39. Claire
Chapter thirty-nine
Claire
Rhea bursts through the door so suddenly, I think it may fly off the hinges. She stills completely when she sees me sitting at the little table, my hair pulled back in a clip that doesn’t do much to hide the bruises on my neck.
“Oh my God.” She cries, rushing at me full force. I bristle just before she can throw herself at me, and it gives her enough pause to stop herself before she collides with me. “Oh, Claire.” I watch her press her shaking hand to her mouth, pull it away like she means to speak, and then press it to her mouth again.
“Rhea.” I swallow, lubricating my throat again to make whatever else I have to say easier. I’ve gained my voice back a little—the swelling has gone down enough to make my words come out in the proper amount of syllables, though it is still mostly a whisper… a hoarse whisper.
“What happened to you? I woke up and you were gone. You just—nobody told me anything. I don’t understand. Dimitri said it was the buyer from the auction, but he didn’t tell me how he found you or what—” her words come to a stop as she takes me in with more attention.
“I found him.” The words make my throat ache, but I take a sip from the water next to me and try to make the rest of the words come out smoother. “But he knew I was coming.”
Because he led me to him, like Gretel following breadcrumbs to the house made of sweets so she could be stuffed into the oven. I’m so stupid. “I gave Dimitri access to my location, and he knew that meant to use it.”
She stares at me for a moment, contemplating it. “Who was this guy? Just some sicko?”
It would be easier to just admit to that than to say he may have been my fucking biological father, but I shake my head. “He raped my mother.”
Rhea stills so completely I wonder if my brain is glitching. I’m not sure if she even breathes as she lets the words marinate. “What? How do you—?”
“He told me. He said it could be him or thirty other men who got her pregnant with me.”
I’m being indelicate, insensitive to her feelings. But I don’t have the energy to sugarcoat the ugly truth, and the parsed words I do give her feel like I’m swallowing a cheese grater.
Her jaw falls open and she presses a hand to her stomach. I watch her mouth move for a minute, floundering around for words that won’t mean anything. “I-I’m so sorry. Did he—?”
He hurt me in many ways, the worst of which was telling me that I came from a place so sinister, a person so despicable, that it’s shaken everything I know about who I think I am. But I shake my head anyways, because I know what type of hurt she’s asking about.
I don’t know if it is luck that he had something to deal with, or if that was just part of his sick game, to leave me stewing in my terror, my hatred, my disgust. She’s obviously relieved at the news, but she doesn’t let too much of it show. “Are you okay?”
Rhea knows that’s a stupid question to ask, but it doesn’t stop her. I know it’s rude to tell her that was a stupid question, but it doesn’t stop me.
When the words leave my mouth, she looks like I’ve slapped her. Shock pulls at her lips, parting them for a moment before she shakes her head. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry, that was dumb. I haven’t slept much. I—”
“You haven’t slept much?” I laugh, and then wince at the ache it causes. “Boo-hoo.”
A crease forms between her eyebrows as she stares at me, trying to decide whether I’m playing with her or not. But I’m not joking. I can’t muster sympathy for her inability to sleep when I can barely muster any sort of energy to feel anything else .
I suppose I could have kept that to myself though.
“You aren’t serious? I’ve been worried sick about you! Again !”
“I’m fine,” I say, because that’s the only thing I can think to settle things down. It doesn’t work, though.
“No, you’re not fine , Claire! Look at you! This isn’t fine!”
“Stop yelling.”
My head hasn’t stopped hurting since the chain tried to pull it off my shoulders. Honestly, I think it may have pulled me apart a little inside, done damage that didn’t show up on the outside. I haven’t even gotten the shrill fire alarm out of my ears… it’s ever-present, a low hum or a wailing cry. It interrupts every thought I try to put together.
“No!” Rhea snaps. “I don’t think I will, because I don’t know how else to get it through to you that you fucking matter to me! You keep putting yourself in danger like you don’t have anyone who will suffer for it. It’s like I don’t even matter to you.”
“Of course you matter.” I say, though my tone is the same flat whisper, hardly convincing.
Rhea must agree, because tears well in her eyes. “Stop doing this, Claire! Stop running full speed at brick walls.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you’re hurting yourself on purpose… making stupid decisions, doing dumb shit that is only going to end up bad for you and all of us!”
“I’m sorry,” I say, blinking. “Are you blaming me for what happened?”
It’s my fault. I know that. It was negligent at best and foolhardy at worst to think that I could trust a stranger, to think that I could find Wes and put an end to Davos. But to hear her put the blame on me? That hurts in a whole new way .
“Yeah, you know what?” She crosses her arms, doubling down on her statement. “Yes, I am. You are only thinking about yourself here!”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh?” She sneers. “Isn’t it? Because if you were thinking about me or even Remy, you never would have abandoned me like that!”
I sigh, trying to ease the pressure in my skull by pressing my fingers over my eyes. It does nothing to alleviate the ache, so I throw my hands to my sides.
“I didn’t abandon you. You were in Florida with your fucktoy, trying to pretend you aren’t pining over your brother’s fucking security guard.” Rhea’s mouth falls open again—I’ve never seen her with her mouth open so often, but I know this isn’t new for her. She’s on Eli’s dick every chance she gets.
At any rate, I’m not done. “And let’s not pretend like I left you in some back alley drunk to get your kidney cut out of you. You were perfectly safe.”
“Oh, my, God.” She says the words slowly, punctuating each one with a shake of her head. “You stupid fucking bitch. You’re completely missing the point! You can’t just run away from people you care about!”
My face burns at the insult, and rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt bursts through my veins. And fuck, it feels good. It’s a different kind of burn, a fire that warms me from the inside out.
“I’m the stupid bitch?” I laugh. “You’re the one picking a fight because you need to sate your victim complex.”
The words aren’t my own. I don’t know where they come from, but they tumble freely from my mouth, and they feel so good.
“Victim complex?” She laughs, incredulous. “You’re not okay, Claire. I don’t know what the fuck he did to you, but you’re taking your pain out on the wrong people.”
It doesn’t feel wrong, but I don’t tell her that. I keep my mouth shut as she stares at me, tears welling in her eyes. I saw tears in Remy’s eyes yesterday, when I told him I couldn’t ever love him, when he told me about his wife, his son…
We’ve never fought before. Rhea is the one person I could never tire of, and even when we would have a difference of opinion, we never let it turn into anything. Our friendship was unshakeable. But I wasn’t… I’m not.
My entire world got shaken as if I just exist in a snow globe, just an inconsequential little figurine in a glass cage that someone could upend on a whim. And now, those old pieces won’t just settle back into where they were—they’ve been rattled too hard, fell down in all the wrong places.
I cross my arms, not dignifying that with a response, and I see the hurt well in her eyes. She turns sharply, like she can’t get away from me fast enough. It’s when she’s already at the door, her hand hovering on the knob, that she glances back at me.
“You never asked why we were in Florida.”
I narrow my eyes on her, confused. “You said we needed a vacation—one last gathering.”
“Yeah, well that was a cover. I didn’t get a chance to give you your birthday present that night.” She laughs, taking something from her purse and dropping it on the kitchen counter. “Happy fucking birthday.”
She is gone before I can say anything more, and I’m actually a little glad. My throat is throbbing with the effort it took to speak, and even though I picked the fight with her, I don’t want it to go any further. Everything that just happened was exhausting, and I have half a mind to just sit still in this chair until sleep comes to claim me.
But curiosity gets the better of me, so I force myself to stand and cross to the kitchen.
A green file folder sits there, with papers peeking out of the covers. A rubber band secures them from falling out, so I slide that off, letting it loop around my wrist as I prop the folder open and get a look at the packet of papers inside .
Warranty deed for acquisition of property.
My eyes dart down to the block of text below, sorting through the legal mumbo jumbo until I see the address. 1432 Marine Way, Miami Florida.
I blink at the papers, not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing, and then flip through them ‘til I land on the last page. There are two names listed under the buyers.
Rhea Boudreaux, on the left, and on the right, with an X just waiting for a signature below it… Claire Monroe.