29. Rhett
“You didn’t tell me you succeeded in getting Balenheizer on your side.” Rix complains to Ana from his surveillance table in the Den.
She says, “I didn’t know he was on my side. I’m surprised he came. The last I saw of him, he all but said he wouldn’t get involved unless Kenna was a part of it.”
My eyes slide from the feeds to her. “Who?”
Ana looks at me, and her face relaxes as she realizes something. “Kenna Radley. She said she knew you from when you were with Alistair.”
I’ve never understood what people mean when they say their world stops spinning. Until right now. My world stops and fucking reverses at a speed I find dizzying. I have to walk away to think.
Kenna Radley.
It has to be a coincidence.
“Who was she to you?” Ana asks carefully as she approaches.
“She was ... a friend, I guess. In the most tragic sense.”
That’s not her real name.
I doubt Ana knows that.
“What does she look like?” I ask, dread rising from the pit of my stomach. I’m a fucking coward for hoping her description won’t match, because I tried years ago to find her, and I was led to believe she was dead.
“Long, straight black hair, green eyes, tall, unfairly stunning?—”
“Fuck,” I mutter.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and lean a hand on the table. A quake of rage begins in my damn kneecaps and shakes through my whole body until I can’t contain it. Whatever is on the table in front of me scatters through the hall, but I barely register the commotion I’ve caused.
“Dude! You know how I feel about my shit!” Rix cries.
How many times can Alistair fucking Lanshall win before I kill him?
I’m pacing like a caged beast. It’s been twelve goddamn years, and he’s had her all this time. Because I was looking for another name—one that led me to a house fire, where I found what I thought was her body. The news broadcast her death. Her cowardly, sick father, who sold her to pay off his debt to Lanshall, appeared onscreen mourning her. I almost went to kill him that night, aged only seventeen, but I didn’t have the confidence or skills to get away with it back then, and I had a bigger plan to get back at him and Lanshall for everything they did.
I need to break something. Hit something. I march to the desk again, sights targeting Rix’s black globe, but he anticipates it, snatching it in a protective grip. I’m intercepted by Ana’s small, gentle hands flattening on my abdomen anyway.
“Rhett Kaiser.” The wavering aged voice of Oma cuts across the space as it goes silent.
My breathing is harsh, but I start coming around. Seeing Ana’s face pinched in concern, I slip an absentminded hand over her cheek as if I can take it all away. Scanning the room, more than two dozen people here are giving me similar looks, and it grates on me. Then I find Oma leaning on her cane in the doorway of her small dwelling.
I don’t want to set foot in there. The woman has a fucking superpower that makes people talk about everything they’ve buried, no matter how deep. I don’t want to talk. I don’t have time to talk.
I need to fucking act.
When I begin shaking my head her cane taps the ground. “Don’t give me that, young man. You’re not setting foot out of here until you’ve set foot in here.”
“You can’t piss off Oma, man,” Rix mutters.
“She’s kinda as frighting as you are,” Adam adds.
“Go,” Ana says softly. “For me—please?”
My jaw tightens. I can’t right now. Allie is still missing. I’ve learned Kenna is alive. Jeremy is in Alistair’s network too. And right now, Lanshall and Forthson will have prime targets on my little bird for all she brilliantly pulled off.
“It’s not me who should be in there,” I say.
Ana swallows and averts her gaze.
“Will you speak to her, if not me? Please?”
“I want to be here with you.”
“You are. I’m right here.”
“Okay,” she whispers.
I take her over to Oma, and it’s not without sharp eyes of warning from her that she accepts Ana in my place.
“Thank you,” I say, giving Oma a short embrace.
She’s an absolute treasure to our network, helping people heal their trauma and learn to live with all the shit they’ve been through and continue to see in our work.
Ana doesn’t look back as she walks shyly into the room. I heard she was here before, but now she knows she’s here to talk about herself and not just for a visit. I want to be with her, but I can’t. I don’t take my eyes off her as the door closes, and it tears me apart to see her so small and frightened.
I tear myself away to storm back to Rix.
“You can only go so long keeping yourself together with rage and vengeance,” Rix says tentatively.
“I don’t need a lecture,” I say, folding my arms and pondering the surveillance footage to think.
“You owe it to Ana to get yourself better too,” Adam says.
He’s the last voice I want to hear right now, and I can’t help the lethal stare I target on him.
“You shouldn’t fucking be here,” I snap.
Rix says, while typing at some code, “He’s actually proved quite useful. We wouldn’t have gotten inside the country club without him. His father’s a member, clear of the bullshit though. We don’t have another Gregory Forbes on our hands, thank fuck.”
I’m wondering who the fuck was daring enough to risk touching her. I can barely think about it without feeling like I might combust into a damn inferno. I want to rip the guy’s hands off and feed them to him. I’m having the most intense and downright savage thoughts I’ve ever had, and I don’t know how to manage them except to keep myself busy.
“I want absolutely every resource on Allie right now,” I tell Rix. “Comb through every inch of the DeVerres.”
“Yes, boss,” Rix says, swinging around in his swivel chair. “I’m keeping an eye on my little shithead of a brother too.”
There are three people I need to get back, and it’ll take careful patience, because I’ll be damned if I lose any one of them.
“He’s not been back to the country club?” I ask.
“No. It’s got me worried as shit. I haven’t seen him in any feed for a week.”
Alistair is difficult to find. I know he took up bold residency in his manor in D.C. while he had Ana, but I assume he’ll be leaving there soon knowing I’m on the loose and coming for him.
“DeVerre?” Adam backtracks. “As in, the most renowned law firm in the States?”
I’m trying to forget his presence when his voice buzzes like a mosquito I want to swat.
“Crazy, right? I couldn’t believe it. I knew she was rich as fuck, but I didn’t think she was basically Kardashian levels of fame,” Rix says.
“Her family are just buying a five-month leave? She’s barely even taken two weeks off in six years,” I say irritably.
“They say they spoke to her directly—full phone call, not just a text—and that they’ve heard from her every few weeks from Kauai, apparently. We have an inside guy in the firm feeding us their updates on her.”
It’s such bullshit, and I can only think they don’t want to cause a scandal by assuming she’s run off-grid like her brother did four years ago. They’ve never been the most loving or caring family, and I feel for Allie and her loneliness.
“Liam Forbes—where the fuck is he?” I demand.
“Should we be looking into him?” Rix asks.
“He’s been missing since the shit with his father,” Adam informs us. “I would guess he’s hiding from law enforcement, which makes him look guilty as fuck.”
His father was exposed around the same time Allie was taken. It’s not a damn coincidence, and my fist slams the desk.
“Dude, I swear you’re gonna owe me a whole new setup in a minute,” Rix says.
I can’t decide if it’s relief or dread I should feel when my conclusion seems so glaringly obvious. “Liam has Allie,” I say.
Adam and Rix snap their heads to me. I don’t know how long that motherfucker has been working with Rix, but it’s unnerving to witness their synchronization since the moment we got here.
“How can you be sure?” Rix quizzes with a hooked brow.
“I can’t be certain he has her, but I’m rarely wrong. I believe he’s still in love with her from a long while back. Perhaps he found out about the hit in time to get to her. I just don’t know if he’s a twisted fuck like his half-brother and he kidnapped her, or if he could actually have saved her a whole shitload of trauma.”
“Glad to have you back, man. I knew you’d find her as quickly as Sherlock.”
“He hasn’t found her,” Adam counters.
I take a few steps toward him, which wisely has him dropping his comfortable stance. “I don’t know why she’s forgiven you. I don’t fucking care. But you’re in my network now, and there’s no taking that back. So when I say jump, you fucking jump. Got it?”
Adam concedes with a look, turning to the screens again. “I don’t know what you got her to see in you,” he grumbles.
Neither do I, but I’ve decided not to question the one absolute blessing in my life.
I cast my eyes to Oma’s door. I don’t know how long they’ll be in there, but I’m not leaving even for a piss.
“So the question is, where would Liam have taken her?” Rix ponders, leaning back in his chair.
Ana’s the only person who might have even a slight lead on that. I pull over another chair, but I doubt I’ll manage to stay still for long.
“Let try to work out where Jeremy is for now,” I say.
It’s past midnight, and most of the people here have left or gone to sleep. A lot of them live here. There are several rooms with bunks, and they find peace and safety in being together.
Rix and Adam are still here, but the three of us are barely hanging on after a full day of scouring screens trying to figure shit out. We’re not much closer to finding Jeremy. I owe my life to the kid, as stupid and reckless as he was for going behind Rix’s back to get an in with Lanshall.
I rub my eyes, but when the familiar creak echoes across the room, suddenly I’m wide-awake. Oma peeks out and beckons me over, and I don’t hesitate. Her face is pulled in with sadness as she steps aside.
“She’s very passionate and strong. She cares about you deeply.”
Ana is asleep on the floral sofa. The two Chihuahuas Jeremy stole last year are curled into her.
“I shouldn’t have let that happen,” I say. She’s so breathtaking when she sleeps. So free from burden.
“You think you’ve disrupted and destroyed her life, and while what you do is dangerous, that’s not true. In fact, I think you saved each other at just the right time.”
I walk in gently, not wanting to wake her. “Did she tell you what happened?”
“She told me everything. In time, she’ll want to show you everything. It’s how she communicates with you. Have patience, son.”
“I will.”
“But Rhett, you can’t begin to help her until you help yourself.”
I lift Ana into my arms, and she’s the weight of bliss. I breathe in her scent of honey and vanilla and know I’m exactly where I belong.
“Thank you, Oma.”
“You know where to find me when you’re ready.”
I don’t answer. Heading out with Ana is the only thing on my mind right now. Taking her somewhere safe.
“You should go home,” I say to Rix, who’s still combing through feeds, not wanting to miss a moment Jeremy might appear.
“I’m good. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
Adam doesn’t look like he’s leaving either as he picks up a slice of cold pizza from hours ago. I might not like him, but Rix seems to ease off in his company, and I’m glad he’s not alone.
I take one of the new Jeeps, and Ana moans sleepily when I put her in the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” she mumbles, barely peeling open her eyes as I reach over to clip in her seat belt.
“Home,” I say, kissing her softly.
I can’t get enough. I want to lock her away with me for all the months we missed together, but I know that’s not an option.
“We can’t go back to the apartment. I don’t fancy any more building ledge hideouts,” she says as I slip in the driver’s seat.
I nearly smile at her humor. Always our light. Always our balance.
“We have a few homes. They’ll have to do until we get you the one with the porch.”
“And a pond.”
“Anything you want, baby.”
I take her hand as I drive, and for a moment it feels like we’re back four months ago, when everything felt good and right.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, not really expecting a deep answer.
“Fine.”
“‘Fine’ is what people say to hide the truth. Don’t hide from me. I can’t bear it.”
“It’s all I have right now, because I won’t be good until we are. Me and you, and then us.”
She’s right. I know it won’t be easy, and we still have a lot to deal with before we can even focus on ourselves.
“Me and you, and then us,” I repeat as a promise we will have that, no matter how dark my soul has to become to get us there.