If You Fight(6)

"My father will be watching. I saw how suspicious he was when he was here listening to me tell my story. I want him to be suspicious so Oliver knows he's being watched. One word from me and he'll be under arrest, but I'd rather him live in terror that I'm going to finally tell the truth one day."

"Why? Why not tell the truth and be done with him?"

I knew the answer before she said it. It would never be that easy.

"Because he might get some sleazy lawyer who finds a way for him to wriggle out of any charges the police bring. No, I'm not leaving my revenge to more men in expensive suits. I want him to leave me because he can't take the threat of me telling the truth one of these days. Then my father won't have anything to say about it and I'll finally be free."

"And then what, Serena?"

My question confused her. "What do you mean? Then I'm free to be with you."




 

 

I shook my head at how simple that sounded and how impossible it would be. "Don't fool yourself. He's never going to let that happen. You know that. He married you to Oliver because it helped his bottom line, and if Oliver leaves you, he'll make sure the divorce is quick and your second marriage happens even quicker."

Serena seemed to think about what we both knew was the truth and then nodded her agreement. "Then knowing my father, I'm going to have to make sure that doesn't happen."

As I began to ask how she'd do that, she reached for my hand and kissed it. "I'm tired now, Ryder. I think I need to rest. Promise me you won't take this into your own hands and steal my revenge from me."

Leaning down, I pressed a soft kiss onto her lips. "I promise. Now I want you to promise me something."

She looked up at me and smiled. "Anything."

"Promise me if your plan doesn't work that you'll accept the fact that I will kill him for what he's done to you."

Cradling my face, she pressed her forehead to mine. "To us."


I left Serena lying there in that bed with her dreams of revenge and worried she was underestimating her father and Oliver. He'd tried to kill her once already. What would stop him from trying again?

By the time I reached Robert still standing outside the car, his look of fatherly concern had disappeared, replaced by a far flintier look. I braced myself for his interrogation since I'd been up there with Serena for a while, but the first words out of his mouth weren't questions about me or what we'd talked about at all.

"I want to see those security tapes tonight. I already called Johnson about them while I was waiting for you. If an intruder could get onto the estate and into Serena's home, I damn well want to know how."

Knowing what he'd find on them, I nodded in agreement, as I had to. "Sounds like a good idea."

We rode back to the estate in silence as I eagerly waited for him to see the proof of who had come and go from Serena's apartment that day. The question was what would Robert do when he found out that the only person who could have done that to Serena was her husband.

He waved at me to follow him to where Johnson and the other real security guys spent their days on the first floor directly beneath the bedroom wing of the main house. He sat in a room full of monitors that showed the outside areas around Serena's apartment, Robert's townhouse at the far end of the estate, the front door to the main house, the side and front doors of the garage, and the main door leading to the apartments where I and the rest of his on-site employees stayed.

Johnson, a tall lanky guy with closely cropped jet black hair that looked startling compared to his silver beard, swiveled around to face us and began talking as soon as Robert entered the room. Pointing at his monitors like we knew what had gotten him so excited, he said quickly, "I've looked through every bit of footage you asked me to and there's a problem." 

Those were exactly the words Robert hated to hear. His body tensed up until he looked as stiff as an ironing board next to me, and I took a step back toward the door, knowing what would likely happen next.

Too bad. Johnson was a decent guy, even if he tended to ramble on about fishing when he got you alone.

"You know what I think of when I hear someone say that, don't you, Johnson? I think someone's not taking care of business, which in my mind is the worst thing a person can do, especially when he's been ordered not an hour before to take care of exactly that fucking business!"

Robert's voice echoed off the walls and shook the equipment. Johnson's eyes bugged open like being yelled at startled him, and he began explaining himself. "It's nothing I or any of us did. I swear, sir. It's just that whoever went into that apartment must have known exactly where the cameras were located because it's like some kind of fog or something affected the view of the camera outside her apartment, and the front gate camera has been on the fritz for the past week, as Snyder told you when it first happened. Look for yourself."