Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
STORM
I leave her alone for the rest of the flight.
Shae thinks I don't know her, but she's so wrong. I know her soul, and that matters almost more than anything. I didn’t plan on strong-arming her into being around me. In fact, I wanted us to come back together organically and rebuild trust. But then she ran with the kids, and all bets were off.
Shae is a supremely wealthy woman. Her resources enable her to go wherever she wants when she wants. She has just as much power as I do. We’re equals.
And yet, there’s no way I’m going to let her win, because her winning means her leaving me. Every part of me needs to lock her down before she thinks of going anywhere again.
When we land, I wait until the forward door opens to connect the stairs before heading to the back row, where Shae’s decided to sit for the landing.
“We have a car waiting to take us home. Yennifer and the children will meet us there,” I say.
“Are they still in the air?” she asks.
“No, they landed a few hours ago. King summoned Yennifer as soon as they got here and is giving a security briefing at the moment.”
Shae hums, her delicate fingertip tapping on the polished wood table attached to her captain's chair.
“I’d like to talk to them now,” she says slowly, as if trying to piece together the words. “Please.”
Her smile is meant to disarm me, but I know it’s fake. I know she’s been sitting back here plotting how she’s going to get out of this—how she’s going to get around all the things I promised her in the bedroom.
I pull my phone out and hand it to her, and her eyebrows go up as if she expected me to deny her.
She presses the side button, illuminating the screen.
“What’s the passcode?” she asks, starting to hand the phone back to me.
“It’s zero-one-zero-nine,” I say, waiting for her to connect the dots that her birthday—January 9th—is the passcode to my phone.
She pauses, staring at the phone screen for a few seconds before typing in the numbers without acknowledging them.
She navigates to the call screen and dials a phone number by heart. I turn away to give her some privacy….
…and come face-to-face with Riale.
“Is there a point to you being on my plane?” I grind out and Riale rolls his eyes.
“What’s it gonna take for you to get past this?” he asks, giving back just as much attitude as I give him.
I shrug. “A time machine?”
A muscle jumps in his cheek, and I kinda want to punch it. Lucky for Riale, I feel Shae standing behind me, and I turn to face her.
“I got through, but they had to run off,” she says, biting her lip while handing the phone over. “Yenn had ice cream for them.”
I hum, surprised jet lag doesn’t have them passed out already.
“Hey,” Shae says with a bright tone, looking past me. “I know you.”
She smiles, and it’s like the sun coming out. I haven’t seen her give a real smile since I came back into her life, and I realize I’ve been starving for it.
Shae reaches past me to shake Riale’s hand, and I intercept the move.
“You can’t be nice to him and hate on me,” I tell her, looking directly in her eyes. She seems confused.
“Wanna know why I never got a phone call from you? It’s because of that guy,” I say, finally turning to Riale. He doesn’t look embarrassed or pissed off. Instead, he looks flat, maybe a little annoyed.
“Ah,” Shae says, swallowing and pulling her hand back. “I see.”
Riale huffs.
“We ain’t got time for this bullshit, Storm. Shit’s going down, and we need your ass focused over there,” Riale says, turning to exit the plane. Awkward silence stretches between me and Shae.
“Why?” she asks, breaking the moment. I face her.
“Why what?” I reply.
“Why was he the reason I never heard from you?”
My lips twitch. Why, indeed.
“He intercepted the calls,” I say, and her eyebrows go up.
“Why did he do that? And why is he still around? That seems like a fucked thing to do.”
I hesitate, weighing whether to tell her the truth.
“He did it…because I asked him to make sure you were safe, but to keep me away from you.”
She looks even more confused.
“You…asked him to keep you away? That doesn’t make any sense. Surely you were worried that I’d go all Fatal Attraction on you and show up on your doorstep in a wedding gown covered in blood or some shit.”
I chuckle a bit at the image but quickly sober when her serious expression doesn’t crack.
“After I lost you, I unraveled. I didn’t want to do the wrong thing,” I offer, feeling like I’m revealing too much.
She gawks at me.
“Lost…me?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper.
Yes, Sweetness. I lost you.
Shae shakes her body, straightening her shoulders as if warding off bad energy. She clears her throat and her face.
“What would have been the wrong thing, Storm?” she presses.
Such as begging you to take me back, crying on your parents’ porch in the rain like I’m in a New Edition music video.
“I was a mess. Drinking way too much. Wrapped a car around a tree, so I wasn’t in a good place, and I didn’t want to get you pulled deeper into my shit.”
She nods slowly at that, and I wish I could know what she’s thinking.
“Let’s go,” I say, changing the subject. I get a few feet down the aisle when she says, “Wait.”
I pause, looking at her over my shoulder. She’s still in the same spot I left her.
“Yes, Sweetness?” I say, my voice a low murmur.
“Why did you do it? Why did you break up with me?” She asks the words and then rolls her lips back as if she never intended to speak the question.
I’m on edge immediately, though, because I’ve had to live with the answer for eight years, and now, with the knowledge that Shae was pregnant when we last saw each other, I’m haunted by my decision.
I open my mouth without knowing what the hell to say to that, when she blinks and shakes her head.
“Never mind,” she snaps, her spine straightening. “Just get me back to my babies.”
She takes a step toward me, but I’m frozen in place.
“Please,” she adds, almost as a reluctant afterthought.
I swallow all the words I want to say and lead the way out of the aircraft.
“Is the missus settled?”
I bristle a bit when Axel asks the question as soon as I enter his domain in the converted office. I don’t want to think the reason for my reaction is guilt, but….
“She’s cleaning up to greet the kids when they arrive in a bit,” I say, heading to the armchair I’ve designated as mine across from Axel.
It’s amazing how quickly Axel and Riale got the Gold Coast house retrofitted to meet our needs.
There’s a feed of the property displayed on several screens at one end of the wall, but right in front of Axel is a 200-inch projector screen, on which he plays the latest version of his video game.
He’s so engrossed that he doesn’t look at me when I fall into the seat, his fingers flying over the controller.
“So…you finally gonna tell me how things went? I’m dying for the tea, bestie!” Axel drawls, putting on a high-pitched tone.
“Yeah, don’t ever use that voice again,” I say, giving him a perplexed look, and Axel shrugs and laughs.
That’s Axel through and through.
“You’re deflecting,” Axel says, not missing a beat in his game. “Your ass always deflects when you’re spooked.”
“I’m not spooked,” I reply. “I’m…aware.”
“That’s new.”
I glare at him, but he’s still not looking at me, just clacking on his game controller and plowing through undead NPCs like toilet paper.
“Say whatever the fuck you’re gonna say,” I mutter, leaning forward and scrubbing my hands down my face.
Axel clicks pause. That’s how I know shit just got serious.
“You know you’re fucking up, right?”
I drop my hands and stare at him. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
“Riale,” he says. “Shae. The whole fucking situation.”
I lean back. “I already confronted Riale.”
“You punched him,” Axel corrects. “That’s not the same as dealing with your shit. And you didn’t even give Shae the truth.”
I cringe. He’s right. I’ve told Shae most of the truth about Keystone and the danger surrounding us, but I’m still holding back vital information.
Like how Lakeland is at the center of this shit, and who he is to me.
I haven’t told her how I made a deal with the devil and threw us into eight years of mutual agony. I’m not sure if or when I’ll confess this to her, either.
“How do you know?”
He gives me a side-eye.
“Don’t play with me. I know,” he replies.
I blow out a breath.
“She doesn’t need the whole truth right now.”
Axel faces me fully, an uncharacteristically serious look on his face.
“Listen, Storm. I’m gonna tell it to you straight, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll fucking listen.
You’re angry, and I get that—and not just angry about the secret kids and how shit went down with Shae.
You’re angry that Lakeland’s still breathing.
You’re angry that taking him down has taken you so fucking long.
You have the right to be angry, Storm. But your anger doesn’t hurt anyone but yourself. ”
I blink at him, absorbing his words but still resisting them.
“At some point, you’re gonna have to move past some shit,” he finishes.
Arching my eyebrow, I say, “You want me to just ‘move past’ Lakeland killing my parents?”
Axel sucks his teeth.
“Nah, that nigga needs to get got. But your anger toward Riale and Shae? You might as well be barking at the fuckin’ moon. That anger is pointless.”
I rub the back of my neck. “I didn’t come in here for a sermon.”
“No, you came in here to pretend you’re above all the bullshit, when you’re really just hurt.”
“Hurt? Look, I’m trying to keep everyone alive,” I bite out.
“And in the process, you’re going to lose the one person you crawled through hell to protect. Once she’s gone, what will the point of all this have been for?”
That lands. Hard.
Axel swivels in his chair to face his controller but doesn’t pick it up.
“You’re lucky, you know. Some of us don’t get to find our person. You did. Try not to ruin it.”