Rook (Endgame Book 2)

by Riley Ashby

  Our shoulders bumped as I passed her, but she had me on the ground a second later with my arm twisted behind my back. My shoulder screamed like it was being pulled from the socket.

  “What the absolute fuck?! Let me go!”

  She dug her knee into in my spine. “I would say I’m sorry, but I’m not. You need to get taken down a notch. If I let you up, are you going to rush me?”

  I shook my head as I bit my lip, tasting blood. She shoved off me, and I rolled over, kneading my shoulder.

  “You’re a fucking bitch,” I ground out through gritted teeth as I stood.

  “And you’re an idiot. You need to hear what I’m saying. She doesn’t want to see you right now. She can’t see you right now. You need to do this on her schedule, not yours.” She cocked her head. “Go away. We’ll talk more tonight.”

  We’ll talk more tonight. What was she going to tell me? Would she have a message? Or just continue to tell me what an idiot I was being when it came to everything having to do with Vail? From the way she looked at me, though, I thought she was on my side. She had been the one to encourage me to go after Vail first when I got back. She had seen through the smokescreens I kept throwing up and pushed for Vail’s healing more than anyone else. I thought I could trust her.

  “Come find me,” I said, and she nodded. I walked slowly back to the house.

  Ellery was glaring at me as I walked back in. “Don’t tell me she scared you off with that little takedown.”

  I rubbed my shoulder again. The pain was wearing off, but it would be sore tomorrow. “Has she ever done that to you?”

  “No. I know better than to piss her off.”

  I fell into the chair by the window so I could see the cottage clearly. “She says I need to respect Vail’s request for distance. That I’ll make things worse if I barge in there right now.”

  He frowned. I knew what he was thinking. If Sophie said the same thing, he wouldn’t give a damn about her request. He considered himself the only person who could right her wrongs. But I had never wanted to be like Ellery when it came to women. He had always been so callous when it came to his relationships, and that hadn’t completely gone away in recent months. He was dominating and overbearing. Where he embraced that side of himself, I had spent years trying to suppress my dominant urges. When I let my guard down for one night, it had nearly destroyed her. I didn’t want to risk fracturing her even more.

  “I’m going on a run,” I said. I had already worked out earlier in the day, but I had too much energy to burn off. I wanted to fix this, but I couldn’t—at least not yet. Like everything else about Vail’s recovery, it was going to take time.

  I ran out of the room before Ellery could stop me with anything else.

  *

  Tori found me as I left the property, sprinting to catch up with me. She was fast, but I was taller and stronger, so she was out of breath by the time she came up alongside me. I didn’t slow my pace, wanting to punish her a little for my shoulder.

  “Literally … running … away,” she panted as we turned out onto the long, sparsely populated road outside the gates.

  “Sounds like you need to up your gym sessions,” I retorted, my breathing even. She didn’t reply as she focused on keeping pace with me. She held up for a mile before I slackened off, pulling us down to a pace that was easier for both of us. As her breathing returned to a more normal cadence, she bumped into me with her shoulder. Almost an apology.

  “I’m not sorry. You would have re-traumatized her with that move right out of Ellery’s playbook.”

  I snorted. “He thinks I’m a pushover now, thanks to you. I should have anticipated you’d be such a bitch about it.”

  “Yeah, you should have. He literally pays me to protect her. I take that responsibility very seriously.”

  I chanced a glance at her, and her face was serious. Protecting this family was more than a job for her; she had grown close to those two over the years, filling the empty space I left when I disappeared around the country and overseas. After leaving weeks and months without a word, I was wrong to come back expecting everything to be exactly the same.

  I stopped, leaning over with my hands on my knees. Tori walked back to me slowly.

  “Is she…?” I wiped my face with my shirt, dashing the salty sweat from my eyes. “Is she really that bad?”

  Her shoes traced lines in the dirt. “She’s okay. I think she was confused for a while after you left. But she ate all the food I gave her today. And she didn’t dream last night.”

  That had been what I was worried about. I was the one who knew how to wake her up and remind her where she was. How was she going to cope without me around to help her through that?

  “What are we going to do?” I stood and faced the setting sun, hands on top of my head. Sweat was still dripping down my neck in rivulets. Tori stood next to me, watching the sky transform before us like magic.

  “I think we’re going to have to be sneaky about it.”

  I snapped my head to look at her. “What?”

  “She’s not going to want you around her much. So I’ll have to think up some ways to get you in the same space as her without her finding out.”

  I could feel my jaw on the ground. Was she saying what I thought she was saying? “You’re going to help me trick her in to talking to me?”

  She looked uncomfortable. “I don’t like to think of it like that. It’s more like I’m trying to help her realize what’s best for her.”

  “Through deception.”

  “Okay, maybe a little of that.” She turned to face me. “I don’t want her to live her life afraid. You two are supposed to be together, as corny as it sounds. I saw how she kept looking into that little room where you were sleeping all during breakfast. You left your shirt in her bedroom—it was under her pillow. I don’t even know if she realized she put it there.”

  My head spun; the world was upside down. Tori was going to help me?

  “Whatever exists between you two … God, this is going to make me look soft.” She rubbed her temples. “It’s something that doesn’t come around a lot. And you two are very lucky to have so many chances after all the obstacles in your way. Even the ones you put there yourselves.”

  She turned and walked back toward the house at a stroll. I followed, still dazed. I didn’t know Tori cared about matters of the heart.

  “So at the risk of fucking up my relationship with the best employer I’ve had in my life, I’m going to help you fix whatever happened last night. And by the way, I don’t think it was your fault.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I asked her. I know she’s holding things back from me, but I saw her replaying something in her head over and over. She kept shaking her head as though she was trying to convince herself of something. I think you both were caught in the crosshairs of her healing process last night. She might have to accept that as much as you do.”

  I nodded, mulling over her words. I had been going over everything so much it made me crazy, but despite my best efforts to implicate myself, I also hadn’t been able to recall any indication that she wanted me to stop. I thought it was possible I hadn’t been careful enough, but maybe it also came on too suddenly for us to stop any sooner than we did.

  Maybe we had both realized something was wrong at the same time.

  The sun was below the horizon by the time we made it back, the road slowly growing darker and more shrouded in shadows. But walking back onto the property, we were reminded of the safety we enjoyed; the guards and security systems that kept out those who wished to do us harm. In order to protect Vail’s mind, a different kind of security was needed. I knew it would take time—I always had—and maybe I had rushed us. Maybe we had rushed each other.

  Tori and I parted with a simple nod, her to the cottage—where I should be—and me to my room back in the house. I passed Ellery’s office, stopping just outside the door when I heard the laughing lilt of Sophie’s voice.

 
; “I love you more than anything that’s ever existed,” he said to her, and there was no laughter in his voice. It was God’s truth to him, something as incontrovertible as the weight of the sun or the turning of the Earth. I caught a glimpse of them standing near the window. With her hands on his face, they kissed, wrapping their arms around each other as the sky faded completely to black.

  I walked to my room alone.

  For all the shit I had given Castel about leaving, I took no pleasure in withdrawing from him. It wasn’t that I wanted to hurt him, but at least maybe he had a sense of what those years had been like for me when he was gone.

  I knew that he and Tori were speaking, but I trusted her to look out for my interests. I battled a strange mixture of misplaced glee and a broken heart as she slammed him to the ground outside the cottage the first time he had tried to come over. After that, they would meet halfway across the lawn, and he always walked back to the house with his hands in his pockets.

  I touched the shirt he had left behind as little as possible so that it would keep his scent, only pulling out a corner at a time when I slept at night to fold between my fingers like a safety blanket.

  One day, I was checking the pockets of my jeans before washing them and found the notes he had written to me over the past several days. Little records of our days he would leave on the table, or send over attached to the collar of one of the dogs. I sat on the floor of the laundry room, unfolding each one and re-reading the familiar words.

  You looked really cute today.

  That was a pretty kickass backbend you did earlier. Keep it up.

  I looked up the yoga word for a backbend. I can’t spell it, but you did a good job again today anyway.

  I saw this book and thought you might like it.

  I held the last one for a while longer, thinking about the book he had given me along with it. He was right; I had loved it. I read it the first time in one day, breaking the spine and creasing the cover with how fervently I turned the pages. I had worried he would be angry that I had ruined the beautiful cover so quickly.

  “Sometimes things aren’t less beautiful for being creased,” he told me, absently running a hand through his hair. We were sitting on the lawn, eating a picnic dinner. The sun was low at our backs, casting long shadows across the grass. “Sometimes it means they’re well-loved.”

  He didn’t look at me as he said it. I don’t think he was trying to make any grand point, but I put my hand against my chest all the same, feeling a small pinprick against my heart. One of the million ways he needled me every day. Stitching me back together.

  One by one, I folded the notes again, sliding them back into the pockets before tossing my jeans into the washer. I let the soap and water wash away any evidence of hope for us.

  *

  I tried not to flinch as Jamie touched my hands and arms, pulling on the lightly padded sparring gloves and wrapping some tape loosely around my wrists to help them stay on. They were Tori’s gloves, as I had refused to buy any of my own. I only agreed to come to indulge her and wasn’t planning to return.

  Tori had been bugging me for a week to come to Jamie’s gym and take some self-defense lessons. I had no idea why she wanted to come here of all places. It was a long drive into the city, and nothing like the facilities we could have used at the country club where a membership was currently sitting unused. But she said that I should learn from people who knew how to get their hands dirty, not someone who had learned in kiddie karate classes. So now I was stuck here letting a man I barely knew touch me and give me instructions about what to do with my hands.

  He ran me through a few warm-ups, then showed me a pattern he wanted me to follow. Right hook, uppercut, dodge, left hook … I could barely focus. I kept forgetting the sequence, nearly getting cuffed in the side of the head when Jamie swiped when I was supposed to duck. I tried to throw the gloves to the ground and grew even more frustrated when I remembered that they were taped to my hands.

  “I don’t see the point of this,” I moaned, turning back to Tori. All I wanted was to be left alone at my cottage. Everyone was even more overbearing than they had been when I first came home. “I’m not going to fight anyone.”

  “This is to build your self-confidence.” She sounded almost whiny.

  “I don’t need any confidence building. I’m doing fine.”

  She pursed her lips into a thin line. “We both know that’s not true.”

  The bell over the door to the gym jingled, and the three of us turned our heads in unison to see the one person I didn’t want to see walking through the door.

  “Need some help?” Castel asked, approaching us and reaching out to Jamie for the equipment.

  His voice shattered every sense of calm I had managed to gather around me over the past few days. Dizziness washed over me as black dots danced in my vision for a few long seconds. I pressed one gloved hand between my eyes, trying to focus on the ground.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” At least Tori was on my side. I looked up to see her biting her lip and looking at Castel with a mixture of worry and anger. She didn’t want him here any more than I did.

  I swung my gaze back to Jamie, who was looking uncomfortable. Poor guy being thrust into the middle when he was trying to do Sophie a favor. He was so mild-mannered; it was a wonder he was any good at fighting.

  I didn’t want other people feeling anxious on my behalf. And besides, if Castel was going to follow me around, it was probably better that I get used to him.

  “It’s fine.” He could try to insert himself in my life all he wanted, but it wasn’t going to work. All the better if he figured that out now.

  Jamie stepped aside, and Castel took his position in front of me, but when Jamie handed him the pads that he had been using to block my already ineffectual blows, he tossed them to the ground.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, fixating on his chin. I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “I don’t need those. Now, try it again.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not going to hit you.”

  “You won’t hurt me. And we’re not leaving until you try. Go, again.”

  His hard and unfamiliar voice held no trace of the man who had spoken to me so softly in the night when I woke up drenched in sweat and fear. The hands he held up were not those that had soothed me back to calm more times than I could count.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Nothing had changed but me. This was how he was, how he had always been. He thought we could have something different even though the divide between us had grown larger as time had passed. I knew it wasn’t possible. He had to stop hoping it could be.

  I lifted my fists and ran through the sequence once, twice, three times. Each time, I got a little bit faster, and the punches rolled a little bit easier.

  “What was it like when he touched you?”

  There was a sharp intake of breath to my left. My own heartbeat stuttered.

  “What did you say?” I paused mid-swing, pulling back my arms. He motioned for me to continue, and I began again, but the movements felt jerky.

  “Tell me. Keep swinging.”

  “Castel…” Tori’s voice was hard, but I heard Jamie hush her. I looked over to see his hand on her arm as she stared daggers at him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, returning my focus to my motions. I ran through the sequence twice more. “I’m not going to talk to you about that.”

  He dropped his hands, and I had to pull my motion at the last second. “We’re not leaving until you finish the workout. And we won’t continue the workout unless you answer my questions.”

  I let my hands fall to my side and finally met his eyes. “That’s absurd. I don’t have to talk about that with anyone, least of all you.”

  “We can leave if you want.” Jamie’s voice reminded me we weren’t alone in this gym. I looked over to see Tori was once again glaring at him hard enough to cause physical damage, but he grabbed her upper arm in an uncharacteristic show o
f dominance and pulled her away. “We’ll be right over there.” I could see Tori restraining herself from breaking his hand.

  I watched them until they were on the other side of the room, and Castel and I were alone in the corner. With the other gym noises around us, no one would hear any conversation we had. I looked back at him.

  “What happens if I answer these questions?”

  He cracked his knuckles. “I’ll go. I’ll fly back to Virginia and leave you alone for the rest of your life.”

  Someone drove a railroad spike through my heart. Was that really what I wanted? I had been telling him to go for days, but hearing him say “the rest of your life” did something funny to my insides. The rest of my life was a long time.

  I shook my head to clear it. If he was gone, I could fully move on, forgetting I had ever dreamed about feeling love after surviving a nightmare. Settle into a routine without worrying about catching sight of him in the window of Ellery’s office or passing him in the hallway on my way to see Sophie. I could box up those memories of him and me, and burn them along with everything else, everything painful I wished to forget.

  “Okay. But I want you to leave tonight.”

  He nodded as he held up his hands, and I began the sequence once more.

  “What was it like when he touched you?”

  I still wasn’t ready for the question, and one blow glanced off his hand, causing me to fall forward. He caught me around my shoulders but released me as soon as I stepped away. I could feel the imprint of his palms on my skin.

  “It burned like wildfire,” I said as I resumed swinging before he was ready. His hands flew up at the last second to catch my hit. “Destructive. Turning everything to ash. I would lie there and still feel it for hours after he left.”

  He was quiet for a long time. I sped up as the movements began to feel more comfortable.

  “Were there others?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything.

  “Say it out loud.”

  “Yes. Sometimes. He was possessive.”