Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Gage gave a knowing laugh. “If anyone would be on his side, it’s you.”
“Don’t start with me. Look, I’m calling because Violet feels like hell. I want her to stay with me. If you’re going to be an asshole, tell me now and I’ll check us into a hotel. I’d rather have her at Winters House, but not if you’re going to make her feel unwelcome.”
Under his breath I heard Gage swear. “Fuck me.” Louder, after an exaggerated sigh, he went on, “Fine. I’ll be nice. I’m still not sure about her. But I’ll cut her some slack for major family drama. I’d rather have her in Winters House where I can keep an eye on her.”
“I’m asking you to be truly nice, not be fake nice and then glare at her behind my back,” I clarified.
“I can be nice. What, you’re the only one who gets to look out for his family? She didn’t exactly have the best beginning—”
“I know. I was there. But we’re past that now and I’m asking you to do me a favor and be nice to my girlfriend. Please. I want her to like my family, not think you’re all a bunch of jackasses.”
“I said I’d be good.”
“I’d settle for you keeping your mouth shut and letting Sophie do the talking. She’s an angel. You’re like the troll under the bridge.”
“Fuck off. I’m the one with the gorgeous wife. You’re the dumbass hooking up with a potential criminal.”
“She’s not—” I started to say before Gage cut me off.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll see. In the meantime, you get her moved in where we can keep an eye on her.”
“Somehow,” I said dryly, “that’s not all that comforting.”
“Wasn’t meant to be,” Gage said, cheerily, before he hung up.
I loved my family. I’d die for anyone of them. But sometimes they were a royal pain in my ass.
The security gate to Chase’s underground parking opened as I approached in Violet’s car and the card on her key ring gave me access to the elevator. I knocked once on the condo door before I let myself in.
Chase Westbrook was sprawled across the couch, a half-full tumbler of bourbon balanced on his chest. He sat up awkwardly when he saw me, sloshing the liquor on his shirt.
With a nearly silent curse, he set his tumbler on the coffee table and lurched to his feet, his eyes searching over my shoulder for his sister.
“Where is she?” he demanded. “What did you do with her?”
“I didn’t do anything with her,” I said, my voice as close to soothing as I could get. “I took her home—”
“This is her home,” Chase interrupted.
“I took her to my home. I tucked her into bed, where she cried herself to sleep. Is that what you wanted to hear? I came to get some of her things.”
Chase deflated with a long exhale and sank back to the couch, hanging his head for a moment before he picked up his tumbler of bourbon and drained what was left.
“I should have told her,” he said.
“Yeah, you should have,” I agreed.
“Are you going to tell me what an asshole I am, too?”
“Nope.” I stared down at Violet’s brother, Anna’s son. Half-brother to my cousins. He wasn’t related to me by blood, but that didn’t matter. Whether we wanted it or not, this man was family. Even without his connection to Anna Winters, he belonged to Violet, and Violet belonged to me.
No matter how I looked at it, Chase Westbrook was a part of our lives now. I couldn’t leave him alone and miserable. Not like this.
I grabbed the tumbler from the wet bar in the kitchen and helped myself to some of the bourbon he’d left on the counter. Sitting in a chair opposite the couch, I sipped the bourbon and thought about what to say.
Finally, I went with, “I have a little sister, too. And on top of that, I have two younger brothers, and four younger cousins. I’ve been the head of the family since I was twenty and my parents died.
I know all about doing the best you can to keep them safe and happy.
And I know all about fucking up in the process.
Violet’s hurt. She’s pissed. But she’ll forgive you because she loves you. ”
Chase shook his head, his blonde hair falling in his eyes, reminding me so much of my cousin Vance I felt for a moment like I’d stepped into an alternate universe. Add a few inches to that hair and slap some more tattoos on him, and Violet’s brother turned into my cousin.
At that thought, it occurred to me that we needed to have a family meeting, and despite Violet being angry with Chase, we’d have to orchestrate introductions.
There was no way the rest of my family would be willing to wait once they found out Chase existed.
It had only been a few months, but it felt like we’d been looking for Anna’s missing son forever.
He was the last piece in the puzzle of their deaths. Finding Chase, bringing him into the family, would let us finally put the past to rest.
“You seem pretty sure about that,” Chase said, turning his empty tumbler in his fingers.
“I am. She just needs time.”
“I wanted to tell her for so long. After they kicked me out, I wanted to tell her, but she was still living at home, going to school, and I didn’t want to do anything to fuck that up for her.
And then they tried to force her to marry Walters and she was just fucking destroyed.
” Chase raised his head and his blue eyes were wide with outraged fury.
“They tried to fucking sell her to a man old enough to be her father and when she had the nerve to object they booted her out. Haven’t spoken to her since.
She called me collect from a gas station in the middle of the night.
I was two states away. Do you have any idea how helpless I felt? ”
“I can imagine,” I said quietly. I could. I would have been sick to be that far away if one of my family had needed me. All I had to do was imagine Charlie or Annalise on a payphone at a gas station in the middle of the night. Yeah. I understood.
“I never should have left her with them. I had the money by then. I could have put her through school, but she wanted to prove something. That she could do it herself. That she could be the daughter they wanted. It was bullshit. She shouldn’t have had to be anybody but herself.
And they never really saw her. They never saw either of us. ”
“They didn’t try to find her? They never called? Sent a letter?” I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t fathom that they let their daughter walk out the door in the dark of night and never bothered to find out what had happened to her.
Chase got up and carried his glass to the bottle of bourbon where he refilled it.
“Not as far as I know. They didn’t really want children.
They wanted, I don’t know, pets, or robots.
They wanted to be able to tell us what to think and who to be and what to do.
What they got were two human beings with thoughts and feelings they couldn’t control.
Once they realized what being parents was about, they lost interest. I was done trying to win their approval long before I found those files in the basement, but Vivi never gave up.
Not until fucking Walters almost raped her and she found out her own father had set it up.
That was enough to break anyone’s heart, even one as stubborn as Vivi’s. ”
I gritted my teeth at the way he laid it out.
If I couldn’t understand her parents tossing her out the door and letting her go without a second thought, I sure as hell couldn’t make sense of her father whoring her out to his friend.
It didn’t make a fucking bit of difference that he’d intended for the friend to marry her.
He’d treated her like a piece of property.
Sent her to that man’s house knowing his friend expected to fuck her, and not only did he not warn her, he’d punished her for resisting.
The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to hunt down the people who’d raised Violet and make them pay for what they’d done.
I tossed back the rest of my bourbon and stood. “I’m going to get some of Vi’s things. Gage says we have a meeting tomorrow?”
Chase nodded. “I’ll be there.” He held his half-full glass in the air in a wry salute. “I’ll even be sober.”
He didn’t say a word as I went down the hall to find Violet’s bedroom.
I located a suitcase under her bed and filled it with everything I thought she might want or need for an extended stay at Winters House.
I did my best with her makeup and toiletries.
If I missed anything she could always come back while Chase was at Winters, Inc. for our meeting.
Chase’s glass had been topped up in the short time I was in Violet’s room. He was going to feel like hell when the liquor wore off. Not my concern. Violet was my concern. Chase would have to take care of himself.
On my way to the door, Violet’s suitcase in hand, I stopped and turned. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Chase’s eyes were a little unfocused when they met mine. “Take care of her. Promise me you’ll take care of her.”
When I said, “I will,” it felt like more than a promise. It felt like a vow. A vow I planned to keep.