Chapter 31 #2
“Them. It’s really nice of them.” She smiles, and it’s her mischievous one that reminds me of her grandfather. “They’re also working on recipes for the bake-off and the chili for charity events, while campaigning for most eligible bachelor votes.”
Good Lord. “Being named the elusive billionaire in the national news wasn’t enough for Grey?”
“Not when you’re on the line, it’s not. Sav, do you know that while he’s campaigning, he’s also asking everyone in town for their favorite memories with you? The guy is cramming like this is a final exam for a class he never attended. He’s all in.”
“He’s just a sore loser. He’d—”
“If you’re about to say he’d be this way no matter who the sweetheart was, I’m going to stop you right there because I know Grey well enough to know that he wouldn’t be anywhere near this event if it weren’t for you.
The guy lives for work, and yet he’s spent all week learning the story of Savvy Monroe. ”
“He—”
“Loves you.”
“You really need to stop interrupting me. That new habit of yours is really annoying.”
The line moves forward, and I greet Blissy with a hug before ordering a coffee and one of her specialty tea bags to go for later.
When I first moved to Happiness, I thought the town-wide battle of coffee versus tea was a myth. After living here for ten years, I’ve yet to pick a definitive side because I’m not looking to make any enemies and someone is always watching.
I don’t need to give anyone ammunition to use against me come January’s festival.
“Did you hear me?” Madi asks, touching my arm.
No, I was lost in thought about a stupid feud that keeps the town running through the coldest months of the year.
It’s one of the many reasons that it was so easy for Happiness to feel like home to me—we simply accept everyone’s quirks here. In fact, it’s what endears the residents of Happiness to each other.
We’re a family.
One that will kill me to lose if it comes to that.
Madi’s nails dig into my arm, cutting little crescent shapes into my skin and dragging me from the conflicts in my mind.
The atmosphere in Blissy’s has changed, making me shiver.
I glance over my shoulder, and ice spreads through my veins.
Riley has entered the café with a calculating smile and cold, dead eyes trained on me.
The buzz that typically fills the space is eerily quiet, but the only one unaffected by it is Riley.
Since Betty learned she’d accidentally given the wrong person too much information about me at the diner, everyone’s been on high alert around strangers, and the tension rolling off my neighbors makes the air too thick to breathe.
All eyes follow him as he walks straight toward Madi and me.
His hands land on my upper arms, and he pulls me in for an air-kiss to both cheeks. I’m too stunned to move, plus, Madi is still breaking skin on my forearm.
“So good to see you, Sav. Can I get you a coffee?” he asks, projecting his voice for all to hear.
“Already taken care of,” Blissy shouts like a curse. “Her fiancé ran a tab for all her needs.”
Riley’s eye twitches, much like Bethany’s had earlier, and his hands grip my biceps hard enough to make me flinch. “Isn’t. That. Nice.”
I shrug out of his hold, and after another painful squeeze, he releases me.
“We have a lot of history, Sav. I don’t want to just throw that all away.
Not when we have so much…” He flashes the room a predatory smile I think is meant to put people at ease but has the exact opposite effect.
“…to look forward to. I mean, your brother is getting married. It practically makes us family again. You know how close my mom and Paige’s mom are. They’d do…anything for their children.”
It’s a thinly veiled threat that hits me hard, but I don’t show any outward emotion at all.
“I wish my brother and Paige a lifetime of happiness,” I say in a flat tone. “But they chose not to have me in their lives, and I will honor that request. You and I have nothing to discuss.”
He lashes out quickly—a lightning strike with no warning. His hands wrap around my biceps again as he steps into my space, lowering his mouth to my ear. It snaps Madi out of her daze, and she attempts to wedge herself between us, but Riley’s hold on me is too strong.
“This is your only warning, Sin. Don’t fuck with me. Give me what I want, or I will destroy this embarrassment of a town. Then I’ll follow you from place to place, ruining everything you touch until the day you die.”
It all happens in less than fifteen seconds, but it’s all it takes to get my Happiness family moving. Moose appears on my left while Blissy rounds the counter, holding a broom like a baseball bat.
“Touch her again, and I’ll break every finger in your dirty paws. Ya hear me, kid?” Moose towers over Riley’s weathered six-foot frame.
Riley glares up at Moose, but his stupidity outweighs common sense, and he doesn’t release my arms. Instead, he squeezes harder while glaring at Moose.
“Are you threatening me, you big ogre?” Riley never did learn to think before he spoke.
“Nah, kid. That’s a promise.”
“You’re threatening me in a room full of witnesses. Is there a brain in that giant body of yours, or are you as stupid as you are big?”
Moose laughs. It’s not his normal laugh either. This sound is terrifying and has Madi taking a step back.
“Anyone hear a threat?” Moose asks the room.
“Yup.” Chief stands up, flashing a badge he should no longer have. “Heard this out-of-towner threatening our new sweetheart. Heard him threaten Madi too. Pops won’t like that one bit. Also heard him threaten the whole dang town of Happiness. Sounds like a terrorist to me.”
Riley instantly loses his swagger as panic swims in his wild eyes. He’s on probation. Making threats would certainly send him right back to prison. His hands squeeze me so tightly I can no longer fight the wince when my skin pinches between his fingers.
“That’s not even close to what happened,” Riley seethes, wrenching me to his side as though he forgot he was still holding onto me. “What the hell’s going on here?”
“Let her go.” Moose glares at the point of contact on my arms as though he has X-ray vision.
“I heard him make threats against the town and others like it,” Blissy says, ready to take a swing at Riley the first chance she gets.
“Same here.” Marty from the hardware store steps forward, followed by Betty from the diner.
“Would you like to file an official complaint?” Chief asks with his thumbs tucked into his front pockets.
“If you don’t, I will,” Moose says calmly.
My gaze snaps up to the gentle giant who’s been Grey’s sounding board for months now.
“We protect our own, Savvy.” Gone is the menacing tone he used with Riley, and in its place is a grandfather full of love and compassion. “This guy threatened not only you but everyone here. We won’t let that slide.”
My lip begins to sweat as the seriousness of the situation weighs on me.
If I speak to the police, the real police, not Chief, there’s a very good chance that Riley will be sent back to prison. But if I do that, the DeVanes will most certainly come after me.
Madi holds up her phone and snaps some photos of Riley grasping my arms. It sets him into a spiral, and just when I think he’s going to lunge for her, I twist my shoulder, causing his fingers to dig deeper into my skin, but I’m able to face him head-on.
“Already got the whole thing recorded, Madi. No worries.” It sounds like Betty, but I don’t dare look away from Riley to confirm.
“You won’t get away with this.” He whispers low and deadly, but it lands as intended.
“Neither will you.” I wiggle my left arm, but he doesn’t release me.
“I’m not the same little girl you could bend to your will, Riley.
You killed that girl the day you stole Paige’s freedom.
And the difference is, now I have an army to stand at my back.
All you have is…” I lower my voice. I’m not sure why I want to protect Bethany, but I do.
“A woman you manipulated and hurt simply because you could.”
“My family. Paige’s fucking family,” he rants.
My torso jerks with his angry flailing, and Moose growls beside me, but I plead to him with my eyes to stand down. So long as no one intervenes, he’ll only hurt me.
“Yes. You have them,” I concede through the pain radiating up my arm, wondering if it’s possible to break a bone by simply squeezing it.
“I also suspect you truly do have my brother too. That’s a loss I’ll feel until my dying day, but all losses heal with time.
And I have the Reyes family on my side now.
I have Happiness on my side. But most importantly, I have myself.
” I step forward, forcing him back a step, and he finally drops my aching arm.
“And I’m stronger than you’ve ever given me credit for. I’m smart, and I’m powerful. You, Riley, will always be a scared little boy begging for mommy’s approval. So go home. Go home and make mommy happy because you will not get what you came for here. You’ll never get me.”
I back him up another step, then another, as a sense of strength rushes through my system. He appears to be caught off guard by my words and my actions. It fuels the confidence that I’ve desperately needed.
We make it to the front door, and he finally digs in his heels. “Remember, Savannah. There’s more than one way to ruin your life. And I’m going to exhaust every single one of them.”
I toss my arms into the air. Nothing I say even puts a dent in his giant ego, and I’ve hit my breaking point.
He will come after me. He will make good on his threats.
But I don’t have to willingly lie at his feet.
“Bring it on, you big crybaby. Bring. It. On. I’m not scared of you anymore.
There’s nothing you can do to me that I haven’t already done to myself.
So go ahead, you goddamn bag of shit. We’ll see who lands behind bars first. But I guarantee I won’t be the one in the orange jumpsuit. ”
I poke him hard in the chest. It shocks him, and I feel another odd sense of empowerment. He’s always been stronger than me, but this time, I’ll fight back with everything I have.
“You just made the biggest mistake of your life,” he hisses.
“Ha.” I pause, opting for dramatics. “Oh, you’re serious?” He hates being mocked, so I do it intentionally. “Sorry to burst your tiny-brain bubble, but I already made that mistake the day I agreed to go out with you when I was a teenager.”
His eyes fall flat, the rage rippling off him like heat on the asphalt, but I don’t back down now—I can’t. I have to protect the family that found me, took me in, and showed me what love should look like, even if all it does is take the target off their back and doubles the size of my own.
“And by the way.” I fill my lungs as though it’s liquid courage and push on.
“The age of consent may be sixteen in the state of Nevada, but that pesky little court of public opinion that matters so much to mommy dearest would probably have a different opinion, considering when I was sixteen, you were twenty-two. And I kept receipts, Riley.”
I lower my voice—quieter, more lethal, a dangerous whisper. “I have every message you ever sent me, and I have no problem asking my fiancé to blast those messages on every channel that Omni-Reyes owns.”
“In case you don’t know,” Madi says, attaching herself to my side. “Omni-Reyes is the largest media conglomerate in the United States. Hell, I might have my husband blast that crap everywhere just because you’re a disgusting predator.”
Riley’s breaths come in short, desperate pants as though he’s drowning on dry land. “You have no idea what kind of war you’re starting here, Sin. But I promise you, it’s one the DeVane’s are ready and willing to win.”
I shoo him away because he’ll hate being dismissed.
“I have no doubt you believe your lies, Riley.” My insides quiver as the bravado I’m wielding attempts to give out.
“It’s what makes your manipulation so hard to decipher.
But your web of narcissism has been lifted, and never again will I bow to your demands.
Get the hell out of here before I let Blissy take a swing. ”
He glances over my shoulder, and whatever Blissy does has him blanching before he scurries out of the shop like the rodent he is.
His tantrum can be heard for half a block, and the second his voice fades, I crumple into a nearby chair as the adrenaline wears off, and I begin to convulse with withdrawal-like strength.
What the hell have I done?