Chapter 23 Reeve Hardy
Chapter twenty-three
Reeve Hardy
Astronomical — SVRCINA
“Are you real?” The light in her glossy eyes flickers. “Or am I losing my mind?”
“Yes, Baby. I’m real.” I bring my hands to her face but hold back, waiting for her silent sign of approval. My eyes search between hers. She sniffles before nodding in acceptance. “I missed you so much,” I whisper.
A gasp catches in her throat. “R-Reeve,” her voice wavers as tears stream from her beautiful eyes. Her bottom lip quivers as she sobs into my palms, breaking the silence around us.
I press my forehead against hers, inhaling her into my lungs. Her face softly presses into my chest as more sobs follow.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I whisper with a sharp pain in my chest. I can feel the anger radiating from her, yet I feel her arms wrap around my back, pulling me closer, leaving nothing between us.
“Why did you leave me?” she cries, and I can hardly swallow.
“I never wanted to leave you.”
“But you left, and I knew you didn’t die. I knew it was you, and you kept lying to me.” Her tight fist crashes against my chest, not hard enough to hurt me.
I fasten my arms around her, refusing to let go. “Because I had to. I made a promise to your grandma, and you know I never break my promises.”
“So you broke ours?”
“I never broke ours.” I shake my head, refusing to believe it for a second. “I went out there for you just like I came back for you, because this world would’ve meant nothing without you, and it would be a privilege to die for my wife.”
“She forced you?”
“She trusted me. She sent me to find answers. The same ones you pursued. But also to kill the people who are after you.”
“Did you kill them?” She pulls away to look into my eyes.
“Most of them.”
She stares at my scar, and instinctively, I lower my gaze to the space between us, despising it myself. But she gently places her small hand under my chin and nudges me to lift my gaze back up.
“Don’t look away,” she murmurs.
Through glossy eyes, I look at the goddess she is.
“You are the most handsome man I have ever seen. You were always the embodiment of beauty in my eyes. That has never changed, and it never will,” Winona clarifies. Determined to prove to me that it doesn’t matter to her, and I know it doesn’t.
“I know I’m not ugly. It’s just that… sometimes I can’t see the beauty.”
“Then I’ll show it to you.”
A tear slips from my eye just in time for her to catch it.
“Are you mad?” I ask.
“I’m overwhelmed,” her voice cracks. “I missed you, but I’ll get mad later, and maybe I’ll take advantage of you.”
I chuckle at her words.
“I just got my best friend back, you jerk. What, you thought I wouldn’t recognize you?” tears fill her eyes again as her eyebrows pinch together. “I really want to tase you right now.”
Fuck, I missed my little brat.
“Never doubted you, but I had to buy some time. You interrogated my ass.”
“What do you want now?” she asks, a glimmer of hope flickering in her eyes.
I cup her cheeks. “You. I always wanted you.”
“What if we can’t go back?”
“Then we build something new,” I say, pulling her face closer to mine, my eyes flicking to her lips. Gentle raindrops begin to dance around us. She cries and laughs as my heart bursts with happiness.
Us and the rain... like our first kiss.
We glance up, smiling from ear to ear, before our mouths meet.
I wrap my arms around the small of her back and spin us around.
I taste heaven when our tongues reconnect, reminiscing about cherished memories and moments etched in time.
As the kiss deepens, I feel like we’re disintegrating into stardust, finally home. Finally together.
“I have so much to tell you,” I whisper.
“Me too,” she says between quick breaths, her eyes welling up with tears again.
“Wanna dance first?” I offer my hand.
“You trust me that much that you don’t think I would throw you over this balcony? It’s pretty slippery. Accidents can happen.”
A candid smile sneaks across her face, bringing all of my six-foot-four frame to my knees. I can’t resist it. So, I grab her throat and devour that perfect mouth of hers again.
I trace every spot with my tongue and sprinkle kisses along her neck. She giggles, so I do it again. My tongue wipes away the water droplets cascading down her silky skin before they slip down her chin.
My arms squeeze her to me. I rub my cheek against hers, needing every particle of her to know that she is mine. She is my universe. And I’m hers.
What I’m about to tell her will burst the small, secure bubble she’s had since birth, only for her to realize it was a lie, too.
I pace the room back and forth while Winona dries her wet clothes in the bathroom. I offered to do it myself, but she said she’s not ready for that yet.
That’s understandable.
I won’t push her beyond her limits right now. Maybe later, if she allows it. There are so many things I want to say and other things I want to explore with her, but we need to take baby steps.
When she came to my tower an hour ago, I held my breath tightly as time ticked away slower than usual. Even in her shock, she allowed me to comfort her.
I just kissed her and danced with her to the sound of the rain and her enchanting laughter.
I hoped that brief moment of happiness would last, but once we entered, reality set in and shifted her mood.
“You need a haircut,” she declares, storming out of the bathroom. Her semi-wet hair sways back and forth. Her taut nipples cut through the thin fabric of my oversized t-shirt. She moves around, folding the few clothes I left on my bed, seeming nervous and out of her element.
“You don’t need to do that right now.” I stop a few inches from her, lifting my hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I need to keep my hands busy, and I don’t want to sketch.”
“We can go outside and shoot cans or beer bottles.”
“Do you really think putting a gun in my hand is a good idea?” she asks, resting her hands on her hips.
“Nope. Scratch that. But I don’t think scissors will help either.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
I tug her to my chest, and she melts against me, taking a deep breath to calm her racing thoughts. I stretch my ringed fingers, pull the blanket from the table behind her, and wrap it around her trembling shoulders.
My hands find every excuse to touch her, softly rubbing her back and arms in an effort to soothe the deeper wound I’m about to create.
I feel like a monster, looming over her, while being gentle because I don’t want her to see all the ugliness inside me. I tore people apart, and I fucking left her lungs as a souvenir.
Who does that?
I was so angry about leaving her and witnessing all those horrors that I can’t seem to forget because they are now part of me. And the thing is, I’m not sorry; they all deserved it. But relentless people like me made her life a nightmare.
“I have something important to tell you,” I barely push these words out; they taste like venom on my lips and do nothing to alleviate the guilt I carry inside.
She gazes up at me from beneath her long lashes. “Are you finally ready to give me some answers?”
“Yes,” I nod. “But it’s going to be hard.”
“I want to know.” The pure determination in her eyes mirrors the one she had eleven years ago when I first met her as her new bodyguard. I knew she was trouble—the kind that made me think, I’d die for her.
I gently pull back to give her some space to breathe. Running my fingers through my hair, I momentarily focus on the rain still tapping against the glass.
At least it stopped snowing.
“I was the only person your grandma trusted,” I begin.
“She had hired others before me to eliminate threats, but they eventually betrayed her or took on different contracts. She always protected you. I found information that gave me a new perspective because I couldn’t understand how it related to your grandma.
It was merely a vendetta against her. It was a punishment for what she did by defying an order. ”
Narrowing her eyes, she asks, “Like what?”
I turn my gaze to the balcony, trying to formulate a sentence that doesn’t sound absurd. I lick my dry lips as images flash through my mind.
“Please don’t look away from me.” Her soft voice jerks me back, and my gaze returns to hers. Those eyes make me weak beyond words. All I want is to shelter them from the things I’ve seen. From the darkness that exists in this world. “I want to feel the pain with you.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and press on. “Dick, the owner of the circus I told you about, was involved in the trafficking world before I was born. He helped transport children overseas and smuggle foreign babies into the country. Your grandma…” I pause, knowing she senses my hesitation.
“Just say it, Reeve,” she encourages.
My heart skips a beat at the mention of my name.
“She devoted her life to killing criminals after her husband was killed by one, so she became a serial killer. Not a documented one. The police arrested someone else for her crimes. He was a scumbag, not innocent—if that makes you feel better. She wanted to create something bigger, and she was already working as an officer at top-secret facilities while building her secret facilities. Coming from a wealthy family, money was never an issue. She knew how to connect with the right people. She made killing criminals something authorities could ignore as long as no one knew they were still alive. That’s why she faked their deaths.
Her organization doesn’t exist on paper.
No one can track it down because it’s off the radar.
At some point, she bumped into a ring of traffickers.
Dick was one of them. She found out they had kidnapped a baby, a few months old, but the person who had her had just come from overseas a day earlier, so she made a deal with them.
She tried to locate the baby’s parents but couldn’t find them because the baby wasn’t born in America; she had been taken from somewhere else.
However, the kidnapper never revealed where she was from before Dick shot him.
Your grandma searched for months and eventually raised her on her own. ”
Endless tears fall like diamonds down her cheeks. “That baby is… me?” Her voice is choked.
“Yes, Baby.” I wipe her tears and kiss her forehead.
“They were robbed of you, and then they decided to go after your grandma. They played twisted games for years. But then your grandma did it again. She saved me from the same ring. Third Eye, the man who wanted you gone, was Dick’s cousin and the chief of police.
If it hadn’t been for her, I’d be dead by now.
I had no skills at fifteen and no one to look out for me. ”
I take a moment to absorb it all myself. It still sounds unbelievable, all because they thought it would be easy and profitable. Good business.
“The man who brought you was Third Eye’s older brother.
He was a traveler; he owned a boat and a private plane.
He could have easily gone in and out without raising suspicion.
After you, Third Eye cut ties with Dick for years and blamed your grandma for his brother’s death.
He expanded the so-called business. They became bolder and gained more power, especially in certain regions where they associated with corrupt cops and a failing justice system. ”
“What about Larson? How is he involved in all of this?”
“He was obsessed with you, and he was Third Eye’s stepson. We couldn’t find anything about him before he attended college with you. It’s like he didn’t exist.”
“We?”
“My team, I’ll tell you about them another day.”
“Maybe Larson was also a kid they abducted.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. He is dead now.”
“This is a horror story. Trading babies like it’s nothing. Police officers help them. My grandma is...” Winona murmurs, climbing onto the bed and falling silent like a mouse.
I lower myself beside her and roll onto my side to gaze into her glistening eyes. The flash of pain within them sends a corresponding jolt of pain through me, twisting my stomach into tight knots.
I extend my folded hand into the small space between us, and she intertwines our fingers—the scar on her palm touches mine, and I memorize its shape. Her eyes are clenched shut. Her soft breath fills the room. I know today is a lot for her to process. She must be hurting inside and needs to rest.
“I will set the world on fire for you to ensure your flame never burns out,” I whisper, gently brushing her hair aside with my free hand.