Page 47

I could just keep going.
Gun the engine.
Ride the entire thing right over the edge.
Rocks crumbled off the cliff face, and I sank down on my bike, letting it roll backward a few inches, away from the plunging cliff face.
But my heart hurt. Everything fucking hurt really, especially after all the binge drinking. I was sober now, but as soon as I got home, I’d be fixing that. I was steadily plowing my way through my father’s liquor cabinet, but it wasn’t like he was around to stop me, the way he would have back when I’d actually lived here.
What I wouldn’t fucking give to rewind the clock and have him scolding me when I stumbled in the door two hours past curfew, reeking of booze.
I’d do it all differently. Him. Kian. Brooke.
I squeezed my eyes shut at the thought of my wife. With a sigh, I pulled my phone from the saddlebag on my bike and punched the relevant buttons to call her cell. I hadn’t wanted to do this at home where Kian might hear. I didn’t need anyone knowing my business.
“About fucking time, Vaughn,” Brooke snarled down the phone.
“Hello to you too, my darling wife,” I replied sarcastically. “So lovely to hear the sweet, soothing sound of your voice.”
“Fuck you. You were supposed to call days ago. Did you get the money?”
I ground my molars together. “No. I’m working on it.”
“Working on it!” she screeched. “Not good enough! I need the money now.”
“Then ask your daddy for it.”
“You know I can’t do that!”
Yeah, because he got sick of bailing her out of her financial irresponsibility and cut her off too. I lost my patience. “Getting money out of a deceased’s estate isn’t as easy as just snapping my fingers, Brooke. Everything is frozen. And there’s…unforeseen problems.”
“Problems? What problems? That is not what I want to hear, Vaughn.”
“Apparently I have a sister who I have to share everything with.”
“You don’t even have a sister! You’re such a liar. Is this some ploy to screw me over? Keep all the money for yourself?”
I shook my head at the audacity. “Oh, that’s rich. I’m the one screwing you over? You’re the one who got yourself into this mess.”
I huffed into the phone, pissed with myself for letting her get to me, even though I’d sworn after our last argument I would be calm and matter of fact. Nothing good came from us both getting emotional. That only ended in her screaming and me shutting down, leaving, and riding my bike too fast to burn off my emotions.
Maybe she realized it too, because she changed tactics, and her voice turned syrupy sweet. “Baby, I’m sorry. I’m just scared. If I don’t produce that money, they’re going to come for me.”
I wanted to tell her to let them. That she’d dug herself into this mess and now she could get herself out of it.
But I couldn’t. I might only be half the gentleman my father was, but I couldn’t just let them hurt Brooke. I’d loved her once. At least, I thought I had. It had all unraveled pretty fast after we’d been married and I’d found out about her unsavory little ‘habits.’
Habits that had her blowing through my entire trust fund without me even realizing. Habits that had left us with crippling debts we didn’t have the money to pay. Habits that had people after her, ready to take their pound of flesh when she couldn’t produce the money she owed.
There was no point in leaving her to the wolves. If they killed her, it wouldn’t erase the debt.
It would just fall to me.
Like it or not, I was as much in this mess as she was.
“You don’t want them to kill me, do you?” She was using that whiny little girl voice she thought was all doe-eyed and innocent. But really was like a banshee scream in my head.
“Of course not.”