Sunset Thunder (30 page)

VIOLET DIDN’T GO back to the party. She didn’t knock on her the door to her mother’s suite either. She breezed right inside finding Eliza and Carl curled up on the couch watching television, smiling at one another with a love that Violet had just walked away from.

The sight slammed sorrow into Violet’s chest, so unbearable and making it hard to breathe. Violet wanted to curl up on the couch with Ryder. Violet wanted her happily ever after with only that man and she’d let herself think she could have it. Her heart was wounded by far worse in her life and it was her own damn fault.

Eliza and Carl both glanced up with smiles that quickly dropped.

Eliza rose to her feet. Carl was right beside her as they came to Violet. “What’s wrong?” Eliza asked. “Where’s Ryder?”

The tears spilled down Violet’s cheeks and the sobs shook her body.

“Violet?” Eliza’s arms wrapped around Violet, but today her motherly warmth eased no pain.

Violet hadn’t expected her mother’s touch to resolve the throbbing in her chest, but she needed to be held. She needed to cry. Her heart had never experienced the wrenching that squeezed it so tight she didn’t know how she would ever move past today, past this feeling.

The pain of the deceit and lies that Joel and her father had saddled her with, along with Robert’s easy discard of Violet was nominal in comparison to losing Ryder. She pushed him away. And he walked away when he’d promised to stand by her side forever.

When she could no longer produce another tear, she asked, “Where’s my file?”
Her file.
The file her dad would have on her and no doubt a file that Eliza had already located and taken out of the hidden room where all Robert’s files were. Eliza wouldn’t have left them there for her other siblings to find. But she hadn’t admitted to having them either.

Eliza stiffened.

“I will go get it,” Carl said.

Eliza let go of Violet and reached for Carl, scolding him for giving away the truth that one existed.

“Momma, give me my file,” Violet repeated. She needed to know if Joel had been using her or had her father lied to her that night. That hurtful truth had sent her rebelling again and into the arms of Ryder, who ultimately was the man of her dreams. But that one night stood in the way of her happily ever after.
She
stood in the way of her happily ever after.

Carl talked to Eliza with love, but his tone was forceful. “Violet should have the file. It is
her
file. All of the children should be given their files.”

“I am protecting them,” Eliza said.

“You’re not,” Violet interrupted. “I gave my heart to Ryder. I love him and now I can’t have him.” Maybe if she’d had the file first and known about the video then she could have been prepared to fight Joel. Maybe there was something in her file that would help her to fight Joel.
What were his secrets? Where was his file? Why was her dad so manipulative?

“Violet, what are you talking about?”

Her mom’s innocence scraped her trust. Violet had never trusted her father, but she’d always trusted her mother who had, more often than not, been straightforward with her. Violet couldn’t handle losing trust with her mother, not now, not when she had no one. “You know what I’m talking about. The video that Joel used to bribe Dad for a divorce. The same one he’s now threatened to make viral if I continue seeing Ryder.”

Eliza gasped and guilt washed over her face, the guilt of knowing about the video.

“Did you watch it?” Violet asked.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Carl move into the office and knew he was retrieving the file...and the video.

Violet stepped toward her mother and repeated, “Did you watch it?”

“I didn’t have to. I know what happened, Violet. I found you that night.”

“But it’s there,” she said. “Dad would have watched it. Why didn’t Dad fight him? Why would Dad allow Joel to blackmail
him
? I don’t understand.” The tears she’d thought were gone began to gather again. “It’s not like Dad to just bow down to someone else and Joel of all people... Dad must have had worse evidence on Joel. Joel was dishonest and he had enemies, so I don’t know why Dad didn’t take the tape away and use his own knowledge to set Joel straight.”

Violet felt her uncle touch her arm from behind. He stepped beside her, holding the file.

“Violet, he did it for you.” He passed it to her shaking hands.

“Did what?” She held the file against her chest, needing the support to calm her shakes.

“Gave Joel the divorce and the money. Sweetheart...” He touched her shoulder and the warmth was comforting, as much as she was breaking inside. “...Joel wasn’t a bad person back then. I don’t think he’s a bad person now.”

Carl hadn’t been standing on the beach twenty minutes ago.

“He was just as cornered in this marriage as you were. When Joel married you, for whatever his reasons were, and I believe them to be solely that of Sophia, he lost his freedom too. He was bonded to you and your dad in a way that made it impossible for him to leave.”

“But he had the tape from our wedding. From day one he could have used it to barter out of this marriage.”

“No one bartered with Robert. You know that. When Robert approached Joel and offered him his freedom for the tape, it was because your dad was sick. He was trying to make amends. He was terrible at it and there is a hidden room full of people he didn’t have the time or energy to reverse the pain he caused. But he tried with his family. He did it for you. Not for Joel.”

“But Joel still has the tape. Joel is using it against me.” Violet opened the file as she said, “There has to be something in this file against Joel. There has to be−”

Eliza touched her arm. “Violet, stop. Don’t look in the file for answers. Look in your heart−”

Violet yanked away. “No, you stop. You are my mother. You were supposed to protect me. I would never let Joel force Sophia into a marriage she didn’t want. I would never stand aside and allow what Daddy did to all of us. Never. You should have stood up for us. There shouldn’t be a file about me. There shouldn’t be a file about any of us.” Violet waved the file at her mother. “This isn’t normal. We aren’t normal. You and Uncle Carl hiding a relationship behind Dad, is not normal.”

Violet threw the file at her mother and the contents spewed across the floor.

“You two let us believe that Corbin was dead. You took our brother out of our lives because you were trying to protect him. Now he doesn’t even want to come back. That is not normal.”

Violet watched the pain wash across both her mother and uncle’s face as she dragged Corbin into the conversation. He was the smart one to stay away from this family. This family was a mine-field waiting for someone to take the wrong step and it would explode.

“Leave Corbin out of this.” Tears filled her mother’s eyes and pain streaked her voice. Carl wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder and Violet resented that they got their happily ever after.

“Why? Does it hurt to think about someone you can never have?”

“He will come around.”

“Maybe, but Ryder won’t. It’s done...we’re done...” Violet’s eyes fell to her life spread out on pages across the carpet. “We’re done,” she whispered, dropping to her knees. Water blinded her vision as she began gathering up the papers. Eliza and Carl helped and when they were done, the file was in Violet’s hands.
What good was it?

Violet looked at her mother. “You’re right. The file doesn’t matter, because I am chaos. Even if I found something to use against Joel, it would be useless. I’m a walking catastrophe and the look Ryder gave to me this evening was my indication that he is finished trying to keep up with me. I continue to push him away. We take one step forward together and I take one hundred steps back, because I’m not strong. I’m weak.”

Violet held the file out until Carl finally took it.

“I could have confided in him tonight and he would have been standing here with me, and looking through my file for leverage on Joel I know...I knew...was in there, but instead I pushed him away. You can only be pushed away so many times...”

Loud banging stopped the tears that had started again. How were there tears left? How long would these tears remain?

“Eliza?” It was Ryder.

As much as she wanted to answer that door and take her file from Carl to reside alone in her suite with Ryder, her love for him stopped her.

“Don’t tell him I’m here. He’s a good person and he’s not like us. I don’t want to drag him into our lives. We might be a close family, but we are broken beyond repair. Please?”

When Eliza finally nodded, Violet started toward the back door and then remembered Sophia and Parker. She wanted to check on them. She
needed
to check on them, so she disappeared down the hall.

***

RYDER POUNDED ON Eliza’s door again and finally Carl opened it. The grey-haired man greeted him with a friendly smile within his five o’clock shadow.

Ryder wasn’t in a friendly mood. “I want to talk to Eliza,” he barked. His first instinct was to push past this man and find Eliza, but he waited a few seconds and Carl stepped aside.

Eliza was standing in the living room, of an identical laid out suite as Violet’s, only this one had grey walls and black backsplash instead of Violet’s beige and whites.

“Ryder, I wasn’t expecting to see you.” Eliza didn’t ask where Violet was, so it was likely she’d already been to the suite. Her blinking, tear-glazed eyes gave her away.

“What does Joel have on Violet?” Ryder cut straight to the chase. This woman wasn’t blind. She was Robert Caliendo’s wife and she would know things. No doubt, the man who walked around Ryder, warily watching him, knew as well.

“Ryder, it’s not my place.”

“I’m not leaving until someone tells me.” Eliza or Carl, he didn’t care.

Eliza glanced down the hall with tightly pinched lips.

“I’m sorry, Son, we have no answers for you,” Carl said.

Ryder crossed his arms across his chest. “Like hell you don’t. I refuse to let anyone else hurt Violet. I refuse to stand here and allow the two of you to not stand up and defend her. Don’t you both think Robert has put her through enough hell? And not to mention the result of her marriage to Joel. Do either of you have any idea how scared she is?” He turned to Eliza. “Don’t you think it’s time to make it your place and stand up with Violet? Instead of letting other people walk all over her?” Carl crossed his arms and stepped in front of Eliza, a protection stance for the woman he loved. Didn’t he understand that was exactly what Ryder was doing for Violet?

“Watch yourself,” Carl warned.

Ryder wasn’t about to back down.

Eliza touched Carl’s arm and moved up to his side. “Violet is stubborn. It’s not me, nor Carl that you have to go to for the answers you seek. It’s her.” Stubborn wasn’t even close to defining Violet.

“Do you think I didn’t try? Joel is holding something over her head and if I just knew what it was, I could fix it.” Or fix Joel, whichever needed to be fixed.

Eliza’s eyes once again landed on the hallway. At first he thought it was the kids she was concerned about, but the look in her eyes told him differently. Violet was here. Which meant Ryder wasn’t getting an answer out of either of them. Not now. He wasn’t quitting either.

Ryder shrugged out of his jacket and held it toward the woman whose eyes gave her away. “Can you give this to Violet, please.” If it was his sweater that had given her the first step to reach out to him, maybe the reminder of his jacket would bring her back to him.

Eliza looked down at it perplexed, but she took it. When her hand reached out, Ryder gently took her arm and brought her ear to his lips, for only her to hear. “I know she’s here. I will find out what Joel has done to her and I will give her the happily ever after she thinks that she doesn’t deserve. I’m not the bad guy. I love Violet.” He let go and turned to leave, but Eliza gripped his arm and he stopped.

Eliza lowered her voice, so only Ryder would hear. “He holds a secret over Violet, but it’s not about her. It’s about you. He doesn’t know about Donald. Check into Donald’s finance records the year Joel married Violet and if you can find what he fears you will, then you will have exactly what you are looking for. Give me tonight to find the rest and I will contact you tomorrow.”

That was all Ryder needed to know everything was going to be fine.
But tomorrow? Could he wait until tomorrow? What choice did he have?
“Thank you.”

Eliza glanced at the jacket with wonder and said, “I will give her this.”

“Thank you.”

Eliza kissed his cheek. “Let my mistakes make you a hero in Violet’s eyes. She needs a hero after all the villains in her life.”

Ryder smiled at her. “She needs two.”

Ryder left.

He wasn’t sure how he was going to spend the night away from Violet, but he supposed that digging that far back into his dad’s finances would keep him occupied.

What had Joel done?