Chapter 43
Nala sank against the table. The whrrs of a computer fan blew hot air on her back.
“You’re not saying…”
“I didn’t believe it at first when I saw his other emails regarding the subject.”
Varen curled a hand into a fist and smacked it against the table.
Although it reddened, she did not react to the pain.
“Then I did more digging. I found emails from Desirée briefly mentioning a pregnancy. I thought she was talking about the first one that…”
She choked. “Then I dug more. Do you know what I found, Nala?”
Varen didn’t wait for her to respond. “I found references to a night she worked late with Ravenwood. A night she says she doesn’t remember but somehow…”
“Don’t do this to yourself…”
Too late. “She would have never cheated on me!” Both fists hit the table now, sending Nala up and a good step away. Varen’s rampage was only getting started. “Do you know what that monster did to her? Do you?”
Nala swallowed. “I have a good idea.” Neither of them would say the word.
Varen jabbed a finger against the monitor. “This is dated one week before she died. There are references to her going to meet her lawyer to talk about child support. Do you know what was going to happen two days later?”
Nala shook her head.
“She was going to come home. I remember getting a call from her saying she had to get away from work for a while. That she couldn’t wait to see me. That she wanted me to give her a lot of hugs and kisses.”
A shiver tore down Nala’s spine.
“She was scared and in pain. And pregnant. I don’t doubt she was going to tell me about the pregnancy, at least…” Varen turned away from the computer. “For fuck’s sake!”
“Is that why she was…”
Varen glared at Nala. “I found an email to Hawk along those lines, yeah. Desirée was killed because Ravenwood didn’t want a baby chick out there in the world.”
A car accident is an effective way of making sure that never happens. Desirée dying was probably a cherry on the man’s sundae.
“Desirée would have never cheated on me. She was… too much of a liability.”
Her voice finally softened. Nala looked at her, seeing a woman battered and broken. Again. She had already lost her fiancée. If Varen was heartbroken before, she was probably decimated now. Nala did not deny her heart’s desire to go to her.
There was nothing she could say. Whatever darkness Varen now found herself in was nothing compared to what Nala felt regarding Tasha.
When her arms wrapped tightly around her, bringing her in while breathing heavily into her sweatshirt, Nala thought back to all the other things Varen had told her.
Not merely losing Desirée. Losing a baby.
Losing parts of her youth, her life to grief, and the constant, toxic black cloud it brought.
Nothing - and she knew this as well as she knew her own heart - that happened between them over the past several weeks could possibly overshadow that.
I’m not enough to make that pain go away.
Even if she loves me now, it’s not enough to soothe this shock.
“You can cry, you know,” Nala said, smoothing down Varen’s hair. “Go ahead. Cry. When you’re done, we’ll do whatever needs to be done.” Nala desperately hoped it involved lawyers and the police. “I’m here.”
Whether or not she cried… well, Nala would not divulge that to anyone. That was between her and Varen.
“It feels like a stab right to my fucking heart. Multiple stabs. Like I really have been murdered, and here I am, suffering from my wounds.”
Varen rubbed the fatigue from her eyes, lying back in bed and attempting to stare at her bedroom ceiling.
Nala also lay beside her, holding her hand and fighting back the urge to put her soothing touch all over Varen’s body.
Kiss her face. Smother her with affection she probably didn’t want right now.
“I’m so sorry,” she said for the hundredth time that night. They were still alone, with a bodyguard outside their door, but otherwise alone. Thank God for it, too. “I can’t even imagine how you feel right now.”
“Do you know what she must have been thinking trying to tell me what had happened? How she must have panicked that I’d think she cheated on me? With him, of all people?”
“I know.”
“Even though it was three years ago, I’m feeling it all right now. So many what-ifs in my head. What if I drove up there and got her myself? What if I fetched her before he laid a single hand on her? What if she had a miscarriage again? Would Ravenwood have still…”
“You can’t think like that. The man is pure evil. I read those emails, Ven. He plays with fire and gets off on it. Everything is a thrill to him. Taking over the world. Taking over people. Taking whatever he wants. Don’t you think I know he was doing the same things to my sister?”
“Fuck me, I forgot all about that. I’m sorry. I’ve been making this all about myself.”
Nala shook her head. “Yours is the much bigger shock right now. I’m so sorry you had to find that out. I’m sure Desirée never wanted you to know those details. She sounds like a woman who would want you to be happy about the baby, regardless of how it came to be.”
“How can I feel anything else now? I was given something and had it taken away in the same instance. It’s like whiplash. It’s like we were cursed. Every time she became pregnant…”
“Stop going down those paths. They won’t do you any good.” Nala touched her head to Varen’s. “We need to regroup right now. You’ve got a mountain of evidence from his emails. We need to figure out what to do with it. Should we go to the police tomorrow?”
“I’m hesitant. I found a ton of emails between him and some big names in law enforcement. All over the west coast, not only around here. This is really big.”
“Call your lawyer, at least.”
“I will. Tomorrow. I’m too fucking tired right now.”
“Naturally.” Nala sank into the bed, hoping Varen would cuddle her like she sometimes did. Well, she used to do it all the time. Only recently had she started sleeping far on her side of the bed, waking up to turn over again.
Sighing, Nala buried herself in Varen’s chest. “I love you, Ven. I may be young and dumb, but I know what it’s like to feel pain. I’m here.”
Varen stroked Nala’s hair, her eyes closed while drifting off to sleep. “I know. Thank you.”
Nala didn’t expect her to say she loved her too.
A girl can still hope. If Varen hadn’t been closed off before?
She was impossible to penetrate. Whatever she felt for Nala…
it did not compare to the horrors tearing through her mind and body.
No, Nala wouldn’t hear a declaration of love tonight, and probably not anytime soon.
She could live with that. She would have to.
Entry 21
Everything is worse than I imagined.
I finally managed to break into Ravenwood’s email. His personal email. I found about what anyone would expect. Including emails between him and Desirée.
I can’t believe it.
I can’t fucking believe it.
Dare I even write it? That my Desirée was pregnant with THAT MAN’S child? Her own words to him and the fact I refuse to believe she ever cheated on me… they all lead me to one terrible conclusion.
I’m so sorry, Desirée. I had no idea you were in so much pain.
I didn’t know that you were that scared when you died.
If I had known what that man did to you, I would have killed him myself!
Right now I’m full of so much blinding rage that it’s taking every bit of self-control I have to write these words.
Xan Ravenwood assaulted my fiancée. I don’t want him to fucking die because he hurt the woman I loved. I want him to die because he transgressed something so deep and personal that I have no choice but to imagine him dying the most painful death possible.
I scare myself when I am like this, but how I can feel anything else?
Desirée… if you’re out there, please forgive me.
I had no idea. You hid it so well. Please believe me when I say that I would have loved that child as my own.
Even if I knew whose it was. Even now, I imagine you here, with our son or daughter, trying to move on from the pain you were made to feel.
I would be there for you. I would share my strength with you, with our family.
If he had let you live, we would be married by now. Our child would be two. I would be the happiest woman in the world.
I sit here in my bed, shaking, replaying your words over and over in my head. “I’m coming home, Ven. Please be waiting for me.” I’m here. I’m waiting. I’ll always be waiting.
Don’t tell Nightingale.