Complete Me

by Claire Raye

  “Let’s leave,” I beg, my arms tightening around Caleb as if I can force him to say yes. “Let’s disappear. We can go back to California, back to Hawthorn. I have a place to live and you can get a job. We can all go. The three of us.” My voice is high and loud and even as the words leave my mouth, I know how ridiculous they sound.

  “Sie,” Caleb says, sympathy floating in the way he says my name. “You’re being irrational right now and that’s totally okay. I’ve been there. Fuck, there were nights where I spent hours lying awake in bed trying to figure out if I could start over.”

  He shifts away from my clingy death grip, probably wondering why I’ve suddenly taken to grabbing for him when it’s something we never did in the past. We’ve never been an affectionate family, but the thought of losing him makes me desperate.

  “I’m not being irrational,” I defend, folding my arms over my chest as I look away from him. “We’re going to die if we stay here.”

  “We’re dead if we leave, too. We need to find proof that Dad had illegal dealings with Ray. We need Reid to help us. And I get that you are having a hard time trusting him right now, but believe me, Sie, he isn’t his dad. He’s always been one of us.”

  His words hit hard, striking a chord with each letter and I know what he says is true. But I’m having a hard time reconciling the Reid I just spent the last six days with and the one that was raised by this horrible man. He was never like his father and to say he raised him is even a reaching statement. Reid and his father have always had a tumultuous relationship.

  But he had to have known something, or did he? I’m holding him to a higher standard than I’m holding myself and that’s unfair. Caleb and I knew nothing about our father’s dealings with the bar, so to think that Reid would be any different just makes me a hypocrite. Yet, my thoughts are a mess and I keep coming back to thinking that maybe Reid knew some small detail, something so insignificant it felt like it didn’t matter, but maybe it did.

  Maybe it still does.

  “I have this,” I say, grabbing the wrinkled files from where I dropped them after coming in the house. I flip through them and pull out the ledger where our dad had recorded the last five years of payments to Reid’s dad. “Look. Dad was paying Ray on a fairly regular basis. This proves he took a loan from him, but it also proves he had been paying him. Maybe he’s paid some of it back?”

  I’m hopeful, too hopeful and even my own head is spinning with the one-eighties I’m doing. It’s a roller coaster that I can’t seem to fucking get off.

  I watch Caleb swallow hard and shake his head slowly, his eyes fall closed and when he opens his mouth, the words slip out like a dagger through soft flesh. “Don’t you get it, Sienna? You never pay him back. It never goes away.”

  Each word is a terrifying reminder of where we’re at and how close we actually are to death. I can taste it, metallic and macabre, and my throat pulls the feeling of vomit from my stomach.

  “I haven’t been totally honest with you,” Caleb suddenly admits, but his eyes never leave mine. The feeling of vomit creeps ever closer and I swallow hard. I feel the intensity of the situation in my chest, buzzing through my body, pushing hard and fast, making my skin feel like I want to claw at it.

  “Okay,” I reply knowing everything is anything but okay.

  “Dad took the loan from Ray about five years ago,” Caleb starts and all I can do is listen and nod my head. “He didn’t tell me about it until you left for school, because as much of a loser and a jerk that he was, he didn’t want you involved. Honestly, he didn’t want either of us involved. I made the decision to stay, so he couldn’t keep it from me any longer.”

  I hate that in death he tried to redeem himself. Twenty-one years of not giving a single fuck about us and then suddenly when he knows he’s going to end up dead, he tries to shelter us. A dictionary definition of a martyr. It didn’t work, if anything it’s a bigger mess than before because now we’re here dealing with it.

  “It was like he passed the baton to you. Here, you take my bullshit and fix it. So typical of him to try to get rid of the hot potato before it burns him,” I bite back at Caleb, my anger boiling just below the surface.

  “Sienna, I get that you’re angry, but fuck, Ray Bowen killed Dad—”

  “And he’s going to kill you if we don’t do something!” I scream, my fear and anger pulling tears to my eyes once again.

  “Can you just listen to me for a second so you can stop jumping to conclusions?” Caleb demands, and my brain balks against listening, but I nod my head in response. “Dad didn’t leave the house, except to go to the bar. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. He lived in constant fear, Sie and that’s what my life has now become. We’re not safe here, but we can’t leave.”

  His last sentence scares the hell out of me. My heart hammers in my chest, the tears flow now without stopping and I look around our nearly empty house.

  “They’ve taken almost everything,” Caleb admits, as he takes in the empty walls and missing furniture too. I knew when I walked in here just a few days ago that this wasn’t the same house I left years ago, but I didn’t ask. Sometimes the truth is better left unsaid. “It doesn’t matter how much they take or how much money we pay them, they have something over us that we can’t ever get out from under.”

  “So what do we do?” I ask, desperate to find answers to an answerless question.

  “We need to put our trust in Reid. You need to be open to trusting him again. I know things between all of us changed when we got older, but at the heart of it all, Sie, he’s still the same kid. He loves us like we love him. We need each other, because we’re the only family we have left.”

  Defeated and broken and tired of fighting a war against myself, I agree to let Reid help us knowing it’s the biggest risk for all of us.

  I disappear to my old bedroom despite knowing there’s no solace in a home that’s being stalked. I still need to be alone to sort out everything I can’t resolve. I pull out my computer and work on some things for school, but that only lasts an hour before I’m grabbing for my phone.

  I click on my texts, finding Reid’s name and all the unread messages, and because I’m a glutton for punishment, I start reading each one. There are dozens and I only get through the first three before I feel like my heart is being ripped from my chest.

  I’m being so selfish. I’m torturing both of us and it needs to stop. We can’t go on like this or both of us will be devastated by the end. If someone could have told me this is what falling in love would feel like, that it would destroy every piece of me when it was suddenly ripped away, I would still do it all over in a heartbeat. The feeling I got when I was with Reid was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. My broken heart is worth it because Reid is worth it to me.

  I want to forgive him, but I’m fighting a battle that was forged long ago and trusting people has never been something I do willingly. Even a guarded heart can still break.

  I scroll through my phone but instead of calling Reid, I call Ruby.

  When I hear her sweet melodic voice saying my name, I burst into tears. While we haven’t known each other that long, our friendship is a bond that is unbreakable. My trust in Ruby never falters because she’s never given me a reason to doubt her and she never will. She knows how easily I’ll break despite the harsh exterior.

  “Sienna?” she says again, but this time the happiness has left her voice. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I mutter out and in that moment I realize Ruby is more than just my best friend. She’s the mother I never had.

  “Oh my god, what’s going on?”

  “Everything is such a fucking mess. I fell in love with Reid,” I spit out, admitting out loud what I’ve only admitted to myself.

  “You were always in love with Reid,” she says, laughing a little. “You just wouldn’t admit it. Things aren’t a mess. This is good, Sienna. Unless he fucked you over?”

  I don’t
even want to involve Ruby in any of this, but I need someone to talk to. I need to get it all off my chest.

  “He did, but he didn’t. I think he loves me, but fuck, Ruby…” I trail off, wailing a little as I think about everything. “His dad killed my father and he beat up Caleb because we owe him a lot of money.” It all comes out in a rush and Ruby falls silent instantly. “Ruby?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. That’s a lot to take in,” she says, letting out a slow breath. “Did you go to the police? Is Reid mad at you?”

  “I want to go to the police but it’s not that simple. And no, Reid isn’t mad at me. I pushed him away,” I admit, the feeling of guilt hitting me with its crushing weight.

  “First of all, you’re stronger than this. Pick your ass up off the floor and clean off your face. I’m picturing you right now and it’s not pretty.”

  I laugh out loud at Ruby’s sudden change in attitude. As serious as this all is, she knows the person I am and crying on the floor of my childhood bedroom isn’t it.

  “Next, go to Reid and tell him how you feel. Then for fuck’s sake, go to the fucking police, Sienna,” she insists. “You’re scaring the hell out of me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I needed to tell someone and Caleb isn’t helping and Reid and I aren’t speaking…”

  “It’s okay, I get it. But this is a lot, a lot more than my stupid counselor degree is preparing me for,” she jokes, trying to lighten the mood. “Can you do me one thing though? Can you find a way to go to the police? You need to find someone to help you.”

  “I will,” I respond and just as I’m about to end the call, Ruby tells me again to talk to Reid.

  And right now, it does feel like he’s my only chance to end this. But it means risking his life and I’m not sure I can put him in that situation. I don’t think my heart can handle truly losing him.

  Chapter Nine

  Reid

  When I get home, I immediately go to the kitchen to grab a beer. The house is still empty, but I know it’s only a matter of time before my father gets home, before it’s too late to do the things I know have to be done.

  But my body feels too wired to sit still, to focus on what I need to do. A weird energy courses through me that I know is because of that kiss I just shared with Sienna. God, it felt so fucking good to do it again and I would’ve given anything to hang onto her, to wrap her in my arms and just hold and kiss her all night. And as brief as it was, I know she felt it too. I could feel the way she gave into it, gave into me, for those few seconds before everything went to shit again.

  “Fuck,” I murmur, twisting off the cap and downing half my beer in one go as I lean against the kitchen counter.

  I’m running out of time and the quicker that clock winds down, the more convinced I become about what I have to do. But I’m stalling, partly out of fear and partly because I know that once this happens, there is no turning back from it all. I’m risking everything on a gamble I have no idea is even going to pay off.

  I’m not afraid of why I need to do this. That’s the one part in all of this that is crystal fucking clear to me. I wasn’t lying when I told Caleb and Sienna that they didn’t deserve any of this; they absolutely didn’t. Our parents’ fuck ups are not our mistakes to fix, even if that’s exactly what I’m going to have to do.

  But it will all be worth it, because those two are worth it. They are my true family. The only two people who have ever given a shit about me, the two people who I always know I can count on, no matter what. I love them both, in different ways sure, but neither is any less important to me.

  And I know I can’t live if I don’t have both of them in my life.

  I finish off my beer, leaving the empty bottle on the counter as I walk toward my father’s office.

  As I open the door and walk inside, I push my fear down so I don’t have to think about everything that could go wrong if he catches me in here. I move over to the desk, once again grabbing the paperclip and letter opener I used previously to jimmy open the lock.

  It was surprisingly easy, given the things it was holding, but I’d had plenty of practice picking locks back when Caleb and I were kids playing pranks at school.

  Taking a deep breath, I slide the top drawer open, the thick leather-bound book still sitting there, daring me to open it. Reaching inside, I see my hand is shaking slightly and I have to curl it into a tight fist for a few seconds just to steady it.

  I pull it out and set it on the immaculate desk, turning to the first page, which dates back to some six years ago. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I snap a picture of the entries; records of all the people who owe money to my father.

  It contains everything; all the sordid, dirty details. Contact names and numbers, bank accounts, loan and interest rates, the staggering repayments they are expected to make and how often they’re due. Under each one is a set of initials, that doesn’t correspond to the person stupid enough to request the loan. I have no idea what they are for and can only assume they are some secret code, maybe for a handler that works for my dad or something.

  It’s impossible to take photos of all of the pages, so I flip ahead until I find Mickey Parker’s name, my stomach sinking when I see the amount he borrowed and the astronomical interest he was expected to pay.

  “Jesus, Dad,” I murmur, still unable to believe he could so easily fleece a family that’s been connected to me for most of my life. He knows I’m friends with Caleb and Sienna, he’s seen them countless times at this very house, for fuck’s sake. And the fact he could do that to their father, to my best friend, is all the proof I need to know what he’s capable of, to confirm that what I’m doing is the right thing.

  I scan through some more pages, taking a ton more photos, mainly every time I see Mickey’s name. After I’m done, I carefully replace the book back in the drawer before closing it and opening the one underneath.

  It’s still a shock seeing the contents and unlike the first drawer, I don’t dare touch any of the things in this one. Instead, I hold my phone over the open drawer as I take pictures of the black leather gloves, the gun, brass knuckle dusters and metal rod. It sends a shudder through me to think these are the things he probably used on Caleb. And even though I’m sure there’s not a chance any of his prints are on this stuff, I’m not risking it by touching them.

  Letting out a long exhale, I close the drawer, this time using the paperclip to re-lock everything so I can hide any proof of me having been in here.

  Next, I move over to the wall safe, hidden behind a picture of my father standing beside his most prized possession, the shiny black Bentley he bought just before I left for school. He looks like a fucking asshole standing next to it, and as much as I hate the photo, it was the clue that gave me the code to unlock the safe behind it.

  It amazes me he made it that obvious and easy, but then I guess most people wouldn’t ever have the opportunity to be in here, let alone know about or even think about opening this safe. I’d been frustrated the first time I tried, cycling through mine and my mom’s birthdates, even though I knew it would never be those. I’d tried his because of course he’s arrogant enough to make it about himself, but even that hadn’t worked.

  Pissed, I’d slammed the picture back on the wall, the glass rattling and making me worried I’d broken it. Luckily I hadn’t, but it did serve to remind me of the one thing, besides himself, that he loved more than anything. That damn fucking car. After that, it was easy, the safe door springing free the second I typed in the numbers corresponding to the letters that spelled out the name of his baby.

  The contents inside had made me take a step back, my eyes widening at the sheer number of bundles that were stacked inside. The bottom shelf was literally packed with stacked and bound packets of hundred dollar bills. I could barely process how much money it must be, but at a guess I’d say at least a couple of hundred grand.

  The top shelf however, had other contents, mostly in the form of j
ewelry. Rings and necklaces and earrings that I knew did not belong to my mother; that had to have come from clients who had nothing else to leverage as payment.

  It made my gut churn to wonder if any of this belonged to Sienna’s mom. If hidden in amongst it all was some family heirloom she should have.

  This time I take pictures of everything that’s in there, too, not touching any of it, as I angle my camera on the top shelf, using the flash to try and capture as much of the jewelry as I can. After I’m done, I shut the door, replacing the picture and walking out of the room, only letting out a breath as I close the door behind me.

  Despite my conviction that what I am doing is the right thing, I know going into his office like that is a huge gamble. I’ve never been allowed in that room and if he had caught me in there, I know all hell would’ve broken loose. Even though he’s my father, I now know exactly what he is capable of and just how far he is willing to go to protect his secrets. I’m not sure being blood related would protect me from that.

  Heading back into the kitchen, I grab another beer from the fridge before heading upstairs to my room, wishing to fuck I could just go back to Sienna’s.

  It’s late when I wake up, my brain a mess of thoughts and images that are compounded by the dreams I had last night. Glancing at my phone, I see it’s almost noon and because I’m a sucker for punishment and can’t seem to stop myself, I open up my message app to type out a text to Sienna.

  Me: It was good to see you last night, to finally get a chance to speak to you and… well, I meant what I said, Sie. All of it. I hope by tomorrow, things are different and you can believe me. Can trust me again. God I miss you so much.

  I hit send even though there is so much more I want to say. She doesn’t respond, but I’m not expecting her too. After seeing her looking at her phone last night, it’s enough to know now that maybe she’s at least reading them, that she’s hearing the words I’m telling her.