Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
SHAE
I wake to three calls from Yennifer, several emails from Zane and Melissa, and a pair of tiny feet pressed to my spine and another against my cheek.
Raiden and Tempest have their own rooms, but neither wanted to sleep away from me, much less away from the other.
I can’t blame them. I don’t want to be far from them either.
With the lights off and the curtains drawn, I squint at the too-bright screen, trying to bring the intensity down so I don’t wake the twins as I scroll through notifications.
It’s five-thirty a.m. I’d be up, exercised, and well into my day at any other time.
But four days ago, my life completely changed and hasn’t gone back since.
I look over my shoulder at Raiden’s tender face—a face that looks so much like Storm’s, it’s hard for me not to feel the pain I’ve so carefully buried whenever I look at my son and daughter.
It’s safe to say, things won’t ever go back to normal.
Not after this.
Not after facing the knowledge that Storm never knew about his children.
I drop my phone on my chest, extinguishing the light. The darkness is like a familiar friend; the sounds of my children’s soft breaths are music.
And in the quiet and dark, I feel.
I let all the emotions I’ve bottled up, pushed down, stowed away in order to survive come forward.
Grief. Anguish. Longing.
Fear.
All of it swirls inside my chest, cracking open the bones there to expose my battered heart.
When I saw him sitting by the pool with Tempest—the child we created out of what I thought was deep love—I almost fell to the ground and wept.
Loss. There’s so much I’ve lost, we’ve all lost.
And it’s not fucking fair.
It’s not fucking fair that the kids had to go without, or that Storm never knew, or the hell I’ve gone through so I could survive and try to thrive.
This hardened shell I’ve created, this mask I’ve forged in order to make it in this world…I let it break away as one tear after the other rolls from my closed eyelids.
My breaths tighten and my face burns as I release sad tears. I don’t let them turn into sobs; I don’t let my pain wake my babies.
Instead, I allow myself to fully think about Storm. About us—what we were, what we could have been.
I let myself think about those beautiful, gentle moments between us.
I let myself exist in my memories and feel the warmth of his love, of my love—of being love. What I felt for Storm is the kind of devotion that changes DNA. It seeps into the crevices of the soul, filling in the negative space and growing roots.
When I loved Storm, I let it entangle with the very essence of who I am. I let my love change me into someone I didn’t recognize. Someone I came to hate.
But my memories are an unreliable narrator in the story of my life. I can’t trust them any more than I can trust the man who gave me the greatest gifts in my existence.
My sore eyes snap open at that.
Storm Sandoval is a liar. I can’t trust anything he tells me, and I can’t trust how he acts. Because eight years ago? He acted as if he loved me. He made me believe the story.
But he didn’t mean a word of it.
You don’t know that.
I inhale and hold the air in my lungs, waiting until my lips begin to tingle before releasing the breath, trying to clear my mind.
“I love you, Shae. I’ve always loved you with the entirety of my soul; with an expansiveness that mirrors the galaxy. I would do anything for you.”
Those aren’t words from eight years ago. This is what he said days ago.
Days ago, when I laid it all on the line—when I purged my hatred and pain and devastation toward him and his actions.
And instead of trying to defend himself…he declared himself.
What do I trust? Who do I trust?
“Goddamn you, Storm Sandoval,” I whisper into the silence, my hand curling around the tiny foot next to my head.
I know my truth, and it’s that under all the shame and outrage, there’s love. Parts of me, stupid parts of me, still love Storm Sandoval to distraction.
But I won’t let him use that love against me. Never again. Not anymore.
Tempest wiggles, turning her head from one side to the other from her position near my knee.
Now isn’t the time to break; it’s time for me to straighten up and move forward.
Moving inch by inch, I climb out of the bed and slide into the spacious en-suite bathroom. Soft automatic lights illuminate the area, slowly coming up to power so my eyes adjust.
Opening my phone again, I frown at the repeated two-word message from an unsaved number.
Call me.
I tap to start the call.
“We have a problem.” King’s sudden answer takes me off guard, as does the tension in his tone. It’s been years since I last spoke with Yennifer’s brother, but after being blocked from leaving the premises, I called him.
Storm may think he’s running shit, but he doesn’t know who I am today.
He doesn’t know that Shae Olivya Rivers isn’t a woman to be fucked with.
“A problem? The last thing I need are more problems,” I say, rubbing my temple.
“Yeah. Just—hold on,” he says, and the line goes dead for a second before King returns with Yennifer on a three-way call.
“Do you know what fuckin’ time it is?” Yennifer growls. She’s never been, and likely never will be, a morning person.
“Listen, brat,” King throws back, “You and your friend got me up in the middle of the night trying to?—”
“Who you callin’ a brat?” Yennifer yells.
“—commit an international crime by smuggling that man’s kids across the planet, and now you gonna get an attitude with me?”
“King!” I whisper-shout, remembering at the last minute that the kids are on the other side of the door. “You said there’s a problem. What’s the problem?”
King and Yenn go quiet, and King scoffs before saying, “You’ve been flagged on an international no-fly list, Shae.”
I stare at myself in the mirror, processing his statement.
“Um…what? How ?” I ask. Yennifer and I haven’t thought much past getting me and the kids somewhere far, far away from Chicago for the foreseeable future.
Things clearly aren’t safe here, and while I don’t want to rob Storm of more time with his kids if that’s what he wants, their safety comes first.
“The fact is, outside of smuggling you in some cargo boxes, you aren’t going anywhere. At least, not anywhere requiring aerial access,” King says.
I feel like throwing up. What in the hell?—
“ Storm, ” I grate out, moral fury at his actions making the back of my neck sweat. Of course, this is his doing. He anticipated my plan to leave and put a stop to it.
An international no-fly list? The fuck?
“I’ll call back later,” I say, seething. I look at myself only for a few seconds before I storm out of the bathroom in search of the pain in my ass.
It doesn’t take me long to find him; all I have to do is follow the sound of “Not Like Us” to the gym.
I try, really try, not to short-circuit my brain at the sight of his sweat-drenched abs that have somehow gotten more defined in the last eight years, but I don’t really succeed.
Not if the flutter in my nether regions is any indicator.
Remember why you’re here.
“Storm Sandoval!” I shout over the clanking metal and heavy bass. With both hands on the handlebars, he pulls the weight for a lat pull-down. The muscles in his back flex, damn near glistening in the overhead fluorescents.
Our gazes catch in the mirror in front of him, and he continues to exercise with a slow, measured cadence.
“Good morning, Sweetness. You look beautiful today,” he says with an unbothered smile.
I stand taller, pulling on my anger.
“Storm, you and I need to have a serious conversation. I know what you did, and— Can you please turn the music off and look at me?” I snap the last part, and much to my dismay, Storm continues pulling on the bar for four more reps before acknowledging my request.
After asking Google to turn the music off and dropping the weights with a gentle clank , he walks toward me, stopping a foot from my position.
“Okay, Sweetness,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “What do you want to talk about?”
I open my mouth, all the thoughts jamming in my throat.
Storm raises an eyebrow.
“Want to talk about your bike riding form?” He tilts his head toward the Peloton in the corner, a replica of my own. “Or how about your dinner plans?” he asks, licking his bottom lip in a sensual slide.
“Storm,” I grind out.
“Oh, I know!” he says, face brightening. “How about we talk about your little stunt to steal my kids away to fucking Africa. ”
He looks angry for a second, but then his face morphs into a look of…hurt?
“Fuck, Shae! Besides the fact that stealing away with my kids is fucked up, there’s the fact that it’s dangerous for you—and for them—out there,” he says. I can tell he’s trying to gather patience and calm but seems to be failing.
“Storm, you need to be rational about this. You say there’s danger out there, but there’s danger in here, too. In fact, I wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for you and this goddamn Keystone deal.”
Storm stares, chewing on his bottom lip as he breathes heavily.
“Shae,” he says, sliding his eyes shut.
“I’ll hire more security. A whole team,” I say. That’s something I should have done a long time ago, but I always felt the only people who knew about my wealth were other wealthy people. Why would they try to hurt me because of what I have?
Clearly, a stupid assumption.
“Shae, it’s not about security. I just…I need you to stay here. There are too many uncontrolled variables out there,” he says, then takes a deep breath in and out.
“You have no proof there’s an imminent threat,” I throw out, and Storm takes a step back.
“Are you fucking with me right now?” he asks, and my brows come together. “Have you forgotten Versailles?”
I shake my head. “That was an isolated event, right?”
Storm looks at me as if I’ve gone mental.
“Baby, we need to get you some B12. Maybe some ginkgo biloba.”
My eyebrows draw together.
“What? Why?” I ask.