Chapter 39 - Rachel
THIRTY-NINE
RACHEL
Once Lily left, the countdown to nine sped by. There was always so much to do and this evening was no different.
When Rex rang me at nine on the dot, I’d barely had the chance to shower before my phone buzzed with his incoming call.
Exhausted from the day’s maneuverings, I found myself relieved that he was trying to be conciliatory. His tone confirmed that he was truly sorry for blaming the messenger and, in all honesty, I couldn’t lay any guilt at his door.
When I’d read through Bear’s will, I’d been equally as devastated and he wasn’t even my dad!
Mostly Rex was pissed about Wynter’s adoptive father showing up and causing a scene at her place of work.
As he continued to rage about Jeremy Kinnock’s behavior that afternoon, I murmured, “I hope you didn’t resolve the situation with your fists?”
His lack of a reply was statement enough.
“Goddammit, Rex,” I grated out. “What the hell kind of example is that going to show Wynter?”
“He started it.”
“What are you? Six?”
“He attacked me. Twice.”
“What are his injuries?”
“Broken nose and fist.” He cleared his throat. “Bruising.”
“Did anyone see?”
“Don’t think so.”
My mouth tightened. “I really don’t feel like flying over there and sorting things out for you, Rex. It’s busy enough over here without you adding to my workload.”
He was damn fortunate I could even do that.
After college, after everything, in the early days, I’d passed my bar in California first. Then, later, when I’d been able to bear returning to New Jersey, I’d passed it there as well.
Next had come New York.
Aurora and I used to have a personal competition running over how many bar certificates we could collect before we retired.
Sadly, she was winning.
He huffed. “You should come over anyway. Wynter would love to meet you.”
Anxiety stirred in the form of a battalion of butterflies that came to life in my stomach. “She would?”
“Yeah. You should have heard her talking about you after the call. She was excited.”
“She was? I felt like such a fool,” I half-whined.
“I could tell you were anxious as hell, but she didn’t know. How could she?”
“I’d have preferred our first conversation not to have taken place while I was sweating like a pig and my blood pressure was close to giving me a stroke.”
Rex snorted. “Drama queen.”
Rather than be pissed, my lips twitched. “Better than ice queen?”
“Only sometimes.” His chuckle was low. Low enough that it did crazy things to my insides. “Rach?”
“Yes?”
“I really am sorry about today.”
“I know you are,” I told him, my tone as earnest as his, because I needed him to know that I empathized. “And you don’t have to apologize again.”
Silent for a couple moments, he eventually said, “It’s just not… When I think of him, I know the shit he did wrong, but I know he was a good leader, a great dad, and a—”
“He was still a decent husband, Rex,” I tried to soothe. “Your mom wouldn’t have taken him back if she hadn’t forgiven him.”
“What if he never told her?”
“I don’t think that’s likely.”
“Why not?”
“Well… the timing.”
Having looked Kendra up, I knew her birthday correlated with the time when Rene and Bear had almost separated.
I said ‘almost’ because it hadn’t exactly been that cut and dry.
Rene had miscarried a child and, afterward, had withdrawn from the world.
Her depression had been so intense that, to this day, I could remember how she’d wandered around the compound as if she were in a daze.
“I think you should have faith in the man you knew. He wasn’t perfect and never claimed to be. I’m sure Bear, more than anyone, would—”
“How did he let Kendra do it?”
“Do what?”
“Whore herself out,” he seethed.
“There’s a letter to you about it,” I said uncomfortably. “I just know what the will says.”
“Did he leave any bequests to Kendra?”
“No. Only her mother.”
“That’s unusual.”
“Maybe he didn’t like her?”
“What’s to like?” he questioned snidely. “Would you mind reading me the letter?”
“Rex?”
“Yeah?”
“I really would prefer not to.” Aware that my voice was small, I wondered if he heard how much he’d hurt me today even if I was fine with forgiving him.
He swallowed. “Sure, Rach. Sure. I’m sorry I asked.”
“You don’t have to be, I’m just… It’s been one of those raw days, you know?”
“I do. Same here. Lots of unexpected shit going down, I get it.”
Licking my lips as he spoke, I mumbled, “I-I would like to tell you something.”
“What?” he queried warily. “About my dad?”
“No. About me.”
“Oh. Oh!”
There was relief and concern in those two ululations.
Ignoring both, I muttered, “Lily suggested that I speak with Tiffany about my—” I heaved a sigh as I got stuck on the words.
He helped me. Like usual. “Nightmares?”
“Yes.”
The words ‘as well as everything else’ went unspoken.
The anxiety, the attacks, the exhaustion, the workaholism, the inability to create connections…
Tiredly, I rubbed my eyes before I looked out onto the garden.
For the first time in a long while, it was nine o’clock and I wasn’t in my office. I’d taken the time to shower and change and though I couldn’t enjoy a nice Pinot Noir rosé, I could partake in a hot chocolate. I had the patio heater on, a blanket tucked around my legs, and one around my shoulders.
I knew I was crazy for sitting outside but I couldn’t stand being cooped up after a day of being stuck in the car and in meetings.
“You okay, sweetheart?”
I loved it when he called me that. Not as much as ‘my girl’ but almost. Any endearments were a blessing I’d run from, but with the baby in my belly, I was having to accept that all roads led me back to Rex.
I’d been running for so damn long, but here I was, in the same position as I’d been in back when I was on the cusp of turning nineteen.
Releasing a shaky breath, I opened my mouth to start, but I jolted when the door opened.
Blinking back my surprise, I commented, “Harlow, is everything okay?”
His hands were balled into fists, and he jerked like he hadn’t anticipated my voice.
When he twisted around to look at me, I saw the raging pain etched into his expression and sensed his hurt.
But when I made to speak, he backed off, heading outside in a swift jog.
He didn’t have a bike yet, irony of ironies, so I assumed he’d run either to the town itself or to the clubhouse.
I wasn’t about to stop him.
As the gravel on the driveway crunched beneath his feet, Rex demanded, “Harlow’s there?”
“He was. He took off,” I said pensively. “I think the hazing is bad at the compound. He was staying there, but I’ve let him bed down here for a couple days.”
“Why?”
“Rain found him camping out in the backyard.” I didn’t tack on the word again.
“Camping?”
“Uh huh. On subzero nights. I couldn’t let him stay outside.”
“No, no. Thanks, Rach.”
“No worries. I didn’t do it for you,” I retorted dryly.
His laughter was gruff. “Guess you didn’t.”
“He’s a Prospect.”
“I heard from Maverick.”
“A Prospect without a hog,” I teased. “A first time for everything.”
“He doesn’t have a ride?” He grunted. “Jesus. This is a disaster just waiting to happen.”
I thought about Harlow’s expression for the scant second when he’d looked right at me, and I murmured, “I think it would have been more of a disaster if you didn’t give him that option.”
Rex seemed to contemplate that. “Ticking time bomb?”
“Yeah. At least with Nyx around, maybe he’ll feel like he’s got someone on his side?”
“Maybe. Anyway, it felt like you were going to say something important before he interrupted.”
I could tell he was irate about that, and amusement had my lips twisting but it soon died.
Where did I start? How did I end? What could I possibly—
It came to me.
Our deal.
“Ask me a question, Rex.”
More silence.
“Any question?”
“Yes.”
My hands shook as I reached for my hot chocolate. The heat from the mug seeped into my fingers, but it didn’t offset the ice that felt as if it were taking over my being.
“Is the reason we can’t be together because I look like Grizzly?”
God, of all the things I’d thought he’d ask, that wasn’t one of them.
“You know about Grizzly?” I half-squeaked.
Had Maverick told him about the church meeting when I confessed to the council everything that had happened to me?
“Before… when I left… you spoke in your dreams. In all these years, it’s the first time you’ve ever said his name. I realized he was…” His voice broke off. “I realized he was the one who’d raped you.”
Rex was one of the smartest men I knew, which was saying something because I worked with a bunch of criminal goddamn masterminds who regularly brought the NYPD to its knees.
I knew he knew what had happened to me, but that didn’t mean everything about this conversation wasn’t going to come as a shock.
“Dog did as well,” I told him softly.
A sharp breath escaped him, but the silence made another reappearance, and it was goddamn deafening.
“Do you know how they died?”
“I know Lodestar handled Dog.”
“I think you were in Cali when Sin beat Grizzly to death.”
I blinked. “I didn’t know that was how he died.”
“I’d have turned them into Cruz soup while they were still alive if I had my way.”
My stomach turned.
“Did you know he has this solution and you can put meat into it, any meat, and it evaporates? Just disintegrates into nothing. It’s a new solution. The other used to turn bodies into a kind of mulch. We fed it to the pigs at a local farm. Remember Lever?”
This conversation had not gone where I’d anticipated.
“Barely.”
“His dad runs it.”
“Oh.”
I heard the distinct sound of knuckles being cracked. “Still wouldn’t be enough. Them watching themselves die. Feeling the acid eat into their flesh and bone.” His tone was musing, conversational.
Had I expected more?
Had I imagined he’d be like Nyx?
It was only then that I realized how much I’d appreciated Nyx’s response.
His violence.
But Rex wasn’t Nyx.
Rex could be violent, but he was cerebral too.
It was one of the reasons why we worked so well together.
Why we could work together, I guessed was more appropriate.