Chaos Remains (Greenstone Security 4)

So he struck the match on me.

Because he wanted to hurt me.

For ruining his career, presumably.

Or for testifying against him in the upcoming court case that would almost certainly see him have life in prison ten times over for various crimes that were continually being added as Rosie found more victims.

That was something he didn’t do to himself, it was things he did to innocent women.

The fancy lawyer that Greenstone Security had fought against bail. But it seemed his father—who now had his own charges pending against him—still had enough friends in high places to do the lowest of deeds.

To say Lance had been angry about Robert being out on bail would be an understatement.

He smashed a chair. One, he replaced later and felt very bad about breaking. I’d understood his anger. His fear. It was the latter that had him breaking the chair, I was sure. Fear for me. For Nathan.

For a repeat of his terrible Christmas Eve ten years ago.

I had plenty of fear too, but it didn’t land like it used to. Didn’t crawl into the core of me. Because we had Lance. Because we had the entire team at Greenstone. And that was not something I was fighting against anymore. I welcomed it.

Lance was beyond protective for the first couple of weeks Robert was out on bail. Neither I nor Nathan went anywhere alone. Lance sat at the diner for every one of my shifts. That was of course when he wasn’t sitting outside of Nathan’s school. Then Duke, or Heath, or Luke was at the diner. None of them complained. Especially since they got unlimited pie.

Nothing happened.

Rosie and I speculated that Robert had finally grown some brains. “If he’d grown balls and a dick too, he’d be on his way to a South American country right now, to disappear into the jungle and be eaten by snakes. But he’s never going to do that. He’s still cocky, regardless of his lack of cock or balls. He still thinks he’s somehow going to get out of this.”

She was right. I knew Robert. He was an entitled asshole, among many other things. Seeing him smug at the bail hearing was enough to show me he was deluded as well as evil. He would think he’d get out of kidnapping, assault and rape charges with five women to testify against him.

It was so very Robert.

I reasoned he wouldn’t come and cause trouble for me. He’d be waiting until he won the court case. Then, I was sure, he’d try again. But that would never happen.

After the two weeks, things calmed down. Slightly. Lance was still uber protective. I didn’t expect anything less. There was no such thing as too protective with Nathan.

It turned out, there was no need for Lance to sit outside of Nathan’s school, for him to make sure that my kid never went to a playdate alone.

It wasn’t Nathan that Robert wanted.

Not that I knew that at the time.

I was pulling into the parking lot of the diner, thinking of Lance and I’s latest conversation. I had begun converting the garage of the rental into a workspace for me to work on my furniture. Rosie had gotten in touch with friends and I already had a website.

‘Chaos Interiors’ was the name of my business. Rosie chose it. And designed the site. And of course, it was perfect. Simple, with a touch of boho, with edge. I updated it whenever I had new stuff, and somehow, people followed it. Bought stuff.

Lance had entered the discussion of me leaving the diner, more gently than he had last time. In other words, he no longer structured it as a command, but an actual conversation.

Just like the discussions about him paying the rent, utilities and groceries had eventually gone, he won. Because he was right, if I really wanted to do this—and I did—I couldn’t half-ass it. He wouldn’t stand for me tiring myself like I had been lately, working at the diner and then coming home and working on furniture for hours, sometimes after Nathan had gone to bed.

Something had to give.

I wanted this.

I wanted to be something more than a waitress.

Do something I loved.

Create things.

Make broken, discarded things beautiful, show the world that broken was beautiful.

I also wanted to teach Nathan that he could be more. If he was brave enough, dedicated enough. It would take bravery to quit a job that had given me a steady paycheck for years, that ensured, no matter how lean times got, they never got dire. Sure, Lance was here, bulldozing his way through everything and distracting me with sex and pretty words so we didn’t argue about him taking over the bills.

But I didn’t want Nathan to remember a mother that just let a man take care of her. I wanted him to remember me as something different. I wanted him to be proud of me.