Page 28 of Deadly Secrets

Stone nods then stands. “Mind if we hang out in the kitchen while you and Reaper chat?”

The man is a beast when he’s at his full height. There’s no way in hell I’m gonna say no and piss him off. “Of course.” I plaster a smile on and nod.

Hawk and Brass stand as well but it isn’t till Stone says something in a low tone that Cole follows them towards the kitchen. It’s not like they can’t hear because the floor plan is pretty open.

When I turn back to Rhett, I see him looking me over then looking around the room. They land on some of the pictures I have of Ryder when he was smaller.

“Why are you here, Remi?” he finally asks as the tension grows thick.

His question throws me for a second.

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you here, in Montana and not in Connecticut where your grandparents are?” he clarifies.

I snort. “Do you want the long version or short one because we might be here all day.” I try to spin some humor on the disaster that was my life.

“All of it,” he states. “Why do you have a missing persons case open and I’m looking right at you.”

“Missing persons?” I ask confused and bring my legs up and cross them in the chair. “That’s crazy, I’m obviously not missing.”

“Then what happened? Where did you go?” he peppers me with quick questions as his voice grows louder and he stands. “Why weren’t you at my trial when they threw me to the wolves? Why didn’t you speak up?” I can feel his anger grow with each word. His fists are balled up like he’s ready to punch a hole in the wall.

The sound of chairs scraping the floor can be heard and Cole storms in, “You’re not going to speak to her like that,” he growls, defending me.

I stand and put my hands up in surrender and ignore Cole for a moment.

“I learned later that they sedated me after they brought us down from my room. The next thing I knew I woke up in my grandparents’ house,” I tell him. “I tried to leave several times but they locked me in my room and bolted the window shut. I found a phone one time to make a call and they locked me up in a mental ward. They had me admitted saying I was a danger to myself,” I practically yell, feeling like I’m back in the white room that was stripped of everything. “I finally got out of there when I learned to play along. It was the only way I was getting us out of there.”

I look up finally and watch the anger leave his body. His shoulders slump as if all the air deflates his sails.

“Is that when you left?” he asks.

I shake my head because I wish that was it.

“Do you remember the day our life changed?” I ask.

“What do you mean? Of course, I remember that fucking day. I’ll never be able to get it out of my head.”

“Do you remember that I had something important to tell you?” I question and wait as his eyes look over my shoulder as if trying to remember the rest of the details of that horrific evening.

“I think… maybe, yeah,” he utters.

“I was going to tell you that I was pregnant.” I leave that to hang in the air for a moment and let him soak it in.

A frown forms on his handsome face as the words mull over in his head.

“Pregnant? You were pregnant?” he repeats. “But we… you and I were only kids.”

His face contorts in anguish as he starts to pace the length of the living room. I give him a second to process this because I’m starting to realize that everything I assumed him to know about us isn’t what actually happened.

“What happened? What did your grandparents do?” I hear over my shoulder and see that all the men from the kitchen have made their way to the edge of the living room.

“It didn’t take them long to figure out that I was pregnant. One day I was summoned down to the formal dining room and there was a man and woman seated at the table. I was told that they were the lucky couple who were going to adopt my child.” I try not to think about that time because it was the scariest moment in my life. “I knew then that I needed to get out of there as fast as I could. It took me several weeks but I was able to earn their trust enough to let me run a few errands. Finally, when I knew they wouldn’t be looking for me for a few hours because they were at some event at the country club, I fled. Dropped the car somewhere then got to the nearest taxi I could find and got the hell out of town.”

“Your grandparents filed a missing person’s report on you later that evening,” Hawk says as he breaks away from the group and comes over to have a seat on the couch.

“Really?” I question, shocked that they would care so much about me.