“Trey.”
My voice was broken, emotion clogging my throat.
“Ro, I am so fucking sorry,” he said, his voice was now breaking along with mine. “I swear I had no idea. I didn’t think Raf would attack you, I didn’t know they would come and hurt you instead of me. But I should have. I should have called you. I should have taken you with me. I fucked up. I fucked it all up, and I know that.”
I threw his phone on the bed and got up, moving over to him and pulling him into my arms. He wrapped his around my waist and hugged me back. It was so familiar, and yet so different. He was still my friend, and he’d made a mistake. A bad one, and yes, he fucked up, but it was a mistake because he was scared.
“Ro…I’ll fuck him up…I swear. I’ll find a way to fuck him up for what he did to you.”
“I don’t want you to do anything stupid, Trey, but there is something you can do,” I said, pulling from him and holding his hands in mine.
“Anything, Ro.”
“Tell your dad.”
“What?”
“Tell your dad, Trey. He can help you. He has the resources to help you with this. Whatever you’ve done, whatever they are after you for…he can help you. Trust him.”
Trey ran a hand over his head. I could see the indecision in his eyes. They had a strained relationship, Trey thinking that Wyatt wasn’t a great father. I had no idea, I didn’t know him back then but I knew he was worried about Trey, and I’m sure he’s the one that has been bailing him out for years.
He was his son, after all.
“If you don’t talk to your dad about it, we can’t be friends. I can’t forgive you. I want you to tell him it all,” I said, feeling alittle more confident. Moving over to his phone, and handing it back to him. “Talk to him.”
Trey nodded. “I suppose if he kept you safe, helped you…I can trust him enough.”
He headed for the door, his hand on the doorhandle, when I called out, “Trey, tell him everything. Not just the addictions…everything that led up to you getting addicted.”
He didn’t turn back to face me, but I saw the way he stiffened. He’d never told a soul. I hated that this was the way I told him I knew, but it would help him in the long run.
Wyatt would sort it out.
I knew he would.
Reaper
Looking over at my boy, sitting at the end of the table, I could see the tension in his shoulders. He’d come down from talking with Rowan but she hadn’t followed. It took everything in me not to go up there and ask her if she was okay.
But my son needed to explain himself.
Whatever had him running, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“Talk.”
Trey looked up from where his gaze had been trained on his hands, resting on the wooden table in front of him. Sitting back in the chair, I saw him take a few deep breaths before he began.
“I’m an addict, Dad. If it’s not coke, it’s alcohol or pills. I was peddling drugs for this guy to pay for my habit. But…I got caught up with an old friend who introduced me to a guy who had a job for me. I wanted to get clean. He promised he would help me.”
“Did he?”
“In a way. He got me off the drugs. I stopped drinking, but not before I fucked things up with Ro. Fuck, she wouldn’t leave me to deal with it on my own. She just…stuck around to make sure I was okay.”
He ran his hand over his head, just like I did when I was frustrated. I knew Rowan was a one of a kind woman, and this just goes to show how much of a true woman she was. My chest tightened at that.
“Continue. How did Rowan end up beaten and almost dead in the apartment you shared?”
Trey sighed, and I saw a glimmer of something. Regret, maybe, I don’t know but whatever it was, it wasn’t near enough of an emotion for what happened. I could still see her intake photos in my mind’s eye and it made me murderous.
