Page 69 of Unwritten Rules

He stops, looking around his empty office as though to ensure that we are indeed alone.

“Caden said that she couldn’t sleep because she didn’t want to dream but refused point blank to tell him what the dreams were about. It got to the point eventually where she pleaded with him to let her get high so that she could forget. So that she could get some sleep, and Cade, poor fucker, said he didn’t know what to do!”

Henry picks up his Macallan, draining it in one gulp before continuing.

“That was the catalyst for visit number two to rehab, which lasted three months, but he said that the Layla that returned home to him and Bella was vastly different to before. She spoke of the past often and how the drugs and meaningless sex were her way to quiet the voices.”

A shiver of foreboding runs up my spine, tingling at the base of my neck, knowing that the following words to leave Henry’s mouth will not be good.

He inhales deeply, slowly exhaling before leaning heavily against his desk, still facing me.

“Caden was roped into doing some promotional stuff for Misdirection in the States. So he left Bella with two nannies and a host of staff – not to mention a sober Layla. He thought it would be okay. She’d been doing great since the second stint…but she relapsed in the four days he was away.”

His eyes pin me intensely, and his jaw tics before he floors me with his next revelation.

“Something must have set her back – he reckons something triggered her – because she fired the entire damn staff on day two. Bella’s nannies got in touch with someone at Spellman Sounds that evening, but no one passed on the message until day three. By the time Cade got back, it was too late. Layla had thrown a free-for-fucking-all. An all-day, all-night drug-fuelled orgy in their family home – with Bella present.”

My mouth drops open, and my eyes bulge. “What?”

“I left her there. I shouldn’t have left my kid there, Nate.”

A voice behind me has me spinning to face a bedraggled-looking, pasty-faced Caden.

“She witnessed everything, man. Everything.”

CHAPTER 21

NATE

“She was there when her mother was as high as a fucking kite, getting fucked by a parade of randoms, and I let it happen – I practically encouraged it all these years when I let Lay do whatever she pleased…”

An unreadable emotion flashes across his face before he finishes, his voice barely above a whisper. “And whomever she pleased.”

A shadow of his usual self, Caden North falters into the office, softly closing the door behind him.

“I’ve tried – Christ, I’ve tried so fucking hard, but I can’t do it anymore. Not when there’s an utterly innocent life caught in the crossfire. I just can’t.”

Henry hands Caden a tumbler of Macallan, which he accepts with a tilt of his chin in acknowledgement before taking a small sip and continuing.

“She’s checked herself into rehab this time – who knows if it will stick, but I can’t forgive her this time, boys. Who knows what Bug saw—”

His blue eyes flick back and forth between Henry and me, filling with tears that, in turn, produce a lump in my own throat that I can neither swallow nor get words past.

Our trio stands together silently for several long beats until I finally manage to clear my throat and pull myself together enough to be the one who takes charge, to be the friend my brothers so clearly need me to be right now.

The level-headed, mature friend that I’ve utterly not been of late, so caught up in a mess entirely of my own making.

“Okay, first thing’s first, Cade. You’re doing the right thing. You’re doing something you should have done for yourself years ago. But, unfortunately, you can’t fix her – she has to want to be fixed – and Layla’s track record speaks for itself, brother.”

He shakes his head, my heart splintering inside my chest when a lone tear slips from the bottom lashes of his left eye, landing without a sound on the hand gripping his tumbler of Macallan.

“Second, and this is going to be a tough one to take, Cade, but hear me out, okay?”

He raises his head for his eyes to find and hold mine as he nods once, his nostrils flaring with barely restrained emotion.

“All of this – Layla’s drug addiction, her sex addiction, the means she uses to try to numb the pain. You trying to fix her, trying to hold her life together with a hope and a prayer whilst wearing your trademark fuckboy façade – it’s all stemming from Archer’s death.”

“And Summer’s disappearance.” Henry’s interjection draws a sharp gasp from Caden, and his eyes swing to Henry accusingly.