Chapter 18 Rafe
RAFE
The couch at the safehouse is too short for me, and I wake up at two in the morning with my neck twisted at an angle that sends pain shooting down my spine.
I turn over slowly, rubbing the muscle, and the room is dark except for the faint glow from the streetlight outside shining in through the miniblinds.
I'm so uncomfortable, but I've given Riley the bed and kept my distance for a reason.
She's getting under my skin so badly. I want to give her the world, and I can't. Before I can even approach Uncle Sal with my desire to have her in my life and fold her into this family, she has to prove herself. If her rebuilt ledgers don't pass muster, Sal will never accept her.
I'm just about to fall back asleep when I realize what woke me in the first place.
It wasn't the pain in my neck from sleeping wrong.
I hear noise coming from the back of the house and my hand moves to the gun on the coffee table before I'm fully conscious of the decision.
I'm on my feet, the weapon raised, my body already moving down the hallway toward the bedroom where Riley's been working.
My pulse hammers in my ears, and every instinct I've honed over years of surviving in this world screams that someone has found us.
Enzo's men. The Feds. It doesn't matter who. They're here.
I round the corner and push the door open, the gun leading the way, and I see Riley on her hands and knees picking up a stack of papers that have scattered across the floor. The laptop is still open on the desk, and she looks up at me with wide eyes.
"Jesus Christ," I say, lowering the gun. My heart's still racing, adrenaline flooding my system. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I knocked over the files," she says, her voice defensive. "I didn't mean to. I was just reaching for—"
"It's two in the morning."
"I know what time it is."
"Then why aren't you asleep?"
She stands and dumps the papers back onto the desk while I stand here feeling like I'm being forced to parent her. She's a grown adult and can't manage herself?
"Because I'm trying to finish this. Every day that goes by is another day closer to Christmas and another day I'm not home with my family.
Is that a good enough reason for you?" I'm sure her attitude is due to how late it is and how little sleep she's getting, but it grates on my nerves. We should both be sleeping right now.
I set the gun on the desk and cross my arms. "You're pushing yourself too hard. You're going to make mistakes."
"I'm not making mistakes."
"You will if you keep working like this. You need sleep."
"I need to finish."
"Riley—"
"Don't." She holds up a hand, and I see the exhaustion etched into her face. But I also see a deep emotion I can't name and it twists my chest painfully. "Don't tell me what I need. I know what I need. I need to go home and see my sister get married. I need my life back."
I know it's not wrong for her to want those things at all because those people are her family and they care about her.
But the way she says it with such hostility, brought on by stress and overworking, angers me.
She's still wanting to run off and get away from me as fast as she can while I’m over here drowning and struggling to keep my head above water.
I'm stupid for catching feelings for her when all she wants is to go home.
I walk over to the laptop and close it, picking it up to take it back to the living room with me. No laptop means no work, and she'll be forced to go to bed.
"Hey!" Riley shouts. "What are you doing?"
"You're done for the night."
"I'm not done. I have three more folders to go through, and if I stop now—"
"You're done." I tuck it under my arm and point at the bed where I'd love to be sleeping right now instead of the cold, hard couch. If' I knew she wasn't sleeping this whole fucking time, I'd have been there and I wouldn't have a crick in my neck. "You're going to bed."
Her face flushes with anger, and she steps toward me. "You can't just decide when I work and when I don't. You told me to finish doing this, and I'm trying to finish it."
"And you will—tomorrow. After you've slept."
"I don't need sleep. I need to get this done so I can go home."
Her words rake across my raw emotions and I feel something dark and possessive snake around my chest. I don't think she got the point when I told her she belongs to me that I'm not letting her go.
Home is here now, wherever I am, and trying to run from me will only anger me.
It won't get her what she wants, which is freedom.
I set the laptop on the desk and grab her arm, tugging her toward the bed where she should be sleeping.
Maybe I'm delirious because of lack of sleep, or maybe my temper has just finally snapped and I'm losing it, but I'm not feeling like putting up with her attitude anymore.
I give her a push and she lands on the bed, scoffing and glaring at me.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she demands.
Then I turn and pick up the laptop again and move toward the door where I turn to face her. "You're not going home," I say.
She stares at me. "What?"
"You're not going home—not now, not ever." Even as the words leave my mouth and I watch them slap her across her cheek, I feel bad. I know how damaging this will be for her motivation and I know I'm out of control while I say it, but I won't repent. Riley won't leave me. I won't let her.
The color drains from her face. "You can't be serious."
"You heard me. You belong to me, and I'm not sending you 'home'.
So get used to this." Now there's a lump forming, threatening to suffocate me slowly while I stand here watching her wilt.
This isn't the way I thought this would go.
I wanted it to look more like a gentle invitation for her to stay and my bitter monster is taking over, demanding things because I'm unable to control myself.
I'm not a man when this comes over me. I'm a beast, an ugly, dark, hideous, angry monster that takes what it wants and leaves no prisoners.
"So, what, I'm your prisoner forever? Is that the plan?"
"You belong to me now," I repeat, and I won't apologize for that. At least that statement doesn't make me feel anything but whole.
Riley launches off the bed and comes at me with her fists bared. "I don't belong to anyone. Especially not you." She takes a swing, but I lean back and she stumbles a few steps, bracing herself against the wall.
I watch her for a moment, this time actually thinking through what I should say before spouting things off because my conscience is at his breaking point. "It's out of my hands." My sentence is short and jarring. "Sal was never going to let you go, anyway."
"And you're a monster," she says under her breath, and the tone is so sharp, it cuts me.
I've been called worse… I've done worse.
But hearing it from her mouth and seeing the disgust in her eyes feels like I've betrayed my best friend or murdered my own father.
It's a sickening feeling in my gut that I can't handle, so I back out of the room and pull the door shut, then grab the key from the spot where it hangs above the door and lock it.
I hear Riley's feet slap on the floor and she tries the handle while I stand there staring, watching it jiggle before she starts pounding.
"Rafe!" she shouts. "Open this door. Rafe!" She bangs on the door, yelling my name, and I keep walking until I reach the kitchen where I put the laptop down. I stand in the kitchen with my palms flat on the countertop, breathing like I just ran ten blocks with Enzo’s crew on my heels. The laptop sits closed beside me, mocking me, and Riley’s voice leaks through the walls—muffled now, hoarse, furious—but it’s the kind of furious that cracks at the edges. She’s crying.
I did that. I made her cry.
My pulse finally slows enough that I can hear the refrigerator hum.
Two-thirteen in the morning. I should be asleep.
I need to be asleep. Tomorrow—today—I have to drive two hours to the compound, sit across from Uncle Sal, and somehow convince the old man that the banker we kidnapped is worth more alive and breathing our air than buried in a landfill off the Turnpike.
And I just told her she’s never leaving. Out loud. Like a goddamn lunatic.
I drag a hand down my face. My neck still throbs from the couch. I’m thirty-eight years old and I’m sleeping on a piece of furniture built for a child because I handed her the only bed like some courtly asshole who thinks distance equals honor.
Honor.
That’s rich.
Her shouting finally stops, but the sudden silence is worse.
I push off the counter and walk back down the hallway before I can talk myself out of it, and I stop in front of the bedroom door and listen to see if I can hear what she's doing.
But all I hear are soft, wet hitches of breath. She’s right on the other side, probably pressed against the wood like she can burn a hole through it by sheer will. I picture her forehead resting where my chest would be if the door weren’t between us. The image punches me low in the gut.
I did this. I opened my mouth and let the worst part of me speak when I should've kept my big mouth shut.
My fingers find the key still in my pocket. I turn it over twice, metal warming against my skin. I could unlock it right now, walk in, and—what? I don’t apologize often. I'm the sort of man who gives orders, and people obey or they disappear. Except she isn’t people.
She's someone I've let in and shared real memories with. Someone I want to make new memories with. And I've broken something inside her I wish I could unbreak.
I rest my forehead against the door. The wood is cool. I wonder if she can feel the pressure on the other side.
I’m angry—at her for wanting to leave, at myself for wanting her to stay, at Sal for the rules that say a civilian witness doesn’t get to walk away breathing.
Anger is easy for me. It's where I live and breathe.
But underneath it is this other dangerous thing I've never felt before, and it cages in my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
I close my eyes and map tomorrow in my head.
I’ll shower at five, drink the rest of the coffee, drive north before the sun comes up. I’ll walk into Sal’s study and pour him two fingers of the Basquiat scotch he pretends he doesn’t love. Then I’ll sit, look him in the eye, and tell him what I really think.
How brilliant she is, how the numbers sing for her.
And Sal will study me the way he studies everyone, because he never makes any decision hastily.
He thinks things through and plans for the long road.
And I'm not sure how he'll feel about what I've done and what I want.
But I have to make him at least try to see it my way.
I can't imagine the alternative. It's too painful to even think.
Behind the door, her breathing evens out. She’s worn herself out. I hear the bed springs squeak and the room go perfectly silent, and my heart settles a little, enough to let my own fatigue creep back in around the edges.
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, back against the door, knees up.
The key stays in my fist. I’m not opening it tonight.
She’s too raw and I’m too close to doing something stupider than locking her in—like unlocking the door and crawling into that bed just to feel her breathe against my shoulder and pretend the world isn’t waiting outside to burn us both.
Tomorrow, I fight for her, but tonight, I guard the door like the jealous bastard I am.
I tip my head back against the wood and close my eyes.
And I pray she forgives me for being such an idiot.