19. Harrison
19
HARRISON
R ae didn’t protest when I brought her back to my place or when I fumbled with the kettle to make tea. In truth, I felt more shaken than she looked. We spent the evening watching South Park , half my brain trying to understand the statistical likelihood of a boy named Kenny being plagued by such obscure, violent threats week after week. The other half of my brain was simply grateful to have Raegan curled against my side.
The next morning, I look at her in my bed. My chest twists like there’s a knot of muscle deep in my torso. She’s too fucking young to have gone through what she has. Too brave for me to taunt her about being weak.
She will never go through it again and the man who hurt her will beg for a fate like Kenny’s.
Leaving her in bed, I close the door before I pad barefoot out to the kitchen and start coffee. The smell might wake her, but I don’t want my sounds to.
I ignore the dozens of notifications on my phone as I pull up her social profile, going right back to the post she never deleted, reaming me out this spring. I watch it again, emotions colliding in my chest.
Now I understand why she’s so fixated on ensuring women are protected in clubs—mine or anyone else’s. It’s not only an issue that matters to her—it’s one that shaped her.
It’s shaped me through her.
I swipe a finger up the screen, and the feed scrolls, dozens of images. From Ibiza and since. Plus the live feed she did from Beck’s last week, fresh and grinning.
Thanks to that, she’s at number three on the Wild Fest fan vote.
I’m beyond proud of her.
The way she glows on stage. The way she tries. The way she’ll fight for other people but hides her heart because she doesn’t want it trampled.
The most recent photo is a poster for her gig in New York this week—her last push before the organizers decide. I can’t attend thanks to an important meeting in London later this week.
I want to be there for her.
What I want more, though, is to kill the man who hurt her with my bare hands.
The hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. The fate of my club rests in the balance, but suddenly there’s something even more important at stake.
I click out of social media and into my contacts list, dialing a number I rarely use.
* * *
“You don’t need to handle this,” Leni insists. “We have lawyers and petitioners who can do the heavy lifting.”
Hearings are a place for the general public to trot out their objections and for officials and the committee to ask questions. They’re not something I’d deign to participate in if it weren’t important. And since the head of zoning is the man who raped my girlfriend, it’s fucking important.
When I show up at the meeting, there’s a modest crowd. My lawyers handle most of the conversation on my behalf. There are some ridiculous questions and pressures from a local interest group that make me sit up.
“Mr. King has a reputation for taking over clubs only to mismanage them. We don’t want a large venue in our community.”
“Those claims are unsubstantiated,” my lawyer says.
“I have reports dating back years.” He holds up a stack of papers, takes them over to the commission.
“Give me a copy,” I demand.
The man does.
They’re the usual “not in my backyard” allegations, plus some disturbingly short-sighted arguments aimed at dismantling our claims that the club will enhance the surrounding area.
“The committee will take this under consideration,” Zachary concludes from the front. “We’ll take a short recess before our next agenda item.”
He gets up to use the washroom. I follow him in.
The man goes into a stall, and I wait at the sink, meeting his gaze in the mirror when he comes out to wash his hands.
“That was… disappointing,” I say.
Another man starts to enter, but I cut him a look and he quickly reverses out the door.
“I told you. Interest groups are very active here.”
A few days ago, I was convinced we could work together. He’d be one more bureaucrat I’d manage.
By Saturday afternoon, I realized that would never happen.
“You’re from a good family,” I start. “Political. Affluent. Elite golf course memberships. Old money. It must be nice to be so connected. To have kids. A wife.”
“Ex-wife,” he bites out.
“The divorce is before the courts. Do she and her lawyers know you raped a teenage girl?”
“You can’t threaten me.” He sneers, his confidence bolstered by the lawyer he dialed the second he left the wedding—the one who no doubt reminded him he was in the clear for whatever heinous acts he committed more than ten years ago.
“That’s not why I’m here.” I jerk on a paper towel, and two sheets tumble out.
“Then why?”
I toss him one sheet. “Because I needed to look in your eyes, but more than that, I needed you to look in mine.” The second paper towel crumples into a ball under the pressure of my fist, and I toss it into the trash without taking of my gaze from the man before me. “You hurt someone I love. In the most repugnant, despicable way a man can hurt a woman.”
The protectiveness I feel for her is different from anything I’ve ever experienced.
“God might absolve you of that sin.” I lean in, savoring the fear edging into his eyes. “I will not.”