39. Saturday Week Fifteen (the solution.)

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39. Saturday Week Fifteen (the solution.)

"You're taking this pretty well, Rei," Cayd noticed.

I peered at him across the table and gave him a soft smile, "I had a mild panic attack earlier."

Eli scoffed, "mild, tigru?"

Abruptly my mood changed and I glared at Eli, "don't think for a second that all is forgiven, Ryker."

He didn't even bother to hide his wince when I referred to him as Ryker and I didn't have it in me to care. Who was he to just disappear from my life and then reappear in it and drop this bombshell?! And to tell me he loves me!?

Pissed was a nice word for what I was feeling right now. The second I start to get over him, to move forward, he comes bulldozing back into my life with a declaration of love and a pitiful excuse as to why he acted the way he did.

Cayd whistled lowly and Raven kicked him under the table.

The door opened and Max came in, followed by a tall man who looked to be in his mid-thirties. He had a deep tan which was exaggerated by the open neck white shirt he wore. His brown hair was slicked back with gel, highlighting his brown eyes which seemed darker with both wisdom and lethality.

Max's eyes flickered to me, "good, you're here."

I frowned, "why is that good?"

"Mikael's people are watching your house."

Like a bullet, I shot out of my chair and screeched, "what?!"

The tanned man dropped his hand on Max's shoulder and gave him a short look, "not very smooth, mi Viejo amigo." [my old friend.]

The hand which was on Max's shoulder stretched past to stop in front of me and he shot me a dazzling smile, "I'm Rafael, Cayd's uncle."

I looked at his hand then back at Max, "what do you mean they are watching my house? My family comes home today, what about them?"

Rafael's hand fell back to his side but I didn't care about niceties as worry for my family overwhelmed me.

Raven stood and gently placed her hand against my arm, "that's why we asked you here, Rei."

I'm sure my confusion was evident on my face as I scanned her with my eyes. She looked at me with pity which I was now used to but she also looked at me with care in her eyes, like she wanted to do what she could to help me.

But with only my family in mind, I stepped back from her, "I can't be here."

Worried about my Nan and Ty, I moved to go past Max and Rafael to leave but Max caught me before I could make it far.

"Let me go!" I demanded, struggling to get out of his hold, tears of frustration welled in my eyes but Max just held me against him, "get off of me!"

"S'okay, Rei. Just calm down," he uttered so quietly I doubted the others heard him over my wails, "we've got you, okay?"

Slowly, I began to calm but Max still kept a firm hold on me to ensure that I didn't leave.

"Well," began Rafael, "now that that is over with maybe we should begin discussing the reason I flew halfway across the world."

Eli shot him a glare but Rafael just waved him off and took a seat at the circular table.

"You good?" Max asked. Anger, fear, confusion were all still prevalent in my mind but desperate to know what was happening, I nodded and he released me to take a seat at the table.

"Someone needs to tell me what the hell is going on," my eyes lifted from the floor so I could look at Eli but he wouldn't meet my gaze.

Raven sighed, "Mikael no longer cares what happens to you and he is angry about what happened on Thursday. He believes the whole dinner went wrong because of you and thinks that represents what is going to happen to the whole business if you stay in our lives," she gave me a small smile, "but I think he has underestimated how far we are willing to go to keep you safe."

Cayd winked at me and warmth flooded me as I realised that I wasn't alone in this, "it's not me that I'm worried about right now, it's my family."

Rafael groaned and smacked his hands on the table before pinning me with a hard look, "you're family will be fine, they are the least of our worries right now."

Cayden glared at his uncle, "she is family, Raf," his gaze softened as he looked over at me, "Mikael won't touch your family," a weight lifted off my shoulders, "unless they get in the way."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means, bonita, that as long as you aren't with them, they are safe." [pretty]

I frowned at Rafael, "not with them?"

"Sit down, Rei," Eli commanded.

I looked at him and shook my head, "I have to be away from my family?"

"For a while, yes."

It was Raven who spoke and I finally sat down at the table, letting the weight of everything that had happened wash over me.

Thoughts swirling through my mind, I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat before expelling a shaky breath, "okay. What do we tell them?"

Rafael groaned and got up from the table, pulling a pack of cigarettes out from his pocket, "you sort this out, I'll be downstairs."

"The truth, tigru."

My eyebrows rose, "the truth? Are you kidding?" I let out a hollow laugh, "you can't be serious," I looked at Eli, "there is no way in hell that my Nan will go for it. If she thinks I'm not safe then she isn't going to just let me leave."

"We don't have much choice, Rei, this is our only option," Cayd spoke in the softest voice I had ever heard him adopt.

"Okay, say that my Nan does agree, say that she lets me leave, where will I stay?"

"Here," Eli grunted out.

Another hollow laugh, "here? Are you kidding? With you and Raven?"

Raven shook her head, "no, I am going to be staying at Mikael's house so we can keep an eye on him."

Max put his hand on top of my own which was resting on the tabletop, "this is the safest place, kiddo. Mikael and his men don't know 'bout it and the best thing for you and your family is you away from them."

Another shuddery breath from me before I ran my hands through my hair, "this is crazy."

"It's only temporary until we take Mikael down for good."

My gaze swung to Cayd at his words, "and how long will that take? A day? A week? A month?"

He looked sympathetic, "I don't know."

"Oh god," I breathed out and stood up. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again, "okay, but we do this now," I demanded, "we tell her now."

Everyone nodded and Eli stood up, "I'll drive you home."

I steeled him with a glare, "the bus is fine."

"Did you not hear a word we just said? Mikael's out for you, Rei. You don't go anywhere on your own until he is gone."

I chose to ignore how the word 'gone' resonated in my mind and how those resignations made me wonder whether Eli meant 'gone' as in dead or 'gone' as in elsewhere in the world.

"Fine," I growled, "but we are not taking your bike."

— — — — —

The drive was quiet and I was thankful for it. There wasn't much I wanted to say to Eli right now. Scream, yell, punch, hit, I wanted to do but there wasn't anything I wanted to talk to him about.

But then a thought struck me, "I don't blame you for this, Ryker."

His face was stoic but he responded in a barely audible whisper, "I do."

Looking out the window at the blur of green, I shook my head, "you pushed me away at the start but I persisted. That's on me."

He didn't respond and I'm glad he didn't because I wasn't finished, "I do blame you for bailing though. The second you finally let me in should've been the last time you pushed me away. From that point onwards, we were supposed to deal with all our shit together. All of this could have been avoided if you had just been honest with me, we could have found a way around it but at the first sign of possible trouble in our relationship, you left."

"Trouble in a relationship would be trust issues or a cheating problem. I would not call my father wanting to kill you and my brother wanting to fuck you 'trouble.'"

I flinched at his crass language but I didn't respond because he was right.

Our relationship wasn't just trouble, it was destructive.

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