Chapter 5
RALEIGH
Ah, the joys of being woken up by a fist to the kidney.
I was so accustomed to it by now that I was still half asleep when my hand snapped up to capture Angel’s fist, millimeters from my nose. He was crying out in his sleep again. His face contorted as his fists pummeled anything he could get his hands on. I knew from past experience that rousing him could be dangerous, but seeing him in distress and knowing I could end it outweighed the consequences.
“Angel!”
Nothing. He was deep in the nightmare.
“Angel, it’s me. It’s Raleigh.”
I grabbed the free hand swinging in my direction and pinned both to the mattress, trapping his legs with one of my knees so I wouldn’t get kicked for my trouble.
“Angel, you need to wake up!”
With that last shout, Angel’s bright blue eyes finally shot open. He attempted to sit, but I had him utterly restrained.
“It’s me,” I repeated in a soft voice. I released one of his hands so I could brush his sweaty blond hair away from his forehead. “It’s okay.”
Angel’s eyes darted around the room. He pushed at my hand, signaling to me that it was safe to let him go.
“Same dream?” I asked.
He nodded. “I felt the crack this time.”
He blinked tears away, rubbing the back of his neck as he fought to catch his breath.
I flipped on the lamp and grabbed the glass of water I kept on my nightstand. “You’re safe. You know that, right?”
Angel took the drink with one hand and signed “I know” with the other. After draining the glass, he handed it back to me. “But I’ll never forget the night they died.”
My heart sank. None of us had been wearing seatbelts that night. By the time we realized something was wrong, it had been too late. Austin hit his head on the steering wheel; Sarah was thrown from the car. They both died on impact. Angel flew out of my lap and hit the roof of the car. When the vehicle had finally rolled to a stop, I knew we needed to get out—I smelled gas. I pulled myself out of the broken window and dragged Angel with me. At the time, I didn’t realize his neck was broken. It didn’t matter, though, I’d make the same decision time and time again. Before I could go back for the other two, the car burst into flames. Sitting in the bed next to Angel, I swore I could still feel the heat. I’d developed a crippling fear of fire after that night.
I vaguely remember seeing a battered minivan facing the wrong way on the highway. Traffic had stopped, people abandoning their cars to help.
I was lucky: I got away with minor scrapes and bruises. They monitored me for brain bleeds for a few days after, but I was fine. The other two other guys in the back seat were pulled from the fire, but they died the same night in the hospital.
By all accounts, Angel should have joined them in death. When the car crashed, the ligaments holding his skull to his spine snapped—something called an internal decapitation. A fatal injury. But he didn’t die.
For the next six months, we lived at the hospital. I was discharged after a few days, but I refused to leave.
Not without Angel.
His miraculous recovery baffled medical professionals. Doctors from around the country flocked to visit him. His name was mentioned in medical journals. Students studied him at the surrounding universities.
There was only one problem: He couldn’t speak. At first, the hospital staff chalked it up to hearing loss. Even I had struggled with that for days following the accident. After months of tests and therapy, though, his doctors determined that Angel had something they called selective mutism—as if Angel had a fucking choice in the matter. His vocal cords were intact, undamaged. He still made gentle noises to get our attention… and still woke up screaming in the rare moments he was able to sleep. His hearing, though diminished from the accident, was fine. He heard us when we spoke to him, but he wouldn’t— couldn’t —verbally respond.
Neither of us got in a car for a long time after that. Six people died that night, including the couple in the minivan we hit.
We were stupid teenagers, but that night our lives changed forever.
“Angel,” I whispered, pulling my best friend’s attention back to me. “You’re safe. You’re here with me. Austin made that decision. Not us.”
Angel nodded, but he still wasn’t all there. His vacant eyes stared into the distance. I wasn’t sure what else to say. After fifteen years, the nightmares were still a nightly occurrence.
Setting the empty glass aside, I was wondering what more I could do for him when I heard the front door open. Footsteps moved down the hallway and past my bedroom door, stopping at Angel’s before doubling back.
“In here, Eli,” I called.
“Are you decent?”
I looked down. I used to live with the guy; he’d seen me in less clothing before. “Just come in.”
My door crept open, and Angel’s boyfriend poked his head inside. He looked at me, then down to Angel, who was still staring off in the direction of my closet. “Another one?” he asked.
I nodded, and he stepped into the room and softly closed the door behind him, letting his backpack fall to the floor. He ran a hand through his chestnut waves and crossed the room.
He gestured to the empty spot on my bed. “You mind?”
“Not at all.”
I moved to stand, but Angel stopped me with a grip on my wrist that was so hard it was painful.
“I’ll still be here,” I said softly, wincing and prying his fingers away. Eli put his hand on Angel’s back, but he didn’t register the touch. “Eli’s here too.”
Eli leaned over and whispered in Angel’s ear. Angel snapped out of his trance, blinking and seeming to come back to the room. “Hi,” he signed sheepishly, “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Elijah smiled. “Hi yourself.” Angel offered a cheek, and he leaned down to kiss him. “My patient’s labs came back funny, so they pushed the surgery.”
Letting Elijah take over, I went to the closet and started to dress. As I worked myself into a pair of dark-wash distressed jeans branded with a Guess logo on the button, my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
I glanced at it; there was something downstairs at the bar that required our attention, but Angel was in no condition to handle it.
“Do you want me to take you into your room?” Elijah was asking him.
“He can stay here,” I offered, pulling a T-shirt on. “I need to handle something downstairs.”
Angel started to rise, but Elijah wrapped an arm around him to hold him in place and I held my hand up, and he reluctantly sat back down.
I ignored the glare he threw my way. “You’re staying. You need some sleep.” I turned to Elijah, not knowing whether he intended to stay.
“I’ve got him,” he assured me with a gentle smile.
“I won’t be long.”
Downstairs, Jack was stacking glasses behind the bar. We weren’t open yet, but someone hovered in the middle of the room. A tall, dark-haired man in a tailored suit spun in a slow circle, taking in the decorations on the walls.
Suspicious, I stepped behind the bar. “What’s going on, Jack?” Had I forgotten about an inspection or something?
“Uh, that guy wants to talk to you.” He spoke in a low voice. “He looks really official so I didn’t think it was something I should handle.”
Nervous, I approached the man. Upon seeing me, he schooled his features. I was tall, but this man damn near looked me in the eye.
“Are you Raleigh?” he asked.
He pronounced my name wrong. Ray-lee. His dark eyes raked over me. I knew what he was doing: taking in every one of my tattoos and piercings. Despite the designer clothes I wore and the pride I felt in my body modifications, I suddenly felt self-conscious.
“It’s pronounced Rah -leigh, but yeah, that’s me.”
He shuffled in place. He looked away from me, but I thought I caught him blinking back tears. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered.
I glanced over my shoulder at Jack. “Do you want to go somewhere private?” I asked the stranger. “Let me pour you a drink?”
He blew out a breath. “Yeah, that would be great—to both.”
“Scotch?”
“Please.”
Jack was already pouring two glasses of top-shelf scotch when I stepped back to the bar.
“Is everything all right?” he asked in a hushed whisper.
“I’ll let you know when I find out.” My heart was in my throat. I had no idea who this guy was, or what he was there to tell me, but it couldn’t be good.
The man thanked me for the drink and I led him back to the office. I took one side of the two-seater leather couch and he sat on the other. It was only after a long pull from his glass that he spoke. “I guess I should tell you who I am.”
“That would be a good start,” I laughed.
I clutched the snifter in my hands to keep them from shaking. Who was this guy? He wasn’t an old boyfriend. I didn’t recognize him from any of the liquor distributors, and he didn’t seem like someone from the real estate agency.
“My name is Darren Forbes.”
Forbes ? Oh. “As in, Kali Forbes?”
“That’s right.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand. Did something happen to her? Is she okay?”
Darren shook his head, looking taken aback. “Yes, sh-she’s fine. But she, um, what I mean is…” His gaze dropped to his glass, and he blurted, “She’s my wife. My wife is fine.”
The glass in my hand fell from numb fingers to the carpet. It didn’t shatter, but the expensive scotch soaked into the rug. My heart sank, my stomach churned. I found myself grateful that I hadn’t taken a drink yet.
“I’m sorry,” I said, ducking into the private bathroom and retrieving a black towel from under the sink. Returning to the room, I knelt in front of the couch and began sopping up the puddle. “Can you repeat that?”
“I’m Kali's husband. And there’s someone else you should know about.” He pulled out his phone and showed me his lock screen. Kali stood close to him in a red Oscar de la Renta dress that I’d helped her pick out. I remembered sitting outside the waiting rooms at Nordstrom while she modeled it for me. In the photo, her lips grazed Darren’s cheek, her hand resting on the shoulder of a young man between them. He had her eyes but Darren’s hair.
I didn’t need to hear the words to understand the implication, but Darren said them anyway. “This is our seventeen-year-old son.”
I rocked back onto my heels and Darren shoved his phone back into his pocket. I had one knee on the towel, and I felt the booze soaking through it and dampening my jeans. I looked back up at Darren, and his eyes shone with unshed tears.
“Please tell me you didn’t know,” he pleaded.
“No!” I shouted, then lowered my voice. This wasn’t his fault. “Of course I didn’t know. I…” I forced a nervous laugh and let myself collapse to my butt on the floor. There was a wet patch on my knee where the scotch had soaked through. “I’m a bit of a slut—anyone who’s known me longer than five minutes can tell you that—but I’m not a monster. I’d never do that to someone. Darren, I’m really sorry. I had no idea. She never talked about anything outside of her job. She never wore a ring.”
I ran a hand through my hair, unable to wrap my head around this news. I’d been sleeping with a married woman for two years, and I had no idea. A sudden urge to strip off everything she’d ever bought me welled up inside me, but something told me that Darren had no desire to see me in my underwear. Wait—Kali had bought those too.
Fuck.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” I said. “I’m obviously not going to see her again.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
He drained the rest of his drink, and I accepted the empty glass from him. “She was with you last night, wasn’t she?”
I nodded, uncomfortable.
“Did she mention anything out of the ordinary?”
I shrugged. “She had to catch an early flight for a last-minute meeting.”
Darren wrung his hands in his lap. “Federal marshals were waiting for her when she got off that plane. She was arrested for fraud and embezzlement. They’ve been investigating her for a while.”
I dropped my head into my hands. My stomach turned again, threatening to expel the nothing I’d put in it over the last twelve hours.
All of her gifts, all of the expensive dinner dates, all of the fancy nights in the hotels, the spas… all of the sugar Angel teased me about hadn’t been hers to give.
“I wanted to give you a head’s up that you’ll probably be contacted for questioning,” Darren said, breaking the silence.
“Me? But wouldn’t that look bad for her? If she wants to paint a picture of being the perfect person, I don’t see how putting a paramour in front of the media would help.”
His brow furrowed. “Paramour? I thought that was the chick with the orange hair who screams all the time.”
I snorted and raised my head. “It’s the male version of a mistress. Although it doesn’t make me feel any less dirty. Darren, I?—”
He held out a hand to stop me as he rose from his seat. “You owe me nothing. You said you didn’t know, and I believe you. I need to get home before Braden gets out of school. I still haven’t figured out how to tell him we’re losing everything.”
I pulled myself from the floor, peeling my sticky jeans away from my leg. “‘Losing everything?’ What do you mean?”
Darren sighed. “They took everything she could’ve possibly paid for; the house, the car—I bought the ticket out here before they froze our assets. Thank you for the drink, and I truly wish you the best, Raleigh. I’m sorry you got mixed up in this.”
He turned to leave, but with his hand on the door, I called him back. So many questions swirled around my mind. In the end, answering them shouldn’t fall on Darren’s shoulders.
“Fly safe,” I told him instead.
Darren gave me a curt nod, then the door shut behind him, leaving me and my scotch-soaked designer jeans alone in the office.