Rhys (Secrets Book 1) Read online

  It’s from Martinelli. It can only contain one thing: the information he dug up on Smith. Though I evaded answering his questions, I’ll know he’ll have sent thorough information to help aid me in case I do decide to make the world a better place by removing Smith from it.

  I’m pacing in front of the couch when I hear the key slide into the lock of the front door. Brant’s booming voice soon follows.

  “Assmonger, we’re home—or at least T-Lil is home. Guess what? Yours truly is staying for dinner.”

  Ah, the joys of Brant and his unfiltered mouth. Mine is worse, but I’ve been trying to mellow it down in front of Averill.

  “Since when do you call my girl T-Lil, cock womble?

  “I swear, you two are worse than Tessa and I ever thought of being. Our worst was calling each other bitches or whores. Not as creative, but still effective.”

  I rush to grab the bags of groceries from her hands, to help her deposit them into the kitchen. Brant can finish bringing in what he was carrying and can get whatever’s left outside.

  “It actually started after I left the army and moved here for college. He called me a vulgar name, I volleyed one back, it stuck. Now it’s our greeting. It’s comforting—in a strange, weird, bizarre way, but it fits.”

  I have this thing when I unload groceries: I can’t unpack a bag and put it away then return to do another bag. Nope. I have to unpack all the bags, sort through the contents, and put them away according to where each type of products goes—fridge, pantry, cupboards. Another one of my many quirks.

  “You don’t mind that I invited Brant to stay for dinner, do you?” she asks as she starts putting away the cold items I’ve unpacked. Like I said, we’ve meshed our lives together. When the time comes for her to go back to her place, I don’t know how I’ll deal with it.

  “Nah, I don’t mind. He spends a fair amount of time here anyway. We might as well start feeding him, treat him like the stray he is.” The last part was said as a joke because I saw the stray in question making his way back into the kitchen with the rest of the bags.

  “I’m a stray, am I?” Without asking, he starts unpacking the bags and leaving the contents on the counter.

  “Yeah, pretty much.” He must find the smirk on my face offensive, because the next thing I know, he’s set an empty paper bag over my head.

  Laughing, I push it off and continue putting away the groceries.

  “There’s an envelope in the living room from Martinelli. It arrived around an hour back. It’s been driving me crazy waiting for you to get home. We can open it after putting groceries away, or wait until dinner, then we can fully discuss its contents.”

  My comments are meant for Averill, but if Brant is here to learn whatever the envelope contains, he’s here. Nothing we can do to avoid that but wait to open it until after he leaves.

  “Hm. What if it contains a certain issue I don’t want talked about with anyone but you?” she ponders while stacking up the Greek yogurt three tall and three deep on the third shelf of the fridge.

  “Then we skip over those parts and talk about them later, after Brant leaves. He doesn’t need to know your personal business, babe.”

  “Okay, we can wait until dinner. I know you’re anxious, I can tell.” She places a kiss upon my cheek while grabbing the coffee creamer. “But you can wait another half hour or so while dinner cooks. Go hang out with Brant. Do man stuff. I’ll put the rest of this away and get dinner started.”

  “Man stuff?” Walking up behind her while she’s bent over putting the creamer away, I grab both of her ass cheeks and give them a firm squeeze. Man, how I love being able to touch her whenever I want to.

  “Yeah, man stuff. Drink a beer, talk about boobs. Whatever it is guys do, go do it.”

  Backing away from her, I look over at Brant, whose goofy grin is priceless. “I believe we’ve been dismissed. Should we see if the Tigers are playing?”

  “Might as well. Clearly we’re of no use in here.”

  Grabbing a couple of beers, we head into the living room, where we wait for Averill to cook dinner. The whole time, we’re plotting out how best to keep her safe. Brant noticed the weird neighbor guy from her house in the grocery store, so he’s worth checking out. Looks like I may be calling in more favors than I ever planned on.

  Averill calls us to dinner nearly forty minutes later. How do I know how long it’s been? I’ve been watching the minutes slowly tick by, the envelope resting near me, screaming to be opened. Grabbing it, I get up and follow Brant into the kitchen.

  “I’ll take the seat in the middle, if it’s okay,” my girl says while placing a huge bowl of pasta in the center of the island. She’s set up three places, and my bar looks like a fancy restaurant. If you’d asked, I wouldn’t have been able to say I owned any of this. Yeah, I knew about the real plates, but fancy napkins? Nope, no idea I had those. Why would I? Paper napkins have always worked out great for me.

  “Sounds perfect.”

  Brant doesn’t say a word as he takes a seat. He’s staring at the bowl of pasta, and the glaze in his eyes makes him look like he hasn’t eaten in days—weeks maybe. He doesn’t know how to cook, and I’m willing to bet he hasn’t had a home-cooked meal in months.

  “Quit drooling over there. You could have helped by grabbing the wine or something,” I taunt as I grab said wine and glasses.

  “Don’t tease him. He told me his favorite was lemon chicken, so I made lemon chicken pasta and added my own spin to it—he’s drooling for a reason. Besides, if he’s concentrating on the food, we can discuss the contents of the envelope and he’ll be in his own world.”

  “Um, what?”

  Laughing, Averill takes her seat. “See?” She looks at me while gesturing over to Brant. “Point made.” She then turns to look over at him and says, “Dinner is served.”

  He wastes no time with manners, pulling the bowl toward him and serving himself the biggest serving possible. Pasta is falling off the sides of his plate, and there’s no way he’ll eat all of it—no way in hell.

  “We may as well open this sucker. I doubt he’ll surface for air for at least half an hour.”

  She begins serving pasta onto my plate as well as her own while I rip open the stupid mocking envelope. Pulling out the contents, I glance at the note attached to the top.

  We read the note together, and we both know what he means by assistance.

  “I’m ready if you are.” I grasp her hand under the bar and place it on my lap. Neither of us makes a move to begin eating, both too anxious to see what’s behind the note. I’m positive it will include a picture, further proving that Rob is Smith.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Setting the note aside, we both stare at the printout underneath. Her shocked gasp is all the proof I need to know it’s Rob.

  “We can go over the rest later. We know it’s him now. We’re certain of it. Let’s eat, or try anyway. After we’re alone, we’ll discuss and go over rest of the information.”

  She squeezes my hand in reply, letting it go to grab her fork and attempt to eat. I place the note back on top and slide the papers back into the envelope. Grabbing my glass of wine, I gulp down almost the entire thing.

  “I take it he’s the same guy?” Brant manages to get out between mouthfuls.

  “Yes.” One word from both of us, said in unison.

  “Ohhhkay.”

  The silence hangs around us as we try to eat. Neither of us gets much eaten, but we do drink plenty of wine. It’s okay though—Brant ate enough for the three of us.

  If he noticed the awkwardness in the air, he didn’t say anything. As he’s leaving, he tells me he’ll look into the neighbor of hers, see who owns the house and who lives there, if the guy we’ve all seen now matches. If not, I’ll be contacting someone to try to find out who he is.

  If he’s truly a neighbor, maybe our guards can be let down slightly, but maybe not. He seemed a bit too interested in what was going on the night we packe
d her belongings. Seeing him in the grocery store doesn’t mean much; as I’ve stated before, our neighborhoods are close, and we share a lot of the same stores. It could be a coincidence, but I’m not leaving anything up to chance when it comes to Smith. If he’s as dangerous as I think he is, he could have countless people working with him, eyes everywhere.

  If you were to ask me today if I had any regrets, I’d say yes. My regret is trying to find the answers surrounding Vinny’s death, because wanting those answers led me to Smith. Fate still would have led Averill back to me, and yes, the brutal attack would have still happened to her, but at least now she’d be safe. I wouldn’t have brought the monster back into her life. It’s my choices that brought him here.

  Fucking Vinny. Why didn’t he tell us he was a mob boss’s son? Stupid son of a bitch. If he were alive, I’d kill him for being a lying ass.

  As soon as Brant walks out the door, I go about setting the alarm system before making my way back to Averill. I find her in the kitchen, putting away the leftovers she didn’t send home with him. She tried to send all of them, but he wouldn’t take them, claiming we may want some leftovers later since we didn’t eat much.

  “Hey, babe.”

  It’s a tad unnerving how quickly we’ve fallen into each other, especially for someone like me who’s been a loner for the adult years of my life. I’ve never felt like I deserved to be happy. Like I said, I wore my sadness like a souvenir, carried that shit around proudly. Why? I damn well deserved it.

  “Hey yourself, sexy.”

  Have I mentioned how much I love having her here?

  “Do you want to grab some more wine and go over the contents in the living room, or should we settle into bed and look at them there?” Either option she chooses will lead to her sitting next to me, cuddled in my arms.

  “Depends on if we can take the wine into the bedroom or not.”

  “Whatever you wish.” If she wanted to dump red wine all over my body and stain every inch of the sheets, I would say yes. I’ll grant her anything she wants.

  “Bed, please. I’d rather strip down to my pajamas and be comfortable for the rest of this conversation.”

  “How about you go get comfy, and I’ll grab the wine and the envelope and meet you in the bedroom?”

  “Perfect.” As she’s walking by on her way to the bedroom, she reaches over and smacks my ass. “Hurry up, I need my Rhys time.”

  I’ve never been more excited to learn about a murderer’s past before. Does it make me twisted? Probably. Do I give a shit? Nope. I get to be with her while I learn what Martinelli knows about him. Normally I’d dig into him myself, use my legal connections to see if there’s a possible path he’s left, and undoubtedly, there is. There has to be. I will go down those roads—after I learn what’s in the envelope.

  Walking into the bedroom, I drop the bottle of wine when my eyes see what greets me. She’s lying naked in the middle of the bed, leaning into the pillows. When she said comfy, she truly meant comfy.

  “It’s a good thing that bottle wasn’t open. Roll up your tongue, pick up the bottle, and toss me the envelope, then take off your clothes and join me.”

  Have I mentioned how much I love her living here? Have I also mentioned how much she’s come into her old self over the last few days? My Tiger Lily is out in full force tonight.

  “Yes ma’am.” What else can I say? I love it when she’s bossy.

  Doing exactly what she asked, I meet her on the bed within seconds.

  “Let’s get the negative crap out of the way first, and afterward you can help erase all the bad.” Her honeyed voice says the words in a barely-there whisper. Okay, maybe she’s not entirely back to her old self, but she’s getting there.

  She pulls out the papers while I open the bottle of wine. I didn’t bring any glasses, figured we could be extra classy and drink it straight from the bottle. Taking a drink, I pass her the bottle. She does the same while tossing aside the note from Martinelli and the photo below it.

  The next sheet contains basically everything we already know. His full name, which she knew: Robert Michael Smith. His birthdate—she only knew the month and day—is on March 11, 1985, which makes him a year older than me and two years older than Averill. It also lists his parents’ names and last known residence: Michael and Irene Smith, last known to still be residing in Santa Rosa, California.

  This sheet also contains two current residences known for Smith, and two aliases. One of the houses is in Santa Rosa, which she says is the one she knew of. For some reason, it strikes me as odd he’d still own the same house. The other home is in Indianapolis, which I could’ve guessed. It also lists ownership of a few businesses, and one looks to be the warehouse. I’ll have to look into each one.

  “Rhys? Will you hold me?”

  “Babe, you don’t have to ask. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I wasn’t already. I meant to be.” Not wasting another second, I pull her over into my open arms, slightly lifting her into my lap, her legs twisting with mine. She takes another guzzle of wine then passes it to me to do the same. We continue reading over the page together.

  The next few pages are arrest records; Martinelli has included sealed records from his childhood. Those are the most disturbing. The sealed records include the raping and assault of his own mother. He served a measly year for it.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. A year?” Averill can feel the tension in my body, the anger radiating off me in waves. How could he get off with only serving a year for such a horrendous crime? His mother probably testified for him instead of against him.

  “Rhys, calm down. There’s nothing you can do about it now.” She begins running her hand up and down my chest, gently grazing my nipple with each pass.

  “You know, it’s for reasons like this I’m opening my practice. People like his mother are who I want to get justice for. No matter his age when it happened, he should’ve served more than a measly year.”

  Taking a few deep breaths, I continue reading the details of what happened. I’m sure it won’t help in calming me down any, but it will help in knowing exactly whom I’m going up against.

  At first, he denied it, said an intruder was to blame. He was fourteen damn years old when it occurred, which means when Averill met him, he hadn’t been out for long. How could Axil have not known? He would’ve had to know about his so-called boyfriend’s past, right? I can see her not knowing because she never actually wanted anything to do with Rob since her gut instinct told her no from day one, but surely Alix wasn’t completely unaware.

  This report leaves me with more questions instead of answering them. What the hell was Martinelli thinking tangling me up in this mess? Why would he agree to let me work with him? I’ll never for the life of me understand.

  Granted, I shouldn’t have beaten him half to death, but you can’t for one second say he didn’t deserve it.

  “Baby, I can feel the anger trapped inside you. Reading the rest tonight isn’t going to change anything. Why don’t we stop? We can guess at the rest. We know what we need to know, right?” She gazes up and catches my eyes. “Why don’t we lose ourselves in each other for the rest of tonight?”

  Tossing the papers to the floor and placing the open bottle of wine on the bedside table, we do as she suggested.

  She consumes me, and I love every second of it.

  The next morning, Averill is busy working on a few new displays while I pore over the rest of Smith’s arrest records. I’m baffled by the way he’s seemed to slip through the justice system. He’s served minimal time for each crime he’s been caught for, no substantial jail terms. The year he served as a minor for the rape of his own mother was the longest he’s spent behind bars in one sitting.

  He. Will. Pay.

  If I have to spend the rest of my life making sure of it, justice will be served. One way or another, I’ll take him down—legal or illegally.

  I’ll do whatever it takes to see him pay.

  My morning
is spent looking up all the cases involving him, getting every last detail about the crimes I can find. The more information, the better, as far as I’m concerned.

  The last thing he served time for was over a year ago, in Florida, for breaking and entering. He spent a total of 46 days behind bars. The reason he was released? Overcrowding. Since he didn’t use a weapon, he wasn’t considered a threat to society. What a fucking joke.

  There are many holes in our justice system, and people like Smith slip through the cracks every single day. It’s sad. Some people may blame the lack of funding when it comes to our prison system. Me? I say it’s more complicated.

  By the time lunch rolls around, I have a stack of printouts at least two inches thick. I’m consumed with reading the details surrounding his mother’s case when Averill finds me in her office.

  “Do you want the leftovers I packed, or would you like to go out for lunch today?”

  “Hm?”

  She asks me her question again, the expression on her face telling me it’s not just the second time she’s said it.

  “I’ve been trying to get your attention for a solid five minutes now. I pondered getting naked but I doubted it would work. You were spacing out, Rhys.”

  “I’m sorry. We can have the leftovers since we didn’t eat them last night.” And I’d like to go out in public as little as possible. I’m a smart man though, and don’t mention this fact to her. I’m sure she can guess though. Technically we are in public when the store is open.

  Sighing, she walks out of her office, leaving me to question what I did wrong. Is my wanting to protect her actually smothering her? Did she want to go out for lunch? Should I have asked her what she wanted to do?

  If I truly did what I wanted to do, she’d think I was insane.