Let Me: New Adult Dark Romance (Vengeful Book 1) Page 18

  Tyler takes my hand in his. “He’s dealing with his own pain. He fucked up, though. You two…” he shakes his head and sighs. “You two are not good for each other, Riley. You know that, don’t you? You never have been. And I know you’ve always had a crush on him—”

  “More than a crush,” I interrupt him.

  “—and I know that he’s always had a thing for you. I saw how he used to watch you in his house. Like he was a cat and you were the mouse, and he couldn’t wait to eat you alive. But that’s the whole thing about toxic relationships, isn’t it? They make you want to burn for each other a little more.”

  I pull my hand away. Not to be vindictive, but I need to wrap my arms around myself, so I do. He’s right. Of course he’s right. My head knows that. But my heart…well, it’s the thing that needs a little more convincing.

  “Benji is a convict,” Tyler continues. “And with that shit he pulled tonight, it looks like Caden won’t be too far behind.”

  I laugh out loud at that. “He’s a lawyer.”

  Tyler shakes his head. “He’s not a lawyer. He’s a CEO. He might have a JD, but that doesn’t make him immune from vengeance. Most CEOs are shitheads. Fuck, most lawyers are shitheads. He has not proven to be an exception.”

  I lean my head against the wall. Tyler doesn’t have a headboard. Neither do I. I always marveled at Jack’s. The one at Morgan’s hotel was a huge luxury.

  “Thanks again,” I say to Tyler, “for the money. I’m going to pay you back.”

  Tyler smiles at me. He’s always looked so boyish in the face, and in the darkness of his room, only the city lights streaming in, he looks even more so. “You won’t,” he says lightly. “And I don’t care.”

  I roll my eyes, but only smile in response. I will pay him back, but it’ll probably be a while. A long, long while.

  “Just promise me something, Riley.” He looks down at his hands.

  “Anything,” I lie.

  “Don’t let him get to you again.”

  I sigh. “I don’t like to lie to you.”

  But I know there won’t be anything more between us. Because even though I want him, even though I’ve always wanted him, there’s too much darkness in the both of us. Some he doesn’t even know about. And what he did tonight was crossing a line. Lines we’ve been standing at the edge of for far, far too long.

  Tyler takes my hand again, stretching across the small bed.

  “Riley,” he whispers. “I know you love him. But you’ve got to let him go.”

  Even after these three years, I never did.

  But now, I have to. For my own good. And his, too.

  Thirty-One

  Present

  Angie notices my bad moods before anyone else does. She sees me before anyone else does. She came back earlier this morning. She had a great time with her sister, she told me, but she missed my house. It’s nicer, she said. Of course it is. It’s probably one of the nicest houses in Ontario.

  And the loneliest.

  We’re sitting across from each other in poolside chairs, looking at the smooth surface of the water. It’s been less than twelve hours since I last saw Riley, and I’m spending my Wednesday morning with my housekeeper, and I don’t even hate it. I actually like it. Because Angie doesn’t want anything from me but what I pay her, and she’s content to fill the silence while I nod my head or laugh in the right places or make a short remark like, Oh and I see every now and then.

  I didn’t sleep all night. I should be at SVE. I have shit to do. I feel like my grasp on everything right now is falling apart. It isn’t healthy, but neither is how I feel about Riley Larson.

  “Did you see her?” Angie asks me quietly. The first question that breaks my stare with the pool, and actually requires a response.

  I could brush it off. Pretend I don’t know who she’s talking about. But she’s heard me talking before, with Benji. She doesn’t know that Riley is to blame for Jack’s death, but she knows enough.

  “I did,” I answer truthfully, surprising myself, my eyes meeting Angie’s watery ones. She has no judgement on her face, no surprise or shock or anger. Not even that greedy curiosity people get when they want to poke around at all the morbid details of a bad situation.

  “Did you enjoy it?” is her next question.

  I want to laugh, but I don’t. Not to be polite, because I’m rarely ever that. But because I don’t even know the answer. Did I enjoy it? I’m not sure. Did I enjoy her? Of course I did. I still can’t get the scent of her, the taste of her, out of my system. I still can’t stop thinking about her, even though Benji confirmed she left this morning, back to the States. I wonder if my dad paid for that flight. Why he cancelled the first one.

  “I did,” I finally answer. It’s more or less the truth.

  “But you’re not with her?” Angie asks. “It’s why you’ve been…” She frowns, mimes crying, complete with wringing her fists by her eyes and everything, which cracks me up.

  After letting the laughter die from my lips, I nod. “Yeah,” I say softly. “It’s why I’ve been that.”

  Angie is quiet for a moment and I go back to staring at the pool, thinking our conversation is over. I worked out in that water hours ago, hoping maybe if I worked myself into a sweaty mess, Riley would be a distant echo. It’s how I dealt with Jack’s death. Even before that, it was how I dealt with life in general. Working out made me physically tired and dulled that roar of darkness in my mind. Riley, I know, understands that.

  But this morning, it didn’t work.

  Nothing seems to be working.

  “You know, Caden—and I’m sure you don’t want to take advice from a little old lady, but I’m going to give it to you anyway—the one thing I’ve learned in my sixty-five years that’s taught me more than anything else combined is this: Go after what you want. No matter the costs, go after it. Because you never know when your last day might be, and if you simply try to live with the pain, well…” she shrugs her thin shoulders, clad today in bright purple, “one day, you’ll drown in it.”

  I know she lost her granddaughter, so the words mean more to me than they might have from someone else. But even so…

  “What if what I want is bad for me?” I ask, still looking at the pool.

  She laughs, soft and low. “Aren’t all the best things in life bad for us?”

  Thirty-Two

  Present

  “You decided to let me off my leash for a few extra days?” Mom asks when I let myself in, locking the deadbolt behind me. As if somehow that’ll keep the shit storm that is about to become my life from breaking through. There are cracks beneath the door, letting light in. This whole fucking place is falling apart.

  She uses her wheelchair to roll into the kitchen, brows high on her head. When she broke her legs from a car wreck all those years ago, courtesy of her high, I thought that would have been the end of crack for her. But it’s amazing what a person can do, can get to, when they’re determined. It wasn’t the end. Not until we came here.

  I scrub a hand over my face.

  “Are you okay, Ry?” she asks softly.

  I put my bag down and shake my head, and when I look at her, she’s patting her lap. Her legs never healed correctly, and while she can walk, it takes a lot of work. More work than she really cares to put in, and I don’t blame her. I’ve seen her try.

  I walk slowly across the linoleum and sink into her lap, my legs hanging off the side of her chair. She’s no bigger than me, and together, we’re small weights in a too-big world. Still, she wraps her bony arms around me, like she can hold me together. I let my head fall to her shoulder, smell the strawberry shampoo of her soft brown hair.

  “Did you miss me?” I ask with a smile.

  She laughs, and I feel it in her small chest, her arms shaking softly around me with the sound. “Of course I did. Did you have fun seeing Adam?”

  She doesn’t know.

  I swallow. My throat feels dry. The truth is, of course, I didn�
�t have fun seeing Adam. The truth is we broke up because not only could he not keep his dick in his pants, he had to show it off to an entire fucking club. But the truth is, too, that that’s not why I’m sad. Not at all. But I can’t tell her, about Caden. She never knew.

  But she’s intuitive.

  “Did you miss Jack?” she asks. Which isn’t the half of it, but for some reason, I nod anyway. It’s close enough. And I do miss him. That’s the hard part, having these two conflicted emotions about the Virani brothers. I would never want to be with him again. We were destined to break up. But I didn’t wish him dead.

  “Oh, honey.” She runs her hand through my hair, and I curl into a ball in her arms. She was never a good mother. But she’s here now. She is now. And that’s enough, because now is all we have.

  I take a shaky breath but dig my nails into my palms to keep myself from crying. As if focusing on that pain will prevent the hole in my heart from aching.

  “I’m so sorry, hon.” She kisses my head. “I can’t imagine.”

  But she can. Kind of. Dad left us easily enough. I don’t really blame him, to be honest. Many times, I wanted to leave her, too. I’m not sure what kept me by her side all this time. Maybe the realization that I had nowhere else to go.

  “Mom,” I say, voice soft.

  Her hand stops stroking my hair. “Yes?” She must hear something in that word, because she stills beneath me. I think she’s holding her breath.

  “We’ve really got to be careful with our money.”

  We always have to be careful with our money. But I don’t know what kind of damage I’m going to take from this. It’s not that I’m an important person. I’m a very unimportant person in the world at large. But Rolland Virani is important. He’s powerful. He could end my job. My schooling. He could take what little I have away from me and Mom.

  “Did something happen, Riley?”

  I almost laugh out loud at that. Now she wants to know. Something did happen, I want to tell her. Something happened when you were supposed to be parenting me. But I don’t tell her. I keep it in. I don’t want to deal with this right now. I may never want to deal with this.

  I shake my head.

  “What happened?” she asks again, quieter now.

  I climb off of her lap, stand and lean my head against the wall, looking at the warped linoleum floors. The thin, off-white carpet of the small living room furnished with one lumpy couch we got at a yard sale.

  I blow out a breath. “It’s a long story. One I don’t feel like telling right now.”

  “Is someone hurting you, Ry?” Her brow is furrowed. Once, she was beautiful. She still is, really, but the drugs took a toll on her. She has more lines than she should, and her face is kind of pinched. Hollow. Her hair more brittle than it should be.

  I take in her green eyes, a mirror of my own.

  I shake my head. “Not anymore,” I answer her. And then, despite the fact that soon my life might get turned upside down yet again, I feel a lightness in my chest. A freedom. Like I can breathe again.

  Rolland doesn’t own me anymore.

  The lightness doesn’t last.

  I decide to drop out of school. We need more money, and if Rolland comes after me with this video, I don’t want to deal with the fallout. Maybe if I drop out now, I can go back later, when this has blown over. When they won’t care what I’ve done, because it won’t have reflected poorly on them.

  I take the bus to the gym where I work. Briar is a small town with lousy public transportation and the bus ride is long and hot and miserable, but I’m still fine with it. It’s all I’ve ever known here. Rolland can’t really sink me more than I’ve already sunk.

  Shane is there when I walk through the doors but otherwise it’s pretty empty, which is unsurprising considering it’s 2:00 pm on a Wednesday.

  He’s wearing a sleeveless tank top, white, and his tan muscles are bulging beneath it. He has a cheery grin on his face when he sees me. He straightens from ducking behind the desk to grab a spray bottle and thuds it down on the counter.

  “Well, well, well, look who finally showed up for work.”

  I smile, even though it’s fake as shit.

  “I’m really sorry,” I begin, placing my palms on the counter across from him. “But Shane…I need more hours.”

  He frowns, and I hold my breath, waiting for his answer. His blue eyes are searching mine, like he’s looking for the Why. But I don’t give him one. Finally, he nods, and I feel something loosen in my chest.

  “Okay,” he agrees, without asking a single question except, “when can you work?”

  I tell him, casually, that I won’t be in school anymore, and although I know he wants to pry, to find out what the hell is going on, he doesn’t ask, and I’m grateful. It’s something I’ve always liked about Shane. He’s so happy and content in his own world, he doesn’t need to bother with other people’s. Instead, he changes my shift. Noon to close is perfect, because it gives me time in the mornings to grab some hours at a coffee shop.

  My next stop is school, and that’s the worst stop of all.

  I was one year away from graduating.

  This campus is beautiful. All stately brick buildings and neatly trimmed grass, students buzzing around the brick-lined walkways, a gentle hum of voices in the air. Even during the summer, this place is alive. I hear the church bell toll in the distance and remember why I’m doing this.

  To preemptively save myself.

  This education was never mine to have, really. It was all borrowed time here, borrowed from Rolland’s vile mercy on my reputation. When I sign the withdrawal paperwork, the registrar asks, kindly, if there’s anything she can do to change my mind.

  I almost laugh out loud.

  Instead, I just shake my head and leave. My new shift at work doesn’t start until morning, and while I could look for another job now, I just want to breathe.

  I sit at a little stone bench outside of a fast food joint I can’t afford, and connect to the free wireless internet to save my data, scrolling through job listings that fit the hours I have left in my day before and after the gym.

  But then I get two texts from a recently saved number, and my heart clenches. One is a video.

  A fucking video.

  The world seems to disappear around me, and for a moment, I stay in the mobile browser looking for jobs, not opening the messages. I don’t want to open them. Because Benji wouldn’t be sending me any video that could possibly mean something good for me. My fingers shake as I open the message.

  Look over your shoulder, little girl. We’re going to find out who this is.

  I put a trembling hand to my mouth as I press play, even though I already know…I already know from the still shot, and I feel like I’m going to faint. It’s a forward from a number I don’t know, meaning Rolland sent it out again. Dropping out of school was the right idea.

  I mute the sound, because I don’t want to hear it, but I can’t look away. Even though I lived it. Even though I was there, I can’t look away. I can’t stop watching the night I ran away from a bad man, only to run into the arms of a monster.

  Benji doesn’t send anything else and I cradle my head in my hands, right in front of everyone sitting outside on campus, and I let the tears fall. Because Caden probably thinks it was me again, and if Rolland has sent it, it’s only a matter of time before he tells him who it really is. And if Caden hated me before, well, now…

  Now there’s no going back.

  Thirty-Three

  Present

  “What do you want to do?” Benji asks me for the hundredth time.

  I can’t sit still long enough to think about what I want to do, and I’m pacing back and forth before the pool, the sky darkening overhead. Benji is the picture of calm at the patio set, legs stretched out before him, ankles crossed. Only his eyes move as he watches me.

  “Kill them both,” I manage to say in answer to his question.

  That’s an understatement. I wa
nt to tear them both apart. I want to rip them limb from limb. I thought I’d never be able to actually hurt Riley. I thought I’d never be able to give her any pain she didn’t want. But I thought wrong.

  The video came anonymously, again, and I find it hard to believe it’s a coincidence Riley just went back to the States pissed off at me, and I get this shit again.

  She looked so young in it. Not that she looks old now, but there was an innocence about her, which is ironic, considering what was happening. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it, even though I had already memorized all of it. Every second of the minutes-long footage.

  But I’ve got my own footage.

  I stop pacing and bring my knuckles to my mouth, then shake my head. “That bitch.” The words come out hoarse, and suddenly, I don’t think I can stand. I sink to my knees. Right in front of Benji. In a flash, he comes up behind me, arms wrapped around my chest, and for a moment, we stay that way, two grown men and he’s holding me up.

  Then he helps me to my feet and into a chair. He doesn’t sit down, just stands over me. I’ve spent all day wanting her back, thinking of how I could get to her, of how I could have her forgive me for what I did.

  Now this.

  I want to throw up.

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  She’s twisted. I’m twisted. I thought that’s why we were supposed to be together. I thought that’s why I’d make her happier than my brother could.

  My brother.

  Oh my God.

  I’m just glad he’s not here for this.

  I run my fingers through my hair, chest heaving.

  This shouldn’t even bother me anymore. This shouldn’t be anything at all. This should be nothing to me. I’ve already seen this shit. But seeing it again, seeing her tits exposed, that man’s hand running down her stomach, it’s fucking killing me, playing it over and over in my mind. I’m going to figure out who it is. Because if it isn’t her sending it—and I feel damn sure it is—then it’s probably him. And I have to know who the fucker is.