Ruin Me (Savage Bosses)

Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

M adison

I sank to the floor outside Kent’s study after hearing Ife’s ultimatum, my heart shredded and bloody in the hands I curled against my chest. Not even Kent’s defense of me eased the pain as Ife stormed out of the office without seeing me, screaming, “Don’t expect to talk to me until you get rid of her!”

Memories bombarded me, silencing the questions about how she knew where Kent was or how she got into the penthouse. Those were insignificant compared to our years together. Years of us huddled side by side from childhood to adulthood as we shared secrets turned to ash on my tongue. Years of adventures we had no business going on, trips, coffees, late-night conversations, sleepovers for the hell of it, crying sessions, calm-down sessions where we talked each other off a bridge—mostly I did most of the talking while Ife did the threatening—binge sessions whether it was food or movies, or our favorite K-pop idol, Woo Do Kang, being sighted in the wild.

Ife was my person from the time we entered kindergarten and she saw the light skin patches on my face and said, “I wish we could be sisters. Since we can’t let’s be best friends and punch the dummies who keep pointing and making weird faces whenever they see you.”

Yeah, Ife was my warrior and my safe space just as much as I was hers. And now I had to contend with destroying that.

Kent walked out of the study and noticed me curled in on myself on the floor. He kneeled beside me and cupped my knee. “Little bunny, she’ll come around. She just needs time.”

I shook my head and opened my mouth, but a sob escaped. One became two, then three until I lost count and poured my heart out because it was breaking.

Kent used his strength to pick me up and carry me to the bedroom where he held me until I passed out from the emotional upheaval.

Hours later, I woke to him holding me in his arms as if he hadn’t moved from the spot for hours. The room was dark, probably three in the morning. I blinked, feeling the pressure to cry building up behind my eyes again as my new reality hit, but no moisture appeared to help my outpouring. I was a dry lakebed about to fossilize the relics abandoned in its depths when it was once full. Emptiness engulfed me as the realization hit again.

I was no longer Ife’s person. She’d relegated me to a ‘her.’ As if I was a stranger, unworthy of being in her vicinity.

“I think, deep down, I knew something like this would happen,” I whispered brokenly to Kent. “That’s why I was so against her finding out about us. Even with all the madness surrounding us, I wanted to hold onto what we were becoming for as long as possible because I haven’t felt happiness like this ever in my life.”

Kent twisted my body until I looked up into his face. His lips were a firm line and I imagined brackets framing his mouth if not for the covering of his beard shielding the telltale sign from me. Even without that indicator, Kent who always appeared younger than his age, wore his forty-eight years and then some in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the ridges in his brow.

“Little bunny, I promise I’ll dedicate my life to making you happy again. I’ll convince Ife what she’s doing is hurting herself as much as she’s hurting you, and I’ll make her come around.”

At his mention of his daughter’s name, I glanced away. The teenage me never thought twice about the consequences of starting a relationship with the man I loved, and the adult me was just as guilty because I avoided thinking about them for my own selfish ends. But now…

Kent pinched my chin and turned my face to look at him again. “I understand how important Ife is to you, and as long as I have breath in my body, I’ll give you everything you want,” he said, repeating his vow from yesterday.

A time when the only thing on my mind was being seen, heard, and appreciated by the man I’d hero worshipped as a child.

“But now’s not the time. She’s not receptive to any overture on our parts.”

“No, I can’t accept that. I have to talk to Ife. Maybe if she heard…”

What? That I’d pursued her father while he was married to her mother? Or how about years later, how I taunted him, intending to seduce him as a way to exact my revenge for hurting me, but ensnared the both of us in my trap instead?

“Maybe you’re right.” I sagged against Kent, dispirited and unable to see a way for us to mend this rift. “But how long do you think we’ll have to wait?”

Kent wrapped me in his arms and kissed the side of my neck. “I don’t know, little bunny, but we’ll have each other to lean on until the time’s right.”

Would we though? One day, if Ife never forgave us, Kent would grow to resent me. Ife wasn’t just his daughter. She was Oye’s, too. A part of his wife. Ife was the embodiment and the living proof of his life with her mother, and I never wanted to be the reason he lost that reminder. Ife was also his princess. His little girl that he’d spoiled from the moment she was in her mother’s womb all the way until before she caught me and her father together. I grew up on stories about how Mr. Luxe went from an ice-cold business man to a puddle of water whenever Oye rubbed her stomach, his concerns always about his wife’s and unborn daughter’s needs. Then as I grew, I saw him interacting with Ife firsthand.

Even my dad didn’t pamper me as much as Kent indulged his daughter, and I was a daddy’s girl. Still am. Just like Ife. So I knew from the years I’d stopped visiting my parents how hard life would be for Ife, and I’d maintained communication. For her to tell Kent she was cutting him off from that minimal of contact would devastate them both.

“Maybe I should move back in with my parents until?—”

“That’s not an option I’m willing to entertain, little bunny. We’re a unit now, and units don’t live apart.”

I snuggled closer into Kent’s warmth, wishing I had his conviction while not arguing with him. I wanted what he wanted too much, even knowing that under enough stress, any unit could crumble to the eventual pressure. I didn’t want that, but I also didn’t want Kent to turn into a man full of regrets for not repairing the fractures in his and his daughter’s relationship. As I lay huddled within the loving embrace of the love of my life, I silently vowed I would do whatever I had to do to mend Ife and Kent’s bond. Even if it meant enduring the unlivable.