“You asked me every step of the way,” I said. “You let me have a say.”
“I told you I would try not to do anything without asking you first. I mean, I had to do a few things without running it by you, but I thought you would be okay with them.”
“You gave up a lot of that hope for revenge on him.”
“It’s alright. I got what I wanted.”
“Him dead?” I asked, the words still not hitting me yet.
“No, Rebel. You. I decided I wanted you and I could live without any of the other stuff.”
Tears welled in my eyes again, and I moved up him until he lifted me. “I love you, Rook,” I whispered, kissing him hard. “I love you so much and I’m sorry I ever doubted it.”
He kissed me back once, smiling as he sat back on the couch with me on top of him. “I told you, I like that you stood up for yourself, even against me. It makes me know you aren’t just loving me because I’m forcing it somehow. It lets me know that you are going to love me even when I am difficult to love.”
“And you love me even when I am difficult to love,” I said. “I didn’t know I would find someone who would somehow make me face all of my fears and desires at once. You’ve dragged me into your dark, dangerous world and shown me how strong I am. I’ve never felt more like myself. I love you.”
His forehead dropped against my chest. “I have spent days wondering how this would all turn out. It’s been a long time since I had such little control over my life. This outcome felt like a faraway dream, something I was stupid for hoping for. Thank you, Rebel.”
“For what?”
“Trusting and loving me every step of the way, even when it pissed you off.”
We stayed like that for a few minutes, enjoying being wrapped up together.
“What do we do now?” I asked, looking back down the hall towards the office.
“We can either work to get it all pinned on Elliot, but it’s going to be a huge investigation that could ruin our business and Asher’s since he helped me with a lot of the logistics of it,” Rook said, his face scrunching as he grimaced. “Plus, if Candy has any care for either of them, she would fight it.”
“Or? Because that doesn’t sound great.”
“We take out the bodies, burn this half of the house down, make it look like an accident, and shut down the investigation as fast as we can.”
“Couldn’t we do that if we blamed Elliot?”
“Not quite. A murder investigation is going to go a lot further than a house fire, especially if the next of kin isn’t going to push for it to be investigated, and we offer them a bribe to stop looking. The house fire option would raise less suspicion for Candy too, and she would know everything would be left to her since they weren’t married.”
“Okay. We do that, then.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want you to make the decision just for us. You need to be okay with it.”
“What’s done is done anyway. Just get it over with.”
He gave a soft smile and leaned down to kiss me. “Whatever I can do to help. Go over to the living room. I’ll send Evie in. She already texted Harper.”
As I walked to the living room, the weight of the situation began to press down on me. My father was dead, Elliot, too, and our lives had just changed in ways I couldn’t fully grasp yet. I sat on the couch, my mind racing with everything that had happened.
Evie filed in, then Harper, who had a million questions, and finally Rook came back.
“Hey,” Rook said, filling the doorway. “It’s all done. Well, almost. How are you doing in here?”
“Good enough, I guess. Can I come back out there now?”
He nodded, reaching out a hand to me. “Come on.” He led me down the hall until we reached the hallway to my dad’s side of the house. The add-on had been so unnecessary and I realized now it was to keep me out of his business. A whole separate house so he could hide away and make sure I would never be involved.
Not only that, it was so he could hide away and pretend to be sick in bed when he had really been working away in here to try and run drugs. The anger surged again, taking over until I was nearly shaking.
Rook squeezed my hand once, bringing my attention back on him.
