Jagged (32 page)

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.