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Death alone was too quick for him.
Forty-Six
Calla
Being away from the kids got harder and harder with every hour that passed. After my conversation with Ryker the night before, I hated the thought of Ines being at the garage with my dad. I hated that Axel was in school.
Even knowing they had security of their own, there was nothing that would ever dissuade the worry of a mother when she felt like her babies were threatened. Nothing could quell the terror in me, but I didn't know if I had any options. Dante watched me closely. No doubt Ryker had informed him I might be a little more skittish than normal.
He must have warned him to keep a closer eye on me, because if I moved from the front of the studio where he could see me, he immediately stood and moved to the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. Like I was stupid enough to run out of the studio and expect I'd get far. I'd considered going to the police, trusting Jason with keeping the kids and I safe, but I wasn't naïve enough to think protection came without a cost. As much as I wanted my kids to be safe from the mob war building in Chicago, the thought of losing Ryker hurt me with a depth that was physical.
I'd suffer it. For my kids. But I couldn't cross the line and see him put behind bars. I couldn't give him up and tell the police what I knew, even if it was admittedly so little it probably wouldn't amount to anything. That part of his life was so separate from the little bubble we'd created within our family, and I knew he was a different man when he stepped into that role.
I didn't want to know that man.
I just wanted my husband.
An arm came down on mine, making me gasp and jolt in place. Ness tore her hand back as I spun to look at her, jolted out of my thoughts so suddenly. "Are you alright?" she asked, and there was concern on every inch of her face. Over the past week and a half, Ness had become a friendly face at the studio. One of the students who I felt the closest connection with, though we never talked about the real specifics of our lives.
I knew she had a boyfriend and a son she didn't get to see much. It made me curious, since she never mentioned an ex or anything along those lines. It was like her son's father didn't exist, and I could relate to that.
Since I'd never once mentioned my dead first husband.
Sometimes, the past was better left in the past.
"I'm fine," I said with a fake smile. "I'm not feeling like myself today, but I promise I'm fine."
She glanced at the door to the back room where Dante watched our interaction with suspicion. Ness turned back to me, facing in a way that I knew Dante couldn't see her face or read her lips. The move was so calculated, so perceptive that it stunned me into silence. "You know, if you need help, all you need to do is ask. There's protective and then there's abuse."
I shrugged her off. "It isn't like that," I reassured her, touching her shoulder lightly. "My husband would never hurt me, and he certainly wouldn't let Dante do it either. His position is complicated, and he just wants to make sure I'm safe."
"A man can be abusive without ever laying a hand on you in anger, Calla," she said, and I looked at her with my brow furrowed for a moment. The woman who was awkward, who stumbled over her words and blushed often was gone. In her place was a woman who spoke as if she had personal experience. "I'm not saying he's abusive. I just wanted you to know that if you need help with anything, there are plenty of us who would be happy to do it. We women need to stick together, so I'm here. Even just to talk."
I nodded to her, avoiding the way Dante studied me. With a smile, I leaned in to hug her. "I appreciate that. I'll make sure to let you know if I need anything."
Seeming appeased, she stepped back and went to her yoga mat in the back of the room. Trying to make sense of when my life had gotten so complicated, I let out a deep breath as the rest of my students filtered in through the front doors. I couldn't even deny that there were definitely ways a man could abuse his wife without hurting her, and Ryker firmly crossed some of those lines.
No matter how much I reminded myself of the fact that I loved him and that he did those things to protect us, it changed nothing. He still crossed the lines, and he still had no notion of boundaries. His pressing me to let him adopt the kids proved that.
Adoption was something that should come from them. They should want Ryker to adopt them, not the other way around. That he still hadn't presented his alternative to that didn't bode well for me, but I also wasn't innocent enough to think I'd dissuaded him from it fully.
> Whatever alternative he finally presented, it would be nothing more than a bandage. A temporary way to fix the hole he seemed to think we could only fill when we were bound to him in every way. It drove me crazy. He drove me crazy.
He couldn’t see that we were already his, and that we had been before there was any legal document to make it so.
I wished he could see it, and that he could stop pushing us for things we weren't ready to give. Because it meant that what we gave him wasn't enough.
That our love wasn't enough.
And that wasn't acceptable to me.
???
I didn't know what I was doing. Why I'd decided to help Ryker in the garage was beyond me. Lately it seemed like we ignored each other once the kids went to bed, his anger simmering beneath the surface and me avoiding it.
But the kids felt it. I saw the way Axel eyed us uncomfortably.
As much as I hated it, something had to be done about the path our relationship had taken. It hurt the kids to see us distant from one another, and even if I'd been willing to tolerate what the distance did to me, I couldn't handle the consequences for them. Axel looked at Ryker like he had his father, like he already had one foot out the door.
