Reveal

by Bromberg, K.

  “I have a key for emergencies. Remember?”

  “Is something wrong? Is Lucy okay—”

  “Fine. She’s fine.”

  “Then what’s the emergency?” I ask as I stare at him and fight the sudden unease tickling at the back of my neck.

  “You know I don’t care about your other job, right?” His words stop me cold in my tracks as he steps toward me.

  Other job? Does he mean Wicked Ways? How in the hell does he know about my other job?

  I take a deep breath, hating the feeling that slides up my spine. Fearing what he’s doing here. Cautious how to play this.

  “Joey? What’s the emergency?” I say the words, dreading the answer.

  “You. You’re the emergency.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Come on, Vaughn. It’s me. The one who knows you. All of you.” He takes a step closer, and I freeze. “Sometimes when I know you’re at the club, I’ll come over here and just sit for a bit. I’ll look at your stuff on your desk.”

  My stomach pitches. “The stuff on my desk?”

  “Yeah. You don’t have to be ashamed about Wicked Ways or that you’re trying to get into college. You’re flushed right now. There’s no need to be embarrassed. It’s okay that I know. I support you in every way possible. I love that about you.”

  It takes me a second to actually process what is happening. It takes more than that for me to comprehend that I’m not just being jumpy. The man is in my house.

  “Joey, it’s a bit creepy that you come and look at my things.” It’s the understatement of the year, but it’s the gentlest way I can think of to say, What the ever-loving fuck?

  “I just want to get to know you better is all.” He smiles softly, but to me he looks like he’s a man who has lost touch with reality.

  “We know each other plenty.” I make a move toward the kitchen island where the knives are.

  “You’re good right where you are,” he says, the tone of his voice irritated and edgy all of a sudden, and then it’s soft and coaxing when he speaks his next words. “When I sit at your desk, when I run my fingers over your penmanship, when I stare at all of your pictures on your shelves, I pretend like you’ve let me into your life. Like you love me how I love you. It lets me feel close to you.”

  My heart revolts, and my eyes flicker over to my knife block again.

  This can’t be happening.

  Sweet Joey who takes care of Lucy and who has always been so kind can’t be doing this.

  “Don’t you want to feel close to me too?” he asks, expression hopeful but eyes still dead.

  I can’t take much more today.

  “I’m not sure how that’s supposed to make me feel,” I say, taking a step slowly.

  My cell phone vibrates on the counter.

  “Let’s leave that there,” he says with a chilling smile. “Did he do that to you?”

  “What?” My hand flies to my cheek, and I realize what he’s talking about. “No, it’s nothing. Ryker didn’t—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” He picks up a glass that’s sitting in the dish rack beside him and throws it across the kitchen. It shatters into a million pieces when it slams into the wall beside my head. I shriek in reaction, my hands flying to cover my ears.

  My pulse thunders. My hands tremble.

  “Do you think you can learn to love me too?”

  “Joey.”

  “Just think of what a perfect little family we could be. You and me and Lucy. We could live here or move out to the country and live off the land. We’d need no one and nothing but us. We could even have a child together.” There’s a sickening smile that spreads on his lips, and I just blink rapidly as I continue to try to process what is happening right now.

  I’m shell-shocked. Trying to understand. Trying to fathom. I take a closer look at him. At the sweat on his brow when it’s not hot in here. His jerky movements. “Is everything okay, Joey?”

  “I wouldn’t hurt you like he does, you know.” But this time when he takes a step toward me, he pulls a gun from the back of his waistband and points it at me.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

  I have a hard time drawing in a breath as fear takes hold. One that is so very different and so much the same as the one I felt hours ago with Carter.

  Was it really only hours ago?

  This can’t be happening. That’s all I keep thinking to myself. This can’t be happening.

  “Ryker didn’t hurt me. I—it’s too much to get into. It was a man named Carter Preston.”

  “That’s what happens in abusive relationships, Vaughn. You lie to protect the abuser.”

  “I’m not lying. It really was—”

  “I love you more than he does. I love you, and yet I don’t see any of the things I sent you here. You kept two cards on the desk, but both are from him. Did you throw mine out? Am I not good enough for you?” Each word resonates with more anger than the last.

  “Joey—”

  “No!”

  Another glass from the dish rack slams against the wall.

  When I duck, I see my phone and know I need to get to it to call for help.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t want me too. I know you do. Do you know how it felt to come and pick up Lucy and see all of the things I bought you on display like you were proud of me? Like you loved me?”

  Mayday.

  It’s the only word I can think of.

  The one I have my girls text me when they’re in trouble.

  The one Lola texted me that started all of this. Me confronting Carter. Me meeting Ryker. Me being here right now.

  Mayday.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Ryker

  The shit I came to get from my office is forgotten as I run out of it—past a startled Bella and out the glass door—my cell ringing in my ear.

  “Pick up the phone, Vaughn,” I mutter as I wait for the fucking elevator to climb the floors. “Pick up the goddamn phone.”

  It goes to voice mail, and I slam my hand against the closed metal doors in frustration.

  I try her house phone, but it doesn’t ring. It just gives the busy signal.

  I call her cell again. The voice mail picks up after two rings.

  Within seconds my cell is ringing again. “Al!” I shout into it when he picks up. “Where are you? Did you drop Vaughn off?”

  “Yeah, man. I walked her to the door. She went in. Why? What’s wrong?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and fear I’m overreacting, but there is something that tells me I’m not. My gut instinct. A hunch. Something is telling me the universe is having a Fuck with Vaughn Day and she’s in trouble.

  “How far are you from her house?”

  “I’m on the bridge headed back to the city.”

  “Fuck!” I shout and slam a palm against the wall. He can’t turn around. He can’t get back to her any faster than I can. “Fuck!”

  I hang up and call her again.

  If there wasn’t something wrong, she’d answer.

  She knows I’m worried. She knows to pick up so I don’t freak the hell out.

  Her voice fills the phone. “This is Vaughn. Please leave a message.”

  “Vaughn. Something is wrong. That box of stuff you sent back. I didn’t give most of that shit to you. Someone is . . . if you get this, please just lock the doors and—”

  My phone beeps in my ear, and I look down at the lone word that Vaughn just sent me.

  Mayday.

  And then the floor drops out from beneath me.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Vaughn

  “I said don’t touch the phone,” he screams at me, his mental state unraveling more and more with each passing second.

  “I was just turning it off,” I lie, the text sent to Ryker in Joey’s moment of panic over the unicorn he bought Lucy that he now can’t find. “I can’t stand the sound of it vibrating against the counter.”

  Please get my text, Ryker.

  It’s just
as crazy as it sounds.

  Almost so insane that I want to press my fingers to my eyes and cry and laugh all at the same time. I’m so exhausted, so burned out on crazy today that I’m almost in a state of total disbelief. Utter and total disbelief.

  There’s no way this can be happening.

  But it is.

  “What I can’t figure out, Vaughny,” he says, gesticulating with the gun in his hand, his feet moving constantly to abate losing his grip, “is how do I know if you really love me like I love you? I’ve tried everything to get you to notice me, and you still go for that asshole. You still want him instead of me.”

  “Joey.” I’m breathless when I say his name, holding a hand to my head. “I think I’m going to throw up.” I double over to sell the lie. “It’s from today. I think it’s all too much. Ohhhh,” I moan out in pain. “The bathroom. I need the bathroom.”

  I run down the hall without his consent, more than aware that there is a gun aimed somewhere at my back, and slam the guest bathroom door shut.

  And lock it.

  “Vaughn? Don’t do anything funny in there. I’ll break down this door if I have to.”

  I moan louder and mimic vomiting sounds instead of responding.

  There’s a man with a gun on the other side of the door professing his love to me, and the only thing I can think of is that I’m all feared out right now.

  I don’t have another ounce of it to give someone.

  I don’t have anything left to feel.

  Is this what it feels like to go crazy? To think the most rational thoughts at the most irrational times?

  “One second.” I moan the words. “I just need to lie on the tile for a moment. I’m sweating. And dizzy.”

  “Are you okay?” His concern—however misconstrued it is—is palpable through the closed door.

  “I don’t know.” Another moan. Then another fake vomit followed by the flush of the toilet.

  Joey is harmless. He won’t hurt me.

  Don’t be stupid, Vaughn. He has a fucking gun in his hand.

  But he won’t.

  You can’t make crazy people sane, Vaughn.

  But he’s also not the smartest cookie in the jar. Anyone who watches television would know to never let the object of your obsessed affection be alone.

  Bad things happen. Strategies are hatched. Escapes are planned.

  “I’m not liking this. I need you to come out where I can see you.” There’s an urgency tingeing his voice.

  “One more second.”

  I’m out of patience with being afraid.

  I’ve been the victim too many times in my life.

  Not now.

  Not ever again.

  I scan my own bathroom for anything that can be used as a weapon. Sadly, I can say that didn’t turn out all too well for me earlier today with the lamp on the nightstand. Not many people get a second chance at it.

  I laugh out loud at that. I can’t help myself.

  “What’s going on in there? You’re laughing.” He pounds on the door, causing it to bow under his force. “Is someone else in there?”

  Yep, he’s definitely losing it.

  But I feel like I am too.

  “No.” And then I moan loader.

  Bang. Bang. Bang. “Open the door. I don’t care how sick you are.”

  I grab hold of the top of the toilet tank cover and unlock the door seconds before hunching over with my back to Joey.

  “Ooohhhhh,” I continue on, each time louder than the last.

  He jiggles the door for the first time, probably thinking it has been open the whole time.

  “Vaughn, are you okay?” I try not to jerk in repulsion at the feel of his hand on my back. At the sudden compassion in his deranged voice.

  And then with a roar and with every ounce of effort I have left in my aching arms, I swing the lid of the toilet tank at Joey’s head.

  There’s a huge sickening thud when I connect.

  Joey crumples to the ground instantly.

  I kick the gun from his hand and run down the hallway just as the police break through the front door.

  And then I collapse on the floor.

  The adrenaline gone.

  The fight all fought out.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Vaughn

  “You’re a goddamn warrior is what you are.” Ryker’s smile is soft, his eyes still guarded as he turns me around and pulls me between his thighs so that my back is against his front.

  The city’s lights are alive around us as we soak in his bathtub.

  “A part of me is jealous that you got to take him out and I didn’t. I was having a pretty shitty day until then and could have used him to get my aggression out.”

  “Mmm.” I lean my head back on his shoulder and close my eyes. “This has to be the oddest conversation ever had between a couple.”

  “I told you we were far from the norm.” I can hear the smile in his voice when he says it.

  “Very far.” I enjoy the feel of him and the total irony of how we are now versus how we spent our day. Almost as if it never happened. But I know. I’ll remember. And by the way his arms are wrapped around me, he does too.

  “It was the shittiest of shitty days. Don’t you think?”

  “Let’s see. You selling your business. A crazy senator. The deranged counselor. A meeting with the FBI to clear you of everything.” He shakes his head with a chuckle.

  “Now we just need to find out what dirt Carter threatened me with, and we should be good.”

  “It doesn’t matter what he had on you,” Ryker says, his lips pressed against the back of my head. “Your immunity deal has you protected from him saying anything.”

  “I’d still like to know what he thought he—”

  “It’s all taken care of.”

  “What?” I startle and try to turn to look at him, but he just keeps me in place. “What do you—”

  “There was some misfiled paperwork down at the Greenwich courthouse that Stuart found. Warrants for theft, I think.”

  “It wasn’t—Sam took—”

  “No explanations needed, Vaughn.” He presses a kiss to my bare shoulder. “None. It took a little finagling, but I was able to petition the prosecuting attorney to get the warrants dismissed. It’s nothing you need to worry about now.”

  I close my eyes momentarily and wonder if this is what relief feels like. All my ghosts are gone. All my past protected against so I can have a future. And while a part of me wants to question Ryker on why he didn’t tell me any of this in the first place, I almost don’t care.

  It’s done.

  It’s over with.

  It’s time to have and live a life for me now.

  “Oh.” It’s all I can manage to say as the day hits me.

  “Definitely the shittiest of shitty days,” he reiterates.

  “But now we’re here,” I murmur.

  “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

  “Lucy’s going to be heartbroken when Joey’s no longer at the facility,” I murmur, my mind on her.

  “At least she’ll be with you soon. She won’t need him anyway.” He presses a kiss to the back of my head, his words a reminder that Lucy will officially be mine soon.

  “The only non-shitty part of the day,” I murmur as my heart swells.

  “Yes. Besides this, right now, of course.”

  “Is it sad that a part of me was waiting for Brian to show up to profess his love for me too? I mean Carter, Joey . . . who else?”

  “It’d be par for the course,” he murmurs.

  “Not funny at all.” But there’s a smile on my lips. Who goes through the day I had and has a smile on their lips?

  It’s because of Ryker.

  “The only one allowed to profess their love for you, Vaughn Sanders, is me.”

  I slide my fingers through his and cross both of our arms over my chest.

  “I can agree to that.”

  “You better.” Another pr
ess of a kiss to my shoulder. “Thank you for letting me take care of you.”

  Those words are so softly spoken compared to the loud screams that filled the day. To Joey’s accusations when he came to. To the abusive words that Carter spewed. But Ryker’s words are the only ones I hear.

  And a part of me thinks there is way more stuffed into those nine words than I’ll ever know.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.” The guilt that laces his voice despite my telling him this isn’t on him eats at me.

  “I’m glad you didn’t get there later,” I counter.

  “Look at you, turning all glass-half-full on me.”

  “What can I say? I’m a work in progress.”

  “We are a work in progress.”

  And with those words, Ryker turns me some so his lips can find mine in a kiss as tender as it is packed with love.

  The perfect way to end the shittiest of shitty days.

  In his arms.

  By my side.

  Defending me.

  Protecting me.

  Loving me.

  Giving me the unexpected I never knew I needed.

  EPILOGUE

  Vaughn

  One Year Later

  “What is all this?” I ask as I walk out to the patio. The warm breeze is coming off the ocean, the night clear, the fire bright.

  “S’mores,” Lucy says with a grin, lips smeared in gooey marshmallows.

  “Mmm. Your favorite!” I press a kiss to the top of her head as I look over to Ryker across the fire.

  His smile is warm, his eyes alive, his body completely and utterly relaxed.

  “Why do you have that look, Lockhart?” I ask.

  “Because I’m proud of you,” he says.

  “Proud of me?”

  “Yep.” He nods. “Your first semester toward your teaching credential is done, and you’re at the top of your class.” My cheeks flush from his praise. “I’d say that is more than enough reason to celebrate.”

  “We’re celebrating, are we?” I tease.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Lucy all but jumps up and down in her seat.

  “I have a surprise for you,” Ryker says.

  “You do?”

  He nods and crooks his finger before pointing to the flat squares lining the retaining wall that faces the ocean.