Page 20

“Hey, you good?” I ask Riley.

She’s sitting outside on the lanai with her feet propped up and reading a book. Large sunglasses cover her eyes.

It’s taken two days for her to come out of her suite and downstairs with the rest of us. She’d said that she didn’t want the boys to see her like that.

My sons indeed loved their Aunt Riley to pieces. They were closer to her than they were to Zaire’s siblings, whom the world had no clue were related to him. So, it wasn’t often that they came to our home or that we traveled to theirs.

It was imperative to him that the world not know about his connection to his siblings. It was just the way that their business worked.

We often got together for Christmas at an undisclosed location in the Colorado mountains. Everyone took separate flights from various locations around the world to meet up there. We never headed directly to Colorado from Chicora Falls.

“Yeah, I guess I am. I haven’t heard from him strangely,” she remarks, lifting her phone and glancing at it over her sunglasses. “I expected to have heard from him by now.”

“Why?”

“Usually, he’ll text or call with his apologies . . .”

My sister took her light coloring from our father, as did our oldest brother, Quinton. So, unlike me, who has a toasty brown coloring, her cheeks flame red whenever she’s embarrassed, like now.

“He usually calls you or texts to apologize. Usually, Riley?”

“Never mind. It’s nothing.”

“No, don’t sit here and lie to me, Riley. He usually calls you or texts to apologize after what?” I demand.

“It’s nothing, Bay. Just drop it.”

“I’m not dropping anything. Are you sitting here telling me that this isn’t the first time that this has happened?” I demand.

She blows out a breath and swings her legs over the side of the chaise lounge.

“Riley.”

“What?”

“What the hell? Has that asshole been putting his hands on you before this?” I ask, thinking back to Dr. Madison’s words about how men don’t go from being non-abusive to damn near killing a woman.

I knew that she was right when she said it, but still, I held out hope. Not my sister. Not right under my nose.

“How long has this been going on, Riley?” I ask.

She looks away out onto the waterfall at the rear of our backyard.

“Riley.”

She sighs. “It’s been an on-again and off-again thing since the third year we were together, but it was nothing more than a slap here and there.”

“Nothing more than? Our mama and daddy didn’t slap us. What the fuck gives him the right to do that to you? How did you accept that shit from him, Riley? You never saw that in our household growing up.”

“He apologized, and it would only happen after something really crazy. Maybe he was stressed, or lost his job, or things like that.”

“No excuses,” I fume.

My sister looks at me, and she removes her sunglasses and sets them on the table. Grabbing a tissue, she dabs at her eyes, and fury rises in me again as I see the swelling and discolorations from the bruises on her face.

She doesn’t look as bad as she did that first day, but it’s bad enough.

Riley widens her eyes and then looks at me in astonishment. “Bayleigh!”

“What?” I ask, alarmed at the fear I hear in her voice.

“You don’t think . . . you don’t think that Zaire did anything to him, do you?”

“Anything like what? Un-alived him? I hope to God he did,” I seethe.

She bursts into another round of tears again, and I feel like it’s a lost cause. If that bastard shows up again, I suspect she’ll run right back to him.

“Don’t say that, Bayleigh,” she cries.

“Why? He deserves that, at least. That muthafucka deserved to be burned alive!”

“Bayleigh!”

The plea in her voice tears at me. Not because I don’t think that Kenny deserves it. That’s the least he deserves. It’s because I don’t want to hurt my sister any more than she already is hurting.

“Riley,” I say, pushing off my lounge chair and squeezing onto the one that she’s sitting on. I wrap my arms around my little sister.

Riley’s shoulders shake as she buries her face against my chest, crying her heart out.

“I don’t mean to hurt you, Riley. I’m sorry if my words did that. I just can’t believe that he’s been taking you through this bullshit all these years. That’s not what I would have wanted for you. Neither would Mama, Daddy, Quinton, or Chase. You’re the baby. We’ve spent our lives protecting you.”

“I know,” she cries.

“You deserve nothing but the best, honey. You’re so compassionate and thoughtful when it comes to others. You give of yourself and your time unselfishly. You love hard, and you’re beautiful and intelligent. You deserve nothing but the best, honey.”

“It’s not always bad times, though, Bayleigh.”

Gripping her chin firmly, I tilt her head up to look at me.

“Any time he puts his hands on you, it nullifies any good times that you could have had,” I say.

“I know,” she replies softly.

“Do you? Because I don’t think that you do.”

Riley lowers her eyes again, and an idea comes to mind.

“Hey, I have an idea.”

“What?”

“Why don’t you, Trina, Alicia, and I take an impromptu weekend getaway. An extended weekend. Maybe leave Thursday afternoon and return Monday morning. Take off Friday and Monday and return to work Tuesday.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. You never use any vacation time, and I know that Trina is out of school for the summer,” I express, referencing her best friend, who is a high school history teacher.

My best friend, Alicia, owns a hair salon, so she can get away whenever she’d like. My sister is the VP of sales at her telecommunications company.

“I’ve already been working from home for the last couple of days and haven’t been to the office.”

“So. You’ve still been working. You deserve it.”

“I work from home three to four days a week, though.”

“And? Your vacation is due to you. You can’t excuse that away by saying that you never go into the office.”

She inhales deeply. “Where would we go?”

“I was thinking somewhere quick. Maybe Miami?”

“Party for the weekend?”

“Exactly,” I answer in a sing-song tone.

A small smile begins to form on my sister’s lips.

“I like that idea, Bayleigh.”

“Good. Call Trina, and I’ll call Alicia.”

What I don’t say is that I’ll call Zaire first. I don’t want to rub in her face that she doesn’t have a man to call. At least, I hope that she doesn’t.

I hope that he’s now an extinct species, thanks to my baby.