19. Leah
LEAH
“I’m surprised you picked up,” Kian says.
Honestly, I’m surprised I picked up his call too, almost more surprised than I am by the fact that he’s called me at all.
I close the top of my laptop for a moment to keep my work from getting muddied by this interruption. I’m not entirely sure what to expect, but I figure he’s probably calling to chew me out for getting involved with his brothers.
Honestly, I dare him to try. He’s not exactly speaking from a place of moral superiority.
“What do you want, Kian?” I ask without trying to soften the edge of my tone.
“I want to make you an offer.”
This is a twist. An offer? There’s nothing my ex-boyfriend can offer me that I could possibly want. And with Kian—if he’s offering something, that means he wants something. He’s not the kind of man who gives anything freely without wanting something for himself in return.
This call feels like an ambush before I even know what it’s about.
“I don’t want anything from you, Kian,” I say. “Aside from never hearing from you again.”
“Fair. And actually, that’s not too far off from my offer,” he says. “I will give you fifty thousand dollars to disappear before Madeline finds out that there was anything between you and me.”
“What?”
“She doesn’t know about us,” he continues, oblivious to the truth of the situation. “And I want it to stay that way.”
“And when Rowan’s girlfriend vanishes a month after your wife met her, you think Madeline won’t ask a single question?”
“I’ll handle Madeline.”
He won’t. He’s never handled anything in his life.
“What makes you think you can call me up, throw money at me, and get whatever you want?” My anger with Kian is climbing by the second. “Meanwhile, you can’t answer a single goddamn question when someone asks you one.”
“If you’re talking about Emmett’s visit the other day—” He’s putting it together, how close I’ve gotten to his brothers. “I told him the truth. I don’t know anything.”
“Don’t.” My voice shakes, and I hate that it does. “After everything you’ve lied to me about, you at least owe me the truth about this. A man grabbed me on the street, Kian. Tell me what you know.”
Silence. Long enough that I think he’s hung up. When he speaks again, the charm is gone, and what’s left sounds like a man who hasn’t slept.
“They came to my house, Leah. Walsh’s guys. Sat in a car outside for six hours. I can’t make it stop. I don’t have anything they want.”
He pauses when I don’t respond. And for some reason, my silence is why he keeps going.
“Fine. I’ll tell you the rest. I borrowed money from Walsh.
He knew the money was for me, but when he wanted something to guarantee the debt, I gave him your information.
Your social, your address, all of it. I forged your signature and told him you were my partner and would cover the debt if I couldn’t.
I stopped paying months ago. Walsh spent months coming after me first. When he finally realized I had nothing left to give him, he came after you.
He thinks you’re dating Rowan, and my twin definitely has the money to pay him back. ”
All the threats make sense now. Kian made me collateral for a debt I never knew existed. This isn’t just my ex being a selfish, manipulative asshole. It isn’t just cheating on his wife and me. He put me in real danger, on purpose, to save himself.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I shout into the phone.
“I know. I’m sorry. But if you could just—”
“Shut up!” I’m screaming now. “Don’t you dare ask me for one more fucking thing. Ever. I don’t care that you needed money. That doesn’t excuse this. You crossed a line, a big, glaring red one. And if you can’t pay back a loan shark, then where the hell did you get fifty grand to try to buy me off?”
Silence on the line. In the middle of it, I understand.
“Oh my god. You stole it from Madeline.”
Before he can answer, someone knocks on my door, and I jump so hard I let out a squeal.
“Calm down,” Kian says in my ear. “It’s me. I’ve been standing in your hallway for ten minutes trying to work up to knocking. Open the door.”
I throw the phone on the couch and storm across the room. Not because I take orders from my ex. Because I want to look him in the eye while he tries to explain his way out of being a piece of shit.
“Thank you,” he says when I open it.
He walks in without waiting to be asked. How did he even get up here? Someone at the front desk must have let him up. Someone at the front desk is about to lose their job.
“Who the hell do you think you are? Showing up here, trying to bribe me into disappearing so your wife doesn’t leave you, for something that is completely your fault?
And then you used me as collateral? Fuck, Kian.
I don’t even know what to say.” I don’t realize I’m screaming until I hear it echo off the walls.
The whole floor can probably hear me.
“Leah, I’m trying to clean this up.”
I’m on the edge of tears. “Clean this up? If I disappear, you might believe you won’t get caught cheating.
But that doesn’t change that someone is threatening me.
How are you going to clean that up? You only care about yourself, not the path of destruction you leave with every terrible choice you make.
Doesn’t that make you feel like shit at all? ”
His face doesn’t change. No remorse. No apology. Nothing. “Are you going to take the money or not?”
I can’t speak.
“No. She’s not.”
Declan’s voice fills the room. He and Rowan walk in through the door I left open. They must have heard me from the hall, and the look on both of their faces would send most men running.
Kian whips around. He’s just been caught confessing, and he knows it. He gets two words into an excuse before Declan’s fist connects with his jaw.
Kian goes down hard, tangled in his own feet, eyes rolling. The side of his face starts to swell before he’s even hit the floor. The crack of the punch makes me wonder if Declan broke something, and I’d bet the thought of rearranging Kian’s face doesn’t bother Rowan at all.
Kian struggles up onto his hands and knees, blood dripping off his chin onto my floor. Rowan turns to me, and his eyes are dark.
“Leah. Leave,” Declan tells me.
“What?”
“Leave,” he reiterates. “Let us deal with our brother. I don’t want you to see this.”
I search his face, trying to guess what’s about to happen the second I’m gone. Then I do what he asks. I walk out, pull the door shut behind me, and head for the elevator to wait it out at Emmett’s.
Through the door, I hear Rowan.
“What you did to her is unacceptable.” It doesn’t sound like Rowan at all. “You’ve spent years destroying things in my life, brother, and no one has ever made you pay for it. But you tried to destroy hers, and I won’t let that fucking stand.”
Then nothing. I step into the elevator, and right before the doors close, I hear Kian cry out.