Page 12 of R Is For Revenge: Part One
CHAPTER 5
BECK
The bells start before the sun has burned through the clouds, echoing over the quiet streets. Most people wouldn’t expect to find me here. Hell, even my closest friends don’t know I come. And not because I’m weird about it, but because I don’t come for me.
I stopped believing in God a long time ago.
If there was one, He sure as hell wasn’t around when I needed Him. When Harold Horner paid my mother to disappear, when she was working herself raw in High Wind just to keep us fed, when the cancer finally took her slow and merciless while I was seventeen and too broke, too angry, to do a damn thing about it. My little sister became a ghost and though she’s better now, a part of her died when mom did.
No, I don’t come for God. I come for her. My Mom.
This church was hers. She grew up not far from here into a chaotic cold world with a father who liked to use his fists. This church was her sanctuary. A place to escape the violence at home. She told me once she used to hide in the back pews when the choir practiced. Said that music helped her survive. Said that the church gave her some kind of peace and filled her with hope.
She loved everything about this church. The old stone, faded paint, cracked wooden steps. The faint smell of incense baked into its walls. The statues of Mary and Jesus. The colorful windows showing biblical scenes. All of it belonged to her at one time. Now I come because it feels like the only way to hear her voice again it to be here. Even though I don’t belong.
The pew creaks under my weight as I sit, elbows resting on my knees. Stained-glass light filters in, soft reds and golds casting patterns across the aisle. The quiet settles around me, and for a moment, I can almost hear her humming one of the old hymns under her breath. This is as close to peace as I get.
But it doesn’t last.
Because even here, even in this place, Jules face slips into my mind.
The girl standing in my suite Friday night. The girl walking dogs in the morning sun. The girl Grant King thought he could press his hands on like she belonged to him. Like she was another jersey chaser looking to add to her bedpost.
We’re connected and she has no idea.
She doesn’t know Harold Horner got my mom pregnant. Doesn’t know we share a half-sister. Doesn’t know how we suffered while they lived large in the Hamptons and in LA. Doesn’t know how my mom’s light dimmed and that she got sick and died leaving me to look after my sister when I could barely look after myself.
All because of her father.
To her, I’m just her boss. Christ, she might not even know I’m the owner and she sure as fuck doesn’t see the web yet. Doesn’t see the history bleeding into her new life.
But she will. Fucking right she will.
Maybe I’m a bastard for what I’m planning. Maybe a part of me should feel guilt at the plan that’s taking shape, especially sitting here in a place like this. But I don’t. Not when all I canthink about is what Harold Horner will feel when he finds out that I’ve taken the last thing he can still claim as his.
In fact, he still has no idea it was me who took everything he owned. Me, the kid he used to toss a ten dollar bill at, then send me out for ice cream so he could have time alone with my mother.
I sit back, eyes lifting to the old wooden cross at the front of the church. If my mom could see me now, she’d probably hate what I’ve become. But saints don’t survive in this world. They get eaten alive.
Jules has no idea the wolf is already circling.
The health club smells like cedar and money. Not the fake, overcompensating kind, but the real thing—the kind where membership fees cost more than most people make in a year and every locker is stocked with pressed towels, imported soaps, and bottles of electrolyte water with labels no one can pronounce.
Huxley’s already on the court when I arrive, his warm-up jacket tossed aside, a grin tugging at the edge of his mouth as he bounces a ball against the wall. He looks exactly the same as when I last saw him—a few weeks back, before he flew to Berlin for some tech summit—tall, lean, sharp-eyed, and always ten steps ahead.
“About time,” he calls, catching the ball in one hand. “Was starting to think you’d gone soft while I was away.”
I snort, pulling off my hoodie. “Not a chance.”
We play two warm-up games, both fast-paced, both ending in us trash-talking like we’re twenty again. I take the first, he takes the second, and by the time we’re leaning against the cool glasswall with water bottles in hand, my pulse has slowed, but my thoughts haven’t.
Huxley tilts his head, studying me the way he always does when I’m too quiet for too long. “Alright, Beckett. What’s eating at you? You’ve got that look.”
Christ. He knows I hate it when he calls me by my full name. “What look?” I deflect, wiping sweat from my forehead.
“The one where you’re planning something big and pretending you’re not. Spill it. Berlin was boring as hell, and I need entertainment.”
“Boring? What, no pussy to ease the pain?” He’s been weird lately. The guy rotated women like a goddamn pro, but I can’t remember the last time I’d seen him with one.
