by Bromberg, K.
“We know where to reach you,” Abel says. “You’re free to go . . . for now.”
And with that, I walk out the door and leave the life-altering change that room and those men just caused for me.
The elevator ride down feels like it lasts hours.
The walk through the lobby feels like it’s miles.
But I put one foot in front of the other, never more sure of two things. First, I’m sick of men feeling like they have power over me and asserting it. My uncle James, my brother-in-law Brian, Carter Preston, Ryker in the beginning . . . and now the FBI.
Second, this is my worst nightmare all wrapped up into one ball of barbed wire. No matter what I say or do, I’m bound to be cut and injured.
Nothing is safe right now.
Least of all me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Vaughn
I wander the streets of New York.
My wig still on. My heels still high. My outfit still impeccable. But everything about me an absolute disaster.
Time passes in corners turned, in blocks counted, in neighborhoods walked through.
At some point I hear my phone ringing.
I don’t know how many times Ryker calls before I answer it, more than aware that my every word is being listened to. My every verb scrutinized. My every noun analyzed.
“Hey.” Fake it till you make it.
“Vaughn? Is everything okay?” Concern edges Ryker’s voice, and I shove away the hot tears the sound causes with the back of my hand.
“Fine. Yes. I’m fine.” I take a left on the corner of Eldridge and Grand. Another walk to nowhere.
His silence causes me to stop. “You’re walking.”
“No,” I lie. “I’m out front. I had to get something out of the mailbox.”
“You didn’t call me.”
“For what?” I’m having a hard time focusing on anything, let alone Ryker. Everything hurts—my head, my heart, my body—exhaustion and fear taking their toll.
“You were going to come over after work. I was going to send a car. We’d have a late dinner. Vaughn?”
“Yes. Sorry. I’m—uh, I’m just not feeling well. The new client bought oysters. I think I ate a bad one.”
“I’ll come over.”
“No.” I say it more forcefully than I should. “My head’s fuzzy, and my stomach is upset, and I just want to lie on the bathroom floor and sleep.”
“Vaughn, let me take care of you.”
“No. I don’t want you—I don’t want to get you sick,” I correct myself.
“You said it was an oyster. If it’s food poisoning, I won’t get sick.”
“It could be the stomach flu too. It’s going around the staff at the club.”
“Vaughn.” My name says he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying.
“I have to go. I’m going to throw up,” I lie and end the call.
And then I stand with my back against some building, my face lifted up to the moonless night, with tears coursing down my cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into the night.
But I’m not sure what exactly for or who the apology is meant for.
Lucy.
Samantha.
Ryker.
Me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Ryker
“That’s the best butterfly of all butterflies I’ve ever seen drawn before,” I say about the asymmetrical multicolored butterfly on the construction paper in front of me.
“Auntie likes when I draw pictures of myself,” Lucy says, her smile wide, her eyes so alive and full of life. “She says I capture my spirit, whatever that means.” She rolls her eyes and then bats her lashes as well as any teenage girl can.
“It means when you look at the photo, it makes you feel just as good as being with you and hearing your laugh does.”
“So pretty good then, right?” She fills in some more purple on the wings. “That’s who I am, Lucy-Loo, the feel-good girl.”
I throw back my head and laugh and draw the looks of others in the art room of the facility. With a smile their way, I study my surroundings. Light-blue walls are coated in layers of art—some scribbles, others exceptional—with the large windows letting light into the room. If you look closer, you can see the wear and tear—scuffed baseboards, cracked chairs, uneven tables—but the staff’s smiles are all bright and their voices cheerful.
Still . . . this is no place for any of these kids.
My chest constricts at the thought. My home wasn’t one full of cuddles and kisses—unless we’re talking about my nanny—but this isn’t a home. This is a facility where people are paid to take care of and love children.
“Mr. Ryker?”
“Hmm?” I turn my attention back to the reason I’m here. Bright-blue eyes, a crooked princess crown, and a barely there temporary tattoo on the inside of her wrist from our royal festival over two weeks ago.
“Why do you look so sad all of a sudden?”
My smile is instantaneous. “No reason,” I lie.
“You can’t fool me.” She reaches out and pats my hand, so very wise beyond her years. “I get sad sometimes too.”
“You do?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She sniffs, and it breaks my heart. “When I miss my mommy. When I miss my auntie. When I want to sleep in the princess bed and wake up to chocolate chip pancakes that Auntie Vee makes. When I can’t watch one of my movies because it’s lights-out time.” She twists her mouth to combat the quivering of her bottom lip.
“What about your dad? Do you miss your dad?” I can’t help myself from asking something I have no business knowing.
She shrugs and averts her eyes. “Sometimes.”
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s always lots of people in his house. Lots of loud music and noise and them acting like I do when I have way too much sugar and Auntie has to tell me no more. It hurts my eyes and ears so much that sometimes I just put a pillow over my head and sit in the bedroom with the door shut.”
Jesus Christ. And the system can’t see this? A goddamn drug den is no place to raise a little girl. Not Lucy. Not anyone.
I grit my teeth and force my voice to remain calm and even despite the anger that roils around inside me. “I think that’s a good plan. To stay in your room. Maybe even draw more pictures. Adults who have too much sugar are not a good thing.”
“Mmm.” She adds antennae on her butterfly, and I draw a yellow sun in the corner. “What do you do when you’re sad, Mr. Ryker?”
“Me?” I set the yellow crayon down and pick up an orange one to add rays to the sun. “Sometimes I go for a run or I work longer.”
“You don’t see Auntie Vee? She always makes me feel better when I’m sad.”
“She does, does she?” I ask to avoid answering the question, because right now she’s part of the reason I’m sad.
She canceled last night without warning.
She isn’t answering her phone at all.
I thought we’d turned a corner when she admitted she needed me . . . now I’m not so sure.
Hell, she isn’t even answering her door today, for that matter. At least she croaked out that she was sick as a dog from behind it or else I would have been breaking down the damn thing to make sure she was all right.
“Yes. She always makes me feel better. You should try it. All you have to do is tell her you’re sad.”
“Thank you.” For some reason I have a hard time getting those two words out. Emotion I don’t want to acknowledge clogs my throat.
“Either that or I can let you borrow my special necklace. Sometimes when I rub it, it makes me feel better.”
“Your special necklace? Does it have magical powers?” I ask, full well knowing I had planned on asking her about it.
“Just love.” She shrugs, her smile widening as she pulls a chain out from under the neck of her T-shirt. It’s the key she wears—a simple silver beaded chain with a tarnished key hanging from it. She surprises me when sh
e takes it off over her head and holds it out to me.
“That’s beautiful. I can see the love on it.” I smile, expecting her to put it back on, but she just pushes it toward me.
“You take it.”
“Me?” I startle out a laugh. “I can’t take that.”
“You can borrow it. When you’re not sad anymore, then you can give it back to me.”
I can’t explain the burning in my eyes caused by the sweet gesture of this incredible little girl.
“I can borrow it?” I ask. “You sure?”
She eyes me briefly. “If you’re a friend of Auntie Vee’s, then I know you’ll take care of it and won’t lose it.”
“I won’t lose it.” I rub the key between my finger and thumb before looking back up to meet her gaze. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” She adds eyelashes to the butterfly’s eyelids and then sits back with a smile. “It’s all done now. What do you think?”
I take a few moments to study it. “It’s perfect.”
She angles her head to the side. “Yeah. I think so too.”
“Should we hang it on the wall and then go have our picnic?”
“Picnic?” Her body begins to vibrate in excitement. “You’re taking me on a picnic?” Tears well in her eyes, and I can’t put words to what the sight of them does to me.
“Technically, we have to do it on the grounds here because I don’t have permission to take you off-site, but I saw a super cool spot in the shade under a tree.”
“By the fairy garden? That’s the best place ever.” She’s already standing, already tugging on my arm in that direction.
“We have to hang your picture first.”
“No, I want you to keep it.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure.”
She tugs on my arm again. “This will be my first date, you know,” she states matter-of-factly as we head toward where the counselors let me stash the lunch I’d thought to bring.
“Friend date,” I correct.
“Yes. Sure. Friend date. Now you need to go and pick me some flowers. That’s what all the princes do these days.”
It’s hard to leave when my time is up and Lucy’s daily classes resume. My fingers worry over the key I have in my pocket as I head to my car.
The necklace. Is that why I came here today? Simply to get a closer look at it for my own purposes? Or was it because I wanted to see Lucy and in turn remind myself why Vaughn is fighting so damn hard?
As if I needed a reminder.
Maybe it was because she blew me off again today, and deep down, the man who never cares or panics when it comes to women kind of is.
She’s pulling away from me bit by bit.
I try to shake the thought from my mind but can’t. Scenes from my childhood replay in my head—the parts where my mom gets what she wants from a man and then ultimately decides she’s done with him.
The underlying reason I have always represented men before—because they don’t stand a goddamn chance once a woman turns cold or bored.
But relationships can work, can’t they? I thought that was what Vaughn had shown me. I thought that was what I was starting to believe. That if you fight hard enough, listen silently, and put in the effort, they could work.
Then why is Vaughn going radio silent all of a sudden?
Is she tired of me already? Has she played her side of the game—made me chase after her, fight for her, reeled me in, and now that she’s accomplished it, she’s done with me?
Is that what this is?
The thought eats at my mind. I can’t shake it. I should know better when I call Bella and have her cancel my afternoon meetings.
But I don’t acknowledge it until I pull into Vaughn’s driveway for the second time in one day.
My knock sounds heavy, but so is my goddamn heart. I’m almost desperate to prove to myself that she still cares. That this isn’t over.
It can’t be.
“Vaughn. It’s me.”
Silence.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“Open up. Please. I’m worried about you.”
The thoughts that have been swirling around in my head spin out of control with a clarity that was previously clouded by my insecurities. She canceled with me after meeting a potential client. She won’t show me her face today.
Did her new client rough her up? Did he hurt her?
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“C’mon, Vaughn. Just show me you’re okay.”
Carter Preston. He’s back in town. That fucker better not have touched her.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“I’m not going away until I get to see you.”
For some reason, I know she’s on the other side of the door.
I lower my voice and force myself to be calm. “I just want to know that you’re okay. I’ll leave once I do.” I rest my forehead against the door. “You can’t want people to care about you, then expect them to turn it off when it suits you.”
“I’m fine.” Her voice sounds anything but fine. My pulse leaps at the sound of it.
“Let me see you, please?” My hand fists on the door. “I’m having all these visions in my head that your client beat you up or worse, and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t get them out of my mind until I see you.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“Please.”
I hear the deadbolt click, and I step back. Vaughn’s standing there, eyes puffy, hair a mess—the worst I’ve ever seen her but so goddamn beautiful compared to the horrid images in my mind of her bruised and battered.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” My hands are framing her face immediately, because there’s sick and then there’s swollen from crying.
And she’s swollen from crying.
“I’m fine. I thought it was food poisoning, but it’s an allergic reaction. I think. My eyes keep watering and swelling and—”
“Shh. Shh. Shh.” I pull her against me and almost sag with relief when she not only lets me but slides her arms around me and clings tightly. This—her in my arms—is a million times better than listening to her lie to me or letting my imagination about her being bored with me take hold.
Because something is wrong.
Majorly wrong.
But there’s nothing I can do to get it out of her, and holding her like this—her letting me pull her against me—if this is all I can get, then I’ll take it. Anything she needs right now is hers.
Her body shudders as she cries. I can feel the heat of her tears against my chest. The desperation in the grasp of her hands. The defeat in the sag of her posture.
“What’s wrong?” I murmur against the crown of her head, the subtle scent of her shampoo filling my nose.
She just shakes her head and hiccups another sob. My hand smooths down the back of her hair, and the other pulls her against me, the only way I know how to comfort the unknown.
“Vaughn?”
She doesn’t respond.
“I don’t know what’s wrong, baby, but we’ll get through it. You’re not alone anymore. You’ve got me.”
She nods for the first time.
I don’t know how long we stand there on her porch with my arms wrapped around her and her face buried in the underside of my neck, but eventually she steps back. Those aqua eyes of hers are red rimmed and filled with so much confusion, and I hate that there’s not a single goddamn thing I can do to help her since she won’t tell me what’s wrong.
“I’m here, Vaughn. Use me if you need to. Let me help you.”
She just shakes her head as if she doesn’t trust herself to speak.
“Please.”
This time she nods and whispers, “Thank you.”
The door clicks shut, and the deadbolt turns in, all without my ever having stepped foot inside her house.
I don’t know how long I stand there and stare at her door, but I do.
My need to fix and know and take care of her is stronger than my will to leave her to suffer silently thr
ough whatever it is that’s troubling her.
Losing Lucy. Something with Brian. Fucking Carter Preston. An issue at Apropos or with Wicked Ways. Maybe all the talk about her uncle has thrown her for a loop.
I wish I knew the answer.
Fuck, how I wish I knew.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Vaughn
I know Ryker doesn’t leave for a long time. He stands at the door and then sits in his car in the driveway for even longer.
That in itself tests every ounce of strength I have not to fling the door back open and tell him everything.
But I can’t.
I can be weak with Ryker. I can let down my guard. I can be the woman no one else gets to see because he makes me feel secure enough when we’re together.
And how he just reacted? Coming here because he was worried and then silent when he knew something was wrong. Comforting when I’m more than certain he wanted to shake answers out of me. It was everything I needed him to be and then some.
There’s no way Ryker is a part of this payoff with Carter.
No damn way.
A man capable of being that devious wouldn’t have come to my door twice in one day to make sure I’m okay simply because I said I wasn’t feeling well. A man that full of deceit would be glad I was out of the way so he could carry on scheming and fucking me over.
I’ve spent my whole life being screwed over by men or watching those I love be screwed over. I’ve spent so much time forcing myself to go at it alone because I thought I was better off for it.
And now, just as I’ve finally found a man I love and trust—because we’ve worked through our issues, regardless of how unconventional those issues may be—I’m left with the rest of my life beginning to fall down around me. I have Carter after me. I have the FBI threatening me and telling me Ryker isn’t trustworthy. I have Brian telling lies to try to extort money.
At some point, I have to shut the white noise out. I have to trust my own instincts. I have to allow myself to rely on others. I have to believe in myself and have conviction in my own opinions.
I have to realize that no matter how damn hard the fight might be—how much it might scare me—it’s time to fight it with both fists and everything I’ve got.
If I don’t, I just might lose everything, and that’s not an option.