The roar in my ears disoriented me as I tried to figure things out, clear my head. Rhys thought I wanted someone to take her away. That I’d let that happen. That I wanted Esme to end up with the guy from the park. I tried to speak to him, but Derek stepped between us, his arms across his chest, and shook his head. Blocked. I glared at his betrayal. I’d thought we were friends. He’d shut me out.

I walked out of Rhys’s office, my legs unsteady. The hallway grew longer with each step. I slid my hands along the wall to keep myself upright. I gasped in hungry breaths like I’d just clawed my way to the surface of a surging ocean.

I sat on the edge of my bed and I didn’t know what to do. Where would I go now? I had a lot of money in my account. I could start over. Build a new life for myself, but my stomach soured as I thought about leaving Rhys and Esme. I loved them. I knew that now. I loved them more than I’d ever loved anyone and I didn’t want to leave, but there was no way to stay if he thought I’d done something so terrible.

The fact that he thought I’d been working with Killian to expose his secret made me want to rage back at him. Shatter a few glasses of my own. My anger poured off me in waves. After everything we’d had together, after how much I cared for Esme, how could he think I could do something so traitorous, so vile?

Then my rage turned to Killian who deserved it most. Killian, that fucking bastard wasn’t going to get away with it. I wasn’t above showing him just what happened when someone fucked with my family.

* * *

“Ma’am, you can’t go in there.” A stocky woman in her fifties chased after me. I blew right past her, pushed the solid wood door open, and closed it right in her face, locking it behind me. She pounded on the door, but I didn’t give a shit. The time for being nice was over. The breakdown I’d had when I left Rhys’s apartment was far from pretty. Everything was ruined. I told him I loved him and he kicked me out. He didn’t believe me. But something bigger than us was at stake. The life of a little girl hung in the balance.

“Mel! I certainly didn’t think I’d be seeing you so soon,” Killian said, his hand behind his head as he leaned back in his chair, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“What did you do?” I asked, through clenched teeth. My hands fisted at my sides. The appeal of punching him in his smug mouth wasn’t lost on me. No wonder Rhys went for it that night on the balcony.

“I did what I needed to do to get back what was mine,” he said, leaning forward.

“What was yours?” I said, my voice hitching. “You dragged me into this. Made him think I had something to do with you. That I was working for you.”

“He should know what it feels like to have the people closest to him betray him.”

“I didn’t. I’d never do that to him.”

“It doesn’t matter if you did, it’s what he thinks,” he sneered. “And when he watches his fortune drain away, everyone will see him for who he really is. Maybe Rachel will see who he really is.”

“You dragged her into this, too. You’re talking about the money? Who gives a shit about the money?” I couldn’t believe that, with lives on the line, he’d care about something so petty.

“It’s not just about the money, it’s about justice. I’m not going to let Rhys get away with his good guy routine he’s been pulling his whole life.”

“Money and justice, huh? Justice for who? For you?”

“Yes, for me and for his wife. And everyone else he’s fucked over in his life. Everyone who’s ever been mixed up with him ends up regretting it. He’s thrown around his money for so long, he doesn’t know what it’s like to deal with the consequences.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” I couldn’t believe someone so powerful could be so petty.

“He killed her!” he roared, toe-to-toe with me now. “I knew Beth, a scholarship kid like me. And just like he railroaded me and everyone else at our school, he railroaded her. And when she wouldn’t agree to whatever plans he had, he killed her.” My mind swam as I tried to piece together what the hell he talked about. This story did not fit in with everything happening right now.

“What are you talking about? Were you in contact with Beth?”

“Yeah, she got in touch with me not long before she died. Said she was wrong about Rhys and needed money to run away. She was going to leave him.”

“For you?”

“No, not for me. For Allan. But she couldn’t contact him, so she got in touch with me. The three of us were from the same neighborhood growing up. She was like a sister to me.”

“Then you knew about her problems? About the drugs?” How could he think Rhys killed her? He had his issues, but he wasn’t a killer. Killian hand waved it away.

“She was screwed up in all that when we were in school, but she got clean. Cleaned up her life until she married. She wasn’t going to toe the line anymore. Be the good little wife he wanted, and he killed her,” he said, his eyes fierce and his fists clenched. The tears in his eyes told me this wasn’t just some vendetta about money.

“She died in a rest stop bathroom of an overdose, Killian.”

“She didn’t,” he said, looking away from me, shaking his head. “She was clean. Had been for a while, she told me. But he was practically keeping her prisoner. She said he was having her followed.”

“He was having her followed because she couldn’t keep the addiction at bay. She did have a problem. She was using. She was there in that rest stop with Esme. She brought her little girl there to get high and she died.” His head snapped back, the color draining from his face.

“What?” He stared at me like a part of his world had just imploded.

“I’m sorry. I can tell she meant something to you, but I saw the sealed police report, unredacted. She died of an overdose, Esme was with her. Stuck in that rest stop bathroom for hours before Derek found her.” He staggered back and I almost felt bad for him. Almost. If I hadn’t remembered what he’d brought into our lives, upending the quiet tranquility of the life Rhys had built for his daughter.

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he cover it up? Why wouldn’t he let them publish that report?”

“Esme. She’d already been through enough trauma. He didn’t want her to have to face that in the news every day of her life. To have other people bring it up and shove it in her face. He did it to protect her. All he’s ever done is to protect her and now you’ve opened a Pandora’s box that’s going to destroy that little girl.”

A thumping and pounding came to the office door. I glanced over my shoulder. I didn’t have much time left. Security flung the door open and burst into the office. Three burly security guards grabbed me by the arms and tried to haul me out. Killian held up his hand.

“Stop! Let her go. I’m fine,” he said to the guards, who immediately let me go. They glanced back and forth between us. “I said go,” he said through gritted teeth, and the guards backed up like they were trying to escape a rattlesnake. He did seem like the type to strike out at anyone who got in his way. And then his focus was back on me.

“You’re going to ruin more than Rhys’s life with this vendetta built on lies.”

“I haven’t done anything, except try to expose the crime he committed.”

“To protect Esme!” I said, trying to control my anger. “He didn’t want it splashed all over the papers about his wife losing her battle with her addiction. He didn’t commit a crime. He tried to protect his daughter from the truth of her mother’s death. To not have it splashed all over the tabloids for her to read and know about for the rest of her life.”

“I grew up in a shitty situation, too. I’m sure being a scholarship kid at a school where Rhys went sucked, but you know what? I would never hurt a little kid because of some grudge I held against someone.”

“He had a hand in her death,” he said, anger still pouring off him but his voice softer, almost broken.

“He didn’t, Killian. He didn’t. She overdosed. She was sick and couldn’t get a handle on it. She died and he had done everything he could to protect her from herself. But bringing Allan to challenge for custody? Do you know what that would do to her? How it would destroy her to be taken away from Rhys? Even for a day,” I said, slamming my hands against his chest. But he just stood there, completely still, my hands didn’t move him an inch.

“What did you just say?” he asked, slowly. And then the room shifted as I realized he didn’t know anything about that part.

“Esme isn’t Rhys’s?” he said, slowly, the words falling from his mouth. Oh, fuck.

“You’re saying, you didn’t call Allan to file for a paternity suit? Didn’t try to get him to go after Esme?”

“He did what?” he roared. And he looked every part his nickname. Kill.

“He served Rhys a letter demanding a paternity test. You didn’t do that?” I didn’t know if I believed him. He did have his sights set on completely destroying the man I loved. I didn’t think somehow his conscience got to him, but the way the veins in his neck were throbbing, I wasn’t sure what the hell happened.

“No, I didn’t.” He ran his hands through his hair, his muscles bunching under his shirt, like he might burst at any moment. “Fuck,” he roared, so loud it made me jump and I’d spent a fair amount of time around temperamental men.

“What did you think was going to happen, Killian? You didn’t think that, if you got your way and exacted your little revenge, it would hurt his daughter? You didn’t think about it because all you cared about was the vendetta, not who was swept up in the wake of your destruction. So now, you’ve put his daughter in jeopardy and, if you think he’s going to take that lying down, you’d better think again,” I said, my voice hard as steel. Rhys might not want me anymore, but I sure as hell would be whatever I could to protect Esme.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, squeezing the back of his neck.

“How are you going to take care of it?”

“I said, I’ll take care of it,” he growled. “Why do you care anyway? I’m sure, from the way you stormed in here, that he must have fired you. Told you to get out. Why try to protect him?”

“Because he’s a package deal. And I don’t know what kind of crazy shit I’d do if someone threatened to take my child from me. He might have kicked me out, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do whatever I can to protect Esme.”

“You care that much about a kid who isn’t even yours?”

“Yes. She might not be my blood but I’ll do whatever I can to protect her. You better fix it because if you don’t I’ll find a way to hurt you. I might not have your money or your influence, but I swear, I will do everything in my power to end you,” I said, completely aware of how much I meant it. I didn’t care what I had to do, but if he didn’t fix this, I would make him pay.

As for Rhys, I didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t going to let me waltz into the apartment and tell him what I had found out. I didn’t know what I could do to help. Just a few months ago the apartment was a place I’d been afraid to set foot in, unsure of how it would all work. And here I was, exactly where I feared I’d be. I knew it would end. I knew it wouldn’t last, but I’d let myself live in that fairytale land where someone like Rhys and I could be happy together. Me, Rhys and Esme, together. A family. And just like before, it had all been taken away from me.