“They meant something to him,” I observed.
“Yeah,” King murmured. “Con and Micah had been storing them while Christopher was gone, but when they brought them over here along with Christopher’s other stuff, he told them to throw them away. Gio and I took them instead because we both knew how much he loved those books.”
“Tough love,” I murmured as I remembered that had been King’s plan when we’d taken the books over. “That turned out to not be so tough.”
King didn’t respond, and I hadn’t expected him to. My friend was a cold-blooded, chillingly dangerous man when it came to dealing with murderers, rapists, and sex traffickers, but around his family, he was totally different. He was the man who’d pleaded with Christopher to talk to him tonight.
“I shouldn’t have blindsided you like that, Rush,” King said with a sigh. “But when I saw a little bit of the old Christopher, I just thought…”
“I saw it too, King,” I said. “The old and the new. Your Christopher is still in there.” I was reluctant to say any more since I felt like what had transpired between myself and his nephew was private and needed to stay between us.
“This is going to kill Gio,” King whispered.
“Christopher and Gio don’t talk?” I asked. “They’ve been best friends for years, haven’t they?”
“They talk… but it’s not real. It’s Gio talking through the walls Christopher had put up, so the only things that get through are the simple, polite crap. ‘How are you? Can you believe all this rain? Fettucine is good.’”
Fettucine was Gio and King’s mastiff. If the conversations between the two friends had come down to discussing the dog’s antics, then yeah, something was really fucked-up between them.
“Did all of this start after that night in the club?” I asked.
King nodded. “But it was still the old Christopher then. He was just… just quieter if that makes sense.”
I dipped my head because it made perfect sense. The reality was that they wouldn’t have been in that club if Gio hadn’t gone looking for King. I had no doubt Gio blamed himself as did King. It also wouldn’t have surprised me in the least to know that Christopher carried just as much guilt.
“We tried to get Christopher to talk to a professional about it, especially after what happened to him when he was a kid, but he kept saying he was fine.”
I shook my head. There was no way the young man could be fine after not one, but two violent assaults that had barely been stopped in time. Just because he’d escaped being penetrated hadn’t meant he didn’t carry the scars of those attacks day in and day out.
“He was legally an adult,” I responded. “There was nothing else you could have done.”
King’s eyes shifted briefly to mine.
I nodded and said, “Yeah, I know, it’s a bullshit line that doesn’t make anyone feel better.”
We sat there in silence for a moment before King said, “Come on, we should get going. Gio’s going to want to know what happened.”
I could already see the pained expression in King’s eyes as he had to contemplate telling his fiancé that Christopher was still as lost to them as ever. I followed King out of the bar and rode out the silence in the cab of his truck as he drove me to my hotel. I was so lost in thought that I didn’t even notice we’d arrived until King said, “Thanks again, Rush. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said as I climbed out of the car and watched King drive off.
It’s not your problem.
It’s not your problem.
Even as the warning played on a loop inside of my head as I made my way to my hotel room, I laughed because nothing could be further from the truth.
Whatever was happening with Christopher was most definitely my problem.
I just didn’t know why.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHRISTOPHER
I saw him coming long before he knocked on the door thanks to the cameras I’d installed strategically outside the house.
So I could have ignored him. I could have put my headphones back on my head and continued on with the claim I’d been working on. I could have done anything at all besides answer the door when there was a sharp knock on it. Even knowing what Rush was carrying didn’t make a difference. So then why were my fingers closing around the doorknob? Why was that little spark of energy in my stomach turning into the dreaded butterflies?
My curiosity outweighed my common sense, and before I knew it, there was nothing standing between me and Rush except for what looked like a table similar to the one Rush had broken.
“I’ve already tested this one, and I’m glad to say it’s Rush-proof,” Rush said before I could even open my mouth.
“It’s beautiful,” I admitted as my eyes took in the rich, deep tone of the wood. It was definitely real wood and not the fake stuff my table had been made up of. And the design of the table screamed antique.