Chapter Twenty-seven – Fix What You Didn’t Break
Chapter Twenty-seven
Rafe
FIX WHAT YOU DIDN’T brEAK
Performed by Nate Smith
The ranch had broken me open , taken the control I prided myself on and tossed it to the wind. I felt like the nineteen-year-old kid I’d once been, staring down my father’s disappointment. Not because his girlfriend was pregnant but because of who the girlfriend was.
Dad had been clear—I’d let my family down.
And he hadn’t lived to see the worst of it. To see just how I’d left the door wide open. To see how I’d all but welcomed the monsters in simply by turning my back on them.
I wanted to send everyone I cared about to the other side of the planet while I unraveled what was happening here and ended it. And yet, letting Sadie and Fallon leave my sight to help Lauren with the dinner was enough to turn my palms sweaty. The desperate need to keep them close and send them away was a dichotomy I couldn’t fix.
Sadie’s pretty little speech about the people who loved me wanting me as safe as I wanted them had scored through me. The idea of her loving me, standing up for me, standing beside me, had seared through the grief and remorse and fury. And then she’d all but slayed me with the new dare she’d laid down. You stay, I stay .
I could make her leave. I could forcibly remove them all. I could say things that would hurt her enough to make her run, but then what would I do when this was over? I’d have cut off my nose to spite my face. Because one thing was certain—I wanted a future with the dark-haired vixen who’d stolen my heart.
Steele sent Parker after Sadie and Fallon, and it gave the tension knotting every vein a miniscule amount of relief. He’d keep them inside. He’d keep them covered. The best thing I could do for them right now was exactly what Sadie had told me to do—find who this was and end it.
“We need to overhaul the house alarms right now,” I told Steele. “What we have now sounds an alert at a couple of doors, and that’s it. None of the windows are wired, and there are no cameras.”
Steele nodded. “I know. But the kind of system you need takes coordination and time. I’ll do my best to get it here and installed by Monday or Tuesday. Until then, I’ve got an entire squad of bodies on their way. You really going to let Puzo’s men play a role here?”
I rubbed a hand over my head. “I’m not sure I have a choice.” Something dark and ugly curled inside me as I asked, “Do you believe him? About not having a part in any of this? About not ever having condoned anything illegal?”
With a carefully placed dig, Puzo had caused me to doubt what I’d been absolutely certain was true. An ugly trepidation curled through me, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I was missing something. Out of arrogance and pride, I might have made another colossal mistake.
“The evidence against Ike Puzo and his pals was ironclad, Rafe. Is it possible he was dealing drugs, running guns, and laundering money out of the club without Lorenzo knowing? Sure. Is it likely?” Steele hesitated before shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”
Noah stepped forward. “You know I grew up in Vegas, right?” We both gave him a curt nod. “The Puzo family has always played a huge role in that town, both the good and the bad sides of it. The urban legends that tell of what was done to people who went up against the Puzos, or even looked sideways at them, were gruesome enough we used them to scare each other as kids.” I barely kept myself from rolling my eyes at him, and he waved his hand. “I get it. You’ve heard it all too. But have you heard the mumblings about trouble in Puzoland?”
“What kind of trouble?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Like, not everyone in the family was happy when Old Man Puzo died and left his grandson in charge,” Noah said. “Do you know Ike’s twin sister? Theresa?”
I remembered her from my time in the club. She’d spent as much time there as her brother had. Dark-haired, athletic, and smart with a strong Italian nose, deep brows, and minimal curves. She’d flirted with me now and again, but I’d always steered clear, not only because I hadn’t wanted to mess with my boss’s family but because I’d heard rumors about the men she’d taken to her bed who’d gone missing.
That twinge returned, tightening my chest muscles and making it hard to breathe.
Barry walked in, leading the sheriff, and I had to leave the problem of Puzo behind. I spent the next few hours with him, reviewing what had happened since I’d arrived and trying not to react when he’d asked to speak to Sadie, Fallon, Lauren, and every single guest for verification.
It was nearing midnight by the time the house was quiet and Sheriff Wylee had left, taking Adam’s computer with him. He left a deputy patrolling with Noah and promised to have a small crew on hand at the wedding the next day, but his staff was limited, and they had their normal patrol to handle too.
I poured two glasses of bourbon and handed one to Steele. “I can’t seem to trust my gut, Jim. Tell me the truth. You think this is Adam, Puzo, or them working together?”
“I don’t know Adam. He’s an unknown to me. But whoever shot at you tonight either had really bad aim or missed on purpose.”
“You think it was a warning rather than an actual attempt on my life?”
“The chances of you dying from the rattler were slim also. You would have been able to call 911, and while the ranch is remote, it isn’t out of range of the help you would have needed.”
If it was Adam and he was issuing a warning to get the hell out of his life, he had to know this kind of challenge would only make me dig my heels in more, wouldn’t he? Or maybe this was just like him luring me out with his rook and his bishop while he slid behind to try to take my queen when we’d played chess. He’d hated when I’d seen his strategy and evaded and defended my position. We’d ended in as many stalemates as we had with either of us winning.
“You find out who his girlfriend is?” I asked Steele.
He shook his head. “No, and I asked Sheriff Wylee if anyone in town knew, and he seemed shocked to find out Adam was seeing anyone at all.”
I sat down, exhaustion finding its way into my bones. I’d been on alert for days now. Since Sadie Hatley had walked into my bar. And while I knew none of what was happening now was her fault, it had been the point at which my calm life had first spiraled out of my control. The adrenaline rush that had started my day, searching for Adam, and that returned during the shooting, had disappeared, leaving me numb. All I wanted to do was go upstairs, slide into bed with Sadie, and remind myself how to feel.
“I’m going to go check on the arrival time for our crew and dig some more into Adam’s accounts. You still don’t want me to track his Mercedes? His devices?”
Wylee had said they’d get a judge to issue a warrant, but it might take time. Would it matter if he did it or Steele? “See what you can find.”
Steele’s face all but lit up, and he strode out of the office without another word.
I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.
If Adam had done more than just steal from the estate, if he’d come at me and Lauren, it was because of years of jealousy and anger that had nothing to do with me. But had I done something to trigger it? His Grandpa Joe had been a bitter old man full of hate. I’d caught him staring at me like I was the devil incarnate more than once. Adam had loved the man, eaten up his stories like they were decadent candies.
There’d been some kind of talk about him and Great-grandma Beatrice being friends, hadn’t there? Something about Hollywood and the parties Joe had gone to with her? I opened my eyes and stared at the portrait of my great-grandmother over the mantel, and my gaze landed on the diamonds all but dripping from her.
Adam had wanted them, but he’d also told Sadie he was looking into whether the family had been reimbursed for the stolen jewels by an insurance company. Is that what he’d been looking for in the boxes in the safe?
I swallowed the bourbon I’d poured for Steele that he hadn’t touched and then forced myself up and into the safe.
It took me a minute to find the right box as most of them were unmarked. The first one I opened held files with neatly printed dates going back to the 1930s. I flipped through them quickly, noting some legal documents, old photos, and a handful of notebooks. I set it aside and opened several more before finding the one holding the mixed-up documents Adam and I had carelessly thrown back inside after he’d dropped it.
I took both boxes into the office and started sifting through them.
The exhaustion dragging at me as much as the alcohol I’d downed made the entire experience surreal. Like I’d stepped back in time. Old invoices. Contractor agreements for the build of the mansion. Payment to the armed guards who’d protected the mines after there’d been repeated incidents of people trying to sneak in and dig for diamonds themselves.
What caught my attention and had my hands slowing as I flipped through them were the black-and-white photographs taken at a ball held at the house when it was bright and new. Shots of the famous movie stars who’d been in attendance with Beatrice standing amongst them like she belonged.
I frowned, trying to remember more of the stories I’d heard, not from my dad but from my mom. Beatrice had been an actress who’d given up Hollywood to marry Great-grandpa Alasdair, much like my mother had given up her dreams of her art for my dad. An image of Beatrice with Alasdair, elegant in evening wear, had more unease sifting through me. There’d been a large age gap between them, nothing strange for that time, and yet it was less than what existed between Sadie and me now. I didn’t like the comparison of women who’d given up their lives for the men they’d married any more than the age difference.
At the bottom of the box Adam had been rifling through, I found a small leather journal elegantly embossed with Beatrice’s maiden name. After opening it and reading the first entry, I realized it was her personal journal. It felt like an invasion of her privacy to read it, even though she’d long been gone, but her words drew me in.
Each entry was short and to the point, but they were mixed with vivid descriptions and random lines of poetry. I didn’t know if they were Beatrice’s own words or famous lines from poems I didn’t recognize. She wrote about dancing with the new-to-Hollywood Clark Gable and the older, more famous Wallace Beery and about meeting Great-grandpa Alasdair at some movie premiere after-party. He’d already won the ranch by the time she’d met him, but they hadn’t discovered the diamonds yet.
As I skimmed through pages of their whirlwind romance, engagement, and marriage, it hit chords that continued to resonate with me about my relationship with Sadie. The suddenness of it. The overwhelming feeling that it was right. Beatrice thinking fate had somehow led them to each other. But it also grew the worries I’d already had about what Sadie would have to give up if she became mine, because it was clear to see that, while Beatrice had started out ecstatic, she’d slowly started to miss her old life.
The excitement of the diamond discovery was overshadowed by Tommy Hurly’s suicide and the loneliness that eked into the pages as Alasdair left her alone for days on end while dealing with the mine and the building of the mansion. Into that void, Joe Hurly had stepped. Seven years younger than her, she’d felt sympathy for him at first and then a common bond over the lives they were living that weren’t what either of them wanted or expected. They’d formed a friendship.
But it wasn’t until she and Alasdair fought over loaning the jewels to a friend at a small movie studio that things took a real dive sideways. She’d wanted him to go with her, for them to not only take the jewels to Hollywood personally but to spend a few weeks there. To take a vacation they hadn’t had since their honeymoon. She wanted a chance to recover the love and friendship she’d felt like they’d lost. Alasdair refused. He couldn’t leave the mine, not with the break-ins and sabotage that was happening almost daily.
And so, she’d gone without him, taking Joe so she wouldn’t have to travel alone with the diamonds. Just seeing it in writing made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Maybe it was simply what was happening now with Adam that had me reading between the lines and seeing it as something sinister, but I despised finding I was right when Beatrice’s excited entries filled with talk of Hollywood parties disappeared altogether.
She wrote nothing for several weeks. And the first entry afterward was a tear-stained paragraph saying she was back at the ranch and that the jewels had been stolen. Beatrice felt responsible. She was anxious and depressed, although she didn’t use those words, and her pen had all but sunk into the page, underlining the words heavily when she said Joe would never be allowed in the main house or near her ever again.
Had he taken the jewels and threatened her? Had he made moves on her? Or worse?
It sickened me. Worse, after discovering the returned jewelry were fakes, Alasdair accused Beatrice of cheating on him and planning the theft with Hurly. Even her newfound, violent disgust of Joe hadn’t swayed him. When the small, up-and-coming movie studio had told Alasdair they hadn’t insured the jewels, he’d demanded they find a way to compensate him. A handwritten letter from the president of the studio was tucked into Beatrice’s diary. In exchange for keeping the theft quiet, Alasdair was given the fake jewels along with shares in the studio. The letter made it clear,if the real jewels were ever recovered, the Harringtons had full claim to them without owing anything back to the movie studio.
While I could imagine my fury if I’d been my great-grandfather, could imagine the doubts and hurt that would have accompanied the events, he’d still negotiated a decent deal out of it. While his shares of the studio had kept him just under majority ownership and he’d never had a say in what movies were made, he’d still gotten a significant cut of the profits. And holding on to the shares for over eighty years had allowed me to take advantage of the funds in building Marquess Enterprises.
I skimmed through the rest of the journal, the tension and sadness in the rest of the entries weighing on me. Beatrice only mentioned Joe Hurly once more after that. After months of being gone, he dropped off a wife and a son on the one-acre plot of land that belonged to the Hurlys and took off again, leaving them without any means of financial support. Beatrice took pity on them and brought the woman to work at the mansion. Whenever he did show back up at the ranch, Joe’s wife told Beatrice he was drunk and often violent, rambling about LA and Las Vegas and those who’d done him wrong.
I closed the journal and leaned back in the chair with my eyes closed again. At some point, Joe had come home, because he’d worked for his son when Donnie had been my dad’s foreman. The two men had both been ancient, crotchety, and crusty. Snapping at me and Spence. We’d avoided them as much as we could.
Donnie had been in his forties when he’d had Adam and Lauren. Their mom had been his second wife, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember ever hearing what had happened to the first. What I did remember was the way Adam had idolized both his father and his grandfather.
From the moment Alasdair Harrington had won the ranch, the Hurlys’ luck had spiraled downward. Yes, it had mostly been because of their own bad decisions, but people had a way of shifting the blame to others. What might Adam have heard from Joe Hurly that had twisted the truth to fit his needs? What kind of poison had been spread through his veins, and what might Adam do to take back what he thought of as his family’s lost inheritance? Would he steal? Kill Spence and me? What would I do if our situations had been reversed?
As it was, my jealousy for Spence had cost us both the lives we’d thought we’d have.
What had Adam hoped to find in these boxes that would have helped him? Nothing gave him rights to the land. If anything, it showed why there was even less of a reason for us to hand it over.
But he’d started digging in here after Sadie had told him about the jewels. Was he hoping to find the contract saying the jewels were ours if they were ever found? Maybe he’d simply wanted the diamonds for himself. Or maybe he’d hoped to prevent Lauren from finding out about them because he didn’t want the ranch to be saved. Because he wanted to watch the Harringtons and the ranch be destroyed the way his family had been.
It didn’t seem possible that, right at the crucial moment, Sadie had been brought into our lives, bringing the stolen jewels back with her. Was it that fate Beatrice had thought had brought her and Alasdair together? Had we all been cast under some spell only Sadie could break? Or would my taking her and keeping her bring the same heartache I’d read in Beatrice’s journals?
All I knew was my time with her had not been nearly enough. I wanted to wake up to her impish smile and her passionate strength every single day.
I heard her calling my name, saying it in that same throaty, breathless way that she had while we’d been in the throes of passion. While she’d taken what I’d given and asked for more. I wanted to taste and lick and savor every inch of her all over again. Embed myself in her. Give her more of those pieces of myself I’d felt slipping away while staring into her bluebell eyes.
I woke to soft hands caressing my face, and I opened heavy lids to see Sadie leaning over me as if my thoughts and dreams of her had called her to me. The cut on my cheek protested, even though her touch was light, but I didn’t stop her. I was happy to feel the pain. To feel anything. To feel her.
I dragged her onto my lap, slanted my mouth over hers, and feasted on her sweetness. She moaned, and I inhaled it, making it mine just like I wanted to make all of her.
But as I came fully awake, I found Beatrice’s words clinging to me. The despair of those last few entries before she’d completely stopped writing. Loving my great-grandfather had cost her. I had to figure out a way to keep Sadie without her losing everything. I needed time to pull my shit together. To figure out what to do with Fallon and Lauren and the ranch. To find Adam and put an end to nearly a hundred years of family drama.
I broke the kiss, and Sadie protested, seeking my lips again. But I just rested my forehead against hers, wrapping my hand around her wrist so she couldn’t continue caressing me. Her eyes narrowed, objecting without words that I’d called a halt to the embrace, and it made my lips twitch.
Damn, did I like riling her up, seeing the passion that burned when she was worked up. I yearned to have all that energy and defiance and strength under my control again, working her until she broke apart, until I could hand her some of it back and let her do whatever she wanted to me.
“Is there a reason you slept here instead of your room? I waited for you there,” Sadie said, and the hurt and accusation in her tone hit me like a slap.
The idea she’d been in my bed, waiting for me, made me grow even harder beneath her. She felt my reaction, lips tilting upward. “You wouldn’t be having this problem”—she palmed me through my jeans— “if you’d done the reasonable thing and come to bed.”
“But then you wouldn’t have slept,” I grunted. My voice was raspy from lack of sleep as much as desire.
Her smile faded, and it was one more thing I hated in a growing pile. I wanted her always light and laughing. Sassy. Keeping me on my toes.
“It would have been less about sleep and more about the comfort we brought each other,” she said. “It would have given us both a moment of forgetfulness.”
In one swift movement that used all my waking strength, I set her on the desk and stepped between her legs. I lifted her chin and stared down at lips swollen from our kiss. With her black hair, blue eyes, and rosy lips, she was a Snow White remaking. Sweet but nowhere like the animated fairy tale. This woman was all badass Tomb Raider, holding men hostage and settling old debts. But both Snow White and Lara Croft had been wounded and betrayed. I had no intention of letting that happen to Sadie on my watch.
“We’re not getting lost in any kind of forgetfulness, Tennessee. You’re leaving today,” I told her.
She pushed my hand away from her chin, fire brewing inside her. “We’ve already had this discussion. I’m not going unless you go with me, and there’s nothing you can do to make me.”
I laughed darkly. “You’re wrong about that.”
“Look, Slick, unless you can tell me you’re leaving too, then I’m staying. Besides, I promised Lauren I’d help her with the wedding, and I don’t go back on my word without a very good reason.”
“Your word won’t mean anything if you’re dead.” When she went to respond, I cut her off, playing the one card I hoped would win me the game. “I need you to do this for me. Not only because I don’t want you anywhere near me when the shit hits the fan, but because I don’t want my daughter near it either. If you take Fallon with you, I can concentrate on what I need to do here, because I’ll know you’re both safe. Right now, I can barely think clearly over the top of my worry for the two of you.”
Her eyes filled with unexpected tears, and it tore into me but didn’t lessen my resolve. “The fact you’d trust me with her, the thing that is most precious to you…” She shook her head. “It means more to me than you can know. But she doesn’t want to leave you either.”
“She’s not the only thing that’s precious to me, Sadie,” I said, watching as her throat bobbed. “Fuck, I’m halfway in love with you.” I inhaled sharply. “No, I’m all the way in love with you. More in love with you than I’ve ever been with anything or anyone in my life. But I can’t offer you that love right now. I can’t offer you a damn thing until I’m sure I don’t have a target on my back that might hit you if it misses me.”
Her legs encircled my hips, heels pressing into my ass and pulling me tighter into her core. She wound her hands around my neck, tugging my face closer to hers. “I’ve never loved a man, Rafe Marquess. Never. But when a Hatley gives their heart to someone, it’s forever. I’ve done that. I’ve given you my heart. That also means, in typical Hatley fashion, I intend to face every damn thing while standing at your side. Both the good and the bad. You want to send Fallon away, fine. Send her off somewhere with half a dozen bodyguards protecting her, but do not ask me to walk away. It isn’t in my DNA, Slick. Asking me to do that is like asking me to cut my soul out of my body and leave it behind. It would kill me.”
Then, she crushed her lips to mine as if to stop me from arguing. Or maybe simply because she couldn’t stop from following up those powerful and moving words with action that was the same. Strong. Emotional. Commanding I be the one to give in. The one to let go.
And I was surprised by my desire to do just that.
To give her whatever the hell she wanted.