Chapter 18

(Jake Paulson)

Dingey diners with greasy food, cheap hotel rooms where the room service is abysmal, and switching cars often has become my life. Why? All because of that Danvers bitch.

None of the other women were brave enough to say anything, and I liked it that way. Intimidation worked for years. All I needed to ensure their silence was to threaten their jobs and tell them about the videos and pictures that I took.

That all came crashing down when that fucking cunt ruined my life. Her actions motivated all the others to come forward against me. Because of them, the police raided my house while I was rotting in a jail cell. They found all the pictures and videos I was stupid enough not to destroy after Danvers ran from me.

I am so tempted to turn my stolen car around and head back to California just so I can get payback. If I am caught now, there is no doubt that I will be serving a life sentence. I might as well go out of my way.

After I make Danvers regret fucking with me.  

I smile as I pull into a hole in the wall diner in the middle of nowhere somewhere in bum fuck Idaho. The idea of revenge is growing on me, and I think after a decent night’s sleep or as good as I can get in yet another cheap hotel room, I will turn my car around so I can head back to California.

Back to making that bitch’s life a living hell.

(Rylan)

Listening to my sister tell Deputy Williams everything that Grant did to her made me so angry. I was angry with him, my mother, Rosalie, and myself. It took everything I had not to storm out of the interrogation room to hunt that bastard down.

I hold my mother responsible for convincing Rosalie to remain in a situation where she faced various forms of abuse. It makes me sick to my stomach to know that the woman who gave birth to us didn’t do the right thing to convince her child to flee from such a horrid marriage. What woman tells another woman to stay in that kind of hell?

Her own daughter nonetheless? What mother in her right mind does that? All for the sanctity of marriage and those wedding vows that my mother holds so dear to her heart. More than her children, it seems.

I blame Rosalie for staying for so long, even though I know I shouldn’t. Where the hell was her sense of self-preservation all these years? I mentally slap myself for victim-blaming like an asshole after I thought about all of that.

I also blame myself for not really being in her life until she needed me the most. Had I known this shit was happening to her, I would have tried to get her to leave sooner. I would have done everything I could to make sure my little sister was safe.

The exact opposite of what our mother did.

By the time we left the police station, Grant was being processed for domestic assault charges. Deputy Williams told Rosalie that she would have to either stay in town until the district attorney set a court date or she could come back to attend the hearing.

Rosalie told her that after she packed her things from the house, she was going to be staying with me in California. So, after giving the deputy my mailing address, we were free to go. The moment we stepped out of the station, she broke down in tears.

Thankfully, Aaron was right there with the SUV’s back door open for her. He also had lunch for all three of us, but food was the last thing on my mind. Later, after we have packed up everything Rosalie wants to take with her, maybe we will feel like eating.

“Where to next? Straight to your house?” Aaron asks Rosalie after she calms down.

“Yes, thank you.” She gives him the address, then just stares out the window. “I wonder how he knew where I was. How did he know I was back in town at all, let alone where I was?”

“Give me your purse,” Aaron says after signaling the driver to head to her house.

“You think he planted a tracking device in her purse?” I ask in surprise at where I am sure his thoughts have gone.

Rosalie hands her purse over like it burned her hand, and she needs to get rid of it fast.

“Do you have any attachment to this purse because I will need to rip it open if I don’t find it hidden in anything inside?”

“No, destroy it if you need to. I want to know if he has been tracking me. It would explain so much.”

Aaron proceeds to dump the contents of her purse into his lap. He goes through every item one by one until the tale-tale sound of a knife opening echoes in the confined space of the SUV. I lean forward so I can watch over the side of his seat.

He slits the seams so he can run a finger along the lining of the purse. I can tell by the angry look on his face that the second his fingers find what he is searching for, he holds it up for me to see, and I feel just as angry as he looks.

That motherfucker put a tracking device on my sister.

“He would only know she was back in town, since this doesn’t look very high grade, so I doubt he knew where she was before she came back. It could also be that someone he knows saw you go into the police station and called him.”

“Did you see anyone that he might know before we went in there?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “I wasn’t paying attention to anything other than trying to calm down enough to go in there.”

“That is something that you can try to use against him in the divorce,” I tell her.

“I have to find a lawyer first, one that will take what little money I have stashed away.”

“Oh, that reminds me. I hope I didn’t overstep here, but I called Annora, and her lawyer is willing to take your case,” Aaron says.

This shocks me. I hadn’t even thought of that, but he did. This man doesn’t miss anything, it seems.

“I… I won’t be able to pay their retainer if they ask for it upfront. Thank you for the thought.

I take her hand in mine to get her attention. “Whatever it takes to get you free of that man, I will help you with it. Don’t argue with me, Rosalie. Please let me help you.”

She nods her head. “I will pay you back when I get a job. I have a damn nursing degree that I only got to use very briefly before I married Grant. It is about time I find a use for it.

“We will talk about all that once we get the fuck out of this town and back home to my place.” I tell her with conviction in my voice.

She nods her head as she glances out the window. We have pulled into the very posh neighborhood she lives in. All the houses are two to three stories with wraparound porches, big front yards, and one- to two-car garages. White picket fences are covered in vines and lined with bushes in every yard.

It looks too cookie-cutter-style for my liking. Too alike. There is very little variety.

Boring.

I could never live here in a neighborhood like that.

When we pull up to her house, the driver parks in the driveway, then waits for us to all get out before he leaves. I look at Aaron with a bit of confusion.

“He is going to get boxes and tape, and then he will lead the movers and Uhaul truck driver here. I hired some people to help, and I hired a driver to drive the moving truck back to California. Yes, I didn’t ask again, but I figured the less Rosalie had to think about, the better.”

If I didn’t already love this man, that right there would do it. He thought further ahead than either of us did. He has been one step ahead this entire time and has put my sister’s wellbeing above anything else.

I will tell him how thankful I am that he came with us when we are alone later at the hotel he booked for all of us. Something he did on the plane while Rosalie and I were talking about what she would tell our mother about the divorce. I am not sure I will ever be able to repay him for helping my sister like he has.

He did it all without being asked, too.

Thirty minutes later, after the moving truck arrived, there was a knock on the front door. Aaron was upstairs helping Rosalie with some packing, while I ran downstairs to heat up the lunch that he bought us earlier. I have a sick feeling in my stomach that I know who is at the door.

I put the food that I was putting in the microwave back on the counter, then wiped my hands on a dish towel before I headed to the front door. If it is my mother, this will not be a fun visit. Please let it be anyone other than her.

Please.

After opening the front door, I sigh in relief when I see that it isn’t my mother. Sadly, that relief is short-lived because I see her pull into the driveway and then back out so she can park on the street. I turn my full attention to the redhead at the door. I have never seen her before, so I assume she is a friend of Rosalie’s.

“May I help you?” I ask her in the politest one I can muster.

“Oh, I thought you were Rosalie. You look so much like her. Are you related?”  

No shit, Sherlock.

“I am her sister. Who are you, and what can I help you with?” I glance over her shoulder as I ask, and much to my everlasting annoyance, my mother is now out of her car and on her way up the walkway.

“Oh, I am Twyla. I am Grant’s receptionist. I saw Rosalie in town earlier and wanted to know if everything was…” 

Before she can finish what she is saying, I am jerked back from the door, and then there is a resounding smacking sound as flesh hits flesh. I am absolutely stunned by what I just witnessed. My sister smacked the shit out of Twyla.

She smacked her so hard that it caused her head to snap to the side.

Twyla’s hand flies up to her cheek as she turns her head back to my sister. Something crosses her eyes, and I instantly get the gist of why Rosalie smacked her. This is the woman Grant cheated on her with this time.

His own receptionist. How fucking cliche. What a douche.

“How fucking dare you come to my house! Are you here to see the results of your affair? The life you helped ruin?” Rosalie screamed at her.

Twyla opened her mouth to say something, but Rosalie cut her off with another smack, this time to the other cheek.

“Don’t try to deny it or say it was a one-time thing. I read the texts, saw the pictures, and have the credit card statements for the cheap hotel rooms you two used for your little affair.”

She gripped the front of Twyla’s shirt so the woman couldn’t try to back away.

“You see this?” She turned her face to the left and then to the right so Twyla could get a good look at her facial bruises. “This is what happened when I confronted him about it all. It wasn’t the first time, either. You are only the last in a long stream of affairs. Now get the fuck out of my house.”

The woman pales, then turns around so fast that she almost knocks my mother down in her haste to get as far away from my sister as fast as possible.  

“Oh, fucking fantastic, mother has arrived. It took less time than I thought it would,” Rosalie groans, then turns around to head into the living room. “

“I see you have been a bad influence on your sister already.”

I roll my eyes at her, then follow Rosalie into the living room. Aaron is standing in the doorway with his eyes on me as I walk towards him. He takes my hand, kisses my knuckles softly, and then lets me pull him along with me.

This is going to be a shitshow, and I may need a massive amount of wine later. Maybe a lot of wine and some really good sex. I will accept one or both of those options. Preferably both.

After walking into the very nicely decorated living room, I sit next to Aaron on the loveseat. Rosalie is in a chair that is angled towards the coffee table. Her face is red with anger, and her eyes are shooting daggers at our mother as she walks into the room.

Helana Danvers-Preston walks into the room like nothing is wrong at all. Her black hair is going gray, and I am surprised she hasn’t had it dyed to hide her age. Not a single hair on her head is out of place; her clothing is immaculate, and her makeup is just right. She holds herself with an air of superiority that has always irritated me.

This woman is no better than anyone else, yet she acts holier than thou towards everyone she deems beneath her. Which is more often all those in the service industry: maids, wait staff, baristas, and baggers at the grocery store. She acts holier than thou towards anyone who is paid to do a job for others.

The hypocrisy of this woman knows no bounds, considering she herself was once a cocktail waitress in a nightclub in her teens.

“You two have some explaining to do. What is with the moving van? Who was that woman? Why did Rosalie hit her? Why is Grant in jail? And who is that man right there?” She ends her barrage of questions by pointing at Aaron.

“Sit down, shut up, and for once, you are going to listen to what I have to say. If you interrupt me at all, then it is the last time you will see me for a long time. Is that clear?” Rosalie says it with an iron conviction in her voice that makes me smile.

My baby sister found her backbone.

For the first time in my life, I saw my mother shocked into silence. She opened her mouth, thought better of it, then closed it as she sat down on the sofa. I wanted to fist bump my sister for the way she handled Helena.

What a way to start a conversation.