"Damian, for fuck's sake! I'm getting bloody old here."
He laughed. "I better go." He pressed another kiss to her lips. "I'll be back."
She couldn't wait.
Chapter Ten
"Why didn't we bring Landon and the others?" Damian asked.
Rick climbed back into the car, and turned over the ignition. "They didn't need to come, but you did. I wanted to talk with you."
"You're going to berate me again for taking my eye off the ball."
"Nope. We've got somewhere to go."
His uncle was giving him more questions than actual answers, and he was bored of trying to guess what Rick was thinking. The man seemed to have a mind of his own.
"You know, Damian, even though I'm in England, and I work as much as I do, I still have time to talk with my brothers. I stay updated on everything that is going on around here, and I want to say how sorry I am for your loss. I didn't really know Betty well, but I've heard she was a good woman."
Damian looked toward Rick. "What is this?"
"Maddox called me when it happened. Told me that you were having trouble dealing with the guilt. Did you love her?"
He didn't say anything to start off with, and instead stared out of the car. "I don't have anything to say."
"And that just tells me you've got a whole lot to say. Mia seems nice."
"You've barely said two words to her."
"She brought you back into the fold, Damian. What I want to know is why you were at Ivan's. Your father never asked, and none of your brothers did either. It's why I know the problems that are happening are because no one is paying attention. Why don't you start by telling me the truth?"
Damian ran a finger over his lips, knowing that Rick wasn't going to let him out of this damn car. "You want the truth?"
"Yes, I want the truth, and I'll know if you're lying. I've been away, but I'm not a fucking idiot. I helped take care of all of your ugly asses for a time."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't live in England forever, and I didn't meet Mandy straight away. We all helped raise you. Your mother had six boys one after the other. We all had to pitch in. You guys were not easy, not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, you guys were fucking hard. Jacob was always exploring the house. There was one time I found him with a knife chasing after Oliver around the house. When I asked what he was doing, he said he saw it on television. Little brat had changed the channel to a horror one, and thought it was okay to start killing his brothers. That was a hard one to explain."
Damian burst out laughing. "You're kidding right. You're going down memory lane right now?"
"I just thought about the fact that you're one of the youngest of my brother's kids. Things get pretty hectic with life and shit, and you may have been left behind."
"I don't need attention, Rick. I'm a grown ass man."
"And yet you were at Ivan's for a reason, and I want to know what it was. You'd already told your dad and brothers to fuck off. You couldn't stand Gabriel or any of the Coltons, so keep it real for me, Damian. I don't want any of your bullshit." Rick kept on driving, and Damian still didn't know where they were going.
"We've got shit to do."
"Did you find what you were looking for at a bottom of a bottle, or is that why you want to Ivan's? You were causing a fight there. Trying to gain attention."
Damian paused as Rick brought the car to park at a curb outside of the cemetery where he had laid Betty to rest. "What the fuck are you doing?" When he went to pull on the door handle to let himself out, Rick locked them.
"You're not leaving, and we're not moving an inch until we resolve this problem. We've done the damage control, and you work amazingly well. I know you've got it in you, but now I need to deal with that other tricky little problem."
"Is that what all this is about? You think I'm a problem?"
"Damian, you are a problem. For the longest time you've been locked in some kind of downward spiral. The Dentons work on being a united front. Now a bunch of us are locked in jail, and I'm here taking care of your asses. When your father and brothers leave, I need to know that everyone is a unit."
"Why don't you talk to Gabriel?" he asked.
"Gabriel didn't go looking for a fight. He has done everything he could to prove himself. So have his other siblings. The problem with Gabriel is deep rooted in everyone else, and I will deal with that. Now you, on the other hand, you and I both know what you were trying to do when you went to that shitty town, and you made a scene."
Damian swallowed as the lump began to form in his throat. He would not fucking cry, not now, not in front of his uncle.
"And it all started because of that girl." Rick pointed into the cemetery, and then pulled a picture out of his jacket pocket.
Damian stared at the photo and recognized it. The picture was one he'd taken at the hospital within minutes of Betty giving birth. On her chest was Martha, and she was smiling into the camera. It was one of the happiest moments of his life, and he'd been gutted that no feelings had awakened for him when it came to her.
Gritting his teeth, he stared at the picture, and then at his uncle.
"She was a beautiful girl."
"Exactly, she was a lot of things."
"What were you doing, Damian?"
Clenching his teeth, he stared at the picture. "Why the fuck do you have this picture?" he asked.
"I have many ways of finding shit, Damian. I've proven it to you time and again. Stop underestimating me. Answer the question."
"You know the answer anyway."
"I don't care what I know. I want to know what you were going to do. I want you to tell me the fucking truth."
There was no reason to keep the truth from him, and until he said it out loud there was no way that Rick was going to let him get back home to Mia.
"I went there looking for a fight. I knew Ivan would provide me that, and I wanted a fight to the death. I didn't want to feel the way that I'd been feeling since Betty took her own life. I have hated my last name and everything that the Denton name stands for. I know that I'm one of the big reasons we're in this situation because I just gave up." He looked at Rick. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"I want the truth, and even if I wanted to hear it or not, it doesn't matter."
"I saw Mia, and I couldn't do it. I couldn't have a fight." He laughed. "I actually warned him against it because of the fact I'm a Denton."
"Damian, Betty's death is not your fault. It's not anyone's fault."
"She killed herself because I would never love her the way she wanted to be loved. How the fuck is that not my fault? She died because I couldn't love her."
"You told her the truth, Damian. You told her straight away that you couldn't be more than a best friend to her. What more could you offer? Tell her that you love her, and then one day you would have met Mia. What then? You're going to do what Stuart did? Break a woman's heart."
"No, of course not."
"You want to take the blame, and you can't. What you need to do is accept that there was nothing you could do. There was nothing anyone could do." Rick climbed out of the car. "Come on."
"What do you want me to do?"
"It's time for you to make peace."
Damian climbed out of the car finding this entire journey pointless.
"I thought you were supposed to be here to help deal with the problem?" Damian asked. "Dad and the others are getting out soon, and you should be gone."
"Aw, baby, you're breaking my heart that you want me gone. I'm fixing everything, and I'm not leaving until Westbrook is dead, like totally dead, completely dead. I will even bury him in the earth myself."
Damian rolled his eyes. "You're a freak. You know that right?"
"Yep, I do, and I embrace it."
They entered the cemetery, and Damian went toward the gravestone he'd picked out for Betty. Harper had helped him, and it had broken his heart finally seeing it.
"Not your fault, Damian. Remember that." Then Rick placed his arm across his shoulders, and when he looked at Betty's name, he wasn't caught up in grief or pain or guilt. He was merely sad to see it because she had become such a large part of his life.
Some wind rustled, and he closed his eyes as the last of his guilt fell away.
****
Mia was so happy to be back in their apartment, and she smiled over at Gabriel. It had been a couple of days since Damian's family was released from jail and their self-imposed lockdown had been lifted. While Damian was over at the casino getting an update, Gabriel had offered to bring her over. He carried Reese and placed him on the floor in the car seat.