"Why?" I asked. "Of course he would try to find any angle he can."
"You haven't seen the news yet. Two other women have come forward to accuse Michael. I suspect there will be more in the next few days. He and his lawyers and his team of whoever-the-hell he hires will be busy with all of that. They aren't going to look too deep into you and Nixon."
"Is he going to get out on bail?"
"Probably. He has the money. It depends on the judge, but probably. Our justice system is notoriously awful at properly handling rapists and pedophiles. I will keep one or two guards on you until we're sure you're safe. He's going away, Reagan. It's just a matter of when. That's my cue," she said, standing, hearing the low timbre of a masculine voice outside the door. Likely the doctor checking in with the nurses. "I'll be in touch. Your lady from work is going to be here to pick you up."
Krissy.
It was going to be a long day.
And I felt like shit.
Lo dipped out just before the doctor stepped in, going over what she had already told me.
I was allowed to get up, and get myself ready for my departure.
And then the inevitable detectives appeared, getting my story. I gave it to them with as much honesty as they needed, leaving out the parts about the cameras and listening device, about Lo's guys.
When they ask, relax, Lo had coaxed me a few weeks before. They are never going to suspect you framed him. Answer honestly about the events. That is all they need.
Regardless of my intentions, he did what he did. He drugged me. He started to assault me. He committed a crime. I hadn't exactly forced his hand. I just put myself in his path. He'd done the rest.
By the time the detectives left, and Krissy came in, I was exhausted, crabby, ready to go home and shower, eat, climb into bed.
"Oh, Rae," Krissy said, sighing out her breath.
"I'm okay," I assured her, taking the bottle of water off my tray as I got to my feet. "It didn't get that far."
"Luis has been frantically calling me. He said your parents are beside themselves, talking about getting on a plane."
"Ugh," I grumbled, moving to the desk to sign my discharge papers.
"I think he managed to get them to agree to wait until they heard from you. I know things with them have been a little... tense." She didn't know why, but there was no mistaking the stiff tone I used with them on the phone.
"I will call Luis when I get home."
"Why don't you come home with me?" she asked, linking her arm through mine.
"You're sweet. I just... I want my own bed."
"And your man there to comfort you. I get it," she assured me, giving my arm a little squeeze. "I will just get you there, make sure you have everything you need. Then you can tell me to get lost if you want to be alone."
"You're a good friend, Krissy."
"I sure am... oh hey, look at you rocking those scrubs," she called to a passing male nurse, making a small smile tug at my lips. Krissy was Krissy even in a crisis. I decided I had never loved her more than I did right then.
She got me home as promised.
She picked me out an outfit while I showered.
She fed Mal.
She even scooped his box.
Then, sensing I was about done with company, she gave me a hug, begged me to call her if I needed anything, told me to take a few days off, that she had the office, and then excused herself, leaving me alone.
Except not exactly alone.
Because I knew Lo's guys were hanging around just waiting for her to leave so they could take up posts by my door.
"Jesus Christ, Reagan!" Luis's voice met my ear when I answered once my phone charged.
"I'm sorry. I was in the hospital. Then talking to the police. Then showering," I told him, filling up my fifth glass of water, still feeling bone dry inside.
"Are you okay? Did he... did..."
"No. He tried. He started. I was drugged. I couldn't fight him off. But... but people happened in. They stopped him."
"Fuck. Fuck."
"It's okay. I'm fine."
"You were right. And we all thought you were just grieving, but you were right about that fucking bastard."
I listened to him rant and apologize for the next ten minutes, then begged him to tell my parents that he had talked to me, but that I was worn out and wanted to rest, that I would call them as soon as I felt a little better.
Likely racked with guilt for not believing me before, he agreed, he said he would talk them off the ledge, would make sure they didn't show up on my doorstep and add more stress.
I hung up feeling as exhausted as I had claimed to be.
The knock on the door nearly made me shoot out of my skin.
It was right then that I realized that as much as I had prepared, as ready as I thought I had been, that Nixon was right. This had an impact, despite having known what was going to happen, despite willingly going along with the plan.
"Yeah?" I called, unable to force my foot to move forward.
Rationally, I knew I was safe. I had seen Lo's people there. I knew they had guns. I had even seen Lo's van parked out front, more men and women hiding inside there. Hell, knowing Lo, there were probably pinhole cameras all over the building already to keep an eye on any possible threats.
But there was no rationalizing with fear.
So when the door slipped open, my stomach plummeted for a long second.
Before I realized who was standing there.
Nixon.
FOURTEEN
Nixon
It was an excruciating fucking night.
Generally speaking, most people would never call me an irrational or violent person.
But then I'd gotten the call telling me that Reagan had been drugged, that they hadn't realized until things had progressed further than they planned.
In that moment, rage and fear combined into a lethal cocktail in my system, the combustible kind.
And I fucking exploded.
Thank God the guard closest to me when Lo told me the news was a man, because I don't think I would have forgiven myself if I had attacked a woman in my attempt to get away, to get to her.
I ended up with a black eye for my efforts, overestimating my training, and woefully underestimating Lo's guard's.
Reinforcements had been called in.
Then Kingston had been called in.
I guess they thought he would be able to rationalize with me.
But he sat with me, waiting, knowing there was nothing that could have calmed him down if it was Savvy he was being kept away from.
Minutes stretched to an hour.
Lo's guards were getting filled in, but they were keeping it from me.
Finally, a phone was passed to me, and I was given details about her condition.
She was safe.
Stable.
But alone.
Her brother wasn't around.
Her parents weren't around.
I wasn't allowed to go.
She'd been through an ordeal, and she was alone when I knew she would need me the most.
It was after fucking noon the following day when they finally told me I could go.
I wasn't really even conscious of the drive.
One minute, I was in my house with guards. The next, I was standing at her door, flanked by more guards.
Luckily, though, they let me in, likely having orders from Lo to leave us be for the time being.
In I walked.
And there she was.
No bruises.
No physical damage.
But it was there in her eyes.
A crack that hadn't been there before.
I was across the apartment in five strides, catching her as she crumbled against me, clung to me.
Sobbing.
Like she had done several times since that incident at the Mallick's house that felt like a lifetime ago already.
I had a feeling this was different, though.
This
was a mix of her grief, yes, and the fear she'd felt the night before, the anxiety of feeling so out of control. But it was more than that. I sensed there was relief underneath it all too.
That it was finally going to be over.
That she could put this one part of her life to rest.
That she had gotten her justice.
That she exposed a rapist to the public eye.
That she had proven herself to her family.
That she could take new steps toward a life of more complete healing.
The weight she'd been carrying around on her shoulders was falling away. Finally. Giving her the freedom she so desperately deserved.
"Talk to me," I demanded into her hair when she went silent, when she kept clinging to me.
"I don't know what to say."
"Whatever you want to say. How you're feeling. Something."
"He drugged me," she told me, voice small.
"I know, babe. I know he did."
"He drugged Sammy."
"It seems likely."
'She felt like I felt last night. Worse."
"Yeah."
"He's done it to other girls."
"I saw that." Three women and counting so far. A serial rapist. Our criminal justice system didn't have a fitting punishment for the damage he had done.
"If we hadn't done this, they might never have come forward. He might have kept on doing this."
"You," I corrected. "You did this. You got justice for them and for your sister."
"I have big chunks of time missing from last night," she told me, and I had suspected as much as soon as Lo told me she'd been drugged.
Somehow, I thought that might have been worse. The not knowing. Even if Reagan did know how far it had gone because of the people who had been there.
"Lo and her team can fill them in," I assured her. At least most of them.
"I'm going to have to call my parents."
I had a feeling that was the hardest sentence so far for her to utter. "Luis is filling them in..."
"But they are going to need to hear from you," I finished for her. "It will be good, I think, for you all to be able to talk, to get it on the table. To start healing. I think you've all started that process individually, but haven't tried as a family yet."
"I want a couple days," she admitted, voice small.
"I will make sure you get it. Even if I have to explain it to them myself."
"I'm glad you're finally here," she told me, squeezing me tighter.
"Me too."
"I'm so tired," she admitted, taking a deep breath.
"Then let's get you in bed."
That was exactly what I did.
I got her in bed. I held her as she drifted off. While she slept, I checked in with Lo. Kingston came to the apartment to drop off the official paperwork that was meant to hire us. Which would give my presence an explanation I really didn't think was necessary. But Lo was the sort to prepare for every possible angle.
"Is she alright?" Kingston asked, hesitating at the door.
"She will be," I assured him, nodding.
I would make sure of that.
And over the next week, it was my sole purpose in life. Well, that and being Mal's personal massage-giver.
Reagan didn't do much. She slept a lot. She answered emails from the office, which Krissy tried to send very sparingly. She had video calls with her therapist. She stared off into space.
It was on the sixth day that I did anything other than support her.
It was the day I pushed her.
I dropped her phone down on the table in front of her. The phone that had rung three times a day without fail while she refused to pick it up.
"You need to call your parents."
She stared at the phone for a long time, head shaking a bit as she admitted, "I don't know what to say to them."
"They just want to hear that you're okay."
"Luis told--"
"It's not the same," I cut her off, giving her a little tough love because I knew she needed it, knew she could take it. "Call your parents, babe."
"They're going to want to fly out here."
"You're going to need to see them again. They're family. Maybe you can fly out there. We," I clarified. "We can fly out there."
"You'd go meet my parents with me?" she asked.
I felt like there was an added "so soon" at the end of that question.
Objectively, that was fair. It had only been a few weeks. But the fact of the matter was, we hadn't wasted weeks dipping our toes in. We jumped right in. We got fully immersed in it. We'd pretty much been living together since we finally sealed the deal. I dropped into her office for lunch. I knew where more of her cooking utensils were than she did. I fixed the leak in the bathroom sink. She gave me a drawer. She did not, however, make room in her closet. This was likely because there was no room to be made. I'd never seen someone with so many clothes. As a compromise, she sat and helped me Kondo-fy my drawer, rolling everything to make more room.
She came with me to spend time with my family.
It was time to spend time with hers.
"Yeah. I get to see your ridiculous childhood home with my own two eyes. If you want," I added, feeling a somewhat uncharacteristic surge of uncertainty flood my system. "I understand if you want to go see them on your own."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "No. I want you to come. I think that is the only way I could get through it, honestly."
"Good. Then call them. Set it up."
"What about your work schedule? I can't go until after I get back to the office. Krissy and Harvey are butting heads from the sound of things. And I need to go over the marketing campaign with the team in California so everyone is on the same page. And then I can go. A week should work."
"I can do a week."
"You didn't even talk to King."
"I don't need to talk to King. It's fine."
"Atlas is back in town, isn't he?"
"He spent a week in bed with someone in the royal family. You know... until they found out."
"It's funny that we both have brothers who can't stay in one place for any length of time. They've probably even crossed paths before without realizing it."
"Do you think Luis will show up if you are going to visit your parents?"
"Depends on if he has work or not. But probably. I haven't seen him in a while. He usually gets a bit of familial guilt, drops in for a day, then jets off again. He will see this as an opportunity to hit two birds with one stone. He will also lighten the mood a bit."
"The mood will be fine, babe. Stop stressing about it so much."
To that, she gave me a grateful smile, tapping a nail on her phone, trying to find the courage to make the call.
"Are you going to judge my parents' taste in art like you do mine?"
"That depends. Do they like creepy-ass fucking devil paintings like you do?"
She laughed at that, the tension leaving her shoulders.
With that, she picked up the phone, she assured her parents that she was okay, and she told them we would be heading out the following week to catch up.
"Yes, we," she said, giving me what I could only call a shy smile. "Nixon. Yes. It's his real name. Nixon Rivers. Yes. He does private security. Yeah. Okay. I will tell him. Love you too. Bye."
"Tell me what?" I asked.
"To bring your bathing suit."
"You look excited."
"I am. I think that is the first time I've spoken to them that I didn't feel like there were ghosts between us," she told me, moving into the kitchen to grab a peach out of the bowl. "They're excited to meet you."
"Better brush up on my manners then, huh?" I mused, knowing it would never be my strong suit.
"I think my father will like you just as you are. His grandfather started what would eventually turn into the family's empire. He had a fifth-grade education, and insisted until the day he died that cheap wine and the expensive kind were all the same. He was blu
nt and opinionated and my father looked up to him so much."
"And your mother?" I prompted.
"Bring her a dying plant."
"Excuse me?" I asked, face scrunching up, watching as she bit into the peach. I swear my cock went rock solid just seeing that, imagining the sweet sticky taste all over her lips, her chin, maybe a little on her neck from where she reached up to toy with her necklace chain.
"My mom has always, as far back as I can remember, gone to plant stores or even Home Depot and walked right past all the beautiful green and flowered plants and found the rack in the back with the plants with yellow or crinkly brown leaves, with dying flowers. And she would pick those to bring home."
"Why?"
"Because she said that there was nothing wrong with the plants, that they were just forgotten, unloved. She told us that all anything or anyone in life needed to thrive was the right environment, some sunshine, good food, water, and love. I don't think she's ever lost a plant in all these years. So she will appreciate you bringing her a dying plant."
"I actually have some fucking thing made of half brown leaves hanging in my kitchen. Dusty gave it to me as a housewarming present. I haven't killed it, but it seems like it is determined to die sooner or later."
"That's even better. She will like it even more if you bring it to her because 'you heard she could save it.' She'll fall in love with you right then and there."
"Alright. I can do that. Any other tips?"
"For what? To make them like you?" she asked, throwing the peach pit in the garbage and not the compost bin she kept on the small balcony because 'stone fruit pits take years to break down.' "Since when did you care if people like you?" she asked, brows furrowing.
"Your parents aren't 'people,'" I told her.
I'd never 'met the parents' before since none of the situations I'd had with women could be called relationships, let alone serious ones. This was new ground for me. I wanted to be sure of my footing.
It was important.
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