Page 56 of Mr. North
Fifteen
Beth
T he cops arrest Nate. Since he was the one who broke Paxton’s office, he’s the only one Paxton demanded should be detained. Apparently, because I didn’t aid and abet Nate in picking Paxton’s office door and going through his filing cabinet, I can’t be held accountable for the crime, though the police officer did ream me out for being aware of what was happening and not putting a stop to it. Basically, I’m getting off light.
I have two options right now: I can call Raphael and tell him what’s happened, or I can go and meet with Paxton at Thalia’s apartment. Technically, the smart thing to do is call Raphael. His immense power and pull in this city could probably have prevented Nate from being arrested in the first place. I can’t get his words out of my mind, though. “Because, Beth. It’s none of your business. None of this is any of your fucking business .” He was so furious. And after that, so was I . I still am. Calling Raphael is a last resort.
Nate begged me to wait for him to be bailed out before I go over to see Paxton. He pleaded with me, even as he was being stowed in the back of the police cruiser, and I did nothing. There was nothing I could do.
“I’m sorry, Nate. I’ll be fine. I’ll get answers,” I told him.
As the cop car drove off and disappeared, leaving me alone in the Dunkin Donut’s parking lot, Nate’s face was a rictus of panic, staring at me out of the back window.
Now, walking through the courtyard toward Thalia’s apartment building, I pull my jacket around me; the night air is cooler than it has been in weeks, but my nerves are the primary cause of my shivering. I’m glad Paxton insisted I meet him there. Having Thalia around as a buffer, a voice of reason, will be a gift from the heavens. I haven’t seen her since her meltdown at Raph’s, either. I haven’t been a very good friend to her over the past few days. I should have checked in on her. I should have made sure she was okay. She hasn’t messaged me, though. She hasn’t tried reaching out. A part of me thought maybe she needed the time to recover from her upset and her subsequent hangover.
As I knock on Thalia’s door, I find myself questioning why I’m doing this. Raph wants to let sleeping dogs lie. I’m interfering in something that doesn’t technically concern me. On the other hand, in a lot of selfish ways, it does. I want to be able to walk down a street holding my boyfriend’s hand. I want to be able to go to a movie with him. I want to be able to travel and see the world, go to baseball games and drive across country on road trips. I realize that life is one I probably would never be able to enjoy with Raph. He is Raphael North, after all. His face is recognizable amongst thousands. Still, there really is absolutely no way any of that might be possible if Raph insists on punishing himself for an accident he believes to be his fault.
I’ve been hoping I’d arrive at the apartment before Paxton. I’m out of luck when the door door swings open; Paxton stands there, a stormy expression on his otherwise perfect face. His dirty blond hair is swept back, not a strand out of place, his suit jacket buttoned, not a crease in sight, a fuchsia pocket square folded with crisp corners jutting out of the dove grey material. He looks like a Tom Ford model, albeit a Tom Ford model who’s been having a very bad day. He doesn’t speak as he steps aside for me to enter, but his expression says enough. He’s angry. Really, really angry. I enter Thalia’s place with my heart in my throat. Thalia’s sitting on the couch. I know something’s wrong the moment I see her. Her knees are drawn up underneath her chin, her arms folded tightly around her body. She glances at me out of the corner of her eye, then swiftly screws her eyelids shut. She’s shaking like a leaf. There’s something all over the tiled floor, glittering and catching at the light. It takes me a moment to realize that it’s broken glass.
“What’s going on?” I ask, looking around the apartment. Her usually tidy home is in disarray, papers scattered all over the table, overflowing coffee cups and dirty dishes mounded with food, discarded on the countertops. The place smells of rot and decay. Thalia shakes her head, biting down on her bottom lip, still not looking at me.
“This,” Paxton says behind me, “is the result of your selfishness. This is what happens when you refuse to leave well alone.”
I spin around, pinning him in my gaze. “What are you talking about?”
Paxton looms over me as he takes a step forward, closing the gap between us. He’s unnervingly close. Too close for comfort. The bitter, sour tang of old sweat cuts through the clean, musk scent of his aftershave. He reaches up and brushes a strand of hair back behind my ear. His touch is too familiar and far too intimate. Somehow, it feels like the gentle gesture is a threat.
“I tried to give you money,” he says softly. “I encouraged you to leave Raphael alone, but you refused. You caused a stir in the media. You made him start to think he could have a normal life again. You planted this…nasty little seed of hope inside him. And then you showed up at my office today and stole something from me that didn’t belong to you. You have no idea the damage you’ve managed to cause in such a short time. No idea at all. We’ve all been coping with the events of the accident in our own ways for the past five years, and you’ve torn everything down in the blink of an eye.”
The words he parts with are spat out like poison. There is so much hatred in his eyes. He despises me, that much is clear. He has no right to feel that way, though. Who the hell does he think he is, blaming me for upsetting their dishonest little equilibrium? If I weren’t quite so afraid of him right now, I’d probably slap him for being such a prick.
“That file wasn’t yours to keep,” I say quietly. “And I didn’t bully my way into Raphael’s life. Thalia persuaded me to see him first. She encouraged me, did everything she could to make me spend time with him, and he’s an amazing person. Of course I was going to fall in love with him. Thalia, please…” I sidestep around Paxton, reaching out to my friend. She won’t raise her head, though. Won’t look at me.
“Thalia, did you know the crash wasn’t an accident?” I want to say more. I want to ask her if she knows Paxton might have had something to do with it. I can’t voice my suspicions, though. Not with him standing at my back, his eyes flashing murder. If he did damage Raph’s Maserati on purpose, who knows what else he’s capable of? Wrapping his hands around my throat? Forcing a knife into my back? Gagging me and shoving me in the trunk of his car, driving me out into the boonies and disposing of my body?
Rationally I don’t believe he’d do anything like that. Cutting the brakes on a car is a cowardly way of trying to kill someone at the end of the day. Besides some brake fluid and some oil, he didn’t have to get his hands dirty. He didn’t have to look Raph in the eye as his life force flowed and ebbed from his body. He didn’t have to struggle with him. He sat in the backseat of the Maserati and he braced himself for the impact. He rolled the dice and hoped for the best, perhaps. That he wasn’t going to end up seriously hurt or dead himself. It was the perfect decoy. It was the best way to convince the police and accident investigators of his innocence. It was the perfect—
Suddenly, a buzzing sound fills my ears. My brain…my brain stops functioning altogether. Wait…
In the medical report, Paxton had cuts and scrapes all over his body. He had a few broken ribs, probably from where the seatbelt prevented him from flying forward when the car impacted with the wall. They were almost identical injuries to those Raphael suffered. My brain kicks back into gear, suddenly working over time now. How could that be? Surely Raphael’s injuries should have been so much worse if he was sitting in the front seat? He would have faced the full force of the impact; the force of the flying glass would have been so much more violent in the front of the car. Raphael had no head injury. Raph didn’t suffer anything even remotely similar to those injuries. Neither did Paxton.
But Thalia did.
I look to my friend, my mouth hanging open. “Oh my god. Thalia …”
Paxton’s hand closes around the top of my arm. “I didn’t want to have to do this. I didn’t want it to come to this. You’ve really left us no choice, though.” His fingers dig painfully into my skin. He begins reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket. Thalia finally looks up at me, and her eyes are filled with tears. I freeze, overwhelmed, disbelieving, and terrified. I can see the truth on Thalia’s face. It’s all there, plain as day now. Raph wasn’t even driving the car when it crashed into the hotel. And now Paxton is reaching for a weapon—a gun, a knife, a length of cord. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to silence me, prevent me from further disrupting their lie or speaking of it to anyone. I’ll never be able to exonerate Raph and have a life with him. I’ll never be able to have a family with him. I’ll never be able to lie in his arms and lose myself again, and the thought fills me with immeasurable sorrow. It guts me, turning me inside out. I brace for what comes next, but when Paxton’s hand slides out of his jacket, he’s not holding onto a weapon. There’s no shiny metal gripped in his hand. Instead, he’s holding a piece of paper.
“This restraining order is air tight, Ms. Dreymon. If you go within five hundred feet of the Osiris Building, you will be arrested. If you call, text, or email Raphael, you will be arrested. If you so much as think his goddamn name, the police will be hammering down the door to your shitty, rat-infested apartment, and you will go to jail for a very long time. Do you understand me?” He slaps the folded sheet of paper against my chest. I take it without thinking, blindly staring down at it sitting there in my hand.
“Arestrainingorder ?”
“Yes, Ms. Dreymon. That delinquent brother of yours has been served one, too. If either of you speaks to the media again, you’ll be arrested and I will personally haul you across the coals for defamation and slander. I hope the consequences of your actions are very clear here, Elizabeth. I will bury you if you fuck with Raphael. You’re going to disappear from his life. You’re going to be a ghost. In a week, he won’t even remember you existed.”
I gape up at him. I can’t even comprehend what’s going on right now. Two seconds ago, I thought he was going to murder me, and now…he’s threatening me with…with legalaction ? “Ha!” The bark of laughter bursts out of me before I can rein it in. It bubbles out of me, overflowing and escaping me. “Only Raphael can serve me with a restraining order,” I say. “You can’t just serve me on his behalf.”
“I can actually,” Paxton says dryly. “When his parents died, Raph named me his power of attorney should he be injured, fall sick, or deemed incompetent for any reason. This afternoon, after you broke into my office, I had his doctor officially sign off on some paperwork. I had him deemed mentally compromised for his own safety. I’m now in charge of his affairs until further notice.”
“What? You can’t do that! No one’s going to believe he’s mentally compromised.”
