Chapter 23
Ravage watched Sora for a few moments as she rearranged the food everyone had brought on the island and the table.
She’d said something about putting things together and making it easier for people to serve themselves.
He didn’t feel the need to point out that people would just place the food on their plates.
Where she set it or where they got it wouldn’t matter to them.
He was smart enough to just let her do as she pleased.
There were people spread out within the house and the backyard. As usual with gatherings at his house, there were games being played. They even had a dominoes and spades tournament going. Music was playing softly throughout the house, and a little louder outside.
Ravage pushed himself off the counter he leaned against and made his way into the backyard to mingle with some of the people in attendance.
The backyard was livelier than inside the house, but it was always that way.
Ravage walked around, mingling with several of the people there.
While he did so, he kept an eye out for Karter.
He hadn’t seen her when he was in the house, so he assumed she was outside.
Not seeing her, he went to the gate, opened it, and looked at all the cars parked out front.
She’d come home with him the night before, so her car wasn’t at his house.
However, his car, Demetri’s, and Ilia’s were still there, so she hadn’t gone somewhere.
Ravage went to look for her. She’d woken up that morning with a headache, and the last thing he needed was for all the noise to make it worse or cause it to come back.
He checked the common areas of the house again, telling several people who attempted to stop him and chat that he’d be back. He didn’t want to be rude and ignore them, but he wanted to make sure Karter was okay.
Ravage went to his bedroom, knocking on the closed door.
He tended to close all the doors of rooms he didn’t want people in.
He knew he could simply open the door because it was his house, his room.
However, if Karter was inside, she may have been in there for privacy, and he didn’t want to just barge in on her.
“Come in,” she called from the other side of the door, and he opened it, closing it behind him after he stepped inside.
“Are you okay, Kaere?”
“Hey, baby. Yeah, I’m okay.”
Ravage crossed the room to her, wrapping his arm around her waist. “Are you sure? Has your headache subsided?”
She gave him a small smile. “For the most part.”
“I’ll bring you something to eat. That should help.”
“I’ll come with you. I don’t want to stay cooped up in the bedroom and not hang out with everyone.”
He nodded, removing his arm from around her waist and taking her hand in his. He led her out of the bedroom, deciding to go straight to the kitchen to make sure she ate something. Ravage had learned that eating helped her headaches dissipate.
They were stopped on the way a few times and chatted with some guests in attendance. When they made it to the kitchen, they found Demetri and a few other guests there fixing plates.
Ravage started making her a plate while Demetri teased Karter, who had gone over and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Go annoy your boyfriend with your clinginess,” Demetri told her.
Ravage listened to Karter suck her teeth. “The three of you are going to stop calling me clingy.”
“I called you needy, not clingy,” Sora stated, entering the kitchen.
“I’m pretty sure this is some sort of child abuse,” Karter responded, and Ravage knew she was pouting before he even looked at her. “As your only child, picking on me is considered a cardinal sin.”
He chuckled as he held out the plate he’d just finished making to her. She unwrapped her arms from around Demetri’s waist and took it, thanking him. He then made his own plate, and they went outside to one of the tables that were set up in the backyard.
When they’d finished eating, Demetri wanted to play dominoes. He and Ravage against Sora and Karter. They moved to one of the empty tables that already had dominoes on top.
“Don’t take this beating you’re about to get personal,” Ravage told Karter with a smirk.
Karter raised a brow at him. “You remember that,” she responded as she washed the dominoes.
Karter laughed as her father asked Creed if he was allowing her and her mother to win. They were on their second hand, and Karter and her mom were up by forty points.
“Am I letting them win?” Creed repeated. “Are you letting them win?”
“The two of you just suck as partners.” Karter listened to her mother tell them. Which caused her to laugh a little harder.
“I’m glad you find this funny, Kaere,” Creed told her as her father washed the dominoes.
“I really do. You’re the one who partnered with Dad over me. So, I have to teach you a lesson,” she responded with a shrug and a little smirk.
They continued the game, and she and her mom made it to one-fifty first. Leaving Creed and her father behind by thirty-five points.
She turned her attention to Creed to tease him, only to find that something at the gate had his attention.
When she turned to see what he was looking at, she noticed a man standing there she hadn’t seen before.
However, the look in her boyfriend’s eyes let her know he didn’t like whoever this man was.
“I’ll be back,” Creed stated as he stood from his chair and headed towards the man, who turned and left out of the gate.
Getting up, Karter followed him. The tension she could feel between the two men was not a good sign, and she didn’t want anything to happen.
Though she honestly wasn’t sure what she’d be able to do other than call for someone if they got physical, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to pull them apart.
“Where’s my wife?” Karter heard the other man’s question.
“How would I know?” Creed countered as she walked through the gate. “But even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
She allowed the gate to close quietly behind her, and she looked between the two men who were staring one another down.
“You would know, because you’re fucking my wife,” the other man stated, and Karter rolled her eyes.
Creed chuckled. “Is that the reason you’ll use to put your hands on her this time if you find her?”
She realized then that this man had been Bev’s husband, and just looking at him disgusted her.
Karter didn’t believe any man should put his hands on a woman unless she’d put hers on him.
There was only so much any person could take.
However, to her knowledge, this man just liked to take his frustration out on his wife.
Creed had told her that Bev had left the country and moved back to Spain to be with her family. Her deadbeat husband asking about her now pissed Karter off because it wasn’t as if he actually cared. She was sure he was more so, just wanting someone around whom he could terrorize and control.
Karter had only spoken to Bev a couple of times.
But she knew from those conversations that this man, whom Bev only ever referred to as he or him, had met her while she was here for school and isolated her from her family almost immediately.
He didn’t know where she was from, and Karter was glad he more than likely wouldn’t be able to find her.
“Is everything okay?” she questioned, though she knew it wasn’t.
“It’s fine, Kaere. I’ll be there in a minute.”
The other man swung his eyes to her, and she raised a brow at him before walking over to Creed and wrapping her arms around his waist. “Get off his property,” Karter told him. “It’s a private party, and you weren’t invited.”
He smirked at her before his attention turned back to Creed. “Don’t worry. I’ll find her.”
“Let’s hope for your sake I don’t find out when you do,” Creed responded.
Karter watched the other man turn angrily and return to his house. A car pulled up, and Clint and Abe got out before making their way over to them.
“Now, this is the kind of welcoming party I like,” Clint responded. Abe hit him in the back of the head, and Karter laughed.
Creed reintroduced them before the four made their way into the backyard.
Karter questioned whether the two of them knew how to play dominoes.
When they confirmed, she smiled innocently at them and asked if they’d be willing to play her and her mom before they left, which caused Creed to chuckle when the two men agreed.
Karter was looking forward to the game. She was tired of beating the same people repeatedly.