Chapter 9
Nala sank against the table. She felt the whrrs of the nearest computer fan blow hot air against her back.
“You’re not saying…”
“I didn’t believe it at first when I saw his other emails regarding the subject.” Vincent curled a hand into a fist and smacked it against the table. His fist turned red, but he did not react to any pain. “Then I did more digging. I found emails from Desirée briefly mentioning a pregnancy. I thought she was talking about the first one that…” He choked. “Then I dug more. Do you know what I found, Nala?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “I found references to a night she worked late with Crow. A night she says she doesn’t remember but somehow woke up naked from.”
“Vincent, don’t do this yourself…”
Too late. “She would have never cheated on me!” Both fists hit the table now, sending Nala up and a good step away. Vincent’s rampage was only getting started. “Do you know what that monster did to her? Do you?”
Nala swallowed. “I have a good idea.” Neither of them would say the word.
Vincent jabbed a finger against the monitor. “This is dated one week before she died. There are references to her going to meet her lawyer to talk about child support. Do you know what was going to happen two days later?”
Nala shook her head. Of course she had no idea, but she was sure Vincent would tell her.
“She was going to come home. I remember getting a call from her, saying she had to get away from work for a while. That she couldn’t wait to see me. That she wanted me to give her a lot of hugs and kisses.”
A shiver tore down Nala’s spine.
“She was scared and in pain. And pregnant. I don’t doubt she was going to tell me about the pregnancy, at least…” Vincent turned away from the computer. “For fuck’s sake!”
“Is that why she was…”
Vincent glared at Nala. “I found an email to Hawk along those lines, yeah. Desirée was killed because Crow didn’t want a crowling out there in the world.”
A car accident is an effective way of making sure that at least a miscarriage happens. Desirée dying was probably a cherry on the man’s sundae.
“Desirée would have never cheated on me. Nor would she have ever done anything to make a baby go away. She wanted kids so badly one day. She was…too much of a liability.”
His voice finally softened. Nala looked at him, seeing a man battered and broken. Again. He had already lost his fiancée. Now he finds out that she had been assaulted by the man he already hates the most… and that she was pregnant. If Vincent was heartbroken before, he was probably decimated now. Nala did not deny her heart’s desire to go to him.
There was nothing she could possibly say. Whatever darkness Vincent now found himself in was nothing compared to what Nala felt regarding Tasha. When his arms wrapped tightly around her, bringing her in while breathing heavily into her sweatshirt, Nala thought back to all the other things Vincent had told her. Not just losing Desirée. Losing a baby. Losing parts of his youth, his life to grief and the constant, toxic black cloud it brought. Nothing - and she knew this as well as she knew her own heart - that happened between them over the past several weeks could possibly overshadow that. I’m not enough to make that pain go away. Even if he loves me now, it’s not enough to soothe this shock.
“You can cry, you know,” she said, smoothing down his hair. “I won’t think any less of you. Go ahead. Cry. When you’re done, we’ll take the next natural course of action.” Nala desperately hoped it involved lawyers and the police. “I’m here.”
Whether or not he cried… well, Nala would not divulge that to anyone. That was between him and her.
***
“It feels like a stab right to my fucking heart. Multiple stabs. Like I really have been murdered, and here I am, suffering from my wounds.”
Vincent rubbed the fatigue from his eyes, lying back in bed and attempting to stare at his bedroom ceiling. Nala also lay beside him, holding his hand and fighting back the urge to put her soothing touch all over his body. Kiss his face. Smother him with affection he probably didn’t want right now. “I’m so sorry,” she said for the hundredth time that night. They were still alone, with a bodyguard outside their door, but otherwise alone. Thank God for it, too. “I can’t even imagine how you feel right now.”
“Do you know how happy I would have been if she got to tell me she was pregnant again? I probably would have thought the one night we had in those three months was enough to make it happen. I would have never thought it wasn’t mine, even if the timing was off. I was going to be a father, Nala. A husband and a father.”
“I know.”
“Even though it was three years ago, I’m feeling it all right now. So many what-ifs in my head. What if I drove up there and got her myself? What if I fetched her before he laid a single hand on her? What if she had a miscarriage again? Would Crow have still…”
“You can’t think like that. The man is pure evil. I read those emails, Vincent. He plays with fire and gets off on it. Everything is a thrill to him. Taking over the world. Taking over people. Taking whatever he wants, both legal and illegal. We know what he did to Desirée. Don’t you think I know he was doing the same things to my sister?”
“Fuck me, I forgot all about that. I’m sorry. I’ve been making this all about myself.”
Nala shook her head against her pillow. “Yours is the much bigger shock right now. I recognize that. I’m so sorry you had to find that out, Vincent. I’m sure Desirée never wanted you to know those details. She sounds like a woman who would want you to be happy about the baby, regardless of how it came to be.”
“How can I feel anything else now? I was given something and had it taken away in the same instance. It’s like whiplash. It’s like we were cursed. Every time she became pregnant…”
“Stop going down those paths. They won’t do you any good.” Nala touched her head to his. “We need to regroup right now. You’ve got a mountain of evidence from his emails. We need to figure out what to do with it. Should we go to the police tomorrow?”
“I’m hesitant. I found a ton of emails between him and some big names in law enforcement. All over the west coast, not just around here. This is really big.”
“Call your lawyer, at least.”
“I will. Tomorrow. I’m too fucking tired right now.”
“Naturally.” Nala sank into the bed, hoping Vincent would cuddle her like he sometimes did. Well, he used to do it all the time. Only recently had he started sleeping far on his side of the bed, waking up to turn over and then over again. Sighing, Nala buried herself in his chest, letting her finger touch the soft fabric of his shirt. “I love you, Vincent. I may be young and dumb, but I know what it’s like to feel pain. I’m here.”
He stroked her hair, gently, his eyes closed and already drifting off to sleep. “I know. Thank you.”
Nala didn’t expect him to say he loved her too. Especially not on today of all days. A girl can still hope. If the man hadn’t been closed off before? He was impossible to penetrate now. Whatever he felt for her… it did not compare to the current horrors tearing through his mind and body. No, Nala wouldn’t hear a declaration of love tonight, and probably not anytime soon. She could live with that. She would have to.