Ruin Me (Savage Bosses)

Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

M adison

Work.

Work was the cure in times like these, I reminded myself. School work in college was how I distracted myself while I licked fresh wounds from Kent’s rejection. Afterward, work during my internships, my first official job, and when I decided to branch out on my own saved me from dwelling on things I couldn’t change. The long, sleepless hours I sacrificed were worth it because I built a successful business.

The playbook helped me in the past; it had to help me in the present. So, I buried myself in work. For days at a time until Kent’s frustration boiled over.

I was on my second week of trying to work my pain away when Kent walked through the door to see me pushing my exhausted body beyond its limits again.

He didn’t punish me, though. He never did anymore. Kent pinched his lips and without a word pulled me from my desk and led me to our bedroom, where he held and petted me like a wounded animal until I broke down and cried. It was our new routine.

My outpouring set off our menagerie.Benson and Stabler howled and Tyger mewled in sync with me.

I felt sorry for Kent’s poor ears because the animals refused to quiet. They snuck into our bedroom and leaped onto the bed, pitifully wailing along with me. The dogs deferred to Tyger and only the feline trod forward to nudge my arm until I cleared a path for him to curl into my lap. Once the cat settled himself, Benson and Stabler found space on my legs and circled until they, too, curled into a ball with their heads on me. Calm now, they shared concerned glances with each other before turning their sad eyes on me and licking the parts of my body they could reach. I couldn’t move under their combined weight, not that I would. But the combined heat of Kent’s body behind me, the purring engine in my lap, and the thick, double-coated German Shepherds guaranteed I would be drenched in sweat.

I couldn’t recall a time when I had so much love surrounding me, then I remembered… Ife was only one body, but she did as much for me as three pets and a man was doing for me right now. However, she had no one to do the same for her.

And the tears started over again, as did the concert of lamentation. And my sweet Kent, refused to leave my side or make me feel guilty for my feelings. He’s said he understood what losing Ife meant to me. I didn’t believe him. How could he know? But with the way he showed up for me, maybe he did. Had I told him? No conversation came to mind. Then again, he said he never missed anything I said. Maybe this is what that meant.

When grief wrung me dry, my eyes grew heavy.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Kent shook me awake. “I know you skipped lunch. I won’t let you skip dinner.”

“I don’t have an appetite.” I batted his hand away.

“I’ll make you something light to eat. Regardless, there’s no sleeping until you’ve eaten and I’ve given you a bath. You can’t be comfortable having sweated so much.” He slipped behind me with great difficulty.

Tyger protested being jostled and the dogs became alert at his escape from the bed. When I didn’t move, Kent reached out to me.

“You can’t disturb a cat when they’re comfortable. I think I read somewhere it causes permanent trauma.”

Kent rolled his eyes and lifted Tyger despite both of us protesting. “We’ll pamper his bad memories away. After a few treats, he’ll forget where he was.”

Tyger’s glare, directed at Kent said otherwise.

“I don’t know. You’re risking your life displeasing Don Tyger this way.”

Kent sneered at me, then the cat. “You’re here rent free because of me. Show a little gratitude.”

Tyger launched himself at Kent who barely dodged the attack.

“You were saying?” I said as Tyger resumed his position on my lap.

“Dinner in bed works, too.” Kent left the room, shaking his head.

The dogs watched him leave and whimpered their dilemma. Who should they choose? In the end, they also stayed with me.

The moment of levity passed, leaving me traversing through another episode of sadness. I must have dozed off because Kent shook me awake. The four-legged weights holding my body to the bed were no longer in the room, though how Kent achieved the miracle, I didn’t have the energy to guess.

“Here. I made you some soup.”

“You made this?”

“I’ll have you know, I learned from Lola. I couldn’t have my wife and daughter eating food from someone who didn’t have a vested interest in them getting better when they were sick. I know I became a shitty husband to Lola the last years she was alive, but I remembered what it was like to take care of someone I love.”

I nod and took the tray with the soup from him. The aroma was familiar.

Scent leaves.

Along with the poultry scent, the strong, pungent anise-like aroma wafted on a steam wisp as I inhaled.

Oye came from Nigeria and often seasoned her soups with scent leaves. She grew it in her backyard during the brief summers and inside during the rest of the year. Kent must have continued growing it.

My mouth watered. Not even Ife knew how to make her mother’s soup and the last I had a bowl was many years before she died. Even though I had no appetite, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try Oye’s soup.

I dipped my spoon in the bowl and slurped my first spoonful. Familiar heat from the peppers bloomed on my tongue, warming me from the inside. One spoon became another until I emptied the bowl.

“Want another?”

I sheepishly nodded.

Kent stood and exchanged my bowl with his. “Take mine.” He had yet to touch his soup. Before leaving the room, he kissed the tip of my nose. “I’ll be right back.”

I devoured the second bowl at a slower pace than my first, savoring each bite as I ate with Kent this time. When the last of the soup disappeared, I sagged against the bed. The warmth inside my body lulled at me, but Kent pulled me from the bed and marched me to the bathroom for a cool shower and fresh set of pajamas.

Neither of us acted on the desire thrumming below the surface. It was too soon after Ife to think about doing the very thing that splintered us. So we returned to the bedroom and clung to each other.

Two hours.

I sighed, realizing my reprieve was at an end. I fell asleep two hours ago but was now wide awake with a mind I couldn’t turn off. I peeked at Kent. He was deeply asleep.

I slid from the bed, as had become my habit after Kent put me to bed. I’d be lucky if he stayed asleep the rest of the night, but he inevitably missed my weight pressing against his and would come in search of me. I glanced at the clock. One A.M. I had two, maybe three hours before he became restless and realized I wasn’t beside him.

I snuck into my office and booted my laptop. Tyger soon joined me. The dogs were in their crates and I wasn’t letting them out. I stood strong against their puppy-eyed stare, feeling like the worst owner alive. I comforted myself knowing when they turned two they would have their freedom.

I turned to my computer and opened the mail application. A message from Omar caught my eye.

IT confirmed Hal hadn’t been hacked but couldn’t verify if he was @Nose2TheGrindstone. There’ve been no messages posted to the BBD site for weeks.

I wished the news made me happy, but Hal was still an unknown. I hadn’t felt one way or the other toward him until he suggested Kent and I split. He was now a permanent fixture on my shit list, but that didn’t make him guilty of abducting me. Why would he? I always came back to motive and I’d found none.

I went back to the BBD site to search for posts about Kent. The most recent ones no longer centered on his connection with the murder victims. Instead, they speculated on our relationship. I took Kent’s employees not looking at him as a potential suspect as a win despite the embarrassment of having my personal life be fodder for the gossip mill.

As I scrolled the backlog of conversations and used my search engine to optimize what I was looking for, I noticed a pattern with a few user names. @Officevixen69, @Peoplepleaser13, and @In_the_know stopped posting around the time Carol disappeared.

Had she created multiple profiles to smear Kent at the office?

I wouldn’t put it past her. Her actions were unfathomable to most people. Maybe her erotomania manifested itself this way. If so, ruining a man’s reputation wasn’t so extreme she would see it as going too far. Convinced I had proof of her plotting, I needed to dig further.

Before me was a loom and warp threads waiting for me to weave the weft into a clear design. However, I couldn’t see the image clearly. How and why did Carol target Kent and the women she murdered? Did she do the actual murdering or was it her male accomplice? What beef did the man have against Kent?

There were still so many unanswered questions, but little by little, I found reason to be hopeful. I clung to it since hope was in little supply these days.

“I hope you found something useful to make you losing sleep worth it.”

I jumped with a squeak as Kent’s voice shattered the silence.

Tyger stood and glared balefully at Kent before sauntering off to lay claim to another part of the apartment.

I glanced at the time at the top of my screen. Two and a half hours. I sighed as I silently said goodbye to the last half hour of work I wouldn’t be doing, then swiveled my chair until I faced Kent. I shared my findings and suspicions with him but his demeanor remained… inexplicable.

He held his hand to me. “Let’s go back to bed so you’re fresh when you start again in a few hours.”

“That’s the excuse you’re going with?”

He arched his brow. “Oh? And I thought you were tired of me complaining about the other reason.”

I tilted my head to observe him from another angle. Rumpled, with tousled hair and pillow wrinkles embedded in his cheeks, Kent appeared softer than when he concentrated deeply on any subject. Despite his lowered guard, there was steel in his blue eyes as he willed me to bend to his will.

“Little bunny, come back to bed. You know I don’t do well when I don’t get sufficient cuddles before I start my day.”

“You do start more mellow in the first couple hours.” I took his offered hand, allowing him to lead me back to bed.

“If my staff only knew, they’d also petition you to stop skimping me on my necessities.”

“I’m a necessity now?”

He swung around and glared at me. “If you question that, I’m not doing something right.”

I arched my feet until I stood on my toes, then I kissed his cheek. “Consider me corrected. You do more than enough.” As I sank to the floor, I raised his hand and kissed his knuckles. “Let’s go to bed.”

I managed another ninety minutes of sleep wrapped in Kent’s arms. This time he added his legs to the embrace, entangling our limbs as if to add an anti-Madison escape detection system to our sleeping arrangement. The alarm clock blared at six and I was surprisingly refreshed, although my sleep was choppy.