“Why are we leaving her there?” Kira asks as we pull out of the U-Haul rental.
Ryan’s behind us, driving a truck. We loaded it with packing boxes and cloth to protect the furniture, everything we need to store things.
I place my hand on her thigh and rub circles with my thumb. “Because the crisis is over and we need to handle this for her. To make sure she’s safe.”
Kira bites at her thumbnail, her brow furrowed.
It took Sonia practically throwing her out to get Kira to come with us. We need her though, we need all three of us, but especially her.
She’s the only one that can calm us down if we lose it—our clarity.
I don’t know what’s waiting for us at the house. What evidence of the attack. What the police left behind.
“Okay,” Ryan starts as he slams the door to the truck. “This is going to be fast and dirty. We’ll clear Mom’s furniture and boxes out of the basement and anything that’s on the main floor. Kira, you need to empty out all your stuff so we can get your furniture in the truck with that. Just throw everything in boxes, but don’t forget to label. I also need you to pack up Mom’s clothes and jewelry.”
She nods. “I’ll grab her suitcases and pack those first. We can send those with her.”
“After that’s done, we need to scour the house for anything that was hers before they got married.”
Walking in through the unlocked front door, we’re confronted with not only the evidence of the police having been there, but also the remains of their fight.
The coffee table is tossed, papers everywhere—the pictures we sent her. There’s dark red smudges on the carpet and we all stop.
Another wave of guilt washes over me. If only one of us had been here.
“Do you think he’s been back?” Kira asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. It is a work day, so unless he took clothes with him, I’m sure he came back.”
“Maybe the police found him.” There’s a hopeful edge to her voice, but I think we all know we’d have heard something.
“Better them than us,” Ryan says.
Kira grabs a handful of boxes and some tape and heads upstairs to get started. “Can one of you bring the suitcases up for me?”
Her eyes are blank, her mood somber. I step forward and cup her cheeks, pressing my lips to hers.
“I’ll bring them up in a few.”
She nods before turning and making her way up.
Ryan doesn’t say anything as we head to the basement where a lot of Sonia’s stuff was stored when she moved in. The scene in the living room affected us all.
“It’s not your fault, you know?” he finally says after we’ve brought a dozen boxes up along with a dresser and multiple other pieces of furniture.
I blow out a hard, short breath. “How do you figure that?”
“He was a ticking time bomb.” Ryan waves me toward the kitchen.
“That I detonated on your mother.”
None of us have eaten, and we’re both thirsty from all the trips up and down. There’s nothing in the fridge to drink besides some wine and a couple of beers, neither of which would be good right now, leaving us with pulling out some glasses for water.
Ryan tilts the glass back, taking in huge gulps of water. “But that wasn’t your intent.”
“Good intentions don’t fix the fact that the information I sent her was so damaging to him that there’s no way he wouldn’t react.” I look up at him and lock eyes. “It wasn’t just selfish intent, I promise you.” Ryan’s brow scrunches. “I couldn’t stand to see what he’s done to her, couldn’t let him destroy her further.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He lets out a sigh. “You’re not a malicious guy, you never have been. Your fucking fault is that you try to do what’s best on your own, but don’t always think about the consequences of your decision. But this? This was necessary. This was you saving my mom by making her see what he hides. Make her wake up, because I sure as shit couldn’t convince her.”
“You tried?”
He nods. “The last year, every time I talked to Kira she filled me in on what was going down. How Mom was slowly losing herself. All summer, I tried to convince her, but he’d managed to take my strong, single mother and turn her into a woman with battered wife syndrome, only he’d never laid a hand on her.”
“He’s a master manipulator.”
Ryan nods. “And exactly why you got so fucked up.”
He looks at me, daring me to object, but he’s right. My parent’s relationship royally fucked me up, and in turn, I fucked up Kira.
A long, loud, thudding sound grabs our attention and we stare at each other for a fraction of a second before running toward the noise. We both blow out a breath at the source—a large suitcase that Kira slid down the stairs.
“That one goes in the car,” she says from the top landing. “And I’ll have another one ready in a minute.”
“Hey, baby sis, want to go grab some food when you’re done with that one?”
“Good idea, I’m starving and we have a ways to go.” The basement is almost cleaned out, but there’s still Ryan’s room and Kira’s, plus I’m sure a ton of other stuff.
She nods. “Sure, but can you help me for a second, Ry?”
“I’ll go down for the next round,” I say as Ryan makes his way up the stairs.
A few minutes later, I’m thankful to be grabbing the last box that’s tucked away in the basement. From what I can tell, the downstairs family room has remained untouched by anything of hers. At least after this I won’t be carrying anything up the stairs.
“What are you doing here?” my father’s voice booms out.
I stop in my tracks and turn to look for him. He’s dressed normally, acting like he’s stopping home for lunch, like he hasn’t committed some heinous crime and his wife isn’t lying in a hospital bed he put her in.
“I asked you a fucking question,” he snarls.
And I snap.
I drop the box, not caring if there’s anything breakable and storm across the room to him.
“You motherfucker!”
He’s so stunned by my reaction that I’m able to get my hands around his lapels, but I’m only able to push him back a few feet before he digs his heels into the floor. It’s enough to throw me off balance so when his fists hit my chest, I’m forced back.
“How could you?”
“How could I what?”
“Don’t fucking play stupid. Don’t you even fucking try! Sonia’s lying in a hospital bed because of you.”
No flashes of surprise on his face, just his lip curling up in disgust. In the background I hear feet stomping on the stairs, running to us.
“People try and threaten me, but you’ll never fucking touch me.”
I’m running on little sleep and a lot of anger. My fingers wrap around his throat, my grip tight, precise, and I push on him until his back slams against the wall.
“You motherfucking piece of shit. I should fucking end you right here and now.”
“Brayden!” Kira calls out.
I can feel her and Ryan behind me. Ryan says nothing, just waiting his turn.
There’s surprise in my father’s eyes, but that trademark sneer comes out, his lip twitches up. “What are you going to do? Nothing but a sniveling boy.”
My grip tightens and I lean forward, inches from his face. “I’m not a boy anymore.” I push against the wall, focus all my anger into my arm as I use the pressure to lift him up by the neck until his toes are all that’s left touching the ground. Panic begins to fill his eyes as his fingers dig at my arm. “You’re not the alpha anymore. I’m bigger than you, stronger than you.”
I feel manic. My fingers squeeze tighter and I wonder how much pressure I need to stop him from breathing. The desire to end him is so strong, but it won’t help anyone, it won’t help Emily.
“Ryan, stop him!” Kira screams. I can hear her talking to someone else, and Ryan does nothing to stop me.
“My turn,” is hissed out next to my ear and the panic in my father’s face doubles.
It takes everything in me to release him, to let his body drop down to the ground and not fucking plant my foot up into his stomach.
But that doesn’t stop Ryan from doing it. Kira grabs onto my arm, the phone at her ear.
“The police are on their way.”
She then looks to Ryan, her eyes beseeching me to stop him, but I can’t.
He needs this.
“You fucking piece of shit!” He pulls my father up by his jacket before he can catch his breath and defend himself. Hazel eyes are burning with anger. “I fucking trusted you to take care of my mother.” His right arm flies back and then forward, his fist colliding with my father’s face. It’s hard enough that my father falls limp, forcing Ryan to drop him down to the floor. “Think you’re so fucking tough now?”
Ryan’s whole body shakes, vibrating with anger and the need to continue bashing in his skull, but he won’t hit on someone who’s out cold. He wants him awake so he will feel every hit.
We look at each other, both breathing hard, both ruled by the anger pumping viciously through our veins. A tiny hand grabs onto my shirt and pulls, doing the same to Ryan, until we’re mashed together in a triangle, with Kira’s head buried in the center, an arm around our waists.
She’s shaking, crying, and exactly what we both need to calm down.
The three of us, like it used to be, protecting each other from everything, including from ourselves.
Flashes of blue and red show up a few minutes later and we let them in, directing them toward my father, who is waking back up. I don’t know what Kira said to them on the phone, but two of the officers go immediately to him.
“I can do it!” my father says to them. “I’m not some fucking invalid.”
“Settle down, Mr. Hunt.”
“Settle down? You should be arresting those two animals, not helping me up. They attacked me.” He’s pointing to us, but we’re all silent.
Another officer steps forward. “I’m not so sure I believe that, seeing as they’ve spent all night at the hospital with your wife.” The cop pulls out his handcuffs. “Turn around.”
“The hell?” My father steps back and glares at him.
“Sir, I asked you to turn around.”
“What for?”
“Because once they’re on I’m going to Mirandize you.” He grabs onto my father’s shoulders and flips him around, pressing his chest against the wall.
“You’re arresting me? On what grounds?”
I love hearing the snap of the cuffs, the ratcheting sound as they are locked down tight.
“Assault,” the officer says.
“But I didn’t do anything.”
“That’s not what the evidence says,” the officer growls in his face as he grabs his arm and pulls him out the door.
“Are you all right?” Another man asks Kira.
She nods and swallows hard. “Yes.”
I pull her to me, wrapping my arm around her as I kiss the top of her head.
“You’re his son, Brayden, correct?”
I nod.
“And you two are?”
“His wife’s children,” Ryan says.
The officer thumbs through his notes. “Sonia Roth?”
We all nod.
“So, what happened here?”
“We left our Mom in the hospital while they’re running more tests to move her out of here so she didn’t have to see him alone again. He surprised us when he suddenly showed up,” Ryan said in his clear and calm tone.
“I was trying to hold him until you arrived, but he tried to get away. After what he did, we just couldn’t let him,” I tell the officer. It’s the truth, though I did use more force than I’m letting on.
“There’s been an APB out for him since this morning. It’s good you were able to keep him here.” The officer takes notes and looks between me and Ryan. “He’s got a pretty nasty welt on his cheek, which one of you put it there?”
We glance at each other quickly before Ryan nods. “Me.”
The officer nods and puts away his notes. “Nice. If you ever need to blow off some steam, I do a boxing class three nights a week.” He holds out his hand and Ryan takes it. “But I have a feeling this was a onetime thing.”
Ryan nods. “My mom didn’t deserve what he did to her.”
“No, and we’re going to make sure he pays for it, okay? No vigilante justice, got it?”
We both nod and he gives us a smile before turning and heading for the door.
“Ryan!” Dana appears on the other side of the officer, and runs around him straight to Ryan and flings her arms around his neck. “Thank God! I saw the cop cars and started freaking out.”
“It’s okay, baby, everything’s going to be okay.”
Looking at them, then down at Kira, and all that’s happened in the last twelve hours, I actually believe that.
Everything is going to be okay.
Once Dana arrived the packing went even faster and we were able to load up and unload at the storage site and get the truck back to the rental place before they closed. Kira packed up a bunch of essentials and favorites of her Mom’s, which we promptly put in my mom’s car as soon as we got back to the hospital.
Dana and I ran to get some food for everyone while Kira and Ryan spent time with their mom. When we got back, Dana called Ryan out and they went to find some drinks while I took the rest to the room.
I’m a few feet out from the door when I hear Sonia’s voice out in the hall.
“We separated you two, you and Brayden, when we got married, didn’t we?”
I peer in from the doorway enough that I can see and hear them, but they aren’t looking my way.
Kira nods slowly. “Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry, baby. I had no idea. I hate to admit that at the time I was stuck in my own little bubble, and I didn’t see for a long time the change between you two.”
“When did you finally notice?” Kira asks.
Sonia purses her lips. “It’s been adding up, slowly over the last year or two. Much more so this year.”
“He’s my boyfriend, now,” Kira says, her hand in Sonia’s. “You marrying Steven messed us both up, but I think we’ve finally worked past it.”
Fuck yeah, we have, and I can’t wait to prove that to everyone.
“I’m so sorry, baby.” Tears stream down Sonia’s face and she pulls Kira closer. “I was alone for so long. So lonely. Steven saw that and took advantage of it. And in that, I took away your chance to be together.”
I knock on the door, and both their heads pop up, fingers moving to eyes and swiping away tears.
“Anyone order some orange chicken?” I ask with a smile as I hold up the bag.
“Panda?” Kira asks, her eyes wide. My lip twitches up into a smirk and I nod. She reaches up and throws her arms around my neck, pulling me down to press her lips to mine. “Thank you, baby.”
I pull the four containers out, one for the three of us and one for my mom. Kira and Sonia use the little table for the bed while I take a seat on the chair right next to them.
Dana and Ryan show up after a few minutes, passing out water bottles and a tea for Kira, before sitting down and eating as well.
“You four really should be heading back home soon. You missed a whole day of classes and have barely slept.”
“You’re more important than a day of classes,” Kira says, squeezing Sonia’s hand.
“Oh, everyone’s here,” my mom says as she enters the room. “Good, then you all can help me convince Sonia to not drop the charges against Steven.”
Drop the charges? Hell no.
Ryan stares at her. “You are pressing charges. Mom, after what he did, you can’t let him get away with it.”
“What if he wins because I don’t remember?”
“Sonia, they’ve arrested him,” I say bluntly. “They have evidence even if you can’t remember and that alone is a huge power over him. He’ll give you whatever you want just to keep you quiet.”
She blinks at me, her mouth hanging open. Tears fill her eyes. “I’m just so confused on what to do.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Kira says as she strokes her hand. “We’re here. We’ll help you through everything.”
She nods and looks to my mom. “I know I am the last person to ask this of you, after our history and especially after all you’ve already done, but please, will you please help me.”
Mom’s lips form a straight line and she steps to the other side of the bed, sitting on the edge. “You don’t have to beg, Sonia. I’ll help you and we’ll get you through this. Besides,” she looks over to me and Kira, “I think we’re going to be in each other’s lives regardless.”
Sonia glances over to us as well and smiles up at Abby. “Thank you.”
“Okay, with that settled, I think it’s time you kids got back up to school,” Mom says, looking around at us.
“But, I want to stay with Mom,” Kira says.
Ryan also doesn’t seem to like this idea, but I think he understands. For one, we have no place to stay.
“I’ll call you the instant we know anything, so go home, get some sleep, and get to class.”
I stand up and walk to Mom, wrapping my arms around her in a tight bear hug. “You’re the greatest person I’ve ever met, and the best mom ever.”
Her head nods against my chest. “Thanks, baby.”
It takes us an hour to pack up and say goodbye before splitting up between my car and Dana’s and heading back up to school.
Things have finally fallen into place. It was a long road, but for the first time I really feel like a weight has been lifted. Like my dreams can become a reality.
The price was high, but we’ll be okay.
We’ll all be okay.