Complete Me

by Claire Raye

  Ray nods, his eyes never leaving mine. “I’d expect you to do at least that, yes,” he says, his voice like ice. “We are family after all.”

  I roll my eyes. “Fuck off, Dad, we were never a family,” I reply. “And there’s not a chance in hell I’m hiding your dirty work. Jesus, what kind of person do you think I am? Anyway,” I say, pausing as I level my gaze with his. “It’s too late now, isn’t it? The police have everything and they are gonna nail your ass. You know it and I know it.”

  Where the fuck are the police anyway? Are they not hearing any of this?

  “Enough,” Ray yells, his hand slamming down on the kitchen table and making both me and Sienna jump. I feel her fingers tighten in my shirt, her body now pressed tight against mine.

  “What?” I spit out. “You gonna beat the shit out of me too?” I ask, not giving a shit that I’m provoking him, pushing him in a direction I know I don’t want this to go.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, his voice like steel. “You are…”

  “No, you!” Sienna suddenly shouts, stepping out from behind me, her finger pointed directly at my father. “You are a piece of shit.”

  “Sie,” I whisper, my hand on her arm, desperate to protect her, to drag her back behind me so he can’t get to her.

  But she ignores my warning as she leans closer, her hands on the kitchen table. “You belong in fucking jail,” she continues, her words loud in the silence of the kitchen. “For murdering my father,” she shouts. “For nearly killing my brother. For everything!”

  Ray sneers at her, his eyes flicking to me briefly before moving back to Sienna. “Your father was a worthless piece of shit,” he says, his voice eerily calm. “He dug his own grave and your brother was on his way to joining him.”

  Sienna moves before I have a chance to stop her, rounding the table as she slams a fist into my dad’s chest, as though she can somehow hurt him. Truth be told, a part of me wonders if maybe she can, because I have never seen her this angry or fired up about anything. She slams her fists into him again, letting out a scream of frustration.

  But Ray just laughs, rocking back on his heels a little as he looks at me and says, “You want to take care of this, or should I?”

  His question triggers something inside me in an instant.

  Anger courses through me, a fury I’ve never felt before that starts in my gut and curls outward, consuming me with a hatred I didn’t know I possessed. Without thinking, I move toward my father, stepping in front of Sienna and practically shoving her out of the way as I grab the front of his shirt and slam him back against the fridge, his head bouncing off the hard metal door.

  “Don’t you ever fucking threaten her again,” I hiss, putting my face right up in his so we are practically nose to nose.

  He smiles at me, the look on his face almost menacing as though he’s actually enjoying this. “You know I tolerated your friendship with them when you were a child,” he says, his voice controlled. “Because I knew it was harmless at best, But I never would have picked you to do this,” he spits out, leering at Sienna now, his insinuation pushing me right over the edge as something inside me snaps.

  Before I have time to question it, before it even fully registers in my brain, my hand curls into a fist and I punch him hard in the face. Sienna screams as I do and I immediately step back, shocked at what I’ve just done.

  Ray’s nose is bleeding now, the blood trailing down to his still smiling mouth as he starts to laugh. “Not so different to your old man after all, are you?” he says.

  Bile rises in my throat, waves of nausea churning in my gut at the realization. “I’m nothing like you,” I say, my voice hoarse, my hands now shaking.

  Ray laughs again, the sound taking on an almost maniacal quality. “I think you’d be surprised,” he murmurs, wiping a hand across his face, the blood smearing across his cheek. “In a different life, you could have been an asset for me,” he adds, his gaze once again meeting mine.

  I shake my head. “I would never, ever do your dirty work,” I say. “You belong in jail.”

  Ray shrugs. “I’ve avoided it for this long,” he says, almost jokingly. “What makes you think this time will be any different?”

  I take a deep breath, knowing I have to get myself under control if I want to have any hope of us walking out of here alive.

  “Fuck,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You are seriously fucking delusional, you realize that, don’t you? I’ve turned you in, Dad. Given them fucking everything. Not to mention they have Caleb’s statement now and believe me, he knows exactly who beat him to within an inch of his life.”

  Ray stares at me, unblinking, a weird stillness settling over the room that unnerves me, as though this is the calm before the storm, before he really unleashes his wrath and all hell breaks loose.

  “You’re going away for a long time,” I whisper. “And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

  He moves faster than I would have expected, but before I can even process what is happening, he’s got me pinned against the wall, his hand locked around my throat. Somewhere, among the pounding in my chest and the rush of blood in my ears, I hear Sienna scream again, the noise echoing in the kitchen.

  “I can make it all disappear,” he says, his face close to mine, his breath hot. “You, her, even Caleb. The police can’t protect you forever.”

  Where the fuck are the fucking police now?

  I open my mouth to speak but no words come out, his fingers gripping my throat so tightly, I can barely breathe. Instantly my mind flashes to Caleb, to the way he looked when we walked into his house a little over two weeks ago.

  Is that what my dad is about to do to me now?

  And what about Sienna. He can’t fucking touch her. I won’t let him.

  “Dad…” I croak out, but he doesn’t let up, doesn’t even hear me.

  “I made Mickey Bowen disappear,” he says, his voice cold. “And it was so fucking easy too. And Caleb, well that was just a warning, but I know he’d be just as easy,” he adds, smiling a little. “And then there’s you two. That would…”

  He doesn’t finish though, his words cut off by Sienna once again pounding her fists against his back, pulling at his hand that’s still wrapped around my throat. She’s ferocious, like a wild animal, uncontrolled as her tiny fists hit him over and over again.

  It seems to take him by surprise, his grip on me loosening ever so slightly, so that I can finally suck in some air. I take advantage of the moment, breathing deeply as I grip the front of his shirt again and drive my knee up and right into his balls.

  He lets out a loud groan of pain, his body doubling over. I release my grip on him, shoving him back and watching as he crumples to the floor. Sienna immediately kicks at him, her bare foot catching his chest as she screams, “You piece of shit, you fucking piece of shit!” over and over again.

  And then suddenly the house is filled with what seems like a hundred people, all of them screaming at once as beams of light flash around the room. I catch glimpses of guns, held up to all of us and I hear myself shout, “NO!” as I reach for Sienna and pull her into my arms.

  She collapses against me, her body shaking as she draws huge gulping breaths in, her feet still flailing as she tries to kick at Ray who lies on the floor.

  A guy dressed in all black approaches my father, hovering over him as he says something to him before slapping a pair of handcuffs on him and yanking him to his feet. I turn away, not wanting to see my dad as they take him away.

  Not wanting to see him ever again.

  Detective O’Connor suddenly appears at our sides, his hand on my shoulder. “Reid,” he says, his voice sounding distant. “Reid?”

  “What?” I ask, turning to him, everything suddenly feeling like it’s moving in slow motion.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I glance down at Sienna, her face now buried against my chest as s
he cries. Her hands are gripping my shirt, clinging to me and I tighten my arms around her, pulling her even closer.

  “Yeah,” I say, my voice gravelly.

  “We’ve got him,” he says, his hand squeezing my shoulder. “We’ve got all it, his confession, his threats, everything. You did it. It’s over, Reid.”

  And before I can even make sense of what this all means, my legs give way beneath me, my body falling to the floor as Sienna collapses into my lap. I bury my face in her hair, her scent the only thing calming me as the enormity of what I’ve just done, of everything that’s just happened, crashes into me.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sienna

  My whole body is shaking, racked with a tremor I can’t physically control even when I wrap my arms around myself, even with the weight of Reid’s body clinging to me. This is what it feels like when a body finally has a second to process all the fear it’s kept hidden; it leaves my body in a rush.

  I tug at my hair, the wire now knotted and tangled in it as I try to remove it. I want all trace of this day gone from my body. I feel filthy like I could shower for days and never get clean, but this isn’t over. It’s far from over for the three of us.

  I can’t even begin to unpack and process what we’ve all been through. Caleb is going to need more help than Reid or I will ever be able to give him. Reid has just set his father up and I’m sure the long-term effects of this nightmare will be something he has to cope with for a while, too.

  Caleb and I have the loss of our bar, something we one day hoped he’d be able to rebuild; something we hoped would change our lives. I guess we never imagined it would change our lives like this, that it would fall apart in such an epic fucking disaster.

  I can hear people talking, people moving, but Reid and I are still in a heap on the floor with my thoughts a mess of everything that has happened and will happen.

  I have no idea why the thought hits me as hard as it does, but I now realize Caleb doesn’t have a job, he doesn’t have a house, he literally has nothing left here. The thought has me sobbing even harder because he’s lost everything he’s ever known and now has to try to regain some semblance of normalcy among this chaos.

  The lead detective comes over to where we’re sitting and it feels like we’ve been here for hours, but I’m sure it’s only been minutes. I have no idea how something can feel so long, yet so short at the same time.

  He leans down, resting a gentle hand on Reid’s shoulder as he tells him we need to go, that we need to head back to the station to fill out some paperwork and sign some things. I understand this is his job, but I feel like he needs to understand that we don’t give a fuck about his paperwork, that we’ve just risked our lives for his paycheck, for the stamp of approval he’ll get from his boss.

  And what do we get in return? We get a ruined family business, two broken families, a foreclosed home and orphan children. We get to figure out how to rebuild everything when we have nothing.

  “Sie, we need to go,” Reid whispers into my hair and I inhale deeply, trying to calm myself with the scent of his body.

  “I know,” I respond, suddenly feeling exhausted, like I can barely keep my eyes open.

  “We need to get back to the station before the police get there with my dad. I don’t want Caleb there alone when it happens.”

  I hear all the kindness and concern in his voice, all the worry he feels for Caleb and my heart practically bursts in my chest. This is who we are now, this is who we always were, but now we literally only have each other.

  “We do,” I say, drawing strength from knowing we can’t leave Caleb there alone.

  We both stand and follow Detective O’Connor out to his waiting car, but just before we climb in, Reid turns around and takes a look at his house. It’s the house he grew up in and instead of looking at it as something most people would cherish, Reid tosses up a middle finger and then climbs into the car. The door slams and he lets out a harsh sigh of relief, as if everything that was weighing on him has now been lifted. His shoulders sag and he melts into the seat as he wraps a comforting arm around my shoulders.

  “How are you guys doing?” Detective O’Connor now asks and I nearly laugh out loud at his question. I know he’s trying to be sympathetic and check on us, but he can’t possibly think we’re okay.

  “We’ll be okay,” Reid replies, giving the obligatory response as he tightens his grip on me. “I do have one question that maybe you know the answer to.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you have any idea where my mom is?” Reid asks, but quickly adds, “Not that I care. I’m just curious. I’ve only talked to her that one time at the station and she didn’t really seem all that interested in the fact that I was back here in Providence, just about what I’d done to him.”

  The detective nods his head and pauses a few seconds before responding. It’s obvious he knows exactly where Reid’s mom is and I begin to wonder if maybe she played a role in all this too. She never seemed like the type to turn on her husband. She very much enjoyed spending his money and living the life of luxury. Leaving him now would be suicide to the lifestyle she’s grown accustomed to.

  “We’ve been watching your mom for a while. We’d brought her in and gave her some options, but she would not agree to work with us to take down your father.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Reid hisses, and I can hear the animosity in his voice toward his mother’s lack of cooperation. “So where did she run off to?”

  “She’s been living in France for the last two years, basically since we brought her in for questioning. It was like she knew we were getting close, so she filed for divorce and disappeared.”

  “She left my dad?” Reid now asks, sounding astonished, because like him, I’m shocked she would leave all that money behind.

  “I think she had a feeling the money was about to dry up or that we were at least getting close. I’m certain she never could’ve predicted this,” he says, motioning to the backseat where Reid and I are sitting.

  “My dad was supposed to be picking her up at the airport,” Reid starts to explain, an uncertainty to his tone as his mouth tips down in the corners. “I spoke to her after…I…”

  “Yeah, no. I think your dad may have used that as a threat to get you home. It feels like at the end he was grasping for straws.”

  I hate the way the detective is so casual about it all: the disappearance of Reid’s mother, arresting his father. Does this guy not have a clue that an entire family was ruined over this? Even if it was a dysfunctional family to begin with.

  The conversation dies off there and I can tell Reid is hurt. How could he not be? His mother basically abandoned him. I think he held out hope that maybe she wasn’t as shitty of a person as his father, but in the end they both didn’t give a shit.

  “Are you okay?” I whisper, not wanting the detective to hear us. It’s hard enough for Reid to cope with all of this without the judgment of this guy. I’m sure he’ll be talking about how fucked up Reid’s life is once we walk out the front door.

  “Yeah, Sie, I’ll be okay. Obviously I have a lot to process here.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head just as we pull into the station.

  The car with Reid’s dad in the back is already there and waiting. We were told they wouldn’t let Reid’s dad out until we arrived and could be taken to a room away from him. They also assured me that Caleb was someplace safe.

  I have no idea what his reaction will be to seeing Raymond Bowen in handcuffs. It will be the first time Caleb isn’t in fear for his life when he sees him.

  We exit the car and walk toward the back entrance and I don’t make eye contact with Ray as we go by, but Reid stops directly in front of the car and waits. He waits till his father is looking at him and he tosses a middle finger in his direction, standing there for several seconds. But now I can’t help but look, and what I see in Ray Bowen’s eyes is fury, a fury that g
rows with each second that Reid stands there. Ray begins to kick the door and the window, screaming a blur of obscenities at Reid, but Reid remains unaffected, just turning and walking away. I slide my hand into Reid’s, squeezing gently, giving him the assurance that I’m here no matter what.

  The lock on the entrance door clicks and we walk down a long hallway to the main part of the station. Caleb is waiting for us and I run to him, throwing my arms around his neck in a gesture that we would never normally do. But I’m over acting like we don’t care about each other. We always did, but when you grow up without affection, it’s hard to show it. That isn’t who I am now and I will not live like that, not after I almost lost him.

  “How’d it go?” he asks, moving me away as he looks both Reid and I up and down, checking for any injuries.

  “We got him and they’re bringing him—” My words are halted by the look in Caleb’s eyes. A fierceness blooms, almost crazed with rage as he swings an arm out shoving me to the side.

  He storms across the station, his stride wide and his hands clenched into fists, and before I can say anything, he’s screaming at Reid’s dad.

  “You motherfucker!” he yells, the entire station falling silent and no one moves like I expect them to. It’s like they’re about to allow Caleb to take all his rage out on Ray. “How do you like it? Now you can feel what I felt!”

  His fist connects with Ray’s face while the officer behind him catches his fall. But Caleb doesn’t stop there. He hits him again and again, until his knuckles are bloody and Ray’s face is mangled. It’s Reid who eventually pulls Caleb off his father, but it’s like Caleb can’t see anything but Ray. He keeps swinging, his legs flying up as Reid heaves him off the ground and the officer carts Ray off to booking.

  It’s terrifying to see him like this, to see how much Reid’s father fucked him up. I can’t believe the officer who was bringing Ray in wouldn’t have waited till we were out of sight. It seemed far too calculated for me, but I don’t have time to dwell on it as Caleb continues to scream at Ray despite him disappearing behind a large metal door.