Chapter 33
SAWYER
“Y ou're still here?” Riley smiles as if she’s happy to see me when she steps through her front door and finds me lying on her couch.
“Figured I’d wait for you so you could check out my handiwork. Ya eaten?” I stand up and head toward her when I see she’s been crying.
“You don’t have to pretend that you don’t know I asked Jamie for a favor.” She sighs, moving past me, toward the couch, and flopping down into it.
“I wasn’t gonna pretend anythin’, I just wanted to make sure you’d eaten.” Jace called earlier and told me she’d asked Jamie for some help, I figured it was a good enough excuse for me to wait around for her.
“I’m not hungry.” She rests her head back against the edge of the couch and closes her eyes.
“Wanna talk about it?” I can see she’s not in the mood to be pushed.
“I think maybe we should.” Her answer surprises me, and when I move back to the couch to sit beside her, I carefully take her hand.
“When I was eighteen, me and my sister lost our parents,” she starts, speaking softly. “Overnight, I became a mother, father, and pretty much everything Sasha needed. It was tough.”
“Sounds it.” I stroke her delicate hand with my thumb.
“One night, about six months after they died, when Sasha was staying at a friend's house and I finally had the night to myself. There was a college party and I hadn’t been to one in months. I just wanted to be like a normal teenager. I wanted to let my hair down and have some fun.” I feel her grip on me getting tighter.
“As soon as I got there, I felt like an outsider. I was the girl whose parents were dead, no one really knew what to say to me. Kaleb Gendry was the only person to notice I was alone and come over to talk.”
Now it’s my turn to tense up.
“You knew Kaleb from when you were younger?”
“Not really, he wasn’t from my college, he was just there at the party. Doing what Gendrys do and acting all flashy. He brought me over a drink, and we talked. He wasn’t awkward, he didn’t ask any questions about my parents because he didn’t know who I was, and it felt nice.”
“Nice?” I frown, wondering where this is going.
“I had a few more drinks with him, and when I started to feel light-headed, he offered me a ride home.” She closes her eyes, and when a tear spills out from the corner, I wrap my arm around her shoulder. “I was in his car, and my head was spinning. I can’t remember anything about the journey home. I have flashbacks of him carrying me up my garden path and us getting through the door.” Her voice gets weaker. “Then he was on top of me. I was trying to push him away, but he wouldn’t let up. I was too weak to fight back, my muscles wouldn't work.” Suddenly, she breaks apart right in front of me, and all I can do is hold her. “I was a virgin, Sawyer. Back then, I had a stupid delusion about falling in love, and I wanted my first time to be something I could give that person when I found them,” she opens up and cries her heart out.
“I’m gonna kill him.” I feel my blood turn to fire.
“No, you’re not.” She quickly dries her eyes and looks up at me firmly. “You're gonna listen to me explain why we all need to do things my way.”
There’s a tremble in her voice, but a whole lot of determination behind her tears.
“Okay,” I tell her softly, preparing to hear more.
“The next morning, I called the police and they sent a nice lady officer out to the house to take my statement. She was kind and understanding, and when she asked me to go to the hospital for an examination so they could have evidence, I agreed. She took me there in her patrol car and waited with me in the waiting room.” Hearing Riley sound so weak is making me want to find Kaleb Gendry and rip his fuckin’ nutsack from his body.
“Then came the two guys in suits.” She starts to look angry. “They introduced themselves as chief investigators and told the lady officer that her job was done.” Riley curls around to face me. “After she left, one of them explained that the case was being dropped. Apparently, Kaleb Gendry had an alibi for the time of the alleged attack, and no examination would be needed.”
“ What? ” I rage.
“They told me to go home and forget what happened, then the other guy handed me an envelope with three thousand dollars inside.”
“Sons of bitches!” I have to release her hand before I crush it.
“ I left the hospital with a morning-after pill, a course of antibiotics, and three thousand dollars. I wanted to tell them where to stick the money, but I was behind on my college fees.” I hate how disappointed in herself she looks.
“Riley…” I don’t know what to say to her.
“Soon as I graduated, I joined the force.” She smiles proudly through her tears. “I wanted to make people feel the way that lady officer made me feel, and I wanted to restore my faith in justice. Shit…I’ve never told anyone that story before, not even Jack.” She looks surprised by her own revelation.
“Who’s Jack?’ I don’t recall her mentioning his name before.
“Jack was… my fiancé.” The guilt on her face says it all, and suddenly everything becomes clear. “I was working my way up in the police force, doing my own private investigations on the Gendrys in my free time. I was certain by the way those men handled me that more girls had suffered. Kaleb was just a kid; his parents must have been the ones who protected him,” she gets back to explaining.
“I knew local law enforcement wouldn't be able to touch them, so I kept applying for jobs at the FBI, and eventually I got one. That’s how I met Jack.” She smiles fondly, and my chest feels as if it’s gonna cave in.
“We were on the same training programme. I’d never had a relationship before. What happened with Kaleb put me off dating, and I was always so busy with Sasha and work. But Jack was sweet, he was committed to work the same way I was, and desperate to be an agent.” I can see that talking about him is hurting her, and she’s trying to be brave. Jack is undoubtedly the guy who broke her heart and made her certain she’ll never love again. I wanna tear his nutsack off too.
“I never told him or the bureau about what happened to me. I just kept my head down, used the resources I could to keep digging, and after a few years, I found enough evidence to open a case.”
“What kinda evidence?” I ask, wondering why those fuckers weren’t behind bars.
“There were some neglected cases, reports of girls like me that never got investigated. I had to look real deep to find them, but I was determined. I gathered everything I had together and took it to my boss. He said he’d look into it.”
“Did he?” I ask, wondering how all this led her here and where the fuck Jack is now.
“He sent me on an undercover case, and while I was away, he promoted my boyfriend. Wanna take a guess at what his first assignment was?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“I was happy for Jack; he worked hard and he deserved it, but it should have been me.” She takes a long, steady breath before reaching for my hand again.
“I slept with you the night I found out about it.” She hangs her head in shame.
“That’s why you were lookin’ so sad. I always wondered. Is that why you left without saying goodbye, because you had a boyfriend?” I question her, hating the thought of her belonging to someone else that night we were together.
“I hated myself for it. I’d never done anything like that before, and Jack deserved better.” She wipes away more tears. “I went home and pretended it didn’t happen. I celebrated his promotion, I said yes when he asked me to marry him. I was determined to put everything behind me,” she whispers.
“So what happened? Where's Jack now?” I ask.
“Jack's dead,” she tells me softly, and hearing the pain in her voice is like taking a knife to the heart. “He’s dead because he got too close to finding out the truth. I read over his files, the Gendrys weren’t just covering up date rapes, Jack was building evidence that suggested they had a whole business trafficking women, women like the girl who Hayden picked up today.”
“ Holy shit .” I let everything she’s just told me sink in. “So, you’re saying that the Gendrys make their money from trading women?”
“They take vulnerable girls off the streets, then keep them drugged till they’re sold to the highest bidder. These women are being sold as sex slaves. Some sick bastards buy them just so they can torture and kill them. And that's why you aren’t gonna kill any of those Gendry men. If you do, there are women out there who will never be found, and there are victims who will never see justice. I want those monsters to stand in a courtroom and be held accountable for what they are doing. For that, I need enough evidence to ensure that there isn’t a lawyer in this world who can get them off.”
I see how passionate she is and decide that I’ll do whatever it takes to get her what she wants..
“Did ya explain any of that to Jace?” I ask, knowing how much he wants the Gendrys dead. Especially since his kid’s been born.
“I made it clear that we’re doing this my way. I don’t know if I can trust him to stick to his word, but I had no choice. We can’t both be gunning for the same enemy, and I can’t do all this by myself anymore.” She looks down to where her hand rests on her stomach. “I wasn’t supposed to even think about starting a family until those bastards were locked up behind bars.” The smile on her face as she keeps looking at her hand tells me she doesn’t regret it, but it goes without saying that she wishes it was Jack’s baby inside her rather than mine. The whole donor situation makes perfect sense now.
“Thanks for telling me.” I slide my hand behind her ear and draw her close enough for me to touch my forehead to hers.
“I figured I owed you some explanations.” She snuffles back tears.
“I understand.” I swallow back my hurt and force myself to smile. I may not like it, but at least I got all my answers. She’s never gonna love another man, because when Jack died, he took her heart with him. I’m just a reminder of the night she let him down.
“Do you mind staying here tonight?” she asks, looking vulnerable and so painfully pretty that I wanna tear my heart out my chest. “I don’t want to be by myself.” It’s a huge deal for her to ask, especially after we’ve been apart for so long. She’s distanced herself from me since I fucked up and let everyone know she was pregnant and I know it’s to stop people from talking about us. She doesn’t want to admit that I’m her baby’s father, and it hurts like hell.
“Whatever you need.” Kissing her knuckles, I try to accept that this girl will never be mine. It ain’t gonna change the way I feel about her, I’m too far gone for that, and my heart breaks a little more.
“Oooohhhh!” Riley screws up her face like something’s wrong and suddenly I panic.
“What's the matter?” I ask when she quickly takes my hand and places it flat against the side of her tummy.
“You must feel that.” She looks up at me, and all the sadness in her eyes has been replaced with hope and excitement. A tiny ripple moves beneath my fingertips, and I nod my head and laugh.
“I felt it.” I look back down at my hand in amazement when the same thing happens again.
“I think she likes your voice.” Riley rests back against the couch, lifting up her shirt so I can place my palms against her bare skin.
“I could always sing her some Springsteen.” I laugh, stroking her softly and hoping to get another reaction.
“Let's not scare her before she’s born.” Riley laughs too. I lean down to kiss her swollen tummy, and when her fingers slide through my hair, it feels like everything’s going to be okay.
I don’t need Riley to love me, I can love her enough for both of us.