Chapter 5 - The Night Rafe Calder Finally Broke
Tessa stared at the photograph until the faces blurred.
Her mother was dead.
She had attended the funeral.
She remembered the rain.
The closed casket.
The smell of lilies.
She remembered being eighteen years old and standing alone beside a grave because Adrian Vale had already been gone for years.
Evelyn Ward could not be alive.
And yet the woman in the photograph had her mother’s eyes.
Rafe took the tablet from Tessa’s shaking hands.
“Sit.”
Tessa laughed bitterly.
“You’re telling me to sit?”
“Yes.”
“That’s my line.”
“It worked on me.”
Despite everything, she almost smiled.
Then she sat.
Rafe crouched in front of her.
“Tessa.”
“She died.”
“I know.”
“I saw her coffin.”
“Closed?”
“Yes.”
“Did you identify the body?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“There had been a car accident.”
Rafe’s expression changed.
“What?”
“She was driving home. Police said the fire…”
Tessa stopped.
The memory had always been too painful to examine closely.
June whispered, “Who identified her?”
Tessa frowned.
“A family attorney.”
“Name?”
Tessa searched her memory.
“Samuel Pike.”
Malcolm went still.
Rafe turned.
“What?”
Malcolm answered.
“The man we caught at the hospital was Daniel Pike.”
Tessa felt cold.
“Related?”
“Probably.”
Rafe stood.
“Find out.”
Malcolm left.
Tessa covered her face.
“How much of my life was real?”
Rafe said nothing.
She looked up.
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“My father disappeared. My mother may not have died. Your father was apparently my biological father. Someone has tracked my hospital records for nine years.”
Her voice rose.
“How much was real?”
Rafe’s expression cracked.
He sat opposite her.
“You.”
Tessa stared.
“What?”
“You were real.”
His voice was quiet.
“The woman who became a nurse. The woman who walks into emergency scenes and tells armed idiots to move. The woman who made her own life without any of us.”
He looked directly at her.
“Whatever they lied about, they didn’t make you.”
Tessa swallowed.
Those were not comforting words in the traditional sense.
They were better.
They gave her something solid.
She nodded.
“Thank you.”
That night, Tessa stayed at the Calder penthouse.
Not because Rafe ordered it.
Because for the first time, she agreed that being alone was foolish.
The penthouse surprised her.
She expected marble, gold, and cold luxury.
Instead, the place was dark wood, books, soft lamps, and enormous windows.
Family photographs stood on shelves.
Rafe noticed her looking.
“Disappointed?”
“About?”
“No tiger skins.”
She laughed.
“You know what people say about you.”
“I know most of it.”
“And?”
“Some stories are useful.”
Tessa looked at him.
“You encourage them.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Fear is cheaper than war.”
The answer was so matter-of-fact that she believed him.
June went to sleep shortly after midnight.
Malcolm continued working downstairs.
Tessa found Rafe alone on the balcony.
Rain had stopped.
The city spread below.
He held a glass of water.
Not whiskey.
She leaned against the doorway.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She waited.
He looked at her.
“I assume you’re going to ask again.”
“Yes.”
He turned back toward the city.
“I spent twenty years believing my father was weak for letting people betray him.”
Tessa remained quiet.
Rafe continued.
“I built everything around never making his mistakes.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m learning I don’t even know what his mistakes were.”
“You know some.”
“He lied to June.”
“Yes.”
“He hid you.”
“Yes.”
“He let Adrian Vale take blame for something he may not have done.”
“Probably.”
Rafe’s jaw tightened.
“And he may have helped your mother disappear.”
Tessa stepped beside him.
“That could have been protection.”
“Or cowardice.”
“Both can be true.”
Rafe looked at her.
“You always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Refuse simple answers.”
“Simple answers usually make terrible medicine.”
He almost smiled.
Silence settled.
Then Tessa asked something she had wondered since the first night.
“Why do you think women pity you?”
Rafe stiffened.
“You remember that?”
“Yes.”
“I was bleeding.”
“So?”
“I say stupid things when bleeding.”
“No, you don’t.”
He looked annoyed.
Tessa waited.
Eventually he spoke.
“When I was seventeen, I was already six-four.”
She listened.
“My father sent me to a school where everyone’s parents were rich enough to hide cruelty behind manners.”
Tessa knew where this was going.
“There was a girl?”
“There’s always a girl.”
“What happened?”
“She asked me to a dance.”
“That sounds normal.”
“She had a bet.”
Tessa’s expression fell.
Rafe continued evenly.
“She lasted twelve minutes before telling her friends she couldn’t pretend anymore.”
“That’s awful.”
“She apologized.”
“So?”
“She said she felt sorry for me.”
Tessa’s chest tightened.
Rafe laughed without humor.
“After that, it became easier to assume kindness had a reason.”
“One teenage girl shaped your entire view of women?”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Many people helped.”
That answer hurt more.
Tessa remembered the gala image from days earlier.
Women glancing at Rafe.
Some curious.
Some intimidated.
Some calculating.
She thought of how quickly people judged a body before discovering the person inside it.
“You know what I saw when I first looked at you?” she asked.
“A problem?”
“A wound.”
“That’s romantic.”
“After that?”
He looked at her.
She smiled.
“An extremely stubborn man.”
“Better.”
“Then a brother who was more worried about June than himself.”
Rafe said nothing.
“Then someone who holds himself like he’s afraid of taking up too much space.”
His eyes sharpened.
Tessa stepped closer.
“You’re allowed to exist at full size, Rafe.”
The sentence hit him harder than she expected.
He looked away.
His throat moved.
For a moment she thought he might leave.
Instead, he whispered, “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
“Making it difficult.”
“To do what?”
“To keep you outside.”
Tessa’s heart stopped.
They were half siblings.
The revelation changed everything about the strange emotional connection between them.
But Rafe did not mean romance.
He meant trust.
Family.
Dependence.
Things apparently more frightening to him than violence.
Tessa reached for his hand.
Rafe looked down.
“This isn’t pity,” she said.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He nodded.
For the first time, he believed her.
The balcony door opened.
Malcolm entered.
“We found Samuel Pike.”
Tessa turned.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Why?”
Malcolm held up his phone.
“Because five minutes before we reached him, someone sent him a message.”
“What message?”
Malcolm read aloud.
THE CALDER GIRL KNOWS TOO MUCH.
June appeared behind him.
“What?”
Everyone turned.
She had been listening.
Malcolm lowered the phone.
June’s face went pale.
“Which Calder girl?”
Nobody answered.
June looked toward Tessa.
Then at Rafe.
Malcolm’s phone buzzed again.
He read it.
His expression changed.
“Boss.”
Rafe stepped closer.
“What now?”
Malcolm showed him the screen.
A surveillance photograph had been taken outside the penthouse less than ten minutes earlier.
It showed June standing near the window.
A red circle had been drawn around her.
Underneath were three words.
ONE SISTER FIRST.
Tessa’s stomach dropped.
Rafe became terrifyingly calm.
“One sister first,” he repeated.
Then he looked at Tessa.
There were two sisters now.
May you like
And someone had just made it clear that neither was safe.
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