Whiskey Sharp--Jagged

by Lauren Dane

  VIC WAITED OUTSIDE the courtroom, trying not to pace and failing.

  “You’ll wear a hole in the floor,” Alexsei said mildly from his chair, his attention on the double doors of the courtroom just beyond.

  They’d both written statements of what they’d seen occur between Richie Dolan and his daughters at the behest of her attorney, but they’d come to the courthouse with Maybe and Rachel to testify in person as well if needed at their hearing.

  And to keep as close an eye on the sisters as possible.

  “I don’t like being out here when they’re in the room with him,” Vic said. “What if they need us?”

  “There are armed guards in there. And in case you hadn’t noticed, your Rachel is a former FBI agent more than capable of handling herself. And the moment we hear anything we go inside. Those are the choices we have right now,” Alexsei replied. “You’re usually a lot calmer than this, Vityunya. The voice of reason. Don’t let her see you upset and make her take that on too.”

  Vic straightened his tie but kept pacing. “I’m not an idiot.”

  Alexsei just gave him a raised eyebrow.

  He’d managed to get himself halfway under control once again when Richie Dolan and his dumbass wife strolled out and gave both Vic and Alexsei a sneer as they walked past.

  Vic clamped his lips shut to keep from saying anything that could hurt Rachel’s case but holy shit did he want to brawl with this loser.

  Alexsei came to his feet with a whispered curse, striding over to stand next to Vic as they waited for Rachel and Maybe, who came out about five minutes later. Rachel was buttoned up tight. Her ice queen mask firmly in place.

  “They didn’t extend the order,” was all she said as she allowed his help into her coat before they headed outside.

  As requested by Alexsei and Vic, Rachel told them what had gone on.

  Dolan had argued that he did not physically threaten anyone. That he was simply trying to get his daughter help and that nothing he’d done warranted a protection order. He brought up his position in the community and his reputation and how that would be seriously damaged if he had an order like that against him.

  And the judge had believed the story, cautioning him to stay away from his daughters outside necessary interactions. The judge also asked Rachel and Maybe not to harden their hearts against their parents who might be wrong but loved them.

  This was all related in a tone with only the slightest emotional inflection and Vic was pretty sure if he didn’t know her well he wouldn’t have seen it at all.

  He wanted to put an arm around her shoulder, pull her close and tell her everything was going to be all right. But the sight of her said she needed the space so she could hold it together.

  Alexsei gave him a look that had him in agreement. The sisters needed to go home and be spoiled. It was impossible to be strong all the time and they both needed the privacy and pampering to fall apart a little bit.

  Even in the car everyone kept to small talk. Vic knew she’d tell him when she was ready and Vic was very glad his parents were still at the bakery so his mother wouldn’t be calling or texting, demanding to be updated. When he told them they’d be upset too and he wanted to spare Rachel the additional anxiety at having to shoulder anyone else’s emotions just then.

  “We’ll have whiskey in our tea while we eat,” Vic said as he took Rachel’s coat to put it away in the coat closet. “I’ll even watch reality television with you.”

  Her sideways glance made him feel a little better about her mood.

  She tiptoed up to kiss him quickly. “I’m going to change and be right back.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her enough that she sighed.

  “I’ll be right back, eat your food and give you some more details, okay?”

  He hugged her, leaning down to whisper, “What can I do?”

  Her arms tightened a moment. “You’re doing it.”

  * * *

  RACHEL GOT TO her bedroom and within a minute Maybe had arrived and pulled her into a hug.

  “I can’t believe it played out this way,” Maybe told her.

  Rachel began to change from her dressy court clothes into yoga pants and a long-sleeved shirt.

  “She warned us it might,” Rachel said of their attorney. “He used all the excuses we figured he would. It worked on the judge.”

  Maybe watched her carefully. “Don’t think I can’t see you’re upset. You can try to lock it all down and pretend this ain’t a thing, but you and I both know you’re shaken up.”

  Rachel took a deep breath. “They decided our potential safety wasn’t as important as Dad’s reputation possibly being impacted by his own fucking behavior. It sucks. Of course I’m shaken up. Who wouldn’t be? But it changes nothing, Maybe. Nothing. We will keep him out of our lives. Period.”

  “How?”

  She took Maybe’s hands to stop her from going any further down the panic rabbit hole.

  “A protection order would have been a way to have the court underline that he needed to stay away. Let’s be real, he’s going to feel like he’s gotten a pass to keep on acting up. So, we’ll just use all the other tools at our disposal. We have the law on our side. He comes over here, we call the cops for trespassing. He’s banned from Ink Sisters and Whiskey Sharp. Once we squash all this conservatorship bullshit we’ll make a deep moat around our lives to keep them on the other side of it.”

  “Filled with hungry crocodiles,” Maybe added.

  If he wanted war, she’d give it to him. No one was ever going to cage her again. He was a bully, leading with how he felt versus how things truly were in the big picture. He could have been their advocate and instead had made himself into an obstacle. An engine of chaos that she would absolutely eliminate. She’d just have to be very clever and a lot ruthless to find her solution.

  “He’s not going to hurt you anymore.” Not as long as Rachel had anything to say about it.

  “Same goes, Rach. This is all on you now. I’ve only ever been an impediment and now that things are finally all out on the table, his focus will be all about you.”

  Though she’d apologized for being so damned ignorant to the true depth of what had happened between Maybe and their parents, it still hurt that Maybe had dealt with so much after Rachel had moved out to go to college.

  It hurt that she hadn’t done her job as a big sister and protected Maybe. And while she hated that Maybe had been driven to run away from home at sixteen, she was grateful her sister had ended up with their aunt and uncle in Spokane. They’d given her the home, the love and family she’d so desperately needed.

  By the time the sisters had come together again it was Maybe who’d been the protector in the months and years following Rachel’s kidnapping and all the physical and emotional aftermath.

  Maybe had been a fierce advocate and it had given Rachel the chance to get better. To heal and find her balance again. Find her strength again.

  “Thank you,” Rachel told her as she hugged her sister. “I love you. You’ve done so much for me. We’ll get through this.”

  “We will definitely get through this. And on the other side we’ll be stronger. We’re stronger together and that’s what we are. Now I’m going to nap and then have postnap sexytimes with my wild bearded Russian. I think you should do the same. I mean, with your own wild bearded Russian because I’d hate to have to hurt you for touching mine.” Laughing, Maybe headed out to her side of the house and Alexsei.

  Which meant she’d have the living room and Vic all to herself. A treat for surviving a pretty craptastic day.

  * * *

  AFTER HE GOT her tucked up on the couch with a blanket, a cup of tea and a grilled cheese sandwich served with tomato soup, he joined her, settling her legs over his lap.

  “I’m sorry about today,” he said.

  Lot of that go
ing around. “This happens all the time in far worse cases than mine,” Rachel told him—and herself—before taking a big gulp of tea and nearly choking at how much liquor was in it. “Holy shit.”

  “Why do things halfway? You had a terrible day, get drunk, eat comfort food and let your boyfriend take care of you while he sneaks a feel here and there.”

  “Boyfriend seems a very pale word for what you are,” she said, her tone slightly accusatory.

  “What can I say? I’m an overachiever. As for surprise? It’s one thing to know something in a professional capacity and another entirely to live it.”

  Rachel nodded. “Good way to put it. Yes. I had a good attorney. Witnesses to the blowup. But it’s hard not to feel like in the end that judge weighed my dad’s reputation higher than my potential harm. Or even just the ability to say, ‘Don’t speak to me again.’”

  “You think he’ll be emboldened now.” Vic shifted a little closer.

  “I think this isn’t about my health, mental or otherwise. Now it’s about winning. That’s his mindset and look, that’s what makes me successful in a lot of ways. He raised me with a finely honed sense of competition. I achieved because that’s what I was trained to do.”

  He tucked her hair back because he wanted to see her features, wanted her to look into his eyes and know he was telling her the truth.

  He said, “We’re all, in some part, who we are because of who raised us and how. Your achievements are yours. You worked for them. You were a great FBI agent and now you’re a great tattoo artist. Same Rachel. Different paths. Not because your dad is a controlling asshole, but because you took the reins in your life and have been doing your very best since you’ve been born.”

  She looked like she was going to argue, but finally shook her head before speaking again. “This is the best lunch I’ve had in a while. Thanks. The judge did tell my dad to stay away from the house and to just leave me alone except communication through official channels.”

  “At least there’s that.” Not that Vic thought Richie had any intention of taking that advice.

  “He knows just exactly how far he can go and he’s going to ride that line. Just because he can. To prove a point about who’s in charge.”

  “He thinks you’re weak but he’s so wrong,” Vic told her, taking her hand briefly to kiss her fingertips. “You’re amazing. And brilliant. And strong.”

  “I was taken by Price because I made a mistake. That’s not my very best. It was a stupid mistake and I made it because I thought I was better than I actually was. I wasn’t a great FBI agent or I wouldn’t have gone in alone. I would have waited for backup like I was supposed to.”

  He didn’t move. Not wanting to startle her into shutting up. He braced himself and knew it probably wouldn’t be enough. But he had to react right or risk her not sharing with him again.

  “I’m not brilliant. Oh sure, I can shoot well enough. I’m good with hand-to-hand. I was an excellent investigator. I did love that part. It was like putting together a puzzle every time. Obviously with far higher stakes, so mistakes had grave consequences. I thrived on that though. Pushed myself but in the end, I thought I knew better. And because of that, because of my ego I got taken. And in the time after he took me, he kidnapped two more women and killed a West Virginia state trooper.”

  He had no idea how she lived with the weight of guilt she carried around. But he knew the basics of the story.

  “You saw Price at a local store in a small town outside Lynchburg, Virginia. Why did you move when you did?” he asked.

  “He’d taken a woman from her backyard just seven hours before. I didn’t know if he had her in a vehicle or if she was stowed away somewhere and he’d come into the town for supplies. Or even if he’d killed her, but I had to wait to see what car he was in. If I’d waited and he’d gotten away, or if something had happened and we hadn’t found her or the other missing women by that point, they could have died still in whatever captivity he had them in. He went to the register to check out and I got myself into a place I could easily track him to the car and take him down there. But he got the jump on me. As I started to approach, he spun and shot me. Then he knocked me out after tossing me into the car. When I came to I was there. In the basement. Manacled to a wall. Because I made a risky move.” She rubbed at her wrist. At the scars there. An unconscious thing he was sure.

  “Because you had to make a choice. You weighed all the risks and you acted. I saw the news reports. Your boss said he’d have made the same choice in your place. Your investigative work is what led them to finding you and the other survivors. Not because of a bad choice. Because you had limited choices at that time and took the one you thought had the best chance of success. You’re human.”

  She sighed. “So. The judge sort of pooh-poohed the whole situation. Told my dad to give me and Maybe some space. He urged me to find a way to work things out with him. Like this is about him not liking my college major, or me crashing the car at seventeen. And now he’s going to be worse and I’m fucking tired. I just want him to leave me alone. I want him to leave Maybe alone. He won’t and I’m going to have to resurrect parts of the old Rachel to make sure he doesn’t win. Not this time.”

  He touched her chin so he could kiss her. “I want you to understand I know you’re avoiding the subject of bad choices and limited choices, all bad. But I’ll let you for now and thank you for sharing this. I know it can’t be easy to talk about.”

  “I don’t actually mean to tell you as much as I do most of the time. The words just come out and I find myself sharing. It’s got to be the dick and those forearms. Aside from that, you give good pep talks.”

  He laughed. Only this woman.

  “Thank you, I think.” He paused. “I’m here. Anytime you want—or need—to share. I’m not unbiased when it comes to you, but I’m always on your side.”

  She nodded, keeping his gaze for long moments before turning to finish her lunch and tea. Within an hour she was asleep so he fired off some texts to update his parents and then spooned her from behind and napped with her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  RACHEL KEPT HER breathing even as she ran. The pound of her shoes hitting the track beat like a heart. That rhythm relaxed her, sent all the right feel-good chemicals into her system and she could allow it.

  Here at the track at her club she knew the exit and she knew the entrance. Even though she tended to zone out as she ran, she was able to stay aware of everyone and everything else around her.

  It was safe.

  Vic was a street runner. Safe enough at four in the morning, she supposed. Not a lot of traffic. But it was too exposed. She’d tried when they’d first moved to Seattle, but it had been too much. She hadn’t been able to zone out enough and instead had felt claustrophobic and paranoid.

  For a time, back in that basement, the fear had edged her right to the breaking point. The wilderness of disconnection from reality was a breath away more than once. Even still, the memory of it could break her into a cold sweat.

  She’d had to rebuild the foundations of her life and part of that was controlling as much as she could. If she allowed fear into her life, or it came in ways that were unexpected, it sent her spiraling.

  At some point, he’d need to hear the story. Understand why it was she ran how and where she did. The need to explain herself to him confused her. Scared her. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She liked sharing herself with him. Liked that it brought them closer together each time.

  Liked the feeling of overcoming the fear each time she was able to do normal human things.

  This romance between them was refreshingly awesome. Free of any negativity—and God knew she had enough of that just then anyway. He was, as he and Maybe called it, courting her. With flowers and bread and very good wine.

  And awesome sex.

  They had a date for dinner at her house
later that night after she got off work. Cora was coming, as were Gregori and Wren. It’d be casual. Sandwiches, chips, pasta salad, soda and beer.

  Most likely a game of cards would break out because Vic and his cousins were bananas about card games with very complicated rules. She got the feeling they cheated like a motherfucker but as she hadn’t quite figured out all the rules she couldn’t be totally sure. She did know the cousins learned to cheat at cards from their fathers, so chances were high.

  She’d stopped worrying so much about him getting enough sleep if he hung out with her. He napped during the day after he got off and generally she made sure he was done with anything with her by nine or so. Plus, as he reminded her, he was a grown-up and fully capable of managing his own sleep schedule.

  It was still sort of fun to poke at him over it, so she did. And he seemed to like it.

  He hadn’t spent the night yet. But she felt like if anyone was going to stay over, it would be him. He wanted to take care of her, but he gave her some room. Like she was a skittish cat he wanted to tame.

  Which made her snicker because she was totally a bitchy cat but damn, she wanted to rub all over him all the time.

  And without a doubt, she was in love with his family. They were what she’d always wanted and never knew until she experienced all that overwhelming noise and busyness of the Orlovs.

  They’d simply enfolded her into their lives and it was glorious. And safe.

  She still felt awkward and weird, but they were all seemingly okay with her awkward weirdness. It took a weight from her heart.

  * * *

  ACROSS TOWN, VIC pulled a tray of dinner rolls from the oven, leaving it on the rack to cool.

  His little sister bounced into the room like a cartoon.

  “Good morning!”

  He gave her a look. “Why are you so cheerful? What have you been up to?”

  “Some people are happy in the mornings, you know.” She winked and then began to make the pastry cream. “I’m going to look at condos later today,” she added.

  She’d been saving for several years for a sizable down payment for a house. In that time the market had begun to rebound and prices began to nudge upward so she’d decided to move or get priced out altogether.