My body is so tense I have to force my hands to un-ball. I hate to think Marco is right but I know he is and it scares me. “How do we know when he’ll make his next move?”
“We don’t.” Marco sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “But in all the time I’ve spent watching him, I’ve learned his habits. Rhett likes to do things in excess; if it’s a personal vendetta, he’ll want to handle it himself. It won’t be pretty when he does. And you are his greatest enemy. It’s going to get extremely dirty before he shows himself. And when he does it, it’s going to go big.”
Marco’s words offer me no solace. In fact, it puts me more on edge than ever. I never ask Marco what he’d done. I don’t want to know. My only interest is in where Rhett is.
“Has he contacted our mother again?” I hold my breath, hoping he hasn’t. I know my mother won’t tell me if he has because she didn’t the first time. She believes he’s just a lost soul, and that I need to be the one to guide him back to the right path. She’s half-right: He is lost. But he is so far gone that there is no coming back from the darkness he’s fallen into. Aside from this, my mother doesn’t know about what I’ve done, either. Her opinion might change if she knew I may be the one who sent him over the edge.
“No, he hasn’t contacted her,” Marco says, “and I don’t think he will. I think he did it to get under your skin. To let you know there isn’t anyone he can’t touch. He thinks he’s invincible, and that will be his downfall.”
I stand next to Marco, saying nothing as I stare at the board. I lose myself in the smile in Lily’s eyes, the way a light seems to surround her and the baby in her arms. I remember her sweet, melodic laughter as if she is standing next to me this very second. Lily has—had—a way of making everyone around her happy; her mere presence brought joy to everyone. She had a knack for making everyone feel better with just a touch or a few words of encouragement.
Her sweet innocence was the best thing about Lily. She was a pure soul and nothing dark ever touched her…until Rhett. I never got what she saw in him, maybe what my mother sees. Maybe she thought she could be the light he needed. But she was wrong. She should have walked away the first time he laid a hand on her. I tried to help her do it, but her love for him ran deep. By the time I finally got through to her, both of us were broken. We couldn’t fix each other. In the end, I wasn’t enough for her, and my brother was too much.
“I need you to look into something for me,” I say finally. I’m going out on a limb, which might be crazy, but I need to be sure. “I think Lily is still alive.”
I hear Marco take in a sharp breath. He turns to look at me, frowns and shakes his head. “Reid, you know she isn’t. You were there that night. You saw them pull the bodies out of the fire.”
“But I couldn’t identify them,” I plead. “There’s still a chance… they could still be alive.”
“Don’t do this to yourself,” Marco says. He puts a hand on my shaking body and looks down at the floor. “We’ve been down this road before. I cannot let you self-destruct again. You have to move on. You have Liza now…isn’t that enough?”
“Of course it is.” I know I’m lying, and I’m sure he knows it, too.
How could I forget about Liza in this moment? It seems like my brother and my past are consuming me. I get so caught up in everything that I tend to forget about the most important thing. The woman who waits upstairs for me in the bath.
All of this, the searching for my brother, not telling her the truth. It’s all for her. To keep her safe.
I loved Lily. But that love doesn’t compare to the burning love I have for Liza. She is the rock that holds me to the ground. She is the air that gives me life and she is the flame to the fire burning in my soul. I will do anything for her. To see her smile, to see her laugh, and to make sure she will always be mine. My brother will never again take away the one I love. He’d have to kill me first…I’m afraid that might just happen, and Liza will end up the victim of a game she never knew she was part of.
I sigh in defeat.
Marco is right. Liza is all I need. I don’t need to try and make ghosts come back to life. It will only complicate things more than they are now. I love Liza, she loves me, and that is more than enough to last me a lifetime. I should just let Marco do his job, hope my brother is caught before anything happens to Liza, and just spend every moment loving the amazing woman I have now.
“Speaking of Liza…she’s waiting for me upstairs.” I turn and head out of the room.
“Reid,” Marco calls after me. “I know you feel like this is all your fault. It’s really not. All you’ve ever done is love. Maybe a little too much, but that’s okay.”
I don’t know how he can say it isn’t my fault. It absolutely is. If it wasn’t for me, they would still be alive, and my brother wouldn’t be after me trying to destroying the one thing that makes me the happiest in the world.
CHAPTER FIVE
TCHAIKOVSKY’S “WALTZ OF THE FLOWERS” is drifting from the speakers in the bathroom when I walk in. Liza has the tub filled to the brim with bubbles, and the scent of lavender surrounds me. She’s leaning back with her dark hair pillowing around her. Her eyes are closed. I stand in the doorway and just take in her beauty. She looks at peace, as she always does when she listens to classical music. It’s another thing we both love.
“Are you just going to stand there or are you going to join me?” she asks. She doesn’t move from or open her eyes. My heart warms knowing she can sense whenever I’m near, as if our bodies are in tune with one another.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” I peel my clothes off and pause a moment before climbing into the large tub. Liza moves to make room for me but never once opens her eyes.
The water is blistering hot, just the way she likes it, and I hold my breath as I adjust to the temperature.
I feel around the tub for her foot and pull it into my lap. I start massaging it as Liza lets out a soft moan, and my dick twitches. Just the slightest pleasure, the smallest noises she makes, and I’m aroused. After a few minutes, I switch to her other foot. A smile creeps across her face and before I can figure out what she is up to, she starts to rub her foot against my length. It hardens against her foot, and she lets out a small laugh. I love it when Liza is playful; she knows what she’s doing to me and takes pleasure in it. It means she’s relaxed and happy. This side of her doesn’t show frequently, but she’s working on bringing down her walls.
It’s taken a lot to get where we are.
I’m only the second man she has ever been with and I intend on being her last. Her first was Jacob, her ex. I don’t know what possessed him to carry on a four-year affair with Liza’s mother, but when Liza learned about it, she was devastated. She’s forgiven him, but hasn’t forgiven herself for not being enough. For not being able to please her boyfriend when they were teenagers. For the affair that led to her mother’s death.
Liza still takes the blame for her father murdering her mother. The biggest challenge I face with her is getting her to realize it wasn’t her fault. She was just as much a victim as everyone else.
Liza pulls her foot away from my throbbing length and I let out a low growl in protest. I look at her and see her smirking. “Tease,” I say.
“That’s for this afternoon, jackass,” she says with a laugh. “For when you decided to give me a heart attack.”
I grab her leg and pull her toward me. She squeals as I continue to pull her across the tub until she straddles my lap. My length rubs against her folds, and she lets out a shudder. “Now this is the kind of bath I like.”
“You don’t play fair.” Liza puckers her lips into a pout and I smile before placing a kiss on her neck. “All is fair in love and war.”
Liza laughs and buries her face into the crook of my neck. She bites lightly on my shoulder before moving to my ear. My dick starts with a jump as she pulls on my earlobe with her teeth. “You know, with all the romance books you’ve read…” Liza whispers. She mov
es to my lips and tugs on the bottom one. “…you’d think you could come up with something more original.”
She grinds her hips against me, and my body quivers.
She kisses me once before moving back toward my neck. She drags her tongue across my shoulder blade and down my chest. I reach under the water and begin to rub the sweet spot between her legs with my thumb. I slowly insert one finger…then two...then I take her breast into my mouth. The moan Liza releases is ecstatic. I pump my fingers into her faster and faster. Her tight walls clench around my fingers and I know she is close. A few more strokes and Liza’s body shudders, her juices flowing around my fingers. I move to insert my length inside of her just at the doorbell rings downstairs.
“Fuck!” I growl. The bell rings again. I just want to stay right here, but Liza slides off my lap as I let out a frustrated sigh. “We will be continuing this later.” She smiles mischievously toward me and sinks back down on her side of the tub. Sure, you’re happy…you got what you want, I think and laugh softly. She nods and smiles.
The doorbell sounds again and I get out of the tub.
“Go…” she dismisses me.
I dry myself off with a towel and wrap it around my waist. I head into the closet and pull on some sweats and a white T-shirt. Once again, the doorbell rings and I’m suddenly irritated at whoever it is. I head down the stairs and see a dark, hooded figure through the side window, holding some sort of package. I pause for a moment, debating whether I should for holler for Marco or not.
I approach the door and take a cautious breath before opening it. The figure turns out to be a teenage boy. He doesn’t look to be more than sixteen. “Are you Reid Harder?” His voice shakes when he speaks.
“I am.”
“This is for you.” He glances around nervously and hands me a small cardboard box.
There’s no return address, just my name scribbled across the top in a very familiar style. “Who sent this?” I ask, knowing full well who it came from.
“I don’t know.” The boy looks over his shoulder. “He said just to give this to you. That it’s important and imperative that you see the contents.”
I look down the private driveway and see someone lingering outside the iron gates. I take a step off the doorstep and the shadowed man darts away. I grab my wallet off the hall table and pull out a twenty dollar bill and my business card. I hand them to the boy. “Do me a favor, if he approaches you again, walk away and call me immediately. He’s a dangerous man…you need to stay away from him. Do you understand?”
The boy nods, looking more frightened now than he did when I answered the door.
He turns to leave just as thunder booms through the sky. He jumps and takes off running down the driveway. The sky opens up with a downpour of rain. I stand on the porch, watching and waiting. I can’t help but wonder how he managed to get past the gate. He stops in front of the brick wall to the left of the entrance, weighs his options, and begins to pull himself up using the thick ivy. I head back into the house, and close the door behind me.
“Who was that?” I look up at Liza, who pulls her plush white robe tighter around her.
“A delivery boy.” I glance down at the package.
Her eyes widen. “What’d you get?”
The box isn’t heavy in my hands, but it has definite weight. “Not sure. Probably someone else’s delivery.”
I head for Marco’s room and enter without knocking. I hear Liza at my heels, squealing behind me. I look up to see Marco standing by his bed wearing nothing but a towel. I guess we weren’t the only ones who thought a bath sounded like a good idea. Marco clears his throat as Liza covers her eyes and excuses herself from the room, her face red with embarrassment.
Marco glares at me.
“Don’t let me stop you from changing,” I say as I turn around.
Marco grunts. “Whatcha got there?” he asks.
“Not sure…some kid just delivered it. Looks like something from Rhett.”
“Don’t touch it any more than you already have!” Marco appears behind me in an instant. “Let me open it so I can work my magic.” I hand him the package. “I’ll make sure to re-package it and send it to the boys to run for prints just to be sure.”
Liza knocks on the door and peeks her head through with her eyes closed. “Are all the boy parts safely secured?”
I stifle a laugh.
Marco’s face lights up. “I’m not sure about boy parts,” he says, “but all the man parts are.”
She pushes the door open the rest of the way and waltzes into the room. “Very funny.”
I love that the love of my life and my best friend get along so well. Like brother and sister. They even argue that way. Since the moment Rhett left his menacing message, Marco has insisted she have some sort of protection detail. Of course, she’s refused. I’d like her to as well, but it’s not a battle I can win. “So what was in the box?”
“We’re about to find out.” Marco sets the box down on top of his desk and pulls a box cutter from the top drawer. He makes a slit down the top and slowly lifts the flaps. He touches it carefully to minimize his fingerprints contaminating what’s already there.
He takes a deep breath. I lean over and glance down, unsure of what to make of what I’m seeing. It’s full of pictures…the people in the images confuse me. I pull the out the one on top. The woman in the photo looks like Lily would if she were a few years older, but with light brown hair. She is carrying a large grocery bag and looking over her shoulder suspiciously. I hand the photo to Marco and the recognition registers in his eyes. Liza is pressing up against my back to see the photo, and I’m afraid to look at her. I don’t have the answers to the questions I know are brewing in her mind.
The rest of the photos are similar to the first: the same woman leaving a store or the gym, or going out for a run. The more I study the woman in the photo, the more I start to believe it actually is her. But that’s not possible.
Lily died in the house fire.
I pick up the last photo, and all the air escapes my lungs. She looks to be in a backyard, chasing around a young, light-haired boy with the same striking blue eyes that haunt my sleep every night. She looks happy. The boy looks happy, too.
I drop the photo and stumble back until I find a chair to sink into. My head falls into my hands.
How can they be alive?
This can’t be happening. I was there the night of the fire. I saw the firemen take away two bodies, a woman and an infant, on a gurney. There was no way to identify them, visually or through DNA, and dental records proved to be useless because hers seemed to disappear. Her wedding band was all they had to prove it was her…
“Reid?” Marco says hesitantly. I look up to him and he holds out a piece of paper with letters scrolled across it.
I get out of my chair and walk past Liza without glancing at her. I take the paper into my shaking hands and read the note that is clearly in my brother’s handwriting. I hold my breath and read it a few times:
It looks as though we’ve both been duped. But that’s okay, the bitch has it coming, for her as well as the little bastard. She’ll get it, too. No one is out of my reach. Remember that, little brother.
I hear Liza’s breath catch behind me and finally look at her. Tears fill her eyes. She looks as fearful as I feel. I want to reach out to her and take her in my arms, to tell her it’s all going to be okay. I’m not sure it is, though.
I look back at Marco with a single question in my head. “How is this possible?”
Marco runs a hand through his hair and lets out a deep sigh. “Maybe you were right earlier, about the woman you saw. Maybe she’s alive.”
“What woman?” Liza asks.
Marco ignores Liza’s question. “I don’t know what’s going on or how this is even possible, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this.” He pulls out his cell phone and starts texting. I stand again, looking at the pictures spread out on top of the desk. I read the note once more.
<
br /> “Would anyone care to fill me in?” Liza asks. “What woman did you see?”
I say nothing, just turn back to the photos. I can’t answer her.
Liza sighs. I turn to see her storm out of the room.
Marco’s hand pats my shoulder. “Go to her,” he says softly. “You can’t shut her out…not now.”
He’s absolutely right.
CHAPTER SIX
BY THE TIME I GET MYSELF together to search for Liza, she’s already leaving. I hear the car pulling out of the driveway. I run through the house to the front door and open it just she pulls through the gate. I turn back and head inside, spotting a note on the table next to my wallet.
Gone to Eli’s. Call me when you are ready to talk.
Of all the places she could run to, she chooses Eli’s. He’s going to love rubbing this in my face. All I want is to drive to the bastard’s house, bring Liza home and tell her everything. And I mean everything.
But I’m not going to though.
I’ll undoubtedly piss her off by showing up at his house. She went there to get away from me. She could have gone to anyone else—Millie or Sally. Anyone but Eli. She purposely went to him, knowing it would upset me just as I upset her. Liza runs when things get hard, and she runs to the person who has always been there for her. It makes sense. I would do the same in her situation.
There’s too much to think about now. I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that Lily and Ollie might still be alive. It’s possible that this is just some sick game my brother is playing. That is something Rhett would do. I don’t know what he is planning. This is just the beginning, and he already has me in knots. If Lily and Ollie are still alive, I have to find them and protect them from my brother. I failed them once. I can’t let it happen again.
If I Say No (Say Something #2) Page 4
