The secret had ended up coming to light several months earlier, and they had gone to the police and confessed. Gabe, Mal, and he had ended up pleading as minors and receiving probation. Chay, also convicted as a minor, ended up with probation as well due to the extenuating circumstances since Leah-a private investigator and Gabe's fiancée-had unearthed proof of Richard's evil during her investigation.
Whenever Rafe thought of Richard Pierce, he wished he could bury the motherfucker all over again.
Snuffing out the fury to a simmer, he summoned a light tone and smothered all hints of anger from his voice.
"Hey." He held up his hands in the age-old sign of it wasn't me. "I didn't do anything. Well," he peered down at Greer, "maybe I did something." He expected her furious scowl this time, and she didn't disappoint. "Chay, you remember Greer Addison, don't you? The other two are her brother, Ethan, and friend Noah Granger."
"Nice to meet you." Chay nodded toward the men and smiled at Greer. "And it's nice to see you again, Ms. Addison."
"You, too, Mr. Grey."
"Please call me Chay." His hazel eyes returned to Rafe. "Is everything all right?"
Rafe slid his hands into the front pockets of his pants and rocked back on his heels. "Ominous letters. Vandalized car. Surprise pregnancy. You know"-he flipped his hand from side-to-side in a so-so gesture-"meh."
To his credit, Chay didn't utter the WTF the blasé announcement warranted. Rafe didn't doubt he'd get a call later once they no longer had an audience.
"Okay," Chay said blandly. "I guess you're going to need a few days out of the office then."
"Just what I was telling Sara. Don't worry, though. I'll work from home." While Mal's law firm had taken a hit in clients in the wake of their confession, Rafe and Chay's firm had increased in clients. He silently snorted. Guess people figure if they were willing to go to extreme means once, then they were the perfect "by any means necessary" security firm.
A faint smirk played around Chay's lips. "Oh, I'm not worried about you. Greer on the other hand … " He stretched his arm out, offering her his hand, which she shook. "If you find yourself feeling the slightest bit homicidal, just give me a call."
"I'll place you on speed dial," she muttered, earning a chuckle from Chay. And the sound of it was welcome. With his darkest secret aired for public consumption-including to the mother he'd tried to protect from the truth-he'd become even more quiet, more withdrawn, and private. Even with his three best friends.
It wasn't fair, damn it. Chay had been through enough, had suffered the hell that no one-especially an innocent child-should. Not that Chay had ever admitted to any of them that Richard's attempted rape hadn't been the first time. But he, Gabe, Mal … they'd seen the differences in their best friend weeks before that blood-drenched night. The loss of laughter, joy … innocence. Rage roared through Raphael, and he had to forcibly tamp it down.
Noah moved closer to Greer, blocking out the rest of them and recapturing Rafe's attention. "Greer, please reconsider," Noah murmured. Rafe frowned as he cupped her upper arm and lowered his head toward hers. "This isn't nece-"
"Ethan, I have a guy headed over to your house to install a few more security measures just in case this person returns. While he's there, Greer's going to pack up her stuff. You want to meet us there?"
Her brother didn't hesitate but nodded and turned toward the door. Noah glanced at Ethan's retreating back. "Hold on, Ethan, I'm coming," he called after him before pinning Greer with an intense, hard stare. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Noah. I'm sure."
He sighed. "Fine. I'll call you." He brushed a kiss across her forehead, stabbed Rafe with a hot glare, then followed Ethan out of the office, taking all of the tension in Rafe's body with him. The blond was too damn intense. And touchy-feely. He didn't know which bothered him worse.
She whirled around, fury narrowing her eyes, tautening her mouth.
"Those two are my closest friends," she snapped. "Did you have to be such an ass?" Not waiting for his response, she wheeled around and stormed across the reception area. She yanked the door open, paused, and shot him another of those green death rays. "And for the record? All the Die Hard movies after two sucked."
Shock slapped him in the face. He might've gasped.
"You take that back," he shouted. But she ignored him and slammed the door shut after her. The hormones. It had to be the pregnancy hormones that made her say something so mean. So … so sacrilegious.
Growling a "shut the hell up" to a laughing Chay, he stalked after her.
The woman had lost her damn mind.
Chapter Nine
Blood. Bright. Wet.
Gaping, ragged tears in flesh.
Bile. Hot. Burning.
Pain. Blinding, hot pain.
Greer jerked awake, jackknifing up. Harsh bellows echoed in her ears, lifted and lowered her sweaty chest. She blinked, but darkness greeted her, the images that had been so sharp fading into dim obscurity. Desperately, she tried to clutch at them, but they filtered through her mental fingers like wisps of fog.
She groaned, half sobbed, and tunneled her fingers through her hair, cursing the black hole in her head. This fucking black hole. God, why didn't her brain make up its damn mind? Either let her have a tear in her memories that encapsulated a murder, or give her the damn hours-the truth-back. But to torment her with trickles and flashes but still leave her damaged, lost? Broken. She hated feeling so … broken. All her life she'd been made to feel that way. But now? Now she actually was.
One night, damn it. Just one night without the nightmarish visions that had plagued her every night for the last two weeks but never stuck around after she woke. At least this time the episode wasn't followed by a teeth-grinding headache. Like the one that had sent her to the hospital the night before. Inhaling deep, she tried to calm her racing heart, shove back the fear that still crawled under her skin, curled in her stomach.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Consciously calm the body. Starting with the toes, legs, chest, arms, fingers. Heart. Head. Relaxation techniques, the doctor assured her, would help with the stress and tension that were probably triggering the migraine attacks and nightmares.
Groggy, she slowly reclined until her head met the pillow, damp from her sweat and probably tears. She stared at the shadowed ceiling. Frustration and grief swelled, a tidal wave she allowed to crash over her, through her. The faint pulse of the headache she'd hoped to avoid echoed in the back of her head. Leave it. Just leave it for tonight. Tonight other things demanded her attention. A mutilated doll. Rafe. Packing her belongings. Leaving Ethan's house. Arriving at Rafe's.
Falling asleep in the guest bedroom.
Groaning, she pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes and rubbed. Hard.
God, she was tired. Stretching across the bed for a short nap was the last thing she recalled. It seemed as if all the worry, dread, and fear of the past four months had crashed down on her shoulders at one time. The onslaught of emotion had dragged her down to the sleigh bed with its simple but pretty white quilt, still numb and shell-shocked over the turn of events at his office. The late afternoon rays that had streamed through the huge bay windows had disappeared, replaced by milky beams and pockets of darkness. When she'd lain down, she'd thought dozing past an hour an impossibility. A restful sleep had been almost nonexistent since her life had morphed into a Snapped episode.
Maybe it'd been the twenty-five-minute drive from Boston to Rafe's Chestnut Hill home with its wooded lot and illusion of complete privacy. Maybe it'd been the glimpse of the security system that had appeared complicated and state-of-the-art even to her untrained eye. Probably both. But in that place in her heart where she couldn't deceive herself, she admitted the distance and Fort Knox system were secondary to the man who owned the home she slept in.
There was just something about him. Aside from the hair, piercings, and tattoos, because none were particularly unusual. The something surpassed clothing or hairstyle. It was in the ever-moving, alert survey of his surroundings. The loose-limbed, smooth stride that reminded her of a stalking feline-graceful, unhurried, but dangerous. As if he could explode into lethal motion at any given second. Add them all up, and he exuded "fuck with me at your own risk."