she was concerned, Randy was one of the reasons for all of this and despite how much they cared for each other, distance was needed.
Randy ran into the same roadblocks with his father and uncle and found himself on the losing end. His phone was disconnected when he was strong enough, and he was transferred to Grady Memorial for recovery and rehab.
It was like Soraya had been wiped off the map. There was no trace of her and Sykes suspected she was getting special help from someone which meant she was connected and far from done.
***
Brandon sat in Cass’ office. He realized he had never told anyone what had happened between him and KC. He was relieved and heartbroken at the same time seeing her again.
“While I was in rehab, I tried to find her. I scoured sites, got in touch with some of our old gang, Facebook, Twitter, nothing. It was like she never existed. I couldn’t explain it.”
Cass could. Through her own contacts and out of pure necessity, Virgilia had enlisted some high tech help. She was practically obsessed with protecting Kyle and it looked like she did too good of a job.
Brandon reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He opened it and took out a paper. “Then one day, I got this.” He gave the paper to Cass. It was just a picture of Kyle, with what looked like a recounting of her life. It was an obituary. Her picture had the word “BITCH” written across her face. Cass looked at the picture. He remembered Virgilia showing him an article about Kyle’s part in the expansion of Mama Avery’s foods. He remembered it distinctly, because it was one of the rare times she was pictured in the media. Cass looked at his son and saw the hurt in his eyes. The picture was creased and floppy like it had been opened more than a few times.
“When did you get this?”
“A few weeks after I got out of the hospital. It came in the mail and it had a note with a creepy smiley face drawn in red ink. I went on the internet, tried to find the newspapers online, but I couldn’t find anything. That was when the email came with another message. It had some specific details about my life and the business.”
There was no doubt in his mind that this was a well-done fake, but to a young man with a broken heart, it was a nightmare made real. The worst part was that he, Gray, and Virgilia had no idea they were unwitting participants in this scheme which hurt the two most innocent in all of this. Their only concern was keeping them safe. But in the process, they both unknowingly helped this lunatic break their children’s hearts. Why didn’t Virgilia tell him about any of t
his? They had sworn never to keep anything from each other, but this…
“I remember what Soraya told me that day,” Brandon said, with tears brimming in his eyes. “About getting to me, and when I got this it just hit me...I got her killed.”
“Brandon, you can’t think—”
“No, Dad, it’s true. Soraya would not have gotten to her otherwise. “
Cass looked at his son. Even as a child, he had this streak of guilt that he carried with him, it seemed, from birth. He had done his best to make him see that what happened with his mother was not his fault. That what his mother did was her choice and had nothing to do with him or Jas or Cameron. He would never stop trying.
Cass leaned in and focused on Brandon.
“Look at me, Brandon,” Cass said sternly and his son raised his head. “Soraya Munroe is a gold-digging sociopath who set her sights on you. What she did to you and Kyle was because of her sick mind and her compulsion with getting her hands on you and what you have. I’ve met her kind before. Your grandmother Joan was a lot like Soraya, and God help me, I wanted her dead for what she put us through.”
That last statement made Brandon look at Cass.
“She tried to keep me away from Virgilia, and for a while she did, but we found our way back to each other and wound up stronger than ever. Brandon,” he said as he got up and walked around his desk, “when you find the woman you want to be with, don’t let anyone or anything get in your way. Having the love of your life by your side, you can handle anything, even a lunatic like Soraya.”
Brandon nodded and he could see a spark in his eyes which wasn’t there before. Love is love, Cass thought and he was going to make damn sure these two would have a happy ending.
“Now, did Soraya send you anything else?”
Brandon nodded. “She’s sent me a few things over the years.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Did you keep any of it?”
“Sending letters isn’t a crime. Unless she did something, there was nothing the police could do. I’ve kept in touch with Detective Sykes since the first letter. He said that since he hadn’t been in touch with KC, he had no idea whether it was true or what happened. But he did tell me to keep them, just in case.”
“Good, we’re going to need them all.”
“Why?”
“The cops’ hands are tied, so we need someone a little more flexible.”
He grabbed his cell phone and made a quick call. At the end of the day, there was only one way to skin a cat and that was with a very sharp knife.
***
Brandon took in his father’s words. For the last few years, he had been half dead. He’d even convinced himself he needed to move on and that Penny, his last girlfriend, was a good catch. She was, in so many ways. She was smart and ambitious, she’d started her own catering business, and was a fantastic cook. On paper she would have made any man happy, but not him. After they broke up, he focused on the pharmaceutical arm of the business and made plans to expand their research into new areas, hoping to fill the void, or at least that’s what he told himself. He had managed a modicum of contentment, but it had slipped away the minute he saw her again.
She practically ran out of the house the minute she saw him and he stood there not believing his own eyes. She was alive and while he experienced a spark of happiness, he had let guilt and fear overpower it. He was afraid this lunatic would take away the woman he loved, that she would finally, really hurt him this time.
He should have fought harder to find her and chased after Kyle, stand in front of the car, something instead of standing stock still...he acted like a coward. Well, to hell with that and Soraya be damned.
He picked up the phone and called Stan, his father’s driver.
“I need you to text me the address of the young woman you brought here this morning.”
Within seconds, he received the message from Stan and hopped in his car. He had waited long enough. It was time to claim what was his.
***
It had been a day, Kyle thought. She’d told Jo the whole story and while she remembered things differently, they both agreed that Soraya was the cause of this mess. After Jo went home, she took a relaxing shower and sat on her couch. That night after the accident, she’d gone to see him, but the guards wouldn’t let her through. Then he disappeared without so much as a goodbye. Her mother was focused on many things and the last thing she needed to hear about was a stupid broken heart over some guy she thought she was in love with.
So she put on a brave face, but inside she died. It took her months to recover and when she did, she was forced to admit Randy had just left her. She vowed she would never suffer at another man’s hands that way again. Kyle flipped the switch and focused on her life, the business, and it had paid off. Her mother’s death had shaken her to the core and in a moment of weakness she wished Randy was there.
But he wasn’t, and after that day, she stopped wishing. She poured herself into her role as head of a Fortune 1000 company which left little room for romance or men. She was better off without the distraction.
The knock on her door came as a surprise, just as she was about to make some tea. She checked the outside camera.
Catching her breath, she marveled that after all this time, she’d seen Randy twice in one day. There he was, standing right outside the door. Kyle closed her eyes and contemplated ignoring him altogether, but thought better of it. She was no scared little girl and had more than a few words to share. With the flip of a switch, she buzzed him in.
Randy opened the door and met her angry stare.
“What do you want?” she growled.
Brandon swallowed hard. “I know you’re angry and you have every right to be.”
“Angry?” she stated with a chuckle. Kyle was not about to give him the satisfaction. “I gave up being angry years ago because it meant that I cared.”
“I need to explain, KC.”
“Actually, I go by Kyle now. KC sounds like some little girl who didn’t know better. As far as the explanation, there’s no need. We had a good time. That was all.”
He took a step forward. “Don’t do that. It was more than that and you know it.”
She shook her head. “There’s no such thing as forever, remember?”
Randy remembered her admission on the balcony and he wasn’t going to let her believe that. “Dammit, KC, just stop!” he yelled. Kyle was surprised, but she wouldn’t be moved. “You know as well as I do that what we felt for each other was more than just some fling. I fell in love with you the minute I met you in that stupid bar.”
“Liar!” she screamed.
“I tried calling around, but no one had heard from you or seen you.” She seemed momentarily taken aback by the news. Jo had said the same thing, but still, they found each other again, hadn’t they?
Randy opened his wallet and took out the paper. “I got this.”
Brandon was breathing heavily as he showed her the clipping.
“Soraya sent me this a few weeks after I got out of the hospital with a note. At first I didn’t believe it, but she sent me some other so-called evidence and...” His voice cracked. “...then I couldn’t find out and...” The tears were streaming as he whispered shakily, “I thought you were dead.”
Kyle looked at her picture and then at him. She closed her eyes and turned from him, clutching the paper to her chest.
“I thought what happened to you was all my fault,” Randy murmured, his voice strained. “I thought she’d gotten to you and I just...”
She turned to look at him and she could feel the tears burning at the back of her eyes. Of all the explanations which had run through in her mind, this was not what she expected. Her anger toward him gave way to understanding and a strange feeling of déjà vu.
Brandon looked at
Kyle as she buried her head in her hands.
He knelt down in front of her, leaned his head against her stomach and just held her hips.
Looking up at her, he said, “When I saw you today, my heart stopped. I wanted to just hug you, but I...”
She moved from him. “My God.”
Brandon got up and stepped behind her. His arms went around her waist and he held her against him, burying his head in the side of her neck.”
“I’ve been half dead all this time. I shouldn’t have let Soraya twist me up inside. I spent so much time being afraid and I don’t want to anymore. You’re alive and I can’t be without you. Kyle, please.”
Her body sagged as she slowly sobbed. Then her hand caressed his.
“I love you,” Kyle muttered, turning in his arms.
As she looked into his eyes, she saw the raw emotion in his gaze and his salty lips graze hers as her arms laced his neck. His kisses became more urgent as he pulled her closer. It had been so long since he’d held her in his arms and now that he had her again, he would never let her go. Soraya be damned.
He slowly lifted her night shirt to touch the bare skin at the base of her back.
She pulled away, holding his hand as she walked him to her bedroom. Brandon dreamily followed her. He was already hard as a rock, but he wanted to savor every minute with her. In her bedroom, Kyle began to take off her shirt. Brandon marveled at just how much more beautiful she was now than when he loved her years ago. He pulled her close and let his thumb gently caress her naked nipples while he kissed her. He heard her sharp intake of breath and he slowly kissed his way, first to the left breast. He let the tip of his tongue play as he sucked hungrily. Kyle ran her fingers through his hair and instinctively pushed into his kiss. Randy worked her other breast with equal fervor and Kyle savored the familiar swell between her legs.