by Hope Anika
“The only way to protect him is to go public,” Red said. “Right now.”
Cheyenne would carve his heart out and feed it to him. “No.”
“Have you thought about the fact that Georgia might have arranged for the boy’s existence to surface if anything happened to her? That destroying Malik from beyond the grave would hold infinite appeal for her?”
“Jesus,” Will snarled. “What a mess.”
“And getting messier,” Red warned.
He hadn’t expected this. Not the kid. Not Cheyenne.
Nothing beyond simple greed and murder with a little treason thrown in for kicks. But it was changing shape around him, finding dimension. Making him think and feel and want. Making him fight for something other than death.
He wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“Brother?”
Will shook his head. Tried to order his thoughts. In front of him, Cheyenne took the Michigan Avenue exit, and he followed. “What about the tags on the sedan?”
“Rental tags. Name on the contract is John Doe.”
“Of course it is.” Will scowled.
“You get a look at them yet?”
“Not yet.” But soon. Very soon. “Check out Malik. Find out what you can and call me.”
“What about the boy?”
“You let me worry about the boy.”
“Alrighty then.” Red paused, grew serious again. “We finally have a living, breathing suspect. Good work, brother.”
Will terminated the connection and tossed his phone down. He followed Cheyenne down Michigan Avenue to Lake Shore, then turned left onto Iris Lane. He wondered where the hell they were going.
Cheyenne was furious, but that was okay. Will liked her mad. And when she learned why he was sticking to them like glue, some of that temper would ebb. But only some. Because there were hard choices to be made, and she was going to have to make them.
Nothing was simple anymore. Not for any of them.
Chapter Fourteen
There were wrought iron fences and neatly trimmed hedges; ivory white sidewalks and towering oak trees. A bed of profusely flowering lilies edged the road, giving way to a field of lush green grass as far as the eye could see, and a row of two-story wooden buildings sat within that incredible field of grass, each with its own small, neatly fenced yard and stone patio, each shrouded by hanging planters filled with blooming flowers, each looking out onto the sandy beach below, where Lake Michigan lapped leisurely at the shoreline.
Rafe stared at the scene in astounded silence. When Cheyenne had told him they were going to his ma’s condo, he’d thought she was joking.
His ma didn’t have a condo. His ma didn’t live in the city. His ma…didn’t exist.
But here was proof that she had. Perfectly, happily. And without him.
“Here we are,” Cheyenne said and looked at him sideways. He could tell she was worried about him blowing a gasket. But he was fine.
Because it didn’t matter. Not any of it. Even if was beautiful. Fucking beautiful.
This is where she lived.
While he was at Letitia’s.
Finding Cheyenne had given Rafe hope. For the first time…ever. And he was grateful she sat beside him, chewing at her lip, her eyes filled with worry. Because he felt…numb. To see this…it shouldn’t have mattered. It didn’t change anything. He had no illusions to destroy, not anymore.
But anger simmered. So pure and hot and real he couldn’t deny it.
They pulled into one of the asphalt driveways and parked. Rain began to patter against the roof, big drops that hit the windshield and rolled down like fat tears. Cheyenne was still looking at him, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from the perfection spread out around him.
“Rafe?”
“I’m okay,” he muttered.
“Bullshit,” she said. “You’re mad as hell.”
He turned to meet her gaze. “Yeah.”
She nodded. “You should be.”
“I don’t want to be,” he said.
“Of course not. It fucking hurts.” She looked at the condo, with its warm wooden planking, the screened in front porch, the silver numbers above the door. “Grief is that way. Like you’re drowning. All you can do is keep swimming.” She shook her head. “You have to keep swimming. Because it’s the only way out.”
“I been swimming a long time,” he said quietly.
Cheyenne looked back at him. “I know you have.”
“I’m tired.”
She only reached out and touched his head, lightly. She wasn’t good at touching, but he thought it was more from lack of experience than lack of wanting. She’d always been alone; he could tell, because he’d always been alone, too.
In some ways, they were the same. Which was the only thing that gave him the courage to reach for the door handle.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said.
As they climbed out of the car, Will turned into the driveway behind them and parked.
“Pain in my ass,” Cheyenne muttered.
Which almost made Rafe smile. He liked her. She was funny and smart and real. He never would have imagined his mother would leave him something like her. But he knew better than to think she didn’t come with strings.
Like terrorists and dirty bombs.
But those were his strings. Not hers.
“You ready?” she asked him over the roof of the Subaru.
No.
Chilly rain pelted him and made goose bumps rush along his arms, but he didn’t move.
“This is where she lived?” he clarified, his voice a rasp of sound against the pressure building in his chest, pressing against his lungs until they hurt.
“Presumably,” Cheyenne said. “The lawyer said she had an apartment in Paris and this condo. I assume that when she was in the states, she lived here.”
He stared at her for a long moment through the rain, his heart pounding in his ears. “Paris?”
“I know,” she told him. “I fucking know, Rafe. I’m sorry.”
He only shook his head, aware that Will had come to stand behind him, and wished he was alone so he could punch something.
“If it’s any consolation,” Cheyenne told him. “It’s all yours now. This and the place in Paris.”
He met her gaze. “It’s not.”
“Yeah. Didn’t think so.”
He looked around and felt sick: manicured lawns and picnic tables and trees shaped like bowling pins. “Jesus Christ.”
It was crazy.
Crazy.
“Rafe.”
“No,” he said, aware that his voice had gotten louder. The pressure was in his throat, blurring his eyes. “Fuck.”
Cheyenne said nothing.
“I knew she hated me. But this…”
“She didn’t hate you. She wasn’t capable of hate. For her, everything was a game. This included.” Cheyenne turned and strode up the front steps. “C’mon. Let’s get out of the rain.”
Rafe followed reluctantly. He didn’t want to see any more. He just wanted to get back into the Subaru and go to Wyoming or wherever and forget he’d ever laid eyes on this place.
But Cheyenne stood next to the screen door with keys in her hand, waiting. And Rafe didn’t want her to think badly of him. Even though he was pretty sure—if he asked—she would take him away from here. He didn’t think she would force him to do something he didn’t want to do. She wasn’t his ma. But he wasn’t weak. And he didn’t want her to think he was.
So he walked up to the porch, aware of Will at his back—another stranger he shouldn’t trust but kind of did, just like Cheyenne—and tried hard to swallow the pressure down, to blink away the blur of tears that threatened, to breathe against the painful band that crushed his lungs. His heart beat so hard it hurt.
Cheyenne said nothing. She only unlocked the screen door and stepped onto the porch. Surveyed the huge wooden swing that hung there, overflowing with bright orange and yellow cushions, and then mov
ed to the second door and unlocked it as well.
The entry was tall and filled with light. The walls were steel gray, the floors black marble. It was clean and sparse, with dark furniture and blood red rugs and gleaming silver appliances. Pictures hung here and there, but there were none of him. Some of them were landscapes, others were filled with people he didn’t know. There were paintings and bookshelves overflowing with books, and a huge rock fireplace with no wood in it.
As they walked slowly through the condo, Rafe took note of everything. Every piece of art—statues, sculptures, carvings—every painting, every photograph—prints where his ma was smiling, surrounded by strangers—every piece of delicate pottery, every useless, priceless thing she’d owned.
By the time they climbed the stairs to the second floor and entered the master bedroom, he felt ill. The cheeseburger he’d eaten churned in his belly, and he thought it might be appropriate to just chuck it up, right there, in the middle of his ma’s giant black bed.
There were no pictures of him in here, either. Just a tall grandfather clock and a large painting of a little girl that hung next to the bed. Cheyenne had been silent on their walk through, but now she moved to stand in front of the painting and stared at it.
Rafe put his hand on his belly. “What?”
She shook her head and reached up to brush the canvas with her fingertips. “I didn’t expect to find this here.”
“What?” he repeated.
“This painting. It’s the first one I ever sold.” She stepped back. “And it totally creeps me out that she had it.”
“You did that?” he asked, staring at the painting. “That’s…amazing.”
It was an oil painting, which he recognized from art class. A little girl stood in a field of knee high grass and white daisies, leaning over a fallen log to peer down at a small fox that was curled just beneath the log. The sky was bright, clear blue, and the expression on the girl’s face made him take another look at Cheyenne.
“Really?” he said. “You did that?”
“Really.” Cheyenne reached up and removed the painting. “This will be coming with us.”
He watched her turn it into the light and study it, and he thought of all of his scribbled drawings, every character he’d brought to life, every story he’d tried to tell, that world he horded and gorged on and escaped to when he couldn’t take the real one anymore—
She would understand.
Because she went there, too.
And suddenly, it all welled up, ready to blow.
Rafe turned and stepped around Will, who’d followed them soundlessly through the place and now stood next to the window, watching Cheyenne, and quickly headed back downstairs.
Going to destroy it all…
He knew it was wrong. He didn’t care. It was his to destroy. This place—this palace—had only confirmed every dark thought that had ever occurred to him, every twisted truth, every relentless fact.
She lived here, like a fucking princess. While he was in hell.
Furious, he walked into the living room and swiped the tall blown-glass heron from its bronze stand and watched as it shattered against the floor. It felt awesome. The pictures were next, flung against the floor and stomped for good measure. Then the porcelain lamp, wham! The crystal bowl filled with dusty potpourri, crash! The old wooden butter churn, which splintered when he kicked it, crack! The white horsehair vase—
“Rafe.” Cheyenne stood at the foot of the stairs, her painting in hand. Staring at him. “Stop.”
He didn’t want to; he was going to obliterate it all. But when he looked into her eyes—filled with pain and knowing—the pressure in his chest seemed to swell until his ribs groaned for mercy, and when he opened his mouth only a harsh, rasping sound emerged.
“I hate her,” he grated and kicked the vase. “I fucking hate her guts!”
It crashed against the stone fireplace and shattered, and he stared down at it, his heart beating furiously, his vision blurred by tears.
“I hate her,” he repeated, choking, his voice breaking.
Cheyenne said nothing.
“Did you hear me?” he yelled. “I hate her!”
He focused on the biggest statue, a large, stone horse with legs too big for its body and eyes of inlaid jade, and he charged it, determined to push it over, to destroy it—
Arms like steel bands lifted him from the ground, halting him in his fury nearly three feet above the floor.
Will.
“Let me go,” Rafe snarled. “It’s mine.”
He struggled and wiggled and wormed, but there was no escaping. He slammed his head against Will’s chest, kicked back with his heels, pounded his fists against Will’s thighs. Will only waited, his hold unrelenting, his hands gentle.
“Screw you,” Rafe said and sagged against him, exhausted from the fight. Tears clogged his throat. “Let me go.”
“Not until you calm down and man the fuck up.” Will’s voice was harsh in his ear. “You’re acting like an asshole, and you’re scaring Cheyenne, and that’s pissing me off.”
Rafe stilled. He looked over at Cheyenne, who stared at him with pale cheeks and dark eyes, her scar ugly and stark in the light, and felt horror and terror crash through him in equal parts.
Oh God. No. No, no, no. Not now, not when he’d been given something important, someone who gave a shit, someone who might learn to love him—
“I’m sorry,” he cried, and the tears fell, rolling down his cheeks, dripping from his chin. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be an ass-asshole, I’m sorry, Cheyenne, please don’t be mad, I’m sorry, Will—”
His shoulders were shaking, and sobs were choking him. Will turned him in his embrace and hugged him tight, and Rafe bawled like a baby, unable to stop, filled with shame and fear and such overwhelming pain he thought he just might die.
“Goddamn it,” Cheyenne said brokenly, and suddenly she was there too, hugging him from behind, and they stood like that for a long moment, the three of them, his sobs shattering the silence. Will slid his arm around Cheyenne and rocked them both, and Rafe knew she was crying, too. The scent of pine and lemon surrounded him, and he thought those must be the best smells in the whole world.
The storm was violent, and when the last shuddered breath escaped Rafe, his throat was raw, Will’s shirt was soaked with tears. Cheyenne was beside him, her head next to his against Will’s chest, her hand under his shirt, warm against his bare back.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Cheyenne only shook her head and hushed him, and they rocked.
Chapter Fifteen
Cheyenne stared at the gleaming red Audi A6 that sat in Georgia’s garage and let the rage wash over her. Like cheap, toxic moonshine, fire in her veins, making her knees weak and her fingertips tingle.
The urge to take a baseball bat to the car was overwhelming. But Rafe had already taken that road, and there was nothing to be gained by following him. If anything, his journey had forced her to consider her own.
And what she discovered was not comforting.
For years, she’d been the one freaking out. Angry, impatient, unwilling to follow the rules. Creating chaos because she’d felt chaotic, never recognizing the repercussions for that chaos, never aware of the fallout others experienced from her anarchy. Never the one who stood and watched, helpless, as the world came undone around her.
“It sucks,” she said, her voice echoing around her. The garage was empty except for the costly SUV and a yellow snow shovel. She’d left Rafe eating pizza and watching Supernatural with Will.
Because she needed a moment.
Watching Rafe lose his shit had affected her. She’d known something would happen—once she’d seen the crapfest where the kid lived, it was unavoidable—but she’d been too busy being pissed off at Will and his slick bullshit maneuvering to focus on what was headed toward them. Toward Rafe.
Reality. One he’d never known existed. One where he was a dirty, ugly secret kept hi
dden from existence. Where his mother lived like a queen while he was punished for breathing.
If it had been her, Cheyenne would have burned the fucking place to the ground.
“Goddamn stupid,” she growled.
But worse. Bad enough she’d lost the ball, and it had smacked her in the face. Worse was being forced to witness an act she’d always before perpetrated. To know fear and anxiety and sadness, to be still within the fury, powerless to do anything but watch. To understand what it was to clean up the mess.
Jesus Christ.
She’d spent her life making other people clean up her messes, thinking she was one step ahead, smarter, better, when really…she’d just been making a goddamn mess. Making things worse. Like an angry child: destroying instead of building.
Just like Georgia.
Only…different.
Tears burned her nose, her throat; her eyes stung. It hurt to see it so clearly. To rewind and remember and know she should have done differently. How lost she’d been, how smug and self-righteous and wrong.
I suspect you know this isn’t the best way to handle what you feel, Cheyenne. Don’t you agree?
Fuck off and die, Phil.
A sob caught in her throat, and she covered her mouth, horrified by the sound of it. She couldn’t afford to lose it. Not here, not now. Rafe needed her to be his shelter—strong, unwavering, willing to put him first, no matter the personal cost. She’d assumed herself capable of that, but she’d spent her life putting herself first—doing what she wanted, when she wanted, regardless of the repercussions.
Regardless of the fallout.
“I’m an asshole,” she muttered, aghast at the realization.
“No, you’re not,” Will said quietly.
She didn’t turn and look at him. Instead she leaned on the car and buried her head in her hands, drained of fury.
“Yes, I am,” she said, her voice muffled.
“No, baby, you aren’t.”
“Don’t call me that,” she mumbled.