Page 35 of Severed Heart (The Ravenhood Legacy #2)
Chapter Twenty-Three
T YLER
I FUCKED UP .
I let my guard down. Despite my best attempts to conceal them, Delphine glimpsed my attraction and sensed my feelings when I pitched a bitch, and I’m now paying hell for it.
Since our movie night, she’s withdrawn almost completely from me.
Dismissing our game nights only to send me on fool’s errands by way of physical training.
She’s checked out, and after months of embarrassing brush-off texts, my battered pride is letting her.
While resentment brews for the ease in which she’s dismissed me, my ache and missing of her only grows.
Whether it be the resentment for the space she’s purposely putting between us, or the gnawing of her absence, I raided the entirety of Delphine’s cigar box when she and Dom were working their shifts this past weekend.
I spent hours discovering what haunts her—one of them in which I arranged the letters by what postmarked envelopes remained.
The postmark itself timestamping their correspondence lasted only months before Celine and Beau fled to the States.
Celine’s and Delphine’s escalating situations leading to multiple letters sent by one or both per week.
It was the last few letters that kept a stinging ball lodged in my throat as some understanding of what triggers Delphine started clicking into place.
When I lock myself in the bedroom, he uses a butterknife to release it. To get to me.
A sting which only increased as I arranged the letters back in the way I found them—not that they’re ever hidden.
Delphine’s foolproof safe, at least where I’m concerned, is in thinking there’s a language barrier.
A barrier I’ve spent months eradicating—my intent to surprise her—but have now used instead to wrong her by invading her privacy in a way I can’t take back or fucking forget. Not for a second.
He’s raping me now, Celine.
That backfire becoming increasingly painful as her translated words scrape my insides daily.
Continually driving me back to the patch of blacked-out cement between streetlights after my nightly runs to peer into her living room.
A ritual I haven’t stopped, even after she called me out for it last winter.
In truth, her haunts have become mine since the night I read the first letter last fall.
I am poison to the men I love.
Riddled with guilt and rage, I ran for endless miles after repacking her cigar box, utterly gutted by what she’d suffered—or rather survived at the hands of her ex-husband.
With every single step, I battled to temper an anger I’d never experienced.
One I was barely able to control in the days that followed.
The lingering guilt from invading her privacy is only curbed now by the mystery of what transpired after Celine and Beau joined Delphine and Alain in Triple Falls—though Celine and Beau’s fate is no mystery.
It’s Delphine’s missing pieces of what happened in the years before Alain left and why that I’m starting to grow desperate for.
Not that I have any ground with her to get answers.
She was as close to happy as I’ve ever seen her before she slammed up her defenses.
As of now, I can’t, for the life of me, seem to regain that ground in getting our easy dynamic back.
Somehow she fucking saw it—my infatuation—and I let her.
And I knew better. I fucking knew better.
My frustration grows as I tighten a bolt on Dom’s newly delivered part, feigning focus. Doing what I have for months—camouflaging my ache and shortening temper while obsessing over an unattainable woman.
“Getting there,” I mutter to Dom to show a sign of life when his weighted stare lingers on my profile as he works with me to get his part installed.
Russell—now completely in the know—had taken off after supervising us for a few minutes before hauling ass home, summoned by his overbearing and highly demanding mother.
Russell’s sentence seemingly passed right along with his father’s, who is still serving hard time for tax evasion.
So far, Dom’s restoration is taking the longest. Not because we can’t get it done at a quicker pace but because he is obsessed with perfection—not to mention the cost. I can’t blame him in the least, being just as anal and adamant about my own.
As of now, we’re running low on cash, and all of us are getting frustrated with the snail’s pace and the idleness of our current lives.
Sean especially, acting out more than usual—especially since the paint dried on his Nova.
A Nova which roars with his arrival as Dom and I collectively glance out of the bay to see Sean coming in hot.
The heavy repeat of his engine rumbles through the garage as he expertly dodges the cars lined up for service to round the side of the building.
Just after, a lone police siren sounds, its increasing wail telling that it’s headed straight fucking for us.
“The hell,” Dom utters as Sean bursts through the side door, chest heaving while hauling ass toward the open hood of the Dodge Ram sitting in the last bay. Pulling a tool from his box, Sean hedges our inquisitive stares as he makes his request. “If anyone asks, I’ve been here all night .”
Before we’re able to utter a single question, the crunch of gravel sounds as the cruiser appears, scattering rocks. A few of them thwack against the shop door, the rest shedding like a wave into the bay as it comes to a threatening stop.
The officer behind the wheel scans the garage, and even from where I stand, I can clearly see the wrath of hell in the livid cop’s eyes.
“You stupid motherfucker,” Dom grits out. “Please tell me you didn’t . . .”
“Didn’t what?” I bite out as the cruiser door cracks open, mentally trying to prepare myself for whatever’s coming.
“Jesus, you did,” Dom seethes next to me, and I know it’s because he just spared a glance at our red-handed brother.
“Did what ?” I repeat through clenched teeth, dread settling in my chest as we both prompt Sean, who refuses to meet our hostile stares behind the open hoods.
“Fuck the sheriff’s daughter,” Dom supplies in a muted tone just as the cruiser door closes. Dom and I both snap to, ready to defend our brother even as our fury grows.
The recently elected sheriff—whom one Roman Horner heavily endorsed—fixes his ready glare on Dom and me when we both round the hood of his Camaro.
Though unspoken, I know we’re both banking that the cop is unaware Sean’s in the garage.
Our relief is short-lived when he sounds up, asking as much. “Where is he?”
“Pardon, officer. Who?” I ask, wiping my hands on a soiled shop towel as Sean plays statue behind the hood of the Ram. From where he is in the bay, the sheriff would have to step in and physically search the garage to see him.
“You know good and damn well who ,” he spits, looking between Dom and me. The second his eyes linger on Dom, I see that this exchange could go further south, and fast.
“We have four employees here, Sheriff,” I drop casually while helping to intercept him, “so you’ll have to be more specific.”
“Sean Roberts, red Nova, specific enough?”
“Afraid we haven’t seen him yet tonight,” Dom interjects, fucking us both as I mask my wince at the gamble we’re now risking.
“Mind if I have a look around?” he asks.
“Actually,” Dom drawls, straightening his spine, “we do mind. We’re closing up shop, and business hours are long over. So, unless you have just cause, which you don’t, or a warrant, Sheriff, a search would be illegal, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” he snaps. “Where is he?”
“Well, he’s around, bright red car, and his parents own a restaurant you frequent with your daughter. What’s her name, again?”
Goddamnit, Dom!
“Lacey,” he grits out.
“Right, Lacey ,” Dom taunts. “So, you’re sure to catch up with him at some point.”
“I prefer we converse now.” The sheriff digs his heels in.
“As I said, we can’t help you tonight, officer, and seeing how you’re in uniform and haven’t stated anything of a business nature, I’m thinking this is personal ,” Dom quips, taking a menacing step forward without closing any real space.
When the cop’s hand starts to inch toward his hip in response, I ready myself to shut this shit down.
“But we can leave him a message,” Dom offers as I decide exactly how Sean’s message will play out.
Dom stares off with the sheriff for excruciatingly long seconds before the cop slowly shifts his gaze over to me. “You’re Carter Jennings’s boy.”
I nod because it wasn’t a question.
“He was a buddy of mine back when.”
“Oh yeah, I think I remember you,” I lie.
“Be a shame to waste your potential here,” he mutters, scanning Dom, his implication clear.
“I plan to enlist soon.” I play the game as fury lights inside me that I have to go diplomatic by letting the cop know I’m following suit to protect and serve.
But unlike this piece of shit who just tried to diversify us with a loaded, overtly insinuating look, I plan on serving all people, not just those who will take contributions from a killer to win his next election.
“I think I’ll deliver that message myself,” the cop finally says, stepping back from the garage as I will Sean to dissolve into the floor until the cruiser clears our driveway.
“Have a good night, Sheriff,” I manage cordially before he dips his chin, shooting Dom a withering look before finally taking the wheel.
The second the police cruiser speeds out of sight, Dom and I collectively close all open bay doors and kick back in wait, arms crossed.
Not long after, grease-stained boots appear, as does Sean, sporting the complexion of a ghost, which only pales further as he meets our furious stares.
Dom and I bristle, ready to pounce, as Sean tries to shrug it off.