Page 53 of Rio (Knight Empire #3)

I head towards the mini-bar and pour myself a drink, then another one, and then I tell them both how my day went. The meeting with the old man, the visit to Raquel, peppering in just enough about the eco-resort and the injunction, and the data file, to explain everything.

“What the—brother, are you serious?” Dex gets up and stomps around, looking like he can’t quite believe it. Dani sits on the couch, speechless. She lowers her head into her hands. “You saw Raquel?”

I nod.

“And your father planned all of this?” she asks, stunned.

“Your soon to be father-in-law,” I clarify, not that I want her to have second thoughts about marrying Dex.

Dani looks worried. “How was Raquel?”

“She’s not really talking to me.”

Before I can even finish, she reaches for her phone and starts talking to Raquel. My hopes lift. Maybe Dani can comfort her. Make her feel better. Dani slips away from us, needing privacy. I understand it. Raquel won’t want to talk if she knows I’m around.

Dex looks at me. “What are you going to do, brother?”

“Need to find a way to deal with him. Can you fucking believe this?”

“No.” Dex’s jaw clenches, and his body tenses like he’s about to punch something.

I sit back on the couch, contempt and revulsion simmering in my veins, wondering why the old man always fucks up our lives.

“You’d think he’d stop trying to control us.

” It’s something I’ve thought about a lot.

“He knows he can keep us here. He has control of the money. The empire.”

Dex blows out a breath. “I’m so tempted to walk the fuck away.”

“Me too. Sometimes.”

“Why don’t we?”

“Because we’re better together. Because we’re family. And because... do we want him to get the better of us?”

Dex shrugs. “I don’t want him to die, but sometimes ...”

“I don’t care how he lives,” I snap. “He ruined the lives of my mother. Your mother. This isn’t a normal family.

This is a crazy dysfunctional clan.” I swipe a hand through my hair, pacing.

I can’t shake the image of what he’s done.

Of what we lost. “He destroyed Aurora, his wife, your mother, and he wrecked my mother’s life.

We were all so young. Just kids. We didn’t understand.

And now he’s still trying to wreck our lives. ”

“He tries, but we don’t let him,” Dex says, his voice quiet. “We’re pushing back.”

“I need to fix things for Raquel. She wants nothing more to do with me. She’s pissed.”

“I understand why,” Dex says. “I remember how it was when Dani got upset with me and left.”

“We’ve got to work on something.” I mutter. “I’ve got people in and I’m already looking into things. It’s not true. None of it’s true.”

“What’s not true?” Dex asks slowly.

I tell him everything. About Belize and the eco resort, and how everyone pulled the wool over my eyes.

“These are standard business practices for a lot of corporates, bro.”

“I know. That’s what the old man says,” I say quietly. “Doesn’t have to be that way though, does it? Do we need to skimp on profit margins? Pay the workers so low? Cut corners?”

Dex sits back, watches me quietly.

“No, we fucking don’t.” I answer my own question.

“We need to be better,” Dex offers. “We need to do better.”

“Just because the old man says it’s got to be done a certain way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.

I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to inherit his practices.

I don’t want Knight Enterprises to be a dirty, sleazy, greedy company that ruins everything in its wake.

” I pause. “He always talks about legacy. But maybe Knight Enterprises deserves a better legacy than the one the old man gives.”

Dex places his ankle on the knee of his other leg. “Tell me whatever you need.”

“I have an idea. For now, I need Dani to be there for Raquel.”

“She will be. Don’t you worry. Those girls are like sisters.”

“Are we just one big family?” I say, almost smiling.

“You’re getting cheesy on me, bro.”

We sit quietly, drinking, contemplating. When Dani finishes her phone call, she walks back in. “I’m going to Miami, first thing tomorrow morning, to check in on Raquel.”

“Thank you.”

“She would have done the same for me,” Dani replies.

When they leave, I sit down and figure out what I’m going to do.

Then I pick up the phone and call Tomas.

***

RAQUEL

Dani arrives on my doorstep first thing the next morning.

I fall into her arms with relief. I’m all out of tears, but now they start up again.

“Hey, hey.” She strokes my hair. “Come on, hon. You don’t even have to tell me everything. You don’t have to talk about it, until you’re ready. I’m here for you, to cook for you, to listen to you, whatever you want, I’m here for you.”

I saw my face in the mirror, just before I opened the door.

My eyes are red-rimmed. I look a wreck. I’ve lost my job.

Alma doesn’t want to talk to me. And Rio turned up yesterday with the most ridiculous story.

I already knew that Paul Knight was devious, but this level of calculation defies comprehension.

And, for revenge? Against his son? This man has never known, or will ever know, the meaning of family.

Dani being here is true friendship. True sisterhood. True family. I love this girl with all my heart, and my life would be so much bleaker without her in it. We sit in my living room, Kleenex tissues all spread out over my couch, and I hastily try to tidy up. But she stops me.

“Just sit, and talk. I’ll do the rest.” She picks up my crumpled tissues, some soggy, others long dried out, and she doesn’t balk in disgust. She simply gets on with it like its no big deal.

And just like that it feels like such a big deal to me that she cares so much.

Dani has always shown up for me. We’re not bound by blood, but by choice, and whether I’m crying, heartbroken, raging, or worn out, she somehow knows and appears when I need her the most. She clears up the mess, picks it up, holds it, clears the space for me to feel whole again.

She never lets me go through the bad times alone, in the same way that I would never let her.

We’ve always been there for one another.

I’ve lost my job. My reputation is at risk of being maligned. I don’t expect Pierce to go easy on me. Now I’m powerless. I feel foolish for letting myself believe that me and Rio could ever work, and Dani being here is a salve on the entire, bloody wound.

Rio talking about the meeting he’d had with the old man. He was angry and seething with hatred, and while it sounded so farfetched that at first I couldn’t wrap my head around it, by the time he left, I started to believe everything he told me. But today, I don’t know what to believe.

I’m shocked by the lengths that man will go to ruin his family. It makes no sense. But Paul Knight did this to his wife. He already had a wife, and a family, and he went and created another one. He’s the type of man who takes, takes, takes.

Dani’s sitting on the couch, which is now tissue-free.

“Want me to make you something to eat?” she asks.

I shake my head and instead tell her about the Rio’s visit yesterday, only to discover that he went over to Dex’s place late last night.

“He was a mess. He really was,” she tells me. “I’m not telling you this to feel sorry for him, but he looked broken.”

I saw it myself. I heard it in his voice. But my head is all over the place again and nothing seems solid. I feel fractured, and unsteady, like I’m unravelling at the seams and I don’t know how to hold myself together. This state of weakness isn’t something I’m familiar with.

Before Rio and I got close, and I abhored the Knights, I was of the opinion that a man like Rio would learn his ways from the master of deception.

Paul Knight has inflicted so much damage to other people. I already knew that he was the worst. He's despicable, evil, and greedy. But Rio always told me it wasn’t true. That he wasn’t a monster. That it was all Paul. That he’s nothing like his father.

He offered me the data file, but he didn’t force it on me.

I was the one who took it. The decision was mine. But it was planted. Fed to me through him, and then it blew up and I got discredited because of it. I remember what Rio said. He said if his father hadn’t done it this way, he would’ve found another way.

“I don’t hate him,” I say, “but I’ve questioned every conversation, every interaction we’ve had and I'm as confused as ever now because while I want to believe him, I’m too scared to trust him again. Do you ever worry that they have a part of their father in them?”

Dani looks at me. “I worried about it once, but I’ve come to know that Dex isn’t like that at all. It’s a valid concern, and I totally get why you’re thinking it, but if you can find it in your heart to give Rio a chance, you’ll see that he’s not like that either.”

I have a feeling she’s right, but I’m too bruised by all that’s happened.

It’s not only my personal life, but my professional life that has taken such a hit.

Everything I lived for is gone. Alma, Vilma and Edwin—all the people at EcoGuardians—they must think I’m a fake and a phony and a cop-out and a sell-out.

My credibility is gone. And the man I trusted with my body, my career, my heart—somehow was the weapon that his father used to ruin me. I might’ve been manipulated. And Rio might’ve been a part of it. But he was an innocent bystander. He didn’t know. If I was played, so was he.

What am I going to do? It doesn’t matter. Because my bestie is here, and together we’ll figure it out.

I haven’t told my mom yet. I don’t want her to worry about me. She worries as it is because she thinks I’m overworked. I haven’t told her about Rio. We do have our regular weekly calls. She could tell something was wrong, but I didn’t tell her. But she knows something is up.

“I gave Dex a chance,” Dani says. “I was about to marry Oscar, and Dex came and saved me.”

“Rio saved me.”

“From what?”

I don’t need to tell her all the details, but I think back to the night of the storm when he came looking for me.

I don’t think I could have survived out there by myself. I would have survived somehow, sitting in that hut by myself, all alone and scared, but having Rio there was a lifeline.

He was my lifeline.

He put his life at risk to come looking for me.

He proved to me that night that he isn’t his father, and while I want so much to think we could salvage what he had, my life is such a mess right now. Everything I worked for has fallen apart, and I need time to recover from this.

“Tell me what you need me to do,” Dani says, resting her hand on my arm.

“I just need to be here, and I love that you came here for me.”

“Like, you didn’t come running for me,” she says. “I remember how you’ve always been there for me, turning up out of the blue when I said to you I was marrying a stranger.”

I sigh, remembering. ““That was the night I met Rio. Sitting at the bar, keeping an eye on you and Dex.”

“Was it such a bad thing?” Dani asks, tentatively, “Being out there with him?”

“It was wonderful, how we slowly, came together, but when we got back, that’s when I knew he was special.”

“Special?” Dani lifts a brow.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Sometimes when we’re together, since we got back from Belize, Rio and I … we’ve had such amazing weekends.

Being away from the case and the Eco resort. Forgetting that we’re on opposing sites. It’s been the best thing I’ve ever had.”

She nods. “That’s what it’s like, with these boys. When I said to you they’re lucky to have us, I meant it. I think it also brings out the best in them.”