Chapter 39 Everett
EVERETT
Years of plotting. Of waiting.
For over two decades, my anger’s been simmering just under the surface.
The anticipation has almost eaten me alive.
The need to see justice being served has become a part of my personality. Of who I am.
Now I finally have it. The police force, the shouting, the handcuffs on every staff member is what I wanted.
And I feel like a fool.
Yes, the fire coursing through my body is precisely what I’ve been expecting.
The flames of righteousness are there.
The power that pushes my shoulders back and my chin up. That, too, has been a long time coming.
But, this, their demise, isn’t my endgame after all.
Aurora is.
She was supposed to be one more casualty in this bitter war that’s already taken everything from me.
She was supposed to be the enemy. A target to take down.
In retrospect, I see how wrong I was.
Even if she weren’t Lotus’s daughter, Aurora was always meant to be mine.
I think I knew it from the start. I know it now, looking down at her. Watching over her as the police raid unfolds inside the Clarkes’ mansion.
Aurora is glued to my side, tucked under my arm, where she belongs.
She’s shivering and restless, her gaze is frantic as she scans the main floor, searching for her father.
He isn’t here. The coward isn’t stupid enough to try to escape through the front door.
That would only end up with him getting shot, and like every textbook narcissist, Winston loves himself way too much to allow that to happen.
I’m not worried. They’ll get to him soon enough.
After Aurora and I are done with them.
Which, if it were up to me, that would’ve happened minutes ago.
Except I’m here for Aurora. She asked me to stay a bit longer. For her heart to settle before she learns the details of the awful truth.
I get that.
I respect that. Her fears and concerns.
Unfortunately, I don’t think waiting helps her.
Every click of handcuffs that echoes around us earns me another one of her gasps. Instead of being filled with a sense of victory, she’s more terrified by the minute.
That’s not right. That’s fucking unacceptable.
No one will scare or terrorize her. No one.
“You have the right to remain silent.” A blonde police officer drags one staff member past us. She’s leading him out the front door while reading him his Miranda rights. “Anything you say—”
“I’m just the chef here!” His outrage is nothing but a whisper at my back.
Just the chef who witnessed the abuse of a minor since the day he started working here. Though I don’t recognize him, I know he did.
Aurora told me about all of them.
“—can and will be used against you in a court of law,” the officer continues.
Their footsteps fade in the background.
“Everett,” Aurora rasps. “We can go now.”
“You sure?” I brush a lock of her hair behind her ear.
She shivers as my knuckles trace along her soft skin.
“I am.” The bravery she finds within her damn near thaws my cold heart.
“Good girl.” With a hand to the small of her back, I jerk my chin toward the staircase. “After you.”
At the first step, Randy emerges out of nowhere. He’s one of the two detectives leading this case who I talked to first. His hand is on my shoulder.
Sweat beads along his brown hair from running around here. “Mr. Alder.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“Apologies.” He removes his offending hand, rubbing the back of his neck.
More people are being escorted out. More Miranda rights read. More I’m innocents.
“I was thinking it’d be better if I joined you two,” he offers. “The case is airtight as can be, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“I understand.” On its own, my palm trails up Aurora’s back, closing around her collar.
A reassuring gesture. I’ll keep my promise to her.
No one but me will be there when she’s at her most vulnerable.
“That’s why I’ll be there to supervise it.
You aren’t allowed in that room with us until I say so. ”
“Mr. Alder.” His hands rise, a pathetic attempt to appease me. “I’m only suggesting it for your own good.”
“Stay. Here.” I still don’t have all the answers. Aurora is still a mess. I don’t give a shit about him and his suggestions.
“Okay.” Something in my tone or my expression must come off as final. It makes him step back. “Call me when you’re done.”
Telling him I will is a waste of time.
Up the stairs we go.
The large double doors at the end of the hall are closed.
Closed, but not locked, as I realize when I push one of them open.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur to Aurora as we walk in there together. “Never forget that.”
“Yes, I—”
A phone crashes against the wall by Aurora’s ear. I’m quick to move her behind my back, standing guard between her and these two motherfuckers.
“Bitch.” Molly, the one who threw the phone at us, jumps from one of the armchairs by the window.
In a pink sweatsuit and with wild hair, she stomps on the floor like a petulant child.
“I gave you everything. My best years. My sanity! God, you were insufferable. Always. And this is how you repay us?”
Before she gets any closer, Winston grabs her by the waist.
“Watch your fucking mouth,” he whispers, throwing her behind him. His evil blue gaze is trained on us while he talks to her. “Do not move, you hear me?”
“You gave me nothing.” Aurora wriggles out of my hold for all of a second.
My fingers clasp around her wrist, yanking her to my side. I’m ready to throw myself before her, if need be, but she needs this conversation.
She needs to show them she’s so much better than they are. So much braver.
“Nothing?” Winston roars.
His wife remains obedient, snarling like the monster she is.
“Nothing,” Aurora spits out, her voice shaking with either rage or fear. Maybe both.
“This nothing was far better than growing up in the streets, where your mother gave birth to you.” He’s talking about her and Lotus, about what he’d forced my sister to do. My fucking God. My mouth twitches. My murderous urges are hardly contained as is. “Better than starving to death. Or worse.”
“I would’ve been with her!” Aurora’s teeth are bare, and I see it now. It’s her anger spilling out of her.
Pride fills my chest at the sight. How she’s pulled herself together. How she won’t go down without a fight. It’s awe-inspiring. It also gets my dick hard.
“You tortured me.” The venomous words and the way she delivers them send another surge of pride through me. “You had something to do with my mother’s death. You’re the reason I’ll always be a product of rape.”
His mouth opens to cut her off mid-sentence. I take an intimidating step toward him. That silences him.
“Both of you.” When she lifts her left hand, her ring reflects the soft light in the room. The light dances on the walls as her hand quivers. As she expands her lungs to say her piece. “You wanna talk about what you’ve given me? To my family? Heartache. Trauma. Death. It’s all on you.”
Winston has the nerve to appear bored. He sighs, looking at me. “Is she done?”
I sure as fuck am. Done, as in done being polite. Done pretending to be civil.
Just because I won’t kill him, doesn’t mean I can’t hurt him in other ways.
He approached us while she talked and is so close now that one step is all it takes for me to reach him. Hand around his throat, I push him to the floor, going to my knees beside him.
“Leave him alone!” Molly screams, but is smart to stay in place.
I growl, squeezing his putrid breath out of him.
He claws at my hand.
It’s no use.
He and I both know it.
“Aurora,” I call her without looking away from her piece of shit father. “Come here.”
Her ballet flats are silent as she pads toward me. She rests her hand on my shoulder, careful as if she were handling a wild animal.
“Thank you.” Emotions thicken her voice.
I shake my head. “Winston here asked whether you were done or not.”
I might be her husband, but her jailer? No. Fuck that.
The reason I’m asking is for her. So that our enemies can see Aurora is a powerful woman, not my prisoner.
“I’m not.” The warmth of her envelops me once she kneels beside me. “Why did you let me live, Winston?” She chokes at the end of the sentence. “Why did you have to kill her? Why?”
I wrap my free arm around her waist.
Winston looks from her to me. Then at the closed doors. He’s listening to the commotion downstairs, assessing just how bad things are.
Very bad.
“We know you raped my sister. We aren’t here to pull a confession out of you.
” I tighten my grip on him until his lips turn blue.
“In addition to Lotus’s diaries, we have a court order to obtain your DNA and prove that you’re the father.
We have Aurora’s testimonial about the years-long abuse.
It’s just a matter of time until your staff cracks and cuts the deals I pre-approved today and rats on you.
You’ll be put behind bars no matter what you say, so might as well tell the truth. ”
“What—” The breath he’s been working so hard to take turns into a cough. The satisfying sound vibrates beneath my palm. “What’s in it for me?”
I pull his head up, only to slam it back down. His skull makes a nauseating sound as it connects with the floor.
“Asshole.” Aurora joins me, slapping him hard. Again. Again. “What’s in it for you? What’s. In. It. For. You?”
At this rate, she’s going to lose it altogether.
He’ll laugh when that happens. Nothing will please him more than Aurora breaking down.
“Shh.” I’m being uncharacteristically gentle, pressing her to me. Holding her, supporting her weight as she collapses into me, her breath hitched. “He can’t hurt you. He can’t and won’t hurt anyone anymore. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
“He won’t tell me.” Her voice is shrill, hands curled into fists. “He won’t.”
My lips brush against her temple. “He will.”
“Pathetic.” Winston’s bulging eyes lock on Aurora’s face. “Then again…”