Twenty-Seven
TWENTY-SEVEN
VANESSA
How the fuck do I explain this? The phone weighs heavy in my hand, six missed messages from Marianna detailing the timeline of her frustration. And I get it: I’d be just as pissed if I’d dropped somebody home after a mini menty-B to have them ghost me for close to twenty-four hours.
Would I have answered her even if I was alone? I don’t know.
I could spin some story about how I looked at the wrong phone and didn’t see her messages. But then she’d pick that bullshit within seconds. I was caught up in my shit, not ignorant.
Put myself in her shoes: I’d want answers to reassure myself that my friend was still alive.
As though on cue, Marianna barges through my back door, face a contorted mask of fury. “The hell, bitch?” Her bag hits the counter with a clatter. “I was worried sick about what I’d find when I got here. What have you been doing?”
I eye where her brushed leather sits on the marble and squirm in my seat. “Sleeping.” It’s not a total lie. It’s just not the whole truth either.
“For eighteen hours?” She hitches an eyebrow. “You couldn’t send me one teensy message to assure me you were okay?” She squints and holds her forefinger and thumb an inch apart.
“I left the phone out here.” Again, not a lie. “I’m sorry.”
“So you should be,” she mutters, dropping her ass into the seat opposite mine.
I note her unusual attire. “What’s with the sweats?”
“I was stressed, okay?” She flops against the back of the seat, arms laid out on the sides of the chair. “How are you, though?”
“Evelyn got away okay?”
I didn’t go to the airport to see her off. The thought of being around people again—strangers—near sent me into a new anxiety spiral. Instead, Marianna dropped me home and took my aunt herself, sending a message to let me know she boarded.
The first of the train of check-ins that I missed.
“Yeah. She’s okay.” Marianna rolls her lips. “Wanted an update today on how you are.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” She heaves a sigh. “Yesterday was the worst I’ve seen you in a long while, babe. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I run my palms down my thighs. “Nothing I haven’t got through before.” My gaze drifts to the smartphone beside the old brick phone I’d neglected. “Can I ask you something?”
“Please.”
I lean forward, scoot my ass to the front of the seat, and tap the heels of my hands to the top of my knees. I made him leave. I told him I’m not worth the trouble. But all I wanted to really know was, would he fight for me?
Do I mean as much as he said I should?
“Okay, now you’re worrying me.” Marianna sits straighter. “What is it?”
“How much do you know about the club moving in across the road?”
Her shoulders sag, her expression softening. “Are you worried about having them so close? I can have a word with their president if you like. We’ve known each other since high school.”
And there it is… the answer I wanted. Just didn’t think I’d get to it so soon. “Really?”
“Yeah.” She flattens her lips, glancing to the floor. “The Kings are okay, I guess. They get a bad rap around town, and for a good reason—they do illegal shit—but they also keep to themselves. They’ve never terrorized the community—well, directly anyway—and they donate a lot to local charity, especially around Christmas.” She claps her hands together, lifting her head to look at me. “They’re moving out here to get away from that judgment, so I don’t think you’ll need to worry about them being a danger to you.”
Already passed that point.
“They might be a bit rowdy at times, is all.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“They party,” she explains. “Not a lot, but when they do.” A grin splits her face. “They go hard.” She chuckles. “Maybe it could help, you know? Get you to let off some steam if you go over there and crash the celebrations?”
“I doubt that’d go down well,” I mutter.
“You’ll probably get invited to the housewarming so that they can case you out.”
Again—already passed that point.
“Why would they want to do that?” Why has Chaos been so interested in me? I keep my head down in Temperance, stay out of trouble—there’s no reason to think I’d be a problem.
“To make sure you won’t run to the cops and narc on them.”
Makes sense. Pretty sure the fact that I didn’t report his stalking ass should be enough proof that I’m not a tell-tale. My gaze shifts around the room, scanning for that hidden fucking camera—or cameras. Is he listening to this right now? One way to know.
“Pretty sure they know I wouldn’t rat on them, considering I haven’t yet.”
“What makes you say that?” Marianna frowns. “You seemed pretty freaked out by Circus yesterday. Have they been giving you grief?”
The smartphone chirps from the coffee table. We both pause and look at it.
“Do you need to get that?” Marianna asks when I fail to snap out of the trance.
“I should probably check it.” I lunge across and snag up the device. A message sits waiting for me.
Don’t tell her about us.
Why not?
I hastily type back.
“Everything okay?” My best friend frowns, thumbs twiddling in her lap. A habit of hers when she’s trying her best not to interfere.
“Yeah. Just the telco telling me I’m almost out of credit already.”
“Oh.”
The phone chirps again. Twice.
She lifts an eyebrow. Yeah—even I know a Telco wouldn’t send you multiple messages.
Her and I have history. She’ll turn you against me.
I raise an eyebrow as I read the text.
Shouldn’t be an issue if you’ve got nothing to hide.
I silence the phone and set it aside. “Tell me more about this president,” I ask her. “What’s he like?”
The screen lights up in my periphery, notification banners sliding over top of each other in rapid succession.
“Chaos?” Her brow shoots up.
I suppress the pleasurable shiver of his name spoken aloud. “Yeah.”
Marianna frowns. “How did you know that’s his name if you know nothing about them?”
Shit. “They came into the cafe last week.” Thank fuck for believable lies. “I heard Theresa say it.” Again, not entirely an untruth. I’m so going to hell.
“He’s complicated,” she sighs, avoiding my eye. “Bit of a fucked up family history.”
“Sounds familiar,” I jest as another flurry of notifications bombards the phone.
She smiles. “Similar, but not the same. At all.”
“Why?”
The phone illuminates again.
“His father used to be the president of the club.”
My heart hammers in my chest. “I killed my father, and I’ll kill yours too if you want me to.”
“But he became an informant for the DEA. Turned against his brothers, so they turned against him.”
“Sounds intense.”
“The murder investigation dragged on most of the senior year.”
My blood chills. He was a teenager when he did it. I force the words past a thick throat. “Must have been a rough year for him.”
“I guess.” She slides her focus to the device at my side. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing.” I shove it between my leg and the side of the seat. “You said they don’t terrorize the community. What do they do?”
“Why all the questions, babe?” Marianna tilts her head, eyes narrowing.
I try my best to give a nonchalant shrug. “They’re moving in across the road. I think it’s only natural to be curious.”
I want to know if he’s worth tearing my heart out for.
She studies me for a second, head slowly moving upright again. “Is this some way to avoid the real issues?”
“What do you mean?”
“You fucking ignored me after I brought you home in pieces yesterday, and now when I turn up to check on you, your first question is about the Kings of Anarchy, nothing to do with your family. Math not be mathin’, babe.”
My skin burns. “I guess it probably is a distraction.” The lack of tears or anxiety attacks almost backs up the theory. “I suppose, in a way, I’m numb to the reality of it all, you know?” At last. Not a lie. “It’s so much to take in all at once that it’s like my brain shut down, deciding it was better to believe this is all the hangover from some fucked up dream and not real.”
“It is real, Ness,” Marianna says softly.
Fuck. Here it comes. “I know.” I swallow in rapid succession, yet the burning in my eyes doesn’t ease. Nor does the pressure in my chest.
My mom is dead. My brother is missing. And the fucker responsible blames me.
I’m fucked.
“He’ll destroy me if I go back there. I can’t do this.” Gage left for a reason. And if my stepfather’s most loyal protege breaking ranks doesn’t wake me the fuck up to the danger, I don’t know what would.
“That’s why you won’t go alone.” Marianna rises from her seat, moving to kneel before me. My bestie takes my hands in hers. “Evelyn said that she’d accompany you if you asked. And you bet your goddamn ass I’d be there. You won’t face this by yourself.”
“You don’t get it.” They think I’m scared of a simple abuser. That I fear his fists or his sharp tongue. “Once you’re in his web, you won’t get out.” He’ll put feelers into the community, find his minions nearby, and send them after her.
She can kiss goodbye to her real estate career.
Evelyn may as well hand in her medical license now.
“Then we do it by video conference.” She returns to her seat. “I was thinking about it last night, and there’s no reason why they can deny your request for the meeting to be virtual.”
“Unless they argue the connection's security or something like that.” I shrug.
“They did it all the time during, well, you know, those years. It’s viable.”
She has a point. But it’s not enough. “He won’t let up. If he doesn’t get what he wants from me, he’ll keep harassing me until I fold.”
She frowns. “How have you evaded him all this time?”
“No bills in my name. Theresa pays me cash.” I’m a ghost. Until now. Until he gave me a reason to connect to the wicked World Wide Web. “Don’t you find it odd that I pay cash for this place?”
“I found it weird that you wanted a private rental contract off the books.”
“And yet, you never asked why,” I tease with a slight smile.
On paper, the cottage is still inhabited by the owners. We figured out a compromise that gave me anonymity and them a commission for being the go-between for utilities and taxes.
I told them I was in unofficial witness protection.
The sweet old couple didn’t ask any more questions when I showed them my scars.
“You need to talk to someone, babe,” Marianna says softly. “Even if you correspond via lawyers, it’s your mom’s estate. You have a right to know how you factor in that.”
“She wouldn’t have anything to leave me that’s not his anyway.” I pick at the hard edge of my nail groove. “I don’t want anything he’s touched or influenced.”
She sighs. “What if she left you a letter?”
“Then they can fucking post it.” They have my address now. The jig is up.
What I should be doing is looking for a new place to live.
You’ll never outrun him. I buy time, is all. Trade away my sense of security for another twenty-four hours ruing what I’ve become.
But I love Temperance. I love the people I’ve gotten to know here. The cottage. The serenity of the countryside. The river walks.
I won’t move again. I won’t go.
Because if there’s one thing I won’t allow him to take, it’s my fucking right to be here.
Alive. Thriving.
Despite everything he did to prevent that.