by Kaylee, Katy
I felt like my life was unraveling and the harder I tried to keep it together, the faster it all came apart. It had been hard enough to adjust back to civilian life after my discharge. Before I began my professional decline, I lived my life always looking over my shoulder, certain danger was lurking. Even in my sleep, I didn’t find peace no matter how many hookups I brought to my bed to distract me. I knew it was called PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. I called it fucking frustrating that a brain rewired for war couldn’t unwire itself when we came home.
The door of the gym in the lower level of the Rookery, the building my family owned and that housed the home-base of the Raven Industries empire, opened and my brother Ash walked in.
“Hey Hunter,” he said more out of politeness than genuine feeling.
“Ash.” I turned my attention back to the bag as he climbed on a treadmill. I tried to ignore him as I heard the whir of the treadmill speed up.
“Anything on the asshole that stole my vodka?”
“Still working on it,” I bit out, focusing on killing the punching bag.
“Kade thinks there was an attempt on his place, and some materials were taken down at the new site.”
I reminded myself that it was my job even though he was busting my balls. I worked the gym bag harder imagining killing Sara’s kidnapper, the man that killed her baby. Next up was wiping the smarmy smile of her professor’s face. Then I was kicking the ass of whoever was breaking into Raven properties. Ultimately, the bag was me. I was beating the shit out of myself. Boy, a shrink would have a field day with that. I let out all my aggression, pounding and punching until I was lost in a haze of anger and murderous rage. A loud snap cracked and the bag dropped to the floor.
“Jesus,” I heard Ash say.
I glanced at him. He was working to keep his balance on the treadmill as he eyed the broken bag on the floor. Not wanting to talk or hear whatever quip he might have, I headed to the shower.
I turned the water on cold and stepped in dousing my head. Cold showers weren’t just for quashing a hardon. They could also help tamp down on anger. At least that’s what I told myself as I let the cold spray sluice over my body.
How had my life turned to such shit? I’d been raised by a mostly absent father until I was old enough to understand business. It was the same for all four of us Raven boys. When we entered high school, we were indoctrinated into the Raven business. According to my father, the business was the center of the Raven world. Nothing was more important. Not our grades. Not our athletic achievements. Not any interests we might have had elsewhere.
Well fuck that, I’d thought and the day after graduation, I’d joined the military. I’d still be there too if I hadn’t been forced to leave after being one of a few to survive a surprise attack in Iraq. I’d suffered injuries that the military thought made me unworthy to protect my country. These injuries weren’t visible, although I did have a few scars from battle. No, these injuries were in my head, rattling around in my brain.
I didn’t have a college education, and no useful skill beyond killing assholes in another country, so I was forced to take work from my father. He made me the head of security, which, as it turned out, wasn’t too bad. I worked with a lot of former military and a few former intelligence agents. But protecting Raven owned hotels, resorts, clubs, and restaurants around the world was a challenge. Still, I’d have thought I could protect the ones in my own fucking city.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when six months ago, my father declared that he’d been wrong about his business-first attitude. My entire life was a clusterfuck, so what was one more thing to ruin my life? He’d decided that he’d done my mother wrong in not spending more time with her while she was alive and that there was more to life than business. Then, he told me and my brothers that we needed to learn that lesson by getting married and popping out babies.
Jesus, fucking Christ. What woman would want to saddle herself with me? And did he really want a messed up fuck like me to procreate? We all balked, but Chase, always the brownnoser of the family, followed orders. Granted, at the time he married and knocked up Sara the intern, he’d been thumbing his nose at my father. He’d found a loophole by having a marriage of convenience.
But I guess the joke was on him. He fell for her. Hard. I hadn’t realized how hard until the day he called me to say she was missing. He called me because I was the one that he trusted to find her. End the end, not only had I failed to keep her safe, but nothing that I’d done had led to finding her. My father was the one who had the contact that discovered her location. Chase was the one who found her handcuffed to a bed covered in blood where she’d lost her baby. I’d been worthless in finding her. Worse yet, I’d failed at my job of protecting her. She should never have been taken in the first place.
The endless cycle of self-loathing and self-hate spun on in my head. Too bad that brain injury that got me ejected from the military hadn’t caused memory loss or dementia. What a relief it would be to not have all my failures on replay in my brain.
I stepped from the shower and toweled off. As usual, I thought about walking out of the Rookery and never looking back. Instead, I put on a suit and headed upstairs to my office.
“Anything for me, Ms. Nichols?” I asked my secretary as I reach my office.
She smiled up at me in that way women did when they’d be willing to get naked for you. “A list of items stolen from the Ravish site has come in.” She stood up and came around her desk, handing me the piece of paper. She was dressed in a business dress, but it was likely a size too small, as it hugged every curve. The swells of her tits looked like they were ready to pop from the bodice. She used her fingers to push her long, ice blonde hair behind her ear and looked at me with chocolate brown eyes.
If we were in a bar, she would likely be someone I’d pick up. I liked ready and willing woman. But she worked for Raven Industries, and despite what my brothers thought, I could abide by the rule of no touching at the office. In fact, it was Boy Scout Chase that had broken that rule when he fucked his intern. Of course, now he was happily married to her, so maybe that was different.
Me? My avoidance of women at the office was more to do with not wanting to see them again once I slept with them. That was the biggest reason I didn’t even consider my secretary. While she put on a seductive vibe, I got the feeling she was auditioning for the role of Mrs. Hunter Raven, and that wasn’t going to happen. Yes, I was forfeiting my inheritance by swearing off marriage and a family, but I didn’t give a shit. I lived a small life and would have a military pension. I didn’t need Daddy’s money.
“Thank you,” I said taking the paper and heading into my office. I called down to our tech people to get copies of the surveillance footage of the site to see what there was about the newest theft. Then, because I was a glutton for punishment, I pulled up the footage of Sara’s abduction from the park. Where had her chauffer been? Where was my guy? Where had I been that this hadn’t been stopped?
A knock on the door had me turning off the video. No one needed to know I was secretly torturing myself.
My brother Kade poked his head in. “Chase wants to see us in the conference room.”
I rolled my eyes. Ever since he grew a heart and drank the there’s-more-to-life-than-business juice handed out by my father, he’d been more hands-on with us. In the past, each of us managed our own part of the business and didn’t give a fuck what the others did. I had the most crossover with them because I did security for all of them. Chase managed the hotels and resorts and was setting himself up to be CEO when dad retired. He could have it as far as I was concerned. Ash was in charge of all the clubs, and Kade all the restaurants.
“I’ve got more important things to do than to blow smoke up Chase’s ass to make him feel important.” Truth was, I had a hard time looking him in the eyes. Why he hadn’t run me out for not protecting Sara, I didn’t know.
Kade laughed. “No doubt, but I don’t believe this is optiona
l.”
Reluctantly, I made my way down to the conference room, but feeling surly, I leaned against the back wall instead of sitting down as my other brothers had.
“Make this quick, Chase,” Ash said, looking like he’d come directly from the gym. “We’re hosting a celebrity party tonight and I need to get down there.”
“With dad getting ready to retire, there are changes being made at Raven Industries,” Chase started sitting at the head of the table where our father normally would have sat.
“Does that mean he’s getting rid of that ridiculous ‘get married and have babies inheritance rule’?” Kade asked.
“No. It means we’re instituting a new work/life balance program as part of the employee wellness initiative,” Chase said.
Kade snorted. “You just want to get home to fuck that pretty wife of yours.”
I frowned at Kade, wondering if he’d ever grow up.
Chase ignored him. “I need all executives and senior staff to lead by example. That means you have to work normal, more manageable hours. You should all take at least one vacation and I don’t mean to check on one of the other properties somewhere in the world.”
“You take enough vacation for us,” Ash quipped. “In fact, you seemed to have taken over the island.”
“If you want to go to the island, do it,” Chase retorted. “No one is stopping you.”
“What about the bottom line?” Ash asked. “Working less means fewer results.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Chase said, pushing a piece of paper to each of us. “This is a study that shows better work/life balance increases productivity. I’d like to institute a telecommuting program too.”
“Let people work from home?” Ash asked, his tone suggesting he didn’t think it was a good idea.
“Yes, as a perk to people who’ve proven their worth and need it. Many of our staff spend hours commuting. They could be using that time for their family or hobbies.”
I shook my head. What the fuck had happened to my all-work-no-play eldest brother?
“You have a problem with that, Hunter?” Chase asked me.
I shook my head. “No problem here.” I didn’t give a shit what they did.
Kade leaned back in his chair stretching out his legs. “You don’t have to ask me twice to work less.”
“Slacker,” Ash said.
“What about you, Hunter?” Chase asked. “You on board?”
“I work until the work is done. Security never sleeps.”
Chase shook his head. “You have staff. You can’t be everywhere all the time.”
Like I wasn’t there when Sara was taken. The thought cranked up my agitation. “When did you become the boss of us?”
I saw Chases’ jaw clench like he was preparing for me to go off half-cocked. He was probably right to do so.
“Dad is out of the country now. It’s my job to keep the company—”
“So now that you’ve settled down, you’re his favorite?” I said derisively.
“He was always his favorite,” Kade said.
“You’re just mad because you were Mom’s favorite, and she’s not here to protect your whiny ass,” I said to Kade.
“That’s enough Hunter,” Chase said. His voice was calm, but I heard the undercurrent of irritation.
“This is fucked. All of you are completely fucked. I do my job—”
“What about Sara?” Kade said to me.
A white blast of rage shot through me. “Fuck!” Violent energy coiled tight, and I struck out, jamming my fist into the wall behind me. I felt the shock of pain in my knuckles and fingers. Saw the dent in the drywall.
Chase shot up from his chair. “You need to get that under control.”
I laughed scornfully. He thought I could control it? “I’m fine.”
“You broke the punching bag this morning.” Ash looked at Chase. “He punched it until the chain came right out the ceiling.”
Chase looked at me with those dark, intense eyes that reminded me of my father’s. “I mean it, Hunter, get help or we’ll get it for you.”
“You really have become Dad’s puppet,” I sneered.
“Think about what you want. The direction stands: get help or get out.”
I looked to my other brothers, although I was not sure for what. Help? Support? Mostly they appeared shocked.
“You need to stop trying to control everything,” I said. “These meetings to boost your ego are a waste of time. I’m going to work.” I strode to the door, slamming it behind me on my way out. If they found a way to get rid of me, it would be a blessing. But I suspected they’d let me stay. After all, they felt sorry for me now that the war had stripped me of my sanity.
2
Grace
Friday
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ played in my head as I sat in my new office at the Rookery, the building owned by the Raven family. After two years of grad school, two years of supervision to get my license, and now two years of working as a therapist, I’d achieved what I’d set out to do: have my own private counseling practice in New York City. But I’d been so focused on that goal since starting college, that I hadn’t taken the time along the way to assess if that’s still what I wanted.
Yes, I wanted to help people live fuller lives, and counseling seemed like the ideal way to do it. But I found that the reality was much different, at least with the clients I saw. Most people walked through my door wanting a better life and saying they were ready to change. However, usually, they wanted the world around them to change, and never saw the role they played in their own unhappiness no matter how hard I tried to point it out. Many people dropped out of counseling when I pushed them to truly understand themselves and the changes they’d need to make.
I understood it. It could be unpleasant to learn the truth about ourselves, and extremely difficult to change old habits and ways of thinking. The lack of real impact I felt I had on my clients’ lives made me question if I was in the right profession, much less working with the right people. Maybe I needed to work in a non-profit or specialize in something other than first world neurosis.
I’d spent some time working in the Veteran Administration and with non-profits with people suffering from PTSD. It was heart-breaking to see people so destroyed and broken down by war and other trauma. I found myself emotionally worn-down working with them, which was why I made a change. But at least with the veterans, I felt like I’d made a difference.
But, for now, I was in my own office, talking to bored wives who wished their husbands would take them on vacation more often, and overworked executives who wondered why their wives were cheating on them.
My next client was one of the main men of Raven Industries, Chase Raven. He was newly married and had a child on the way. Rumors were he’d mellowed some since getting married, so I couldn’t imagine why he’d need my help. Although, I’d also heard that his wife had been kidnapped, so maybe he was seeking advice on how to help her if she was still suffering effects from her ordeal. PTSD wasn’t something only soldiers struggled with. Any traumatic event could cause it.
I left my office on the fifth floor and took the elevator up to the top, to the sixtieth floor where all the executives were. I was a confident woman, but I’d never met a billionaire before, so admittedly, I was a little nervous. They’re all just people, I reminded myself.
I let the secretary know I was there.
“Yes, he’s expecting you,” she said as she stood and took me to his office. “Mr. Raven, Ms. Reynolds is here.”
“Show her in,” I heard him say.
She smiled at me and used her hand to gesture for me to go in. I entered the office as Mr. Raven stood from behind his desk. He walked around it to greet me.
He was more imposing in person than in the pictures I’d seen on the news and online.
“I’m Chase Raven. Thank you for meeting with me up here.”
“Is everything alright? I paid my office rent.” I realized that a ma
n like Chase Raven probably didn’t need counseling from me, and instead, perhaps there was a problem with my office lease.
“This isn’t about your office. It is acceptable though, right? Is there anything you need?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s fine.”
He motioned for me to sit on his couch. “Can I get you something to drink? Water? Soda?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said as I sat.
He poured himself some water and then sat in a chair across from me. “I wanted to talk to you about helping my brother.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know how much you know about the Raven family, but my brother, Hunter is a vet who served in Iraq. He’s a decorated soldier.” Chase spoke with pride about his brother, which wasn’t what I’d expected. Word on the street was the Raven brothers didn’t much like each other. “He was discharged after an incident, and he’s never been the same. Over the last few months, he’s been worse. He’s never been violent, but the anger is increasing.”
“Does he feel he’s having trouble?” I asked.
Chase shook his head. “I have no idea what he’s thinking. I just know that something is off.”
“Does he abuse drugs or alcohol?”
“Not that I’m aware of. His coping mechanism seems to be women.”
That was a new one for me. “Women?”
“He picks up women at clubs, sleeps with them, and then he’s on to the next. I’m hoping that you can help him. But our real concern is his angry outbursts.”
“Mr. Raven, what you’re describing isn’t unusual for someone with PTSD, but generally it’s better if I meet the person and make my own assessment. Is he here?”
He blew out a breath. “He’s doesn’t know I’m talking to you.”
Uh-oh.
“He knows that I’m at my limit with his outbursts, but not specifically that I’m seeking help for him.”
“I can see that you care about and are worried for your brother, but therapy only works when the person wants help. You can’t force him into treatment, or expect it to work unless he’s on board.”