Chapter Six –Devil You Know
Chapter Six
Rafe
DEVIL YOU KNOW
Performed by Tyler Braden
As I watched Sadie storm through the tables without once looking back, the betrayal I’d felt upon finding her dining with Lorenzo Puzo rose its furious head and beat against my rib cage.
When I’d first seen her on the patio, my heart had leaped with pleasure. Watching her in the warm sunlight, cast in the rainbow from the misters, I’d been overcome with a craving I’d thought long since buried. Ridiculous needs and wants flooding me and making me think of all the ways I could make it right between us after sending her from the penthouse the night before.
Those thoughts, those cravings, were confusing and unwanted, just like every emotion I’d experienced in her presence. Emotions I’d sworn I’d never have again for any woman. Only my child was going to stake a claim on my heart. And yet, Sadie had whispered things to my soul that had it dragging itself out of the locked box I’d exiled it to, clamoring to come alive.
I’d just taken an involuntary step toward her when I’d realized who was sitting across from her. Acid had burned through me, and any thought of finishing what we started had disappeared in a howling rage, screaming of her deception. I hadn’t felt so double-crossed since I’d seen the ring on Lauren’s finger that wasn’t mine. Or maybe since I’d felt the slice of a knife in a dark alley.
The damned devil inside me laughed. He’d warned me, hadn’t he? Or had he provoked me? Either way, it was clear what I’d thought she’d felt wasn’t real. It was clear Puzo had put her up to it. I wasn’t sure what he’d thought he’d get out of sending her into my bed, but he had something up his sleeve. Otherwise, he would never have met with her in my place, just like I’d never meet with someone in his.
When I’d confronted them, it had taken everything I had to throttle back my emotions and hide them behind the blank wall I was comfortable living behind. I refused to give them more than they’d already received from me. But my conscience had twisted at Sadie’s shocked expression when I’d slammed my accusations at them. Doubts had wiggled in more when Puzo had looked entirely too pleased at the realization I knew Sadie, as if he’d received an unexpected benefit.
Unease settled in my chest as the hurt and anger on Sadie’s face replayed in my mind. Had I overreacted? But what other business could she have had with them? How would a small-town bar owner who lived across the country even know Puzo? It could all have been some twisted coincidence, but I didn’t believe in coincidences. Not like this.
What pissed me off almost more than seeing them together was the fact that, in giving him my anger and letting the doubts about her eat at me, I’d allowed him to step beyond my walls to mess with my head once more.
I pulled my phone from my pocket as I made my way through the restaurant, eyes lingering on Sadie waiting for the elevator. In jeans and a plaid shirt, she looked as equally enticing as she had in her sparkly dress. The curves of her body were still on display, this time in a way that made me want to toss her on a pile of hay instead of up against glass.
The head of my security, and my best friend, picked up on the first ring. “Steele.”
“Puzo just left the café. I want you to trace every step he made inside my casino.”
“We didn’t get an alert,” Steele said, irritation and concern laced through his words. Jim Steele had been at my side through the worst of my experiences with Puzo and understood just what it meant that he’d been in my place.
“I want to know why. Now.” I hung up before he could respond.
Sadie got into the elevator with another couple, and my teeth ground together so hard pain shot up my jaw. The betrayal I felt should have left nothing but disgust in its wake, and instead, every damn nerve was still alive from when I’d yanked her to me on the veranda. My body yearned for the release I hadn’t gotten the night before. Hungered for the sweet taste of her lips that had bled into me like an addiction. Honey and bourbon and fire. A flavor I’d never forget.
I tugged at the sleeves of my suit jacket before heading to the elevators, punching in the code that would take me to the executive suites and my office. I’d barely closed the office door behind me when my phone rang. Lauren . I debated sending it to voicemail for the third time that morning, but putting her off wasn’t going to prevent us from having the conversation we needed to have.
My words were clipped as I answered, “I’m busy.”
“Damn it, Rafe. At least tell me she’s safe.” Lauren’s voice shook with fear and anger.
It took me too long to realize the truth—that Fallon hadn’t called her mother. And more emotions I loathed bled in. Frustration. Remorse. “I didn’t realize she hadn’t called you last night.”
“I didn’t even know she was gone until this morning! And then she didn’t pick up.” Panic wafted through the ire. “I finally pinged her phone in Vegas. You should have called me as soon as she arrived!”
And maybe if I hadn’t been so shocked to find out my fourteen-year-old daughter had flown herself to Vegas from California, if I hadn’t been drowning in desire that I couldn’t shake, I might have thought to do just that. More likely, I would have texted her, because hearing Lauren’s voice was always a prick to my conscience. To my soul. Something I avoided at all costs. But now, the accusation in her tone just added to the rage I was still feeling over Puzo being in my hotel, over seeing Sadie seated next to him, chatting away with a damn smile that lifted higher on one side than the other.
“Why the hell didn’t you know she’d left?” I demanded. “She took the goddamn plane, Lauren! Flew by herself, landed, and got a CarShare to the hotel like she’d done it a million times. Do you know what could have happened to her?!”
My fist hit the top of the black lacquered desk, leaving fingerprints on the shiny surface.
“Oh my God! She took the Cessna?” A sob broke over the line, and I immediately felt like an ass. Five months. Spence had only been gone five months, and Lauren was still drowning in grief. But we could have lost Fallon. We could have lost our little girl. My heart contracted at the mere thought.
My chest was a writhing viper’s den of emotions I despised. Where had the control I prided myself on disappeared to in the last twenty-four hours?
Somehow, I’d lost it in a sea of Sadie and a tide of regret over Fallon.
“Where were you?” I snarled. “How did you not even know she left?”
“I took a s-sedative,” Lauren choked on the words. “It’s the only way I’ve been able to s-sleep without him.” Another sob broke before she added on, “I won’t take them again. I swear to God I won’t.”
I ran a hand through my hair and sank down in the oversized black leather chair that had been custom-designed to fit me ergonomically. Money I’d thrown around like it was water, simply because I had it to spend. Because I was still proving to myself and everyone in this business that I wasn’t the farm boy from California who knew nothing except how to tame horses.
“I’m keeping the Cessna in my hangar in Vegas. She won’t be able to do it again.”
“I don’t understand what she thought she could achieve by doing this.” Lauren was slowly gaining control again, and I tried to do the same. We’d always been calm when discussing Fallon. Maybe because I’d never demanded more of my daughter’s life than Lauren was willing to give. Or maybe because we’d wanted to make things easy for the child we’d recklessly created together. Somehow, without a single word, we’d agreed she wouldn’t have to carry the burden of the love triangle that had torn the adults in her life apart.
And yet, she still had.
“She’s got some strange idea that—” If I told Lauren that Fallon thought her brother was involved in Spence’s death, it might send her over the edge again, and it was a ridiculous notion I was sure had no veracity. So instead, I told her the one truth we already knew. “She could change my mind about selling the ranch.”
Lauren was quiet for way too long. “She needs this place, Rafe. We both do.”
My voice was tight as I responded, “I survived without it. You will too.”
“Spence would hate you for it.”
“He already hated me.”
“No. He really didn’t. You were the only one who had hate in your veins.” She sounded so tired she could barely say the words.
I felt equally exhausted, from the same old argument that neither of us would win. I’d destroyed our family because I’d taken what I wanted—what I’d known had belonged to Spence—and tried to make it mine. Then, when it all went to hell, I took the portion of my inheritance that was due to me and ripped it away from the estate so I could build my empire.
And the ranch had suffered because of it. It had staggered under the weight of the interest from the loan Spencer had taken out to give me my share. I hadn’t known it was struggling, and in those early years, even if I had known how hard things were, I wouldn’t have cared. Even now, there was a part of me raising my fist in the air and saying, “See! You’d needed me.”
I turned to look out the windows at the Vegas Strip. At the town that had taken me in and given me refuge when my home had been off-limits. I’d been dazzled by the decadence. I’d thought I’d found something that could surpass what I’d lost. Something greater. But the constant restlessness that existed in my soul after the shine of each new achievement wore off was whispering to me lately that I’d been wrong.
The man-made mirage of Vegas could never match the beauty Mother Nature had crafted in my childhood home. The hills and valleys and waterfalls of the ranch were pure. In Vegas, manufactured splendor flickered in and out with the neon lights, disappearing with the dawn and leaving behind the sour taste of shame.
As much as I loathed to admit it, even the stunning architecture and elegant interiors of The Fortress were just more phony facades hiding the dirt and filth and crime that still existed below the surface. Filth like Lorenzo Puzo and his mob family, who’d shown me, firsthand, the evil that still existed in this city.
I turned away from the windows and looked down at the calendar opened on my laptop and the back-to-back meetings that filled my days. Irritation had me grinding my teeth. Not only at how my week had been blown apart, but at the desire stirring deep inside me to see the ranch again, to breathe fresh air, and take a long ride across flower-studded fields. My tone was sharp when I said, “I have meetings I can’t move today, but I’ll bring her home tomorrow.”
“I understand why she did it, Rafe…but God…” She inhaled deeply. “I know she’s hurting too, but we have to hold her accountable for this. There has to be consequences.”
“I grounded her. Told her she couldn’t leave the penthouse. I even took away her key card and said the cameras would alert me if she walked out of the suite.”
“Will they?” Worry returned to her voice. No matter what had passed between Lauren and me, she’d been a good and loving mom. Just like Spence had been a good and loving father. A better dad than I ever would have been, even if I’d stayed in Rivers.
“Not right away, but she doesn’t know that.”
“She’ll figure it out. She’s smarter than even you,” Lauren said, the backhanded compliment settling in my chest.
I didn’t feel smart these days. I’d built an empire but had been unable to heal my family. I’d become one of the youngest billionaires in the bar business and still allowed a farm girl from Tennessee to just about undo me.
“We’ll be back tomorrow sometime,” I said brusquely to Lauren.
“Fine.” She prickled at my terseness but softened, saying, “Thank you for keeping her safe.”
But her words only served to raise my hackles more. “She’s my daughter too.”
“I know. I just…” She sniffled again. “I’ve been failing her since Spence died. I haven’t… I don’t know how to reach her…and I haven’t really tried. I was—” She cut herself off, her breathing erratic, but her voice was strong and sturdy as she said, “It doesn’t matter. I’ll fix it. She’s all that matters.”
“You lost the love of your life,” I said, forcing my voice to gentle. “Try not to beat yourself up too hard.”
“And she lost her fath—”
Her unfinished sentence tore through me.
“I have to go.”
“Rafe…”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hung up before she could apologize for stating the simple truth, one I’d thought hundreds of times myself.
I sat down and pulled my laptop toward me. I needed to get ready for my meeting in thirty minutes. I had a list of things to review with the operations manager, including how every single floral arrangement in the hotel needed to be replaced. The ones in the café today had been in even worse shape than the ones by the piano bar last night.
But thoughts of the café only caused Puzo’s pleased expression to come flooding back in and, along with it, Sadie’s pissed-off shock. I closed the calendar app and found the app my assistant had used to handle the dart tournament entries. I pulled up Sadie’s form and then clicked over to the employee background check software we used when hiring.
As soon as the data came tumbling back in, relief eased over my shoulders. She was exactly who she’d said she was—the youngest member of the Hatley family, with a bar in her name in some small town in the northeastern mountains of Tennessee.
The birthdate and the image on her driver’s license proved just how young Sadie really was. Too damn young for me. Definitely too young for Puzo, who was another five years older than me. So, what had she wanted with him? How had they met? I couldn’t see him wanting to invest in a tiny Tennessee bar that barely operated in the black. It wasn’t his style at all.
Why the hell did I care?
Disgusted with myself, I closed the app and returned to my calendar. I’d handle the meeting with the operations manager about the florist, and then, I had a video call with my Far East operations manager to discuss the clubs in Japan and Singapore. It might be the middle of the night in Tokyo, but my business rarely slept, just like the city I’d made my home. Just like I rarely did. It suited me fine on most days. Kept me busy. Filled the void.
But I also had Fallon upstairs waiting, and when she was here, I always tried to finish early to give her as much of my time as possible. While this hadn’t been a planned visit, I’d still do whatever I could to wrap things up so she wouldn’t be alone with her thoughts and her worries and her grief.
? ? ?
When I returned to the penthouse that afternoon, the place reeked of pizza, and it made my stomach turn. It was one of my least favorite foods, and Fallon knew it. It was her way of punishing me the same way I was punishing her by having locked her in the suite.
She was lying on the couch with the comforter from her bedroom covering her. The pizza box was on the glass coffee table, leaving grease and crumbs on the pristine surface. A soda can was leaving a ring, sitting next to two others that had already left their marks. My jaw ticked at the carelessness of it.
As I stepped into the living room, Fallon raised a brow uncannily like mine, picked up the soda, took a long drink, and then slammed it down on the table. She was daring me to say something, daring me to react to the mess she’d purposefully created, knowing I disliked it as much as I disliked pizza.
Instead, I took off my suit jacket and laid it carefully on the back of an armchair before joining her on the sofa. I had to shove the comforter aside to do so, but I wanted to be close to her. Hoping somehow to reach her. To somehow close the widening gap between us. I glanced up at the show she’d paused. Two teens kissing. Damn, did I dislike that.
“What are you watching?” I asked, keeping my tone as neutral as possible.
She huffed. “Are you going to tell me what I can and can’t watch now too? You used to be the fun parent.”
I had been, but it had only been out of desperation. I’d needed to build as many positive memories with her as I possibly could in the short amount of time we’d spent together each year.
“Can’t I ask what you’re watching without it being more than that?”
“ Buffy the Vampire Slayer ,” she said reluctantly.
It was my turn to raise a brow. I knew the show but mostly by name. While it had a cult following, it had never been my thing, especially not when it had originally aired when I’d been a kid. Growing up on the ranch, there’d always been too much to do, too much I’d rather be doing than watch TV.
“What got you started on a show older than you?” I asked.
“She’s badass.” She looked at me as if I’d scold her for cussing, and when I didn’t remark, she kept going. “Her dad isn’t in the picture, and her mom is clueless, dealing with her own things, but Buffy doesn’t let that stop her from killing vampires and defending the entire world.”
I barely held back my snort at the obvious parallels she’d made to her own life.
“Would have been nice to know you didn’t talk to your mom last night,” I said, changing the subject.
“Do you know how long it took her to realize I was even gone?” she asked bitterly.
Too long. “You can’t possibly understand what she’s going through. Maybe, someday, you’ll love someone so much that you feel like they’re the limb you never knew you were missing, and you’ll start to appreciate it. But the only way you’d truly get it is if, God forbid, something happens to rip that person from you. Even then, you might not really get it because Spence and Lauren…” I swallowed hard. “They loved each other from the time they played tag in the barn as toddlers. They spent a lifetime loving each other.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard the story. But Mom obviously didn’t love Spence too much. She had sex with you !” I didn’t know which disgusted her more, the thought of us having sex or the perceived betrayal of Spence.
I didn’t really want to be talking sex with my daughter at all. But she was watching it on television, probably reading about it, and for sure she’d had discussions in school about it. The messed-up triangle that was her parentage was likely to be even more confusing these days with all the information being tossed at her and the mixed signals her hormones were sparking.
“We all made mistakes,” I said quietly. “But you were never one of them.”
“Spence didn’t,” she said determinedly.
“Even Spencer,” I said, trying to hold back the hurt that came from knowing just how much she’d idolized my brother.
She shook her head.
“He ended things with your mom and left her heartbroken. It wasn’t until after he found out about us that he admitted it was a mistake and wished he could have taken it back.”
Fallon looked away, picking at the comforter with fingernails painted bright teal. She was a girl. A teenage girl. And I didn’t know what to do with her now. It had been easy when she’d been younger. I could buy her toys and ice cream and go to the movies or take her to a theme park or the beach. We’d made sandcastles and eaten junk food until our stomachs hurt when she was little and learned how to surf together when she was older.
Now, she wanted things I couldn’t give her.
She wanted Spencer back. I gladly would have traded my life for his if I could.
And that thought nearly rendered me speechless. I’d spent so much time pushing thoughts of my brother away that it was hard to accept that simple truth. He should have been the one to survive. Not me.
“Of course you’d say that,” Fallon said. “You’d love to lay the blame at his feet. You hated him.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I told her.
She ignored my response, saying, “Isn’t that why you made me call him Spence instead of Dad? Because you hated that he was more of a father to me than you ever were?”
The dart she’d intended to land found home.
Had I done it on purpose? Had I used my daughter as a weapon against my brother and her mother? Maybe. I’d been screwed up for a long time. The truth was, I was still screwed up when it came to my family.
“Hating me isn’t going to bring him back,” I said as gently as possible. “But if that helps you, I’m happy to be your punching bag. I’m happy to be whatever you need.”
Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes instantly welled. Her tears hurt me more than the dart she’d landed.
Her throat bobbed before she pulled herself together in a way that made me proud. Her voice was steady when she said, “I already told you what I need. I need to keep the ranch and to prove Spence was murdered.”
My busy schedule had already been screwed up by having to take her home tomorrow. Staying at the ranch for the next week would mess with it more, but I’d do it. I’d do it and settle this for Fallon once and for all. “Fine.”
“What?” she gasped.
“Let me qualify that. We’re not keeping the ranch.” I had to look away when her light dimmed. “But I’ll stay for the week, and I’ll investigate what happened. Me, Fallon. Not you. I’ll share with you what I find out, and if it’s nothing, you have to agree to let this go.”
Her face turned stubborn—a look I knew well because I’d seen it in the mirror my entire life.
“But—”
“This isn’t up for debate. Either we do this my way, and it’s over when I say it’s over, or we don’t do it at all.”
She met my gaze with a brave one. She was so damn strong it floored me. Her chin went up. “I agree. But only because I know what you’ll find.”
While she was talking, I reached over and grabbed the remote from her lap.
“Now, if I’m going to be forced to watch this crap, you better catch me up on what’s happening and order me something besides crappy pizza.”
She stared for a moment, and then a soft laugh escaped her, quiet and sweet and so like the laugh she’d had as a little girl that it almost brought tears to my eyes. It wasn’t fair she’d been born into this screwed-up triangle. Wasn’t fair that she’d lost the single best person in her life. And it wasn’t fair I was going to sell the ranch out from under her. But I promised myself I’d find ways to fill the voids these losses had created. I’d turn her life around, even if I had to fight Lauren every inch of the way to make it happen.