30. Derrick

CHAPTER 30

Derrick

I slam the door on my way back into the room. Raleigh jolts out of sleep and sits up, looking around wildly with bleary hazel eyes.

“Derrick? What’s-?”

She reaches a hand toward me, and I slap a handcuff on it. I want to get it around her other wrist too, but she’s naked, and it’ll be hard to get clothes on her with her hands behind her back.

“Get dressed,” I order, giving the handcuff a tug. She stares at it, uncomprehending, then up at my face.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

Her lips are still swollen from my kisses last night. There are red bite marks around her breasts and bruises at the base of her neck. She’s wearing the proof of the worship I rained on her. Last night, the sight made me proud and hungry to bestow more.

Today, every mark makes me feel more like a fool.

“I told you to get dressed,” I bite out, grabbing her by the upper arm with my free hand and hauling her out of the bed we mussed. “We’re driving back to the city today.”

“Why?” Raleigh demands, with more strength. She tugs at the handcuff I’m still holding the other end of, but I don’t let go. For the first time, her hazel eyes are aware. “Why are you being like this?!”

“Everything really is just a game to you, isn’t it?” I snarl.

“Can you answer a damn one of my questions?!” she snaps.

“Not this time,” I tell her. “Not anymore. You lost that fucking privilege when you called your brother to come save you!”

Raleigh blinks, her mouth falling open. “Thomas is coming?” she asks, and it takes every ounce of my control not to put my fist through the wall.

She’s a better liar than I gave her credit for, or I’m more of an idiot, or both. All that talk about running away and having her own life, it was just a trap to get me to do something stupid, to piss her brother off so he’d come after me. She even warned me she wanted to ruin my life, and I didn’t believe her.

We’re done, once and for all.

“ Get . Dressed ,” I grind out.

Raleigh shakes her head. “Derrick-”

“Shut up!” I shout, and she freezes as the sound rings through the room. From downstairs, a few of the dogs bark. I’m sure I’ve woken my mother. Swallowing hard, I lower my voice to a tight growl. “Your brother is waiting at the estate for you. That’s where we’re going. Now do as I say .”

Finally, she complies. We both get dressed in tense silence and jerky movements, with me still holding onto her single handcuffed wrist. When she’s done, I get both of her hands behind her back and slip the second cuff over her other wrist.

“You don’t have to do this,” she says, her voice trembling.

The fucking handcuffs? Oh, I do. From capturing her outside Cooper’s to being cuffed together with her in bed to tying her to the bedposts with my own clothes, this feels like a fitting bookend to an affair that should never have happened in the first place.

“And you didn’t have to betray me in every way that matters,” I shoot back. “Before, after, or while I was promising you everything .”

“I don’t know what you think I did-” Raleigh starts, but I slice a hand through the air, cutting her off.

“Save your breath,” I tell her. “You’ve got several hours to sing me your best lies while we drive back to the city. Now walk .”

Raleigh’s cheeks are flushed, her hazel eyes too wide. Is she embarrassed she was caught? Upset I’m not still falling over myself to stay in her good graces? I don’t care. I don’t care that she looks shocked and heartbroken. Every cell of this woman is a lie.

After a moment’s hesitation, Raleigh starts walking ahead of me, out of our room and down the stairs. Chance and Justice meet us at the bottom, milling around my legs. They sense my anger, and their tails are down, but I can’t spare time to soothe them. Unfortunately, my mother is also downstairs, and the moment she sees the storm of my expression and Raleigh in handcuffs, her face goes white as a sheet.

“Oh my god- Derrick, what’s going on?!” she gasps, coming around the island toward us.

“I’m handling it, mom,” I say tightly. There is no possible way I can offer her an explanation for this scene, and it kills me that I’m upsetting her. But right now, the important thing is to comply with Thomas’s demands as quickly as possible, to get his eyes off my mother.

“B-But-” She puts a hand on my arm, trying to stop me. “Sweetheart, is this some kind of fight? Please- please can’t we all sit down and talk about whatever’s happened?”

It hits me, hard and fast, that my mother might think I’m manhandling Raleigh because I’m angry with her. And yes, I’m beyond furious right now. But even this rage wouldn’t tempt me to put my hands on Raleigh purely for the sake of hurting her.

The optics are bad, I realize that. But surely my mother can’t believe I’d do anything like what my father did to her, to both of us?

I’m too upset. I’m too unguarded. Some of my incredulity and pain must show in my face, because my mother squeezes my arm. “Please, just help me understand,” she begs. “I know this is happening for a reason, I just want to know what it is.”

But it’s too late for that. My mother has been hiding away from the pain of reality for too many years, and I’ve been letting her do that. I’ve been encouraging it. I can’t start telling her the truth now, not when it’s more fucked up than ever.

I put my hand over my mother’s, dwarfing it with mine. She doesn’t flinch from me, doesn’t even blink, and I draw strength and relief from the fact that she really doesn’t doubt me, even now. “Raleigh isn’t who I thought she was,” is all I can manage to say. Her mouth presses together, and I expect her to demand a better explanation.

Instead, she turns to Raleigh.

I expect Raleigh to blubber, to make excuses, but aside from a slight redness around her eyes, she just looks grim when she meets my mother’s eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry for causing you trouble. You were so kind to me, and I- I’m just sorry.”

A sincere apology from Raleigh would’ve stunned me yesterday. And while something stirs in my chest now, I quickly crush it. She’s lying, even now, trying to manipulate either me or my mother into giving her sympathy she doesn’t deserve. I slowly pull away from my mother and grip Raleigh’s upper arm.

“We’re going,” I say, and pull her out of the farm house and toward my cruiser.