Page 99 of The Quiet After The Fall

I hold Sawyer in my arms the rest of the way to the guesthouse, talking and laughing about random shit. If I could stay like this forever, with all the heavy tucked away for another time, I would, but I know it’ll be there the moment we step back inside.

I peel off my shirt as soon as we’re through the door, wincing at the ache still radiating through my ribs. Sawyer drops her bag on the table and starts digging into it.

“I have something to show you.” She pulls out a folded envelope and her expression sobers.

I sit in the chair next to her and watch as she takes out a wrinkled piece of paper, smoothing it on the table’s edge before handing it to me. I scan the typed letter, my stomach turning to lead.

Whatever you think you’re doing with him ends now, or I promise you’ll regret it.

That fucking prick.

“This was the letter your mom had?” I ask.

She nods and drops a few torn scraps of paper onto the table. “And here’s the check he sent along with it. You can see what I felt about him buying my complacency.”

I barely hear her over my pulse pounding in my ears. He has the fucking audacity to threaten her directly. And paying her off…with what money? As far as I know, the company is skating by.

“How much?” I ask, trying to keep my voice level so I don’t scare Sawyer.

“The check?” Her eyes go wide and I nod. “It’s not important.”

“How much is your safety, our happiness…my whole fucking life worth to him?”

She rolls her lip between her teeth, looking down at the scattered paper. “Half a million dollars.”

Her words land like a punch to the gut. I repeat them. “Half a million. Where the fuck? Sawyer, we don’t have that kind of money sitting in the company accounts.”

“I figured.” She reaches for my hand, tracing slow circles over my knuckles. “It was from some company called A.M. Holdings. I shouldn’t have ripped it up, I’m sorry. I was so fucking angry and I wasn’t thinking.”

“Stop,” I say, my mind racing. “It’s new information for the case. You did the right thing. And don’t worry about him, I won’t let him near you. Him or Moretti.”

She leans her head on my shoulder, her closeness grounding me. The longer I think on all this the more I realize we don’t have time to wait for lawyers and judges. I know how long the system takes, especially with a case this size. I need to take matters into my own hands…but how?

“What did you do today? Before your whole action hero stunt.” I feel her cheeks lift in a grin.

“I saw my mom.” I exhale long and hard and she lifts up to look at me. “It was pretty much exactly what you’d expect.”

“How is she?”

“Physically, fine. The accident was just a fender bender, thankfully.” I picture her again, her large sunhat making her look even smaller in the patio chair. Smaller still, the second my father walked outside, almost like she folded in on herself. “I asked her why she stays. Why she’s put up with him this long.”

“What’d she say?”

“‘Where else am I supposed to go?’” Repeating her response is a punch to the gut. “It’s like she’s convinced there’s not another option anywhere else in the world.”

“I talked to my mom today too. She told me some things, some pretty fucked up things.”

I don’t have to ask her to elaborate. From her tone, I already know. “The affair.”

“You knew?”

“You don’t sound shocked,” I say.

The chair squeaks as she comes to sit in my lap, pushing back a loose piece of hair on my head. “I always thought there was more to your,” she searches for the right word, “broodiness.”

“Yeah, well…I guess I needed to let it out somehow.”

“I’m sorry.” Her blue eyes are lined in moisture. “You shouldn’t have had to carry that alone.”