Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(33)

“How can you understand? How can you stand there and know what it feels like to be told that it doesn’t matter if you do or don’t do what he says because you owe your body to him in an apology?” I swear to God, when her voice wavers, I fucking hate myself. “And that’s why your apologies mean shit, Ryker. The damage was already done the minute I left the pool house.”

“He actually said he was going to cost you the adoption?” I’m trying to wrap my head around this, around the balls that fucker has. I have to focus on one thing at a time, or else the rage over it all will cloud more than my judgment. It will cloud my rationality to the point that my ass will end up in jail.

And that’s not the half of what I deserve.

Her eyes well, and she just shakes her head in response.

“Please. Just go step by step through everything.”

“He said it would be a shame if Lucy’s social worker found out about Wicked Ways. How am I supposed to take it if that’s not a threat?”

I try to justify my way out of this. I try to tell myself he could have threatened her even without our meeting because he already wanted her desperately.

But you hung her out there like a carrot for him to chase after.

“Vaughn.” Her name is a sigh. An apology. An I can fix this when I don’t even know where to start. I reach out to hold her hand, and she yanks it back as if my touch will break her.

“Don’t.”

“This wasn’t—I didn’t mean—Fuck.” I pull on the back of my neck. I scramble for explanations—for anything—because what the fuck was he thinking.

“Like I said,” she murmurs, “this—we—can’t be. It’s bad all around.”

She starts to walk away again, and this time I do grab her arm to prevent her from walking out. “We’ll fix this. I’ll fix this.”

“It can’t be fixed!” she screams as her body shakes with anger.

“It’s a harmless threat. He wouldn’t dare follow through with it.” I’m looking at her but thinking about murdering him. “Men like him get off on their power. On making women fear them. It’s like a goddamn drug to him, so he showed up to your house to lay the groundwork. To make you scared. To make you feel like you have to turn over whatever you have on him so he doesn’t have to worry about it coming to light.”

“You don’t understand, Ryker. He came to my house. My house! Him and his security detail and—”

“It’s part of his plan. He told me himself that night. Use sex and fear to gain power. Use the power to get what he wants—”

“And yet you still used me when you knew that? When he told you this?” She shakes her head, her mouth lax, her eyes blinking away the tears that I’m now afraid have morphed from tears of hurt to anger.

I want to go to her, pull her against me, use the heat of her skin to reassure myself that I can get us back . . . but for the first time, I’m not so fucking sure, because she’s right. He told me that shit, and I still did what I did. I still used the woman I love, even if it was in good faith . . . I still did this to her.

“Yes. I did.” There’s nothing else I can say. No other apology I can give. I take a step forward, timid when I’m never timid. “There are no words I can voice to take away what I did.”

I watch a tear slip over her lashes and slide down her cheek. Just one. A small tell of the hurt that I detonated like a grenade within her.

“He told me he couldn’t wait to sleep with me because you told him how good my pussy felt.”

Her voice may be soft, but those words are like a cattle prod to my temper.

“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.” My hands fist and teeth grit, and every object on my desk is at risk of being thrown against the wall as I stalk toward it.

All I see is red.

All I feel is rage.

All I know is I hate the fucker more than I ever thought possible, and good thing I’m a lawyer so I know how to post my own damn bail.

“What are you—?” she asks as I grab my wallet off the desk and my jacket. “No!” She emits a sound I want to forever erase from my memory. It’s my name, but it’s part plea, part terror, part everything bad you can imagine as she runs across the room and holds on to my arms, trying to keep me here.

I could shrug her off in a second without any effort, but there is something about the fear in her voice—about the complete hysteria in it—that stops me.

And when I look at her, when I see the trembling of her chin and the tears welling in her eyes, I know there is so much more going on here than what she said. I know she fears losing Lucy, but this . . . there’s even more here she’s not telling me.

“Vaughn.” I put my hands on both of her shoulders, and I lower my head so that we’re eye to eye. “What else did he say to you?”

With each word I can see Vaughn pulling away from me.

“Nothing.”

I can handle her attitude. Her sass. But when her voice trembles, it’s like something inside me breaks with it.

You did that to her, Ryker.

You used someone you loved like a pawn . . . just like your mom used you.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Vaughn.” I say her name for what feels like the twentieth time in this conversation, but it’s the only way I know how to bring her back to me. “What else did that prick say to you?”