Page 37 of Let Me
Not today.
At least, not here. Where the petting could take a turn for the worse.
I shake my head. “Then make it up to me. Let’s go out.” I jerk my head to the door. I want to get out of here.
Rolland sighs, rubs a hand over his face, and then, deliberately, he pockets his wedding band. Of course he does. Maybe last night, he was his wife’s husband. But Sunday morning, he’s my tormenter. I try to calm my nerves. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m going back to North Carolina, to my mom, to our shitty apartment, to my shitty life. I’m going back to school and work and all the mundane things that keep me occupied, that keep me from thinking about Rolland and the Viranis and the worst mistake I ever made.
“Don’t want to sit with me?” Rolland asks, eyes narrowed. He looks dangerous like that. Not like Benji. Worse. Benji is darkness embodied, but Rolland tries to keep the nice-guy mask on, which makes it all the more eerie. He did that night, even. Up until the very last minute.
“Not particularly,” I reply, sitting up straighter, perched on the edge of the sofa.
“I’m surprised, you know,” Rolland says softly, turning his gaze to the windows once more. I know he’s not talking about me not sitting beside him. That’s probably not surprising in the least. “I’m surprised that you’re not more upset.”
His words send a shiver down my spine. But he knows. Adam came to his building after all. His door. It’s completely unsurprising that he knows, and yet it makes me nervous. Because if he knows, he won’t have any limits.
He turns his gaze back to me, a chilling smile on his lips. “Adam didn’t mean that much to you, did he?” He shakes his head without waiting for me to answer. “Long distance is hard to maintain, if you don’t have your significant other on a tight leash.”
I feel that familiar surge of anger again. I want to smash this glass table between us and use a piece of it to pierce through his sick heart. A little much? I don’t think so. Not after what he did.
But I’m no murderer. I’m a coward. It’s why I’m in this mess.
Get up and walk out of here.My brain is screaming it at me.
“When are you going to let this go?” I ask, unable to keep the words in.
We’ve had this conversation before. The one where I ask him to delete the video, to let me off the hook. It washimthat committed the crime. Why I have to suffer for it is beyond me. Except it’s not, actually, beyond me. I’m acutely aware that rich people get away with murder. Poor people with drug-addicted mothers don’t. Besides, it’s not the video he’s hanging over my head anymore. We all saw that.
It’s the missing piece.
ThatI want to keep between us. That, I never want Caden to find out about.Never.I shouldn’t care. Shouldn’t want to protect him at my own expense. Not like this. And for three years I’ve paid for this. This silence. Rolland wouldn’t care. It might ding his reputation a little, but it would recover quickly, with all the money he’s got. Mine never would.
Rolland raises a brow, leaning forward. “You want me to let you go, Riley?” he asks softly.
I don’t answer him. He knows the answer.
“The thing is, Riley, I can’t.” He threads his fingers together, clasping his hands in front of him, his wrists on his knees. He bites his lip and a wave of revulsion rolls through me. He hasn’t tried it again. Not since that first time. Not since he used a moment of weakness from me, a girl he could exploit, to fuck up my whole life.
“Not since Jack came home with you. Your beautiful, white smile. The way you used your manners,Yes sirandNo sir, so perfectly obedient. But there was a darkness to you, too. From your mother, from what you grew up with. I knew my son would never be able to handle you. I thought Caden would.” He shakes his head and sighs. “But of course, you missed that train. You couldn’t fuck Jack over, could you? Not outright. When you let him go, finally, well…it was his moping I couldn’t stand. That’s why I had to show him. To help him move along.”
My chest caves in at those words. His admission. I knew it all along, of course. But to hear him say it…I remember the note Jack left.
You took her.
“Did you tell him?” I ask Rolland, looking down at my hands. “Who it was?”
Rolland laughs. “Of course not, Riley. That’s not how blackmail works.”
You took her.
I don’t know who Jack thought it was, in that video. I have no idea. But the note was right beside his bed. His blood was…it was everywhere. Rolland had been the one to pull me from the room while Caden had sank to his knees. We had been together when Caden got the call. The body hadn’t been moved when we drove back from that hotel.
Caden had instantly blamed me.
He didn’t understand.
He didn’t want to hear it. He hadn’t said a word to me the entire drive back, his face a mask of fury and panic and hurt all rolled into one. He had thought I had sent it. He had thought I had wanted to fuck Jack up some more. Thought I was retaliating for his possessiveness.
As if I was capable of eventhinkingof doing such a thing. The video is the reason I left him. Not the video itself, but the moment it captured. What had happened the week before.
