CLOSING TIME – SEMISONIC
“D-Dad, I need help. T-There are Triads here and they won’t leave until they’ve spoken with you.”
The second I hung up the phone, after promising Wynter I’d be there ASAP, Rachel snapped, “I’m coming with you.”
“You can’t come with me. I need you to sort things out with Nyx and Harlow.”
She blinked at me. “You can’t be serious. This is our daughter! A daughter who has Triads demanding to speak with you in her fucking living room, Rex. Only God knows what’s happening—”
“Nothing’s happening. Nothing until I get there.” I clucked my tongue. “You can’t think I left her unprotected.”
She licked her lips. “If they’re in her apartment then whoever you chose to protect her is fucking useless.”
“They’ll keep her safe.”
I felt sure the Disciples were good for that.
Blade was supposed to be a fucking genius—he’d have to be a goddamn dipshit to screw me over.
Crouching down in front of her, I stared into her eyes and vowed, “She’ll be safe. I’m not nervous.”
She swallowed. “Why aren’t you nervous? Are you crazy?”
“No.” I reached for her hand. “She’ll be okay, Rachel. I will burn LA to the ground if they hurt even a single fucking hair on her head.”
Because she was born to reign at my side, she sucked in a shaky breath that was soaked in her relief. “Okay, good. I should still come—”
“You’re needed here,” I disagreed.
Her mouth quivered. “I’ve never… She’s… She needs me too.”
“She needs me right now,” I told her gently. “I’ll fix this but I can’t focus on her if my mind is stuck on what’s happening here. I need you to get Nyx out of jail and to save his ass from himself.”
I stared down at her phone where there was a picture of Dead To Me’s calling card.
The assassin was making a name for herself with that goddamn setup of hers—black and pink balloons attached to a gift bag with ‘Sucks To Be You’ embossed onto it.
Reaching for her cell, I asked, “Why would your old college roommate receive this?”
“You know what it means?”
“I do. You don’t?”
“No. I’m guessing it’s not a gift?”
“It means he has a hit out on him. Lodestar can help call the shooter off, though.”
“A hit?!” Another blink. “Lodestar? She’s behind this?”
“No. She’s friends with the woman who sent it.”
Rachel’s lips pursed. “You know more than you’re telling me.”
I wasn’t about to argue with her, so I just peered down at my phone and started trying to find a flight out tonight for Burbank.
“I need to get to the airport,” I said as I bought a ticket, settling on LAX when the next non-stop Burbank flight was leaving in the morning.
“Do you think the Triads will use her for a ransom?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then what’s their game?”
“Connections.”
She frowned. “You don’t know that.”
“Just a guess.”
For their sakes, I’d better fucking be right.
I knew Wynter’s prick of an adoptive father was in over his head with them, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try to use her as leverage now that I was on the scene.
My presence—oh, the fucking irony—had probably made the family more interesting to the Triads.
I didn’t say any of that though.
There was no use in speculating. I just needed to get my ass back there.
She cupped my cheek, somehow drawing me back to her, and I was reminded of where we were. What we’d been on the brink of doing.
I stared up at her, her semi-naked self, that pooch on her abdomen that told me her body was busy making another one of our kids, and I felt myself fall for her again.
Over and fucking over.
It was my curse and my gift—to constantly and consistently fall in love with this woman.
“I love you, Rex,” she whispered, her mouth twisting at the end of the sentence in a way that, I knew, was a warning she was about to burst into tears.
“I love you too, Rachel,” I replied calmly, trying to exude it so that she wouldn’t just hear the words, but feel it.
Both her pregnancies had been during times of high stress now, so if I could make this one easier on her, I’d move fucking mountains to make sure that happened.
“You’ll come back, won’t you?” she rasped.
“I’m not going to die—”
“I don’t mean that,” she blurted the words over mine. “I mean you won’t stay there for the next few months? I-I know she needs you but we need you too. Can’t you bring her home with you?”
I stared at her. “You need me?”
Of the millions of things she could have said, that was the last thing I’d anticipated.
Her bottom lip trembled. “I-I do.”
She’d never needed me before. I felt as if most of the previous two decades had been spent with her tolerating me, but I saw the need in her eyes—a deep kind of yearning that needed no words to be conveyed—felt it in how she clasped me to her. Knew it from how her shoulders hunched and she crouched against the bed as if life were crippling her.
I was her man.
It was my duty to protect her from that shit so I nodded. “I’ll bring her home.”
It was a promise I had no right to make, but one that I made all the same.
Wynter had already been talking about moving here for college, after what was going down as a result of her adoptive dad’s behavior, I didn’t see why she’d turn her nose up at the idea of moving sooner.
Of course, nothing was ever simple with the Laker women. I’d beg, steal and borrow to get her to come back home with me though. Rachel didn’t need to know that.
I speared upright, pressed my mouth to her forehead, then murmured, “Let me grab a change of clothes and we’ll go to your room so you can get changed too. Would you ask Lily to pack my things up and take them back to West Orange?”
She frowned. “I’ll do that.”
“You’ll be busy with whatever Nyx has gotten himself wrapped up in,” I said grimly.
“Murder,” she muttered, her gaze dropping to the level of my chin.
I blew out a breath. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“Whatever it takes to get him out, Rachel, do it.”
“I will. Let’s keep it under wraps for the moment, though. Nyx said something about the cops not reading him his Miranda rights until they were back at the station.”
That had me arching a brow. “That’s an oversight.”
“It’s definitely not as big of a problem as CSI makes out,” she drawled. “But mostly, I’m more interested in the fact he said they smacked him around.”
“That’s a hell of a fuck up. Was he resisting arrest?”
“This was in the precinct. I’ll get more details later.”
“Don’t tell Giulia.”
“She deserves to know,” was Rachel’s immediate answer.
“I don’t dispute that, but let’s see what magic you can reap, huh? If you can get him out on small details like those, then there’s no need to worry her at all.”
I could tell she didn’t approve, but that she also saw the benefit to what I was saying.
“She’d be difficult at the station,” I pointed out, which hit the nail on the head.
Rachel shuddered. “Difficult isn’t the word. Okay, go and get a change of clothes. I’ll text Lily and ask her to pack your things up and take them back home with her.”
With another nod, I strode over to the wardrobe where I’d unpacked last night, and as I grabbed a Henley, some jeans, my boots, a sweatshirt and my coat, I felt her glance on me as she fastened her dress back up from where she’d pulled the two halves aside to bare her belly to my covetous gaze.
“Ask,” I said gruffly as I turned back to her. “Don’t just bottle up whatever’s on your mind.”
“Where’s your cut?”
“With Wynter. She wanted to make sure I was coming back to her.”
Her eyes rounded. “Oh.”
“We get along well,” was all I said.
“Seems like it.” Her brow furrowed and as she stared down at the ground, I wasn’t sure what to expect from her next but I didn’t prod, just tucked her hand in mine and dragged her back down the hall toward the elevator because we needed to get shit moving.
When we were in her room, she finally said, “I’m glad you’ve built a relationship with her, Rex, and I’m so sorry that I’m the reason why you weren’t there to watch her grow up. You must really hate me—”
My hands were cupping her cheeks before she could finish that sentence. I rested my forehead on hers, and I spoke the words against her lips so she could feel my breath.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. What was done to you was not your choice. You are not the reason things didn’t work out with Wynter. You survived, Rachel, and that’s all I could have asked of you. That you somehow worked out how to wake up day after day and to keep on with your life.
“Wynter—I wish we’d been able to raise her, don’t get me wrong. But it’s never too late to have a relationship. For us to be close. We weren’t there at the start, but life lasts for a hell of a long time, and we can be there for her now, can’t we?”
Her lips trembled. “She’ll hate me for not coming with you.”
“I’ll explain.” I pressed my thumb against her quivering mouth, needing to stop that tremor. “I’m good at explaining, and she’ll understand.
“Nyx can not be in jail, Rachel. I need you to get him out of there, do you hear me?”
Shivering, she nodded.
“If it means you have to pull all the favors you have, if it means you have to break the law, you do it. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said on a whisper.
“However, you do not put yourself in danger or in harm’s way, Rachel. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Good.”
Her lips parted as she stared up at me. Nothing about Rachel was easy to decipher, but at that moment, her eyes darkened with emotions that might as well have spelled out letters for me to read.
L. O. V. E
W. A. N. T
N. E. E. D
They were feelings I hadn’t seen in her expression for years. Not running simultaneously, at any rate. Want and need were one thing, but love, deeply entwined among them, was another.
Seeing them here, now, imbued me with a strength I didn’t know I possessed.
I cupped her chin and, mouth hovering over hers, whispered, “I won’t kiss you goodbye.”
“You left your cut with Wynter and are leaving me with the promise of a kiss?”
Grinning slightly, I nodded and traced my fingers over the soft line of her jaw. “We both have things to do, and if I kiss you, we aren’t going anywhere.”
“You’re right.” She sighed. “I hate that you’re right.”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It happens sometimes.”