15. Knight
Chapter Fifteen
KNIGHT
Icouldn’t stand up. My legs had turned into string beans the second she opened the photo album. Also where they put checks from billionaires no one ever cashed.
“Go after her,” Trix’s mother said to someone.
“No,” her dad said, low voice laying down the ultimate law. “You give her space.”
“She’s pregnant! You can’t just let her drive to Brazil in that state.”
Drive to Brazil? I looked up at her, but she wasn’t looking at me. Her attention was directed at her husband. He looked tired, but absolute. “She’ll kill someone. We let her cool off. If that takes a few years, then that’s what it takes.”
Trixie’s mom glared at me. “You should have told her!”
“Brazil?” is what came out of my mouth.
Marco grabbed my shoulder, squeezing it while he glared at me. “She didn’t tell us to throw you out. I guess that means we’re stuck with you. She told you to train. You still need to work on your control, pushing your limits so you can win without killing.”
“I already lost,” I said, staring down at my hand, where I’d been holding her so recently. Maybe that hadn’t happened. I still had her ring wrapped around my finger. She’d made it for me because I tricked her into thinking it was real.
Joey’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out and stared at the screen for a long time, then started shaking his head. “The good times never end. Looks like Trix stole Uncle Ni?o’s car. And it had a body in the trunk.”
The room erupted into noise, everyone having a different opinion of what to do with the Dragon, that girl who was always so much trouble.
That girl who didn’t have the sense to come in out of the rain.
The girl who got married and then left her husband after a week, and what were they supposed to do with him?
Trix’s dad grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet, pulling me out the door and up the stairs. They had a rooftop patio with some flowers. He pushed me into a folding chair sturdy enough to catch me.
He went around watering plants while I sat there, not puzzling anything out, just sitting there, trying to hold on to the blank before it erupted into shards of misery. She’d been happy, hadn’t she? I’d been helping her through her trauma. That was good, wasn’t it?
“You’re more delicate than I expected,” he finally said, sitting in the other chair and putting his feet up on a metal case. Did it hold weapons or something else?
“I was born premature. That’s why I’m delicate,” I said, but my face wouldn’t smile.
Or maybe it was smiling. I didn’t know. I couldn’t feel my face.
Or my fingers. I curled my hands into fists, needing to feel her ring buried in my skin.
I should have told her. She’d given me so many openings, but I hadn’t taken them.
Because I knew that in the end she’d leave, and I wanted it to last as long as possible.
I was selfish. I’d been happy. I’d justified my happiness telling myself that I was making her happy, but lies wouldn’t ever make her happy.
“Are you going to pay off Joey’s debts?” he said after a long pause.
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do.”
I looked at him. “I really don’t. I’d need collateral. I’d need to run the numbers. I’d need Joey to be too occupied to make further messes. I’d need it to be a good investment. I’m a businessman first.”
“Cold.”
“She’s my only warmth.”
“You waited ten years for her to come to you. And you only had her for a week.”
“It was worth the wait. Five seconds of her time would be worth an eternity of waiting. But that’s obsession. What do you think she’ll do with the body?”
He looked up and inhaled deeply, relaxing in that chair.
He’d seen a lot of stress in his life but managed to enjoy the bits of peace in the midst of chaos.
“She’ll dump the car before she realizes there’s a body.
Which means it’ll turn up and lead a trail to Ni?o.
I’m hoping for jail time, but he’s slick.
He’ll say the car was stolen, and the body isn’t his responsibility.
He has official friends who will keep it from turning into a serious investigation. Too bad.”
“You aren’t part of the family?”
“No, and neither is my wife. Sometimes she forgets that she put that world behind her, but I paid for an out. Trix too. All that racing? That paid for the gym, the loan I had to take after my wife…” He sighed heavily.
“That’s why Joey’s making me so mad. He didn’t need to get involved with Lucas, but he’s too stupid to understand the price of freedom unless he personally pays for it. ”
“Do you think she’ll come back? Even if it takes ten years, I don’t care, but you think she’ll come home?”
“I have no idea. She’s like my sister.”
“Where’s your sister?”
“Dead.”
I stared at him while my heart imploded. So many shards stuck in my throat. “She’s like your dead sister?”
“Sure, sure. Do you want a cigar?”
“Why would I want a cigar?”
“To celebrate.”
“What would I celebrate? I still can’t feel my legs.”
“Celebrate coming clean with your wife. Lies are like festering wounds. The first step to healing is to clean it out. Cut out the infected flesh. Sure, it bleeds, but how else will it heal?”
I frowned at him. “You’re very friendly with your baby princess’s stalker.
” Also, he called her my wife like it wasn’t definitively over forever.
Which meant that he was feeding me hope, which would only lead to ultimately greater despair, but could I resist hope?
Of course not. Her entire family was too diabolical to resist. I should just pay off Joey’s debts and be done with it.
He nodded. “She loves you. And she left all of us, not just you. Which means when she comes back to you, she’ll come back to us. We’re in the same kettle of fish, son.”
“Sure, Dad. I’m thinking it’s a nice jambalaya with a good sauce. Gumbo.”
He ignored my nonsense. “And she’s going to have the baby, and then what? She’s not terrible with kids, the older the better, but babies aren’t in her wheelhouse. Are you going to track her down? She might need protection.”
It’s like he knew me down to my genetic profile.
I squinted at him and held out a hand. “Cigar. I don’t smoke.
It’s conveying to the world that you wish you’d been born a chimney.
I wish I’d been born as a lot of different things, but not a chimney.
Did you dress up as Santa for the kids when they were little? ”
He handed over a cigar. “Hand-rolled. I’m not sure why having people’s fingers on it is an advantage, but what is a sure thing in life? I did not. The wife took the kids to the department store for pictures with Santa. Won’t the baby be born before Christmas? I think around Halloween.”
“She wanted the magic of Christmas. But now she knows that I’m her stalker, and that I own her hotel, and she’s abandoned me like my mother.
She’s also dead. Why does Trixie keep resembling dead people?
” I bit the end off the cigar, spat it out like I knew what I was doing, and leaned over so Trix’s dad could light me up.
The last time I’d smoked a cigar, I was sixteen with my father, who was trying to be relatable.
Have a car. Have a cigar. Aren’t we bonding?
The car was good. It lasted a week because that’s how I was with cars when I was sixteen.
I was indestructible. Why shouldn’t I go through machinery like tissues when I could walk away?
The cigar wasn’t light, per se, but it was smoky. Also incredibly unpleasant. It was like trying to inhale machine oil and pretend to enjoy the experience. So manly.
I put out the cigar and slowly stood up, forcing my legs to work. I’d had my moment of self-indulgence. It had been entirely unpleasant, as self-indulgence usually is.
“I’m taking Joey with me,” I said to Trixie’s father while I adjusted my cuffs.
Which was a leather jacket, not the suave suit I had mentally armed myself with.
Yes, my heart was broken, my hopes crushed, and everything in tatters, but life goes on.
Until it doesn’t. I knew this would happen, and the happiness had been greater and lasted longer than I’d thought possible.
The agony and the despair would doubtless be deeper and longer as well. But that’s life. Until it isn’t.
Her dad didn’t stand up, just stayed there smoking his cigar. His phone buzzed with a text, and he looked at it, nodded, and then stood. “She’s safe. Now you can go. You were going to save Joey whether you knew she was safe or not?”
I gave him a polite smile. “I’m a hero. It’s what we do. And this Lucas character isn’t welcome in my city.”
He flashed a rare, full smile. “Joey can train you. Help you manage your range so you can win without revealing your full strength. And you can have something to do while you wait for her.”
I turned and headed for the edge of the building. No. My time with Trixie was over. It was time to get back to my real life. And that intel Jezabel had stolen from me was something I should steal back.
It was either that, or eat ice cream in the bathtub while listening to Christmas music for the rest of my life. Peppermint and cookie dough.
I raised my phone to my ear.
“Charles, I’d like a lift, if you’re in the area.”
“Two minutes soon enough?”
“No. But I suppose I’ll have to live with disappointment.”
“Ride for one?”
“Two. Don’t bother parking. I’ll jump.”
“You’ll jump off the building and hit the helicopter? Avoid the blades.”
“So helpful. What would I do without you?” I glanced at Trixie’s dad. “Two minutes long enough to get Joey?”
He smiled. The next thing, the door burst open, and Marco and the other brother were dragging Joey across the roof towards me.
“What’s going on?” Joey met my eyes and flinched. I wasn’t smiling. I wasn’t wearing a mask to cover up my psycho. Trixie might not be mine, but he was. And I would rehabilitate him so she had one less thing to worry about.
The hum of an engine came closer.
“If you don’t jump, someone’s going to push you,” I told Joey, and then leapt off the roof. I put so much desolate misery into that leap, I hit the helicopter and would have gone through the other open doorway if I didn’t catch the lip and swing back.
Joey was there a second later, but he barely made it.
I grabbed him and hauled him inside. I secured him in his seat, strapping him down before I followed suit, letting my good posture take over.
I didn’t have to hide anymore. What a relief that Trixie knew what kind of worthless winner she’d married.
I’d lost her. I might be worth a good deal of money, but I’d lost everything that really mattered.
Charles flew us to the airport while I pulled out my phone and started drawing up a scheme that would wrap up this Lucas and eviscerate him. I’d really enjoy his suffering. I’d put that as number one on my docket.
Jezabel would be something. She was playing games I didn’t want to play.
Still, it would give me something to do to keep from fixating.
Spiraling. Dying. Legally, she was still my wife.
Was there any way that I could force her to take some of my money?
All of my money? I’d have to look into it.
Eventually. If I survived living without a heart.