Chapter Thirty
THIRTY
Rocky
“Just like old times,” Nova mutters tightly as he hooks an IV bag to a coatrack we brought from the yacht’s main saloon to the primary suite, and I cover Phoebe’s legs beneath the comforter.
Like old times. Nashville, our early twenties, the image of a motel, doing this same thing with Nova Graves as I rested his unconscious sister on a bed. Our past strikes me like a flashlight in my eyes. It pierces. Tries to hurt.
I never left her that night. I wouldn’t leave her now. I’m accustomed to doing the same things over and over again. This twisted merry-go-round is a ride we can’t seem to jump off of. We’re falling victim to the same patterns. Same behaviors.
There are moments when I wonder if we like it.
If life would be too mundane without these insane highs and devastating lows, then I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to believe that life with Phoebe needs to be this painful.
“A time we’re not repeating,” I say more to the room than to Nova, and I mean it. I can’t do this again. I can’t have her in harm’s way again and again.
After I tuck my passed-out girlfriend into bed, I take a seat on the edge beside her waist, and I unlace my Italian leather boots. My muscles can’t unflex. My abs won’t untighten. I’m resting at a perpetual state of pissed-off fury.
Nova is also stewing. About what exactly, I’m unsure, but he’s not bolting out the door. He keeps watch of his sister, gripping the bedpost like he’s forcing himself not to do something rash and stupid. Like hunt down the fucker who slipped her drugs.
There are bigger monsters to stake in the heart than Howie.
I don’t tell him that. Because, again, can’t read his mind. “You can go,” I say, my tone not close to sweet. “I’m staying with her for the rest of the night.”
Nova also stayed in the motel with Phoebe years ago, but some things have changed since then. I need him to acknowledge this. Like right now.
He’s quiet. His jaw muscle twitching.
I pry off my boot, gripping it like he’s gripping the bedpost. “What more do you want for her?” I ask him outright.
“I would die for your sister. I would protect her until my last fucking breath. I love her how she wants to be loved. What more is there, Nova? Because that’s all I would want for Hailey. ”
“I don’t want you to pull her back,” Nova states, his gaze resting not harshly on mine. He’s scared for Phoebe. “I want her to quit this lifestyle for good.”
I glance backward at Phoebe as she “sleeps” soundlessly. “I’m not actively drawing her toward it, and at the end of the day, it’s her choice. What you want or what I want doesn’t fucking matter.”
Nova glowers. “And what I really want is for my sister to be with a guy who’d never let her be the honeypot. Who’d tell her no.”
I would’ve told her no if she insisted on being the one to marry Trent. But I didn’t have to, because Phoebe backed down and let Hailey take the role. But I can’t even defend myself because I know this is the one exception. I can’t be sure I’d tell Phoebe no for anything else.
I meet Nova’s piercing eyes. “I’m not going to dictate her life. She’s had twenty-five years of being told what to do, and she needs to figure out how to call her own shots.”
He runs his hand over his head, stressed-out. “So, you just never tell her what you want? You never express what you’d like her to do?”
“I’m not manipulating Phoebe.”
“The people who raised us, they screwed with us. I can cop to that, Rock, but you are bouncing too far in the opposite direction, man.”
I’m glaring, but I’m listening.
Especially as he says, “Expressing what you want out of a partner—that’s not manipulation.”
“It’ll sway her decision.”
“You’re making a decision about your future together. She should know what you want.”
I raise my brows at him. “You want me to convince her to quit grifting, but you wouldn’t be saying this to me if you knew what I hoped.”
Nova looks like he could punch me. “You seriously hope she won’t quit?”
“I seriously don’t want to stop lying and deceiving with her. Yeah.” I ignore his lacerating glare as I add, “But I do want her to stop being the girl who’s two seconds from being assaulted. She doesn’t need to be in those positions. Because I know the damage it’s done to her.”
“Tell her that.”
“I have before,” I say. “After the Alps, I did.” Back when Trent jumped in the hot tub naked.
“What about the damage it’s done to you?”
“She knows I hate it, but I hate everything, including this conversation.” I chuck the boot toward the dresser, not even in the mood to force an annoyed smile.
Nova doesn’t flinch as my shoe thumps onto the carpeted floor.
I grip my knees. “She decided she didn’t want to be bait for Trent. That was her choice. She’s getting there on her own.”
I’ve never wanted to shove Phoebe in the direction I want her to go. I’ve always thought if she ends up down a path that makes me want to strangle and decapitate someone, I’d just live inside that volatile feeling. It’s where I’ve existed.
But Nova is right in the fact that I don’t want to be here.
I want this to stop. I want her out of harm’s way for good, and I’m the one who’s terrified of having to control the situation. But I might have to.
So I tell him, “I hear you.”
He nods, sheathing his swords he loves waving in my face. Maybe I needed him to. I don’t know yet. I do know that he’s still not leaving.
I watch as Nova pulls out his phone and sends a quick one-handed text at his waist. He sees me staring and explains, “I’m not going into the art gallery tomorrow. I let the owner know.”
His job as an art curator has no bearing on his job as a grifter. It’s a useless position. But he hasn’t given it up and no one has asked him to. Because we all know he genuinely loves art. It’s one of the few things Nova Graves does love that isn’t Oliver or Phoebe.
He takes his sister’s pulse again, and I cast a glance at the door, worried about mine in the next second.
Hailey is pregnant. The thought still pulverizes me, and I hope she’ll loop in the last to know, Nova and Trevor, because the easiest way to protect her is if we’re all on the same fucking page.