Chapter 41

*Ryder*

How the hell was I going to explain everything to her? Where the hell do I start? I felt gutted and raw. There was so much pain inside that I could hardly breathe. How the hell could I tell her everything that I'd learned in the last couple of months? And how will I bear this pain? The pain of what my words might do to her.

Does it really matter? My pain was nothing compared to the hell I just heard in her voice, and though I'm not conceited enough to hold myself responsible for all of her pain, I knew at least ninety-five percent of it was because of me. Now I'm here for the first time in five years to add even more pain to her load.

I hated myself more at that moment as I stood there staring at the back of her head because she refused to turn around and face me. I could force her; I know I could. I've done it before, forced her to see things my way or to do any number of things that, when I look back, I feel like the worst kind of human being for doing to her.

If I were her, I wouldn't want to see me either, but even knowing that I can't let go. I don't want to let go, but maybe it's what's best for her. Maybe she was right, and I'd done more than enough to her for one lifetime. I can't bear to see her hurting, let alone being the cause of so much pain.

I realized how selfish I've always been where she was concerned. How much I took her for granted, and the realization was daunting. I felt like a monster, like the worst kind of man there was. I'd done something to her that no one should ever have to go through.

I heard Zak and Tyler's voices in my head, and some of what they were trying to explain became clear. I couldn't see it then; I didn't know that I had it in me to be as strong as they wanted me to be. To be able to even think of letting her go if that's what she needed to be happy. And even though the thought of it was killing me inside, I knew that I loved her enough to want what was best for her, but fuck was it hard.

And then it hit me. I'd finally grown up. Somehow in the last few weeks, I'd become someone else. I was becoming the man she'd always wanted me to be. A man with compassion and empathy, a man who could love someone other than himself. What a time to come to that conclusion. Still, I couldn't leave without telling her what I came here to say.

"Like I said, we need to talk; it's serious, Elena."

"I'm not in the mood to listen to any more of your lies. I trusted you once, but that will never happen again, so if that's what you're expecting, you're wasting your breath." She moved even further away from me, and I felt it in my gut, like the twist of a knife.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do with my time; please see your way out. And you owe me a door."

"Elena, stop it; I'm being serious here, we need to talk, and I won't take no for an answer. I won't leave until I've said what I came here to say. If you still want me to go after I have my say, then… I'll do as you wish." I hope I can keep that promise at least, but it was going to be hard.

"When did you become so stubborn?"

"If you don't like it, there's a whole big world out there, and there are three places your ass could be right now instead of here dealing with little ole me. In your lane, out my business, and way the fuck over there. Now go." She pointed towards the broken door with a sneer.

I walked over and closed the door the best I could before heading over to the lounge she'd been resting on and sat down, which made her huff and flounce around to face me. "Fine, what is it? The sooner you say whatever it is you have to say, the sooner you can get out of my hair." She's so adorably cute when she's mad.

"I guess I should start at the beginning. First, I would like to say that you were right about Matt. It turns out he's as far from being any kind of spiritual advisor as you can get." I knew just mentioning his name would get her going. She's always hated that guy, and now I know it was with good reason.

"What spiritual advisor? I tried to warn you; I told you we live in a town and work in a profession where people have to sign contracts forbidding them to even say the name, and you believed that you'd find one of his representatives here? How stupid can you be?"

"I know that now, but how could I have known it back then? I was just trying to get on the right path." She actually snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Because I told you, and you were supposed to trust me, which you obviously never did." She was loaded for bear, but I had a lot to get through, so I kept trucking on like Tyler said, or she'd argue me to death before I got it all out.

"Anyway, he was in on it."

"In on what? What the heck are you trying to say, Ryder?"

"He was my handler or one of them, I should say. One of the people they placed next to me to keep me under control."

"Who are you talking about? What the hell are you saying? I'm confused."

I wasn't doing this right. I kind of expected it because there was so much to get through, and I wanted to pick and choose what I shared with her this first time. But now that I was saying this shit out loud, it all sounded so convoluted, plus I'd only just learned most of this stuff myself.

"It was a conspiracy, I guess you can say, with a lot of players." Now I had her attention, and she let me talk for the next half an hour without interruption as I filled her in on most of what had happened in the last five years, starting with what led up to my marriage but leaving out other things that I didn't think she was ready for. I'd already shared plenty, and that was enough. I couldn't forget how fragile she was and what some of what I had to say might do to her psyche.

When I was done, she was sitting on the lounger next to me, not saying a word. "I know it's a lot to take in all at once." The look she gave me was cold enough to freeze my balls. I'd forgotten how she could get when riled. Elena has two sides to her when she's mad, according to the situation. She can either fly off the rails in anger or get so cold you'd think your life was in danger. After all these years, I'm still unsure which is the lesser of those two evils.

***

*Elena*

"Are you telling me that your shyster of a spiritual advisor and the plastic Barbies, along with that slut of a hag you married, put their little brains together and came up with this?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"Unbelievable."

"So, let me get this straight. Nicole and Noel Hudson pretended to be my friends only to get close to you in order to break us up so you could marry someone else. Is that what you're saying?" Nothing about this made any sense, but he sounded like he believed it.

"In a nutshell, yes."

Something about this wasn't adding up for me. The math wasn't mathing as they said. I could believe that those two would stoop as low as they had, but there had to be something in it for them. Unless!

"Ok, well, everyone knows the plastic Barbies don't do anything without their mother's consent, so what part did she play in all this?"

"I'm not sure we should get into that right now." He got mighty fidgety as if I were putting him on the spot. Too bad he wanted to talk; now I was ready to listen.

"Why? Is it too complicated for you? Fine, there's the door."

"Come on, Elena, don't be like that."

"You either tell me the whole story, or you get the fuck out right now."

"Fine, but keep an open mind ok; this happened a long time ago."

"Keep talking."

"There might have been a situation where I was kind of intimate with her, Mary." "You fucked her."

"Yes. The thing is, I was only sixteen or seventeen at the time. The age of consent in Cali is sixteen, but the rest of the world might not have been so understanding."

"You fucked her. What was she, like sixty?"

"Thereabout! I think.

"That's disgusting, you disgusting pig."

"Hey, it was in the past, and besides, I was high. It only happened once, and when I realized what I'd done, I stayed as far away from her as possible."

"Yeah, Ryder, our past, you were with me."

"No, this was before we were together. I promise."

"So, she decided to destroy my life for what exactly?"

"I think she might've thought I told you about that night."

"So, let's put that aside for now. Tell me, what was the lie they told you about me that got you to leave me at the altar? You never said."

Once again, he looked as if he didn't want to share, but he should've known that I'd want to know that above everything else. He'd said plenty about being deceived and all the things that came after but had yet to tell me just exactly what it was they'd said to make him leave me and do it in such a callous way.

"They said you killed my child."

"What?" Of all the things I expected him to say, that did not even make the list.

"They said that when all of you went to Asia together, you knew you were pregnant, and you got rid of it without telling me. They also said you slept with someone while you were there." He had the nerve to glare at me.

"And you believed them?"

"No, not after I thought about it, but when I pushed back, that's when they told me what they were really up to. They planned to destroy you. I had no choice but to marry her, or they would've come after you, and we've seen what they can do, do you understand me? I couldn't say shit. Then they spent the next five years keeping me hopped up on shit so that I didn't remember any of it."

I couldn't speak for a good five minutes as my body went cold. And then I got so angry I had to hold my breath and count to ten. Those fucking nepo babies and their piece of shit demon incubator are going to rue the day they crossed me. "Why? I don't understand why. There has to be more to it than Mary wanting to keep her sexual fetishes hidden. She could've paid you off, any number of things, but why come after me?"

He looked down at his hands that he'd clasped between his knees before looking up again. For someone who came all the way over here to talk, getting him to do just that was like pulling teeth. I knew he was holding back, but since we'd come this far, there was no way I wasn't getting it all out of him, no matter how horrible.

"So, tell me, since she wanted to keep it a secret that she likes little boys, what reason did Mary give the others for wanting to ruin my life? Did you ever find that out?"

"Actually, you're right; she had another reason for not liking you."

"Oh yeah, what's that? Did I steal her boy toy?"

"Because you thought you were better than them."

"What do you mean? I never gave anyone that impression; why would she think that?"

"When you were friends with them, something happened; I don't know what, but it looks like it started there."

"When I was friends with them? What could that be? Wait, you mean because I didn't want to hire her as my manager? All of this is because I wouldn't fire my mother and hire her?" That doesn't make any sense. Who would destroy someone's life because of something as stupid as that?

She's never managed anyone in her life before her own family; why would she think that I would let her work with me? I barely even knew her back then, and what I did know wasn't very appealing, to tell you the truth.

She was trying to use me, and I was just smart enough to see through her bullshit. But that does not mean that I thought I was better than her. She's no different from half the people in this town. What kind of grown-ass woman acts that way with someone more than half her age?

"What about Janie and her family? What was their issue with me? You said that they were involved in this whole scheme from the beginning, so what was their excuse? Matt and Scott wanted money, and Mary wanted to hurt me because her ego was bruised, so what was your wife's reason for doing what she did?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me." Really? He thought he could tell me something more unbelievable than what he'd just shared?

"Because you're not one of us." Why did he look so ashamed to say that?

"What does that even mean?"

"It's because of your heritage; you're not European."

"You have got to be shitting me."

"No, I wish I was, but that's as simple and as fucked up as it is. They don't think that you deserve to be with me." People really are this stupid, and knowing what I know about the people involved, I'm inclined to believe him.

"So, they found you a blonde hag to take my place, and she just went along with it? Even though she knew we were a couple. What are you not telling me, Ryder? Tell me all of it."

"You knew I'd met her before, that we…. You know, on one of our breaks, she and I hooked up. But I wasn't into her like that, and she knew it. She was nothing more than a groupie, which I told you before."

"So, how did it get to this point?"

"Honestly? If you think what I've told you this far was out there, you're not going to believe what I have to say next." I knew he was skirting around the issue with that story he told. Even though he'd said plenty, I could see the holes in it from Mars.

"She's actually at the heart of this whole thing. She wanted to be one of them. She wanted to be with the in crowd, and Mary and her dad knew that and played on it. I didn't know this at the time, but now I guess the whole world knows that she'd been after me even before I knew she existed. She's been stalking me for years with her dad's help."

I'd read that post from MengeLiNi days ago and didn't think much of it, even though there was more than enough evidence. By then, I was reaching burnout from all the daily rumors and wanted to save my sanity, so I stopped paying attention and told myself that I no longer cared.

"You're saying that whole thing was true?" He nodded his head before going on.

"I guess part of it was that she fits the pattern of who they thought I should be with. She's also part of the church, someone they could control while she got what she wanted and kept me in line, I guess."

"And she wanted you." He didn't answer, but he didn't have to. This was better than any movie script that ever came across my desk, only in freaking L.A.

"So, you got into bed with that adulterous hag and destroyed my life."

"Adulterous hag, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, didn't you know? Mary, she cheated on her first husband with the second; come to think of it, he was married too at the time. These are the people you trusted with your spiritual guidance. Those people will never end well. But what do you care? You're one of them. A bunch of deviant assholes with loose morals and no ethics whatsoever."

"That Satan's bed wench and the creatures she spawned are going to rue the day they messed with me." It was too much to take in at once. I'd listened to everything he said, and though some of it was hard to believe, I don't know why he'd make up something as horrible as all that.

Some of what he shared was new, but some of it I could've guessed on my own. I knew all along, or suspected, that Mary and her spawn Nicole and Noel were somehow involved. I knew it from the moment I distanced myself from them, and they got close to Janie. "Evil twits should burn in hell, and I'll be just the one to send them there."

"Don't go doing anything crazy… I didn't mean it like that." He backtracked really fast after the look I gave him.

"You roll around with the devil, and I'm the one who's crazy. Life really does have hands, and it sure kicks the shit out of the innocent."

"She never loved me, you know. I was just an ideal to her. Someone to pay her and her family's bills while she got to play the part of the rich man's wife."

"That's what you deserve. How stupid are you? You married a super fan that seems more obsessed with your ex than she is with you." Hit him where it hurts is my new motto.

"I know, you're right. How could I have been so blind? I was so damn stupid."

"Yes, you were, and you are. So, moving right along because I have no interest in whatever pity party you're about to throw yourself, you mentioned that someone shared all of this information with you lately. But why now? Why did the person choose to come forward with this information now, after all these years? And why are you really here?"

"Because they're planning to kill you."

"Who's planning to kill who? What are you talking about?"

"Janie and her dad are going to kill you."