Page 71 of Vipers & Roses

I hiss angrily, “Stories? Are you saying that you and your friends didn’t cage me in that fuckin-”

“See, this is what I mean. Tsk, tsk, tsk. That imagination of yours needs to be…contained,” he’s saying the quiet part out loud.

“It’s weird how you hired lackeys to threaten me to keep my mouth shut over an” air quotes, “imagined story,” I hit back.

“Innocent men have been imprisoned for false accusations, Rae,” his voice is stern, but I sense doubt underneath.

“False? Oh, I get it. This is how we’re going to play the game?” I say sarcastically. “Young, stupid girl with a crush on an older coach, blah blah. Yeah, your buddy, Gav, already filled me in. I guess you must keep to the story so no one trips up. Gotcha.”

“No one will believe your lies,” he affirms. “And rubbing shoulders with that detective will not help your case either.”

It takes a second for me to realize that he’s talking about Gabe, who happens to be the father of his fastest competitive swimmer in the 200 and 300-meter freestyle. Does he really want to piss off the Bernardis’?

“We have careers and family to provide for,” he adds. “We don’t need a little girl with fairytail fantasies trying to ruin our lives.”

“I haven’t tried to do anything,” I argue, relieved that I don’t have Til with me because I would’ve shot him after he said the words ‘imagined stories.’

“The warning still stands,” he says evenly. “And it’s your word against ours.”

“The reason I didn’t go to the police was because you threatened to destroy my family, and I believed you,” I confess. “I’m not so young and naïve anymore.”

He scoffs. “That’s debatable.”

Dragging my boots off his desk, I stand to leave. “Stay the fuck away from Lucy.”

His voice rings in my ears as I lay my hand on the doorknob. “And how is Gavin? I hear he’s getting real cozy with your brother.”

A shiver grips the small of my spine as I flee from the room. I had always suspected that Gavin had moved to the coast to be near my family so he could watch over them—keep your friends close and enemies closer. Of course, my family is completely unaware of his intentions, and I must keep it that way.

“Damn it,” I curse under my breath as I run down the stairs to the foyer. “They’re covering all basis.”

He’s got something over Lucy, just like he had something over me. The real problem is The Four's influence and power, notably The Snake. Even thinking about that creep makes the hair on my arms stand on end. My head is spinning so much that I slam into a tutor and have to apologize for knocking the books from her arms.

The doubts tumble into my mind on whether I should kill him or walk away and try to put this behind me. This is a constant internal battle that keeps me up at night. If I kill him and The Snake finds out it was me, what would they do to my family? But now, another woman is under their controlling grip, and I’m looking at the situation differently. Even though Lucy won’t reveal her story to me, I know I’m not alone and the only one. I may never know how far they’ve gone with her because, like me, she’s likely being threatened to keep her mouth shut.

My pace is slower as I head back to the great oak, where I left my weed bucket and trowel, and I cannot ignore what Lyons was insinuating. They’re protecting their backs to take advantage of the freedoms of who and what they are. In other words, they have the privilege of doing whatever they like and exploiting whoever they choose and will always get away with it.

Until now.

32

Rosmarinus officinalis is a member of the Lamiaceae family or volatile oil family and takes pride and place in my herbarium. We identify plants by their flowers, nuts, and seeds, but we become accustomed to seeing the minute differences under the naked eye of their leaves, too. To many, there is little difference between mint and lemon balm until you smell them or until they come into flower, but we know. We, the ones who work alongside the plants, can identify by sight because the more you look at the finer details, the more you see, and then you can never unsee it.

You can never unsee it.

I laid the flowering rosemary sample on the paper, laid another sheet over the top, and then placed a heavy book on it to press it dry. On the corner of the sheet of paper, I had written the botanical and family names and the date I harvested it. Robust herbs, particularly those in the Lamiaceae family, dry and press well and tend to maintain their scent.

Footsteps coming down the hall pull me out of my utopia, and I snap my head up and glance at my dresser, where Til is hidden in the bottom drawer. The footsteps stop, and a door is unlocked, squealing open and closing. I breathe a sigh of relief and turn toward the window to gaze out at the night sky, littered with lights from the apartment blocks across the road where the man fell to his death. Or was he pushed?

With Gabe on my mind, I checked my phone for a message from him with the time and date of our dinner date, only to find two messages instead from Z. The first message arrived twenty minutes ago, and the second ten minutes ago, and I must’ve been so submerged in setting up my herbarium that I failed to hear my phone beep.

Z: Been summons from Smiler. R u free tonight?

Z: Rae!! Get back to me ASAP if you want the job.

Me: Yes. I want the job.

Several minutes fly by before a text comes through from Z: I’m on my way over now. I’ll text u when I arrive.

---