Chapter 11: Rebel Revenge: Chapter 11

I packed everything I could fit into my little car. Clothes. A TV. My five-year-old laptop that desperately needed replacing. Sheets and blankets. The two barely living houseplants I neglected on a regular basis. My gun that I was definitely not giving back to the guy downstairs. It all got shoved into the trunk or the back seat, until the car was laden down with everything I cared about.

I wouldn’t bother with my bulky furniture. Most of it had been picked up off the side of the road anyway and was in dire need of being sent to the dump.

In my half-empty apartment, my fingers hovered over the three square Polaroid photos I’d taken of my injuries. They’d been shot the morning after it had happened and showed the worst of what Caleb and his friends had done to me. I hadn’t done it for the police. I knew there was no going to them.

I’d taken them for myself.

So I’d have a constant reminder of what happened when you let your guard down.

Part of me wanted to rip them up and throw them out, but a bigger part knew it was a lesson I needed to remember. So they got shoved into the final box too.

On my last trip down the stairs, I gave the middle finger to my landlord’s closed door. He could get rid of the rest of my stuff. I wasn’t coming back for it.

I drove into Providence, excitement licking through me with every turn I made. Bliss had gone bug-eyed when I’d told her the plan. She’d tried to convince me to let her help, but she was not the right person for the job. I was essentially breaking and entering, and she would have been a bundle of nerves on the seat beside me, worrying that we were breaking the law.

This sort of thing made me feel alive though. I lived for the thrill of it, and the prospect of wiping the smug look off Vaughn’s face was enough to have me bouncing on my seat with excitement.

Maybe I’d still end up on Bliss’s couch when he kicked me out and barred the doors. But at least I’d have a new story to tell my grandkids one day. Or Bliss’s grandkids. I wasn’t sure kids would ever be in the cards for me. I refused to have a baby the way my mom had. If any baby was in my future, I first needed a stable relationship. My chances of that happening, after not one decent boyfriend in the past fifteen years, seemed slim.

I’d be fine though. I had great friends. A job I loved. Hopefully a big-ass house to lounge around in. I wanted to clap my hands in glee.

I parked my car a few houses down from Bart’s aging mansion and settled in to watch. There was a truck sitting to the left of the house with O’Malley’s Handyman Services printed on the side, but it was too late for a tradesman to still be there.

The only other vehicle was a sleek black motorcycle parked on the circular drive, right up close to the door.

Judging from the helmet Vaughn had carried when we’d met at the hotel restaurant, the bike was his. So, if I just waited for it to leave…

I’d just about drifted off to sleep when the front door opened, startling me awake. I sat forward eagerly, grin spreading wide across my face. I pulled my phone up, opened up my camera app, and then zoomed all the way in on Vaughn.

The image went grainy, but it was enough to see the general direction his fingers moved over the lock pad. “Seven, three, seven…” I chuckled, pretty sure the last number had been a three too. “Thank you, Bart, for not having a fingerprint or eye scanner. That would have been a real pain. Now if your son could just skedaddle…”

Like he could hear me, Vaughn tucked his wallet in a saddlebag and lifted his arms to tug on his jacket.

I refused to notice the flash of abs I got when his T-shirt rose.

The jacket settled around his shoulders, and he pulled the helmet on too, masking his face.

“Good,” I muttered, before I’d even thought about why. I was so damn distracted by the chiseled jaw and the dark stubble and the deep-brown eyes I was forgetting Vaughn was now the enemy.

A stupidly sexy enemy.

Finally, he got on the bike and zoomed out of the driveway. I slunk right down in the driver’s seat, barely peeking over the dashboard, and thankful my short legs allowed it.

“Go time.” I turned on the car and drove straight into the driveway like I owned it. Since I sort of did, according to Bart’s will. I hummed the Mission Impossible theme song as I darted to the door in the darkness and punched in the number combination I thought I’d seen Vaughn use.

The door popped open on the first go. I felt like calling Vincent and telling him. He’d be proud.

I walked tentatively inside, eyeing everything in the grand entranceway with awe. The ceiling had to be twenty feet high with ornately carved cornices and a huge chandelier dangling from the center. The black-and-white checkered tiles seemed like they went on for miles. My apartment could indeed fit in this space. Maybe twice over.

Family photos hung on the walls, in amongst expensive art. I wandered it like I was at a gallery, too taken in by it all to hurry, even though for all I knew, Vaughn had just ducked out to the store to get a bottle of milk and would be back at any minute.

I paused on a photo of Vaughn in a classic black suit and bow tie, a blond woman in a pure-white wedding dress wrapped around him. My mouth dropped open. “All that talk of pussy licking, and you’re married? Shame on you, Vaugh Weston. Shame. Does she know you’re a cheating, lying, house-stealing, scumbag?”

I turned the photo down, not wanting to see his wife’s smiling, open face after I’d pictured her man with his head between my thighs. Irritation prickled at me. Fuck Vaughn for putting those ideas out there when he had a ball and chain and was doomed to lick only this woman’s vag for the rest of eternity.

Lucky bitch.

I stomped up the grand staircase that seemed to be a staple in houses around here. Bliss’s place had one too, and so had her dad’s. I supposed you had to get up the stairs somehow when you had a house this size. Might as well make a statement out of it.

At the top, I clutched my dying potted plant in one arm and looked both ways. “Houses that are big enough to have north and south wings should be illegal. Who needs so many rooms?”

But then I thought about the fact this house could be mine and decided that maybe I did. It was better than my shoebox of an apartment anyway.

I opened the door closest to the stairs and found what had to be the main suite. The bed was neatly made with soft cream sheets and bedspread, and above it on the wall was a ginormous framed photo of my mom and Bart. She smiled into the camera in a way I’d never seen her smile before.

She was absolutely beaming. The perfect picture of happiness, showing off her engagement ring for the camera.

A lump rose in my throat, and I shut the door quickly, all of it too fresh and raw to deal with. There was so much sadness to come. The official will reading. Funerals. A whole damn life without her. I didn’t want to think about any of it.

It was a lot easier to focus on this little feud with Vaughn and stealing his house.

My house.

Same, same.

I hurried down the hall to the next bedroom. “Oh, boy.”

It had to be Vaughn’s room. It was done up in deep navy blue, from the walls with their white trims to the silky bedspread. It was neat and tidy, apart from a duffel bag stashed in the corner, overflowing with clothes, and a glass on the bedside table with an inch of bourbon still in the bottom.

I bit my lip, looking at it. Had the man been drunk since it had happened? He was out riding right now. I’d slap him upside the head if he was driving drunk. I had no patience for that shit.

Not that he was my man to do that with, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t fly with anyone.

If I’d been a bigger person, I would have walked out of the room and left Vaughn to his privacy.

I wasn’t. I was tiny in stature, and I guess that carried over to my morals too. At least when it came to snooping through Vaughn’s bedroom.

The walls were lined with white shelves, each one laden down with rows and rows of trophies. I pressed up on my toes to read the plaques. “Senior Boys State Champion. Fifty-meter Freestyle record holder.” I moved on to the copious number of ribbons pinned to a huge corkboard. They were predominantly blue for first place, but there were plenty of second and third too. In every event from butterfly to backstroke to relays. “So, the man swims. Explains the bod.”

Like the true snoop I was, I rummaged through his closet, which was stacked with expensive suits and shirts and shoes, though most of them had a fine layer of dust on the shoulders so I suspected they didn’t get worn much. The crumpled shirts and jeans in his duffel bag seemed to be his everyday attire. His en suite was just as opulent as the room attached, with marble sinks and shower. Of course, I opened all the drawers, rolling my eyes when there was little inside other than deodorant and a handful of condoms that had expired years ago. “Probably haven’t needed them for a while since you’re banging that gorgeous, tall, blond wife of yours, huh?” I muttered. “Which, for the record, I am not at all jealous about.”

I frowned at myself in the mirror, no idea why I’d felt the need to add that.

I shifted my plant onto my hip. “Time to go find myself a room, Planty McPlantface. One with lots of sun for you. Or do you need shade? Shit, I can never remember. Plant Protective Services really needs to take you away from me.”

I wondered at what point you checked yourself in for therapy. Was it the point where you talked to your plants as you wandered around a house you’d broken into? A shrink might actually be overdue.

Nevertheless, I closed Vaughn’s bedroom door then deliberately walked the very far end of the hall, wanting my room to be well away from his. It was the sunny end of the house, with light streaming in from a big open window, and I put my plant buddy down on a hall table in a nice, warm patch of sunlight. “Stand guard while I check this out. Shout…or…I don’t know, germinate, if anyone comes.”

I really needed to get a life, but nerves and excitement were making me giddy.

I opened the door to the last bedroom and gasped at how beautiful it was inside. Clearly a guest bedroom, with a big king-size bed and decorated in all neutral tones. But it was full of natural light and absolutely massive. I gazed around and couldn’t help myself. I did a little spin with my arms open wide, like I was freaking Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.

It was my perfect bedroom. A calm, collected, tidy space where my chaotic ADHD brain felt at ease. I could so easily see myself coming here after a night of noise and craziness at Psychos, and just being at peace with being alone.

I’d never had anything like it. Every other house I’d ever lived in had been a hodgepodge of secondhand furniture that didn’t match, noisy neighbors, and roommates with their own brands of crazy. I flopped onto the bed and had a sudden feeling of ‘home’ for the first time ever. Maybe it was just the fact that this house was mine. Something that could be stable.

If Vaughn would let it be.

I’d come here to try my luck, but half thinking I’d be slinking back to Bliss’s house to sleep on her couch by the end of the night. But in that moment, I knew I’d fight to keep it. Tooth and nail if I had to. This house might mean nothing to him, but a true home was all I’d ever wanted. Here, it was so close I could almost taste it.

I needed to go get all my things and drag them in here so I could hole up and prepare to fight when Vaughn got home. But the extra-large Coke I’d drunk in the car while eating a greasy burger and fries was making demands on my bladder. I hadn’t even checked out the bathroom yet.

There were doors on the left of the room, but they were ajar, and an empty walk-in closet with a small dressing area lay beyond them. A dressing area in a guest bedroom. This house was seriously something else.

But that made the door on the right of the room up for grabs, and I had my fingers crossed for another en suite.

I opened the door.

A scream ripped from my mouth, my reflexes taking in the scene before my brain did.

A huge, very naked man exploded up out of the bathtub with a blood-curdling scream of his own.

And for a very long moment, we both stood there, both of us screaming, neither of us moving.

Except, without any permission from me, my gaze swept over his big body.

Holy, freaking, fuck.

The man was stacked. Muscles for days. Tattoos all over. And his dick…

I’d never seen one more beautiful. Even soft, it was something to be proud of. I couldn’t even imagine what it would look like hard. Christ on a cracker.

He yanked a pair of headphones off and used them to cover the junk I was so rudely staring at.

“Who the hell are you?” we both yelled at the same time.

He got out of the bathtub and came at me.

I screamed and stumbled back again, fear coursing through me at the huge naked man approaching me. To my horror, I found myself frozen in terror, cringing away from him. “Please don’t hurt me.”

He froze, arm stretched out. “I’m just going to get that towel, okay? I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not in the habit of hurting bite-size women, even if they are breaking into my house.”

I goggled at him. “Your house? Isn’t this Bart Weston’s place?”

He took a towel from the rack and wrapped it around his narrow waist, tucking it in at the end. “He lives…shit, lived… here too. I worked for him. Maintenance. Driving. Cleaning. Whatever needs doing. But I’ve no idea why I’m explaining that to you, when I know for a fact you do not live here, and so I should probably call the police. If you’re here to steal shit—”

I shook my head rapidly, straightening now the man was at least partially covered and seemingly not about to attack me with his giant man salami. “I swear, I’m not. I’m Rebel. Miranda’s daughter?”

Some of the tension seeped out of his shoulders. “Oh, damn. You are too. I should have realized. You look like her. You could be sisters. If she was…” He cringed.

“Still alive?”

“Yeah. Tactless. Sorry. I really liked your mom. She was good for Bart. Made him really happy.”

My heart squeezed. “I wish I’d gotten to meet him properly. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me about him sooner.”

“They were a bit of a whirlwind, and very wrapped up in their own little love nest. Don’t take it personally. Vaughn didn’t know about it either until they decided to get married. Not many people did.” He ran his hand through the short lengths of his reddish-brown hair. “I’m really sorry about what happened to them. Bart was so good to me. I don’t even know what I’m going to do without this job and this house. I’ve lived here off and on my entire life. It’s always been home. I love everything about it.”

I could understand that. I’d fallen in love with the house the moment I’d laid eyes on it, too. “Why are you leaving then?”

He sighed. “Vaughn’s getting rid of it.”

My heart lit up. There was a chance there, and I was going to take it. “I own half the property. Bart left half of everything to me. I don’t want to sell it.”

The man leaned on the bathroom wall and crossed his arms over his broad chest. It popped his pecs, and I had a vague desire to lean in and lick the water droplets from them.

“No shit?” His eyes narrowed. “So you want to…what, exactly?”

“Live in it. Buy Vaughn out, if that’s what needs to happen.”

“Good luck with that. I’m sure he’s already contesting the will.”

“He is. And maybe he’ll win, maybe he won’t. I don’t know. But I don’t want him trying to sell this place until I’ve had a chance to fight for it. That’s where you come in.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up. “Me? What do I have to do with it?”

“I’m moving in…unbeknownst to Vaughn.”

A smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Seriously? Like one of those environmentalists who tie themselves to trees so they can’t be cut down?”

“My dying houseplant is already out in the hall, and my car is filled with everything I own.”

He chuckled. “So you just waited ’til he left and started bringing your shit in? Freaking ballsy.”

I grinned. “He’s gonna be pissed when he gets home, right? Any chance he’ll find me cute or adorable?”

The guy chuckled. “Oh, so pissed. You’re cute as fuck, and totally his type, but his anger is going to obliterate all of that.”

I wanted to question him on me being Vaughn’s type when he was clearly married to a leggy blonde. Pretty much the exact opposite of me. But that wasn’t the most pressing issue. This man could pick me up and throw me out the door like I weighed nothing more than a matchstick. I needed him on my side. “Help me with Vaughn,” I begged. “Don’t let him throw me out. If we work together, maybe we can keep the house, and your job.”

He eyed me, that small smirk never leaving his mouth. Eventually, he stuck his hand out in my direction again. “I’m Kian.”

Slowly, I took his hand, letting his big fingers engulf mine. Fuck, he was big. Everywhere. “Nice to meet you, Kian. Do we have a deal?”

He laughed, the sound deep and sexy. “Oh, we have a deal, little demon. We most definitely have a deal.”