Chapter Forty-Four
FORTY-FOUR
Rocky
BITE OR GET BITTEN (CONTINUED)
Fireworks explode in the night sky, lighting up the Bennets’ lawn in various colors. I need to stop fiddling with my watch. Fifteen times in the past twenty minutes—yeah, I am on literal edge. This isn’t a run-of-the-mill job anymore. Not with Varrick involved. Not with how much is at stake.
One saving grace: I don’t have to corral horses or babysit a mansion from being obliterated by a bunch of drunk fucks. Thank God.
The Bennets’ Fourth of July party is respectably tame. A true blessing to the rest of my senses. The only blistering sound comes from the incessant fireworks popping overhead. But that, I can definitely live with.
At a picnic table, I stab my fork into a piece of Chantilly cake and scan the party for Phoebe and Hailey. I’ve seen them here and there. They’ve been mingling with guests all night. Doing their part.
Next to me, Jake takes a gulp from a bottle of gin (yes, a bottle), his death glare has been pinned across the lawn on Trent. But Trent left his picnic table five minutes ago, so now Jake is just glaring at a fucking tree. “I hate him.”
“We know, sweetheart.” I swallow the cake and check my phone. “You’ve been plotting murder with your eyes for the last hour.” No texts.
I crack my neck.
Jake doesn’t reply to me. He’s been burying his emotions in booze all night.
It’s his role as the aggrieved brother, and I’m only worried because I’ve never actually seen Jake Waterford plastered.
He’s assured me alcohol doesn’t loosen his lips, but I’m not in the mood for rolling the dice tonight. My phone buzzes.
We’re ready.
The text comes from Varrick’s burner phone. My stomach instantly knots, and I set my fork on the plate. “Varrick just invited me onto the boat to watch the fireworks,” I tell Jake. “You going to be okay?”
“You care,” Jake points out. I think he’d even smile if he weren’t knee-deep in hatred and grief.
“Yeah, I do,” I state just as plainly.
The admission surprises him. He opens his mouth to reply, but his eyes trail past me into a deep, confused frown.
I follow his gaze. Oliver is coming toward us. Where’s Phoebe? I scan and just barely catch sight of her and my sister hand in hand as they trek higher up the hill. Hailey peers backward one time, and I see a lilac in her hair.
I see the twisted vine of lilacs in Oliver’s hand.
Jesus fuck. He did not put a flower in her hair tonight when she’s newly married.
Oliver swings a leg over the picnic bench. “Boys.” He up-nods Jake. “Dropped your crown, Koning.” He places the lilac wreath on his head, then winks at him.
I glare. “You’re doing too much.”
“Leave him alone,” Jake defends.
Oh my God. I can’t deal with whatever they are right now. The booms are shrill in my ears, and all the bright blues, greens, and purples try to heave me to somewhere outside of Boston. The Fuckup.
My little brother. A lake house shed. Gardening shears in another guy’s neck. I blink out of the memory, and I realize, “Have you seen Trent anywhere?”
“Not since he left the table,” Jake says.
The firstborn Koning has been the most popular person here outside of Hailey, and he’s suddenly MIA? His friends are gazing up at the fireworks. He should be with them.
Oliver does a casual scan. “No sign of your brother either.”
My gut drops out from underneath me. Fuck. “I’ll find him. Don’t wait for me. I won’t be coming back.” I hike my leg over the bench. “See you around, Jake.”
“Wait.” Jake catches my wrist, stopping me. His blue eyes hit mine in deeper concern. Worry. I see what he’s asking me. Is this going to be the last time we see each other?
Maybe. If this job doesn’t end well, this will be our goodbye.
My ribs knot, but I don’t dole out any false hope. I just nod to him, then say, “Try not to change too much, Jake. Places like this need more people like you.”
I feel his eyes on my back as I walk away.
I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t know if things will go right. With Trevor missing at the same time as Trent, they’re already going wrong.
My brother has been under Trent’s wing for weeks, I remind myself. They could be conversing somewhere on the other side of the house. The Bennets aren’t letting anyone but staff and family inside, so I don’t bother checking the mansion.
I slip between servers handing out Prosecco. I ignore the several men who call my name. I act as if it’s too loud over the fireworks to hear.
I search without appearing like I’m on a life-or-death hunt for Trevor.
Trent likes to flaunt his relationship with my brother in my face. Clearly, he’s not dangling shit in front of me if I can’t find him.
As elbows brush me, as the scent of grilled corn and seafood floods my nostrils, as faces are bathed in color, I feel like I’m fifteen again. Rolling a dead body in a tarp. Carrying it through the woods with Oliver. Twisting my knee.
Then I find Trevor in the shadows on the Bennets’ property. All the breath I’d been caging rushes out of my lungs at once. I inhale deeply and pick up my pace into a jog just to reach him, then slow when I’m feet away.
He stands slumped, his back against a lilac tree.
As soon as the fireworks light up his gray eyes, and I see the absolute torture in them, I know something is very fucking wrong.
“Trev,” I whisper when I reach him. “Did he hurt you? Hey—” I hold his face as his gaze drags against the earth.
I lift his head, and when I look into his eyes, I see pure fucking agony.
My muscles sear inside out. “What’d he do?
” I am two seconds from dragging Trent into the grill and making a burger out of his fucking face.
Trevor shakes his head just once. “He didn’t…he didn’t hurt me, Rock.”
I can’t untense. “You hurt him?”
He shakes his head again. I track his gaze down the hill. He’s staring at…Trent, who sips bourbon and rolls his eyes at his so-called friend, then snickers like a fucking prick.
Trent is accounted for then.
Trevor’s jaw tightens. He looks away, then scuffs the ground with his leather shoe. “I can’t do it anymore.” Pain lances his voice. His nose flares as he tries to control his emotions.
“Yeah?” The word sticks to the back of my throat. “Which part?”
“All of it.” Trevor looks up into the firework-lit sky.
“The things he says about people…about our sister…I can’t…
I can’t fake it. All I want to do is tell that bastard exactly what I think.
I hate that I can’t. I hate that he just gets to…
I hate it.” His eyes redden; he’s trying to stop himself from breaking down.
I put my arms around him and bring him into my chest.
This ends his position as Trent’s friend. Our reunion again. So, if he wanted, he could push me off, but all he does is hold on.
Trevor has always wanted my role. He’s always wanted to be in a position where he’d manipulate a mark face-to-face. I never thought that, finally given the chance, he’d hate it.
I doubt he thought he’d hate it, too.
He adds in a tortured breath, “I’m not as good as you.”
My heart. My kid. “You’re right,” I breathe out. “You’re better, Trev.” I never wanted this for him. I never wanted him to be me. The fact that he can’t stomach it—maybe I did one good thing here.
He winces up at the sky. “I’m screwing this up. Tonight.”
“We can make this work. Just go back to Stonehaven. You’re out.”
His nose flares. “I can help with the boa—”
“No.” I glower. “Go…be with Sidney. Be a fucking teenager for once in your life.” Forget about this, I want to add.
But he’s already pulling out his phone, I hope to text her.
Sidney officially moved into the Reynoldses’ boathouse last weekend.
Completely cut off from Weston Burke, her new independent life is being funded by Hailey and Phoebe’s meager savings.
How long that’ll last—no clue. I have bigger issues to deal with.
Trevor’s eyes flit up from his phone. “What are you still doing here?”
I push away. Time to go. “Thanks for the reminder, shithead.”
When I’m five feet down the hill, he calls out, “Rocky.” I turn, and his eyes soften on me before he gives me the middle finger.
I smile, and I give him two back.
His lips rise.
I hang on to that.
I have to. Because I can’t look for Phoebe. The very last thing I need to do is see her face before I go to the boat. My resolve won’t last.
And I need to do this—for all of us. Pull the rope. Bite or get bitten.
—
“Let’s sit in the bow,” Varrick suggests, fisting the neck of a champagne bottle. We’re not on his boat. But I love how he’s calling the shots here. So fucking gracious of him.
We’re technically on Oliver’s speedboat. The Salty Miss is moored at sea among dozens of other vessels for the Fourth of July. From catamarans to large yachts to other midsized speedboats.
Varrick agreed to take the Salty Miss to the Bennets’ party—the mansion and private docks in view from the water—mainly for privacy. His yacht needs staff to operate it. This boat, we can drive ourselves.
The air is a mess of noise.
Of sizzling and hissing fireworks. Of boisterous laughter and chatter and pumping music from other boats and onshore. My temples pound as we congregate in the curved bow seating. I lean closer to just hear him speak.
“I want to make this right,” Varrick tells his son. He pours champagne into Nova’s flute, then mine, then his own. Only the three of us on the boat. “You should feel like you can ask me anything, and maybe I didn’t make that clear enough from the beginning.”
Varrick isn’t desperate to regain Nova’s trust—not when he barely had it in the first place. But he does want to maintain this relationship, especially since keeping Nova close ensures he’s close to Phoebe.
I told Varrick I had news to share about his daughter. That I needed to do it somewhere private and that the Fourth of July was probably the best time. He believed me because I wasn’t lying, so he said, “Let’s bring Nova. I need to make some inroads with him, too.”