Jagged

Chapter Sixteen

Bury Him

Reece

Four days later…

Reece was running along the road by the boardwalk in town when a burgundy Jeep Cherokee passed. He saw the brake lights illuminate and, as he moved alongside it, he heard a woman shout, “Reece!”

He looked left and saw through the open passenger window that Nina was in the driver’s seat.

He jogged to the opened window and stopped.

“Yo,” he greeted.

“Hey, I don’t want to interrupt your run but I actually just called you, twice. I left messages but you obviously don’t take your phone with you while you run, and we really need to talk.”

The “really” was emphasized in a way Reece couldn’t ignore, not that he would, mostly because she looked excited, her eyes lit with a fire he hadn’t seen in them before, and she was normally fiery.

“You don’t mind me sweatin’ in your office, I’ll meet you there,” he told her.

“See you in a few,” she replied on a bright smile.

He backed away from the SUV. She took off, her hand waving as she did, and he followed her, his pace steady but faster.

She gave the impression she had good news.

Christ, please make this good news.

He entered her offices, sweating, breathing heavy, and when he did her receptionist was putting the phone in the cradle, her head coming right up.

“Neens says to go right on in, Reece,” she invited. “She just called. She’s comin’ in the back way. You should get to her office at about the same time she gets there.”

Reece nodded and moved to the hall toward Nina’s office.

Nina was still dumping her stuff on her desk and shrugging off her stylish coat when he struck his knuckles on her open door.

“Come in,” she said, waving at him excitedly and tossing her coat on the back of her chair. “And if you could shut the door?”

He moved in and closed the door as she rounded the desk and slid her round ass up on the front of it.

“Okay,” she launched in. “I’d offer you coffee, water, a towel but seriously, this is too good not to share and do it fast. I’ll get you that stuff after.”

“Spill it,” Reece demanded, his breath still heavy and his heart thumping deep, the latter not having anything to do with his run.

They’d had no recent news except Nina being frustrated with Xavier Cinders’ attorney’s stonewalling. She’d explained that this would happen. Nina was gung ho, but they wouldn’t be. She also repeatedly told them this was a process that didn’t happen overnight.

Even so, it was wearing on Zara. She was keeping a brave face, but if something didn’t give soon, Reece worried that mask was going to crack.

“Right, well, it’s about what Pastor Williams said. Do you remember I told you I thought what he said was curious but intriguing?” she asked.

“I remember,” Reece agreed.

“I didn’t want to say anything to you because I really didn’t understand what he was saying and I wanted to understand it before I mentioned it. So, I know we’re on a budget but I still thought it worth the risk to talk to our investigator. She’s good. Really good. We don’t use her often, not enough business for that, but she’s excellent. So I hired her for this job, limiting her hours, and she found it. I just had an early lunch with her and she told me all about it.”

Nina stopped speaking and Reece’s patience started slipping.

“And?” he prompted.

Nina smiled huge, an expression that belied her next words.

“Xenia’s care for nine years cost a fortune.”

Reece shook his head. “Not followin’, Nina.”

She leaned toward him animatedly. “Xavier kept her on life support in a private facility for nine years. That requires more than tubes and machines but staff time and lots of other stuff. Did you ever think to wonder how he could afford that?”

“Try not to think about him at all,” he answered.

Although that was true, the man worked at an aeronautical factory a county over. He was union, blue collar but skilled labor, and had worked there decades so he made a whack. But not that big of a whack. So even though Reece didn’t think of him, that didn’t mean he didn’t wonder.

Leaning back, she nodded. “Well, couple that with Zander Cinders going to a school that cost fourteen thousand dollars a year. Then add the fact that Wilona Cinders works a part-time job. And she does that and still can seemingly financially handle the upbringing of a young boy and the mortgage on a four-bedroom house even though her husband cut ties as in cut ties. They bought that house to fill it with children and when she couldn’t give him any, he divorced her, moved to Alaska, and left her with a house they had some equity in but still had fifteen years of a mortgage on.”

Not much had been happening with the case but Nina knowing all this meant the woman had been seriously busy.

“Maybe you need to do the verbal arithmetic for me,” he suggested when she stopped talking again.

Instead of doing that, enjoying herself too much, Nina asked, “Has Zara ever talked about her grandfather Val Cinders?”

“He passed when she and her sister were teenagers. She liked him well enough, but bein’ a Cinders, only as much as he’d let her,” he replied.

She nodded, her eyes lighting further.

She was coming to the good stuff, thank fuck.

“Okay,” she continued. “Now, the Cinders being an old Gnaw Bone family, and I mean old, did you know that, before Val Cinders death, he sold huge tracks of land to Curtis Dodd? Land Dodd developed on. And that deal included Val Cinders getting a percentage of the profits off those developments.”

Reece felt his head jerk. “What?”

Curtis Dodd, who had been murdered a few years ago, was the town’s land magnate. He developed all over the county. Hell, you couldn’t drive through town without seeing his huge-ass, ostentatious house up the mountain, lording over it all. A house he built to do just that. A house that no one lived in now that his wife was in prison for conspiring to murder him.

Nina leaned in. “We’re talking millions.”

“And this makes you happy because…” he prompted.

“It makes me happy because Xenia and Zara Cinders were minors when Val Cinders died. That meant that the money he left to them, and when I say he left them money, he left them all of it, Reece”—Reece’s frame froze but his gut clenched as she went on—“was supposed to be held in trust for them. They were supposed to receive it when they reached thirty years of age. Xenia never reached that age and, therefore, her money should have gone to Zara or, alternately, Zander. But I’m guessing with all that’s happened to her in the past year, Zara never saw a dime. Which means Xavier stole it from her, used it to keep her sister alive against her wishes, and is using it to help his sister raise the son he also stole from Zara.”

Reece stood completely still and stared.

She wasn’t done.

“I have no idea why Val Cinders didn’t divvy it up between his kids, but he didn’t. Then again, word on the street is that they didn’t like him much and he returned the favor. And my investigator reports that will was ironclad. He wanted none of that money to go to Xavier, Dahlia, and Wilona, and he made certain that it wouldn’t. Apparently not a nice guy, he set his wife up with only a stipend to come off the interest of that money but that stopped when she passed. Bad blood runs in that family, it would seem.”

Reece remained silent.

Nina kept going.

“My investigator dredged this up and she also looked into Xavier’s finances. He isn’t even hiding it. He’s got all those funds, not in trust, held local, and he’s been accessing them almost since the girls inherited them. We haven’t figured out quite yet why that money never was put in a trust, though. That said, there is still a very large sum of money in those accounts. In fact, as my investigator sees it, there’s three million nine hundred and seventy-five thousand, two hundred and two dollars and sixty-seven cents.”

Reece said nothing and moved not an inch.

Nina continued, declaring enthusiastically as she clapped her hands in front of her, “We’ve got them!”

“She lost her home,” he replied, his voice low, dangerous.

Angry.

Nina’s smile faded.

“She lost her business,” Reece went on.

“Reece—”

“She lived in a shit, unsafe, studio apartment, sat on used furniture, had a crap TV, and worked for near-on-minimum wage to keep her shit together.”

“I—”

“He knew it. Everyone in town did.”

“He probably did, but—”

“That money was hers. That money was her sister’s. She could have approached the courts to release it and used it to raise her nephew.”

“That’s likely true. However—”

Reece leaned in and interrupted her, rumbling, “Bury that fucker.”

Definitely reading his words and tone, Nina jumped off the desk and, lifting a placating hand, tried again. “Reece—”

But he cut her off.

“I want the money. I want the boy. Zara’s thirty-two, almost thirty-three. She had access to that money, she could have taken care of Zander. She had that money when she needed it, she could have ridden it through that rough patch and he fuckin’ knew it. He let his daughter swing.” He leaned back and ordered, “Bury him. You can land his ass in jail, do it. I want him fucked up, Nina. I want fuckin’”—he leaned in again, barely controlling the fury boiling through his fame—“blood.”

“Okay, Reece,” she agreed quietly, dropping her hand.

“You throw everything you got at him, Nina,” he ordered. “I don’t give a fuck what the cost. You… make… him… bleed.”

She nodded, studying him carefully. She did this for long moments.

Then Nina Maxwell smiled.

So pissed, he could barely see, after leaving Nina, Reece ran an extra two miles to try and work that shit off.

It didn’t touch it.

Now he had to get back to Zara. Share more news about her fucked-up family. Rock her world yet a-fucking-gain.

She already knew her father was an extreme asshole. He had no idea how she’d respond to those extremities expanding.

But he had to get home. He’d been gone longer than normal and she’d worry.

He wished he could keep running.

He couldn’t get it out of his head, the state of her house when he first walked into it months ago, that couch, that shit-ass coffee table, that fuckin’ TV. And her studio without a peephole and a chain he popped with no fucking effort.

His cookie, living like that. His woman, unsafe. His girl, nearly broken.

All because her dad was an asshole.

If Reece hadn’t come back, she’d still be there and she’d stay there. Even if she found out about Zander, she’d never approach Nina to fight for him. She’d never know she was a millionaire.

But he came back and it was fucking whacked but he had Dennis Lowe to thank for it. An ax murderer woke his shit, made him sort himself out.

It was insane but it was true.

Dennis Lowe had taken lives but saved his.

And Reece did not at all like thinking that shit.

Trying to control his fury, when he hit the parking lot to their apartment building, he slowed to a jog and forced his mind to the fact that, when they got her money, she’d be set. She wouldn’t have to worry about that shit ever again.

They also finally had the means to fuck her father and get her nephew.

And last, not the best of this news but not shabby either, the conversation he’d had with their landlord a while back had borne fruit. She’d not wanted to let them out of their contract unless they had someone to rent the space. But she’d called that morning to say she’d found someone to rent the unit. They were free to leave at the end of the month.

A new start. A nice house in a good neighborhood, shitloads of money in the bank, three bedrooms, one Zara’s sister’s boy would sleep in.

And finally, after a shit life and taking way too fucking many hard knocks, his girl would have it good.

On that thought, Reece felt his anger subside.

“Mr. Reece!”

His head turned and he stopped dead at what he saw.

Wilona Cinders, Zara’s aunt, was walking swiftly his way.

His fury instantly came back.

But instead of letting it loose, he forced himself to shake his head.

“We got attorneys. Your brother does, too. We talk through them,” he told her, turning away and moving toward the stairs that led up to their breezeway.

“Mr. Reece, please, you’ll want to hear what I have to say,” she called.

He could hear her heels on the tarmac and he didn’t pause.

But he replied, “That’s extremely doubtful.”

“Mr. Reece!” This was a cry. “Xavier is threatening to take Zander away from me!”

“Your problem,” Reece returned, taking the first four stairs in two strides.

“He’s taking him away because I told him about his mother and aunt,” she said, slightly breathless and her words made Reece stop.

He turned and looked down at her.

“Thank you,” she mumbled the instant he did.

“You got two minutes,” he declared.

“I need to talk to Zara,” she stated and he shook his head again.

“You talk to me first. Then I decide if you get to my woman.”

She straightened her shoulders. “I want her to meet Zander.”

At this unexpected announcement, Reece sucked in a breath before he crossed his arms on his chest.

“I’m listening.”

“I… I don’t want him taken from me. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want his life disrupted. He’s only nine. He wouldn’t understand all this. He shouldn’t have to. I’ve been trying to protect him from what’s going on but it’s getting harder. He gets good grades. He likes his school—”

“Zara will make the decision about whether Zander stays in that school. If we can swing it, I’m sure he’ll stay,” Reece informed her, not letting on that he knew about the money, and that as soon as they broke Zara’s father, Zander’s school tuition would be no problem.

She took a step toward him, shaking her head. “You don’t understand. Xavier and I… we’ve, well… not agreed on a variety of things through Zander’s upbringing. I never got any legal documents to make me his guardian, so Xavier has all the power and—”

He interrupted her. “That’ll be changing.”

She lifted both hands, and her face, not unattractive and he’d only seen her a few times but her usual closed, hard expression made it less so, now looked pained.

“Please, Mr. Reece, I beg you, listen to me.”

Jesus.

If he could believe it, by the look on her face, the tone of her voice, she cared about this kid and not just a little bit.

Reece went silent.

“I don’t know what’s happening with the attorneys,” she stated. “I do know that any child will eventually want to know about their parents. And any child should have all the family they can get. From the beginning, Xavier and I didn’t agree about who would be in Zander’s life and he made it clear that if I didn’t tow his line, he’d take Zander away from me. But I always knew there’d come a time when Zander would ask questions about his mother and father. And when Zander started doing that, Xavier and I disagreed on how it should be handled. Now all this is happening but even before that…” She paused and then she admitted, “I wanted him to go to his mother’s funeral.”

“Clearly you didn’t get your wish,” he noted.

She shook her head. “No, but I got mad that he didn’t… It was the perfect time to tell him, if there ever was a time to tell him such things. Zander wouldn’t really understand it now but he might one day be angry that he’d been kept from his mother’s funeral. But Xavier wouldn’t let me bring him. Wouldn’t let me share about his mother, his aunt, so he wouldn’t be curious or upset if he saw Zara at the funeral. And then I saw Zara at the funeral and got angrier about all the pain Xavier has caused, keeping this family apart. So, after the funeral, I took him to get a sundae and I told Zander about his mom.” She held his gaze, took in a deep breath, and finished. “And I told him about Zara.”

Zander knew about Zara.

Reece tamped down the urge to howl with elation and guessed, “And Cinders knows this and he’s pissed.”

“Very much so,” she confirmed.

Reece said nothing.

Wilona Cinders did.

“Zander wants to meet his aunt.”

“You name the day and time, she’ll be there and you know it,” he said instantly.

She nodded.

Then she shocked the shit out of him when she added, “And I want to help you with your custody case.”

Reece blinked. “What?”

“I have stipulations.”

He uncrossed his arms from his chest and planted his hands on his hips, saying sarcastically, “Why does that not surprise me?”

She didn’t respond to that.

Instead, she announced, “I want to raise him.”

Reece’s anger started edging back.

He dropped his arms and made to move away. “Not gonna happen.”

“No!” she cried, lifting a hand toward him. “He’ll meet Zara. She can come over any time. I promise. Any time, Mr. Reece. And Zander can come to your place. He can spend the night. Have his friends over if he wants. We’ll do Christmases together. Thanksgiving. All of it. I’ll do anything, and I know Zara and I haven’t been close, but I promise. I’ll do anything. Between us, we’ll make it good for Zander. I swear.”

She lifted her other hand, turning both palms up, beseeching and, fuck him, with her posture and the look on her face, the bright in her eyes, even he wasn’t immune.

“But he’s my boy,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the word boy. “I’ve had him since he was so little. He couldn’t even hold his head up. And he’s happy. I’ve worked hard to make him happy because I want him to be happy. I don’t want Xavier to hurt him. I want him to have people around him who love him. And I don’t want him to be caught up in any of Xavier’s nastiness. I don’t want scars on him like that.”

The tears glistened in her eyes as her voice dropped lower.

“I don’t want him to have scars like his mother had. I don’t want him to survive childhood like she did…” She pulled in a breath and shared, “Like I did. I want him to be happy.”

A tear slid down her cheek and Reece closed his eyes.

Probably unintentionally, Xavier had broken the cycle, giving his grandson to a woman who’d learned. A woman who couldn’t conceive. A woman who knew the precious entity she had in her hands and handled it with care.

He opened his eyes. “I’ll talk to Zara. We’ll want a meeting with Zander the minute you can arrange it. We’ll speak to our attorney about the rest of it and either Zara or our attorney, Nina Maxwell, will contact you to discuss things further with you.”

“Zander can’t wait to meet her,” she said immediately.

“She feels the same.”

“Tell her…” She lifted her hands to her face for a second before she dropped them. “Please, Mr. Reece, tell her that it wasn’t my decision to keep him away from her. I would have gone to her but I didn’t think…” She trailed off.

She was right not to think Zara would be receptive to a visit. Zara was not a fan of either of her aunts. But times apparently were changing.

And Reece was fucking glad she didn’t. This was news he wanted to share.

“I think she’s got a pretty clear understanding of how her father works, Mizz Cinders. But I’ll tell her.”

She nodded.

He turned to leave her.

“Mr. Reece?” she called.

He heaved a heavy sigh and turned back.

“Thank you.”

Fuck him. She meant that.

And she meant it deeply.

Reece nodded.

She looked up the stairs as if seeing them she could see Zara, tell the future, understand how she’d react.

Then she moved away.

Reece watched her go.

Then he jogged up the steps.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God, God, God,” Zara chanted as Reece stood in his sweaty workout clothes and watched her dancing around their living room, her soft hair bouncing, her face lit with a massive smile.

Needless to say, she took all that day’s news better than he did.

She stopped, whirled, dashed to him, and halted abruptly so she could slap her hands so hard on his chest he had to swallow a grunt.

“Zander wants to meet me!” she shrieked in his face, then threw her arms around him, also throwing her body at him. She did this so he had to go back on a foot so they didn’t topple down.

He wrapped his arms around her, noting with little surprise her priority in dancing around in joy was her nephew, not the fact that she was a millionaire.

Before he could say a word, she jumped away, breaking from his arms, and cried, “Oh God! I need a new outfit!”

Reece felt his lips curve into a smile.

Jesus.

Women.

“Not sure a nine-year-old boy’ll care what you wear, cookie,” he told her.

She shook her head and started pacing, declaring, “I have to go to the mall.” She whirled on him again. “Immediately!”

“Maybe you should let me call this new shit in to Nina before you head to the mall.”

He wished he could eat those words when her face instantly fell.

“Do you think Aunt Wilona will renege?” she asked.

“No. The woman I spoke to would lay her life down for that boy. But your father is unpredictable.”

“Then we need to do this on the hush-hush,” she stated and he grinned.

“That’d be good. So you be good. Don’t go spreadin’ word around town with all your girls. Don’t fly off to the mall and buy a meet-with-Zander outfit. Your dad’s investigatin’ me. We already know that. We don’t know what else he’s up to. He could have someone watchin’. He might even already know about that meet I just had with your aunt outside. We just got a couple of huge breaks. You need to play it cool.”

She nodded, her head bobbing vigorously. “I can be cool.”

She was totally not going to be cool.

“Arlene’s out,” he told her and she scrunched up her nose.

“This is true. Arlene has a big mouth,” she agreed.

“Inner circle, babe. Nina only until she sorts shit out and you get a sit-down with that boy. We do not want to tip our hand that we know about that money or it might disappear. We do not want to set your father into doin’ somethin’ stupid that’ll hurt Zander if he knows Wilona made an approach. The more people who know, the more chance word will spread even if folks don’t mean any harm. We keep this under our hats. And that means more than keepin’ it from Arlene.”

She again nodded.

“Now I’m gonna call this in to Nina. Then I’m gonna take a shower. Then we’ll celebrate this shit private-like in a way no one will know.”

She nodded again but this time with a huge smile on her face, but asked, “Can I make an alternate suggestion?”

“Give it to me,” he invited.

“We could speed up the celebration. I take a shower with you.”

That was when Reece smiled.

Then he muttered, “You’re on.”

Then he braced because she again flew at him, and landed in his arms. He had to take another step back to keep them from falling. Her hand slid up into the back of his hair, pressing down, and her mouth found his.

Which meant their plans were derailed.

They celebrated on the living room floor.

Then he called Nina.

After that, they celebrated again in the shower.