by Shandi Boyes
Julian smiles a true grin. “I will… but I think she’d rather hear it from you.”
“Okay.” I suck in a big breath, relieved the end of our relationship doesn’t mean I lose him altogether. I care for his mother, so losing her as well would have doubled the blow. “Thank you.”
Julian dips his chin before handing his suitcase to Fetu and shadowing him to the idling elevator. Confident all is said and done, I commence closing the door, only stopping when Julian calls my name. “Yeah?”
Fresh tears burn my ears when he says, “Don’t let that son of a bitch get away with what he did to you. You fight him until the end.”
“I will.” Even looking like a wreck, nothing can take away from the determination on my face.
“Good girl,” Julian murmurs before he enters the elevator car on Fetu’s heel.
Just before the doors close, I sign something I should have never withheld from him. “I love you.”
His smile eases the pain stretched across my chest before his reply utterly alleviates it. “I love you too. I will never stop.”
24
Brandon
“How is she holding up?”
As my eyes stray from Melody, who’s being led into the interview room at Saugerties PD, to Grayson, I prop my ankle onto my opposite knee, praying it will stop their nervous bobs. “She’s doing okay considering. For years, she thought justice had been served. She had no clue the sick fuck was still walking the streets assaulting other women.”
Grayson’s jaw tightens at my last sentence, but since he can’t deny my underhanded claim that Madden is a serial rapist, he shifts his focus elsewhere. “And your mom?”
The knot in my stomach tightens as I recall the expression on my mother’s face when Madden was placed into the back of a police cruiser three days ago. She was pleased he was alive but devastated at the same time. She knows her children, so even with Madden denying all claims he raped Melody, she knows what he did to her. She was already struggling to work out how to tell me Joey’s death wasn’t suicide, so this really knocked her for a loop.
Contractors working on the house found surveillance cameras planted around the ranch in inconspicuous places. From the scope of the equipment and where they were planted, it was clear who had placed them there—Mr. Gregg.
Although the evidence was damning, the leading hand refused to let my mom watch the footage imbedded on a micro USB stick he found in one of the devices. He told her what had happened, then advised her to call the police.
She did precisely that two hours before Madden arrived at the ranch late last week. When he took the evidence the builder had given her, he told her our father would take care of it.
The USB hasn’t been seen since.
When Grayson brushes his knee against mine, prompting me to answer his question, I give honesty a whirl for the first time the past three days, “She’s faring better than expected, but she’s still struggling. She believes Melody and has essentially banished Madden from her life, but she’s blaming herself for his actions like she didn’t raise him right or something.”
“You can’t fix fucked,” Grayson mutters with a sigh.
“Right?”
After lifting his chin, Grayson scrubs at the wiry beard covering his jaw. “And what about you, punk? How have you been coping the past few days?”
This question is harder to answer than his first two. I truly don’t know how I’m functioning. I’m moving, eating, and talking, but I still feel hollow on the inside. This isn’t a standard second-chance romance story. I don’t get to ride in on a white horse and save the day. I’m too late. Melody has already been hurt just like her father said she’d be.
Grayson reads me in a way not many people can. “You’re taking all the right steps. You got her here, she’s pressing charges. Now you need to let the system do the heavy lifting while you take care of you and your girl.”
“What if they fail her like I did?” I ask, expressing the real reason I can’t shake my depressing funk. “What happens then?”
Grayson scoots to the edge of his chair before slanting his head so he’s facing me front on. “We do what we’ve always done. We get justice for the innocent.” He slaps my shoulder two times before giving it a gentle squeeze. “Don’t let him beat you down with his mind games, Brandon.”
His sneer when he says ‘him’ reveals who he’s referencing. He’s not talking about Madden. His focus is on my father, the man Madden cited as his defense attorney when he was arrested for rape for the second time in his pathetic twenty-nine years.
As luck would have it, the judge at his preliminary hearing was Annie’s grandfather. Annie was the first person to accuse Madden of sexual assault. Although no charges were filed for her assault, Judge Pearce took an instant disliking to Madden. He refused his request for bail before he dismissed my charge of battery under the guise it was self-defense.
“If he defeats you, he defeats her.” Grayson nudges his head in the direction Melody just went. “You don’t want that, do you?”
“No,” I answer without pause for thought. “He’s going down with Madden.”
“Good. Then let’s do that.” He drops his eyes to the outline of my cell phone in my pocket. “Give me your phone. I’ve got some stuff I need you to take a look at.”
“I can’t work right now, Grayson. My focus has gone to shit.” Although I’m saying no, I still dig my phone out of my pocket and hand it to him.
“You won’t need to concentrate for this.” He unlocks my phone without asking for the passcode before logging into the Bureau’s mainframe. “Have you got access to a laptop at your fancy hotel?” When I shake my head, he snags his frumpy old leather suitcase from the ground. “This one is as old as shit, but it’ll get the job done.”
When I crack open the screen, it requests a passcode. “It’s locked.”
“You know how your passwords are always Melody’s birthday.” He laughs a breathless chuckle when I rib him with my elbow. “Tobias’s were Isabelle’s.”
I twist my lips, not surprised by his reply, but shocked about one thing. “Why do you have Tobias’s laptop?”
Grayson’s smile isn’t one I’ve seen before. “Not even the sharpest minds retain the sweetest memories correctly.” He nudges his head to the laptop. “That’s full of them.” I only just catch my phone when he tosses it back my way. “I put the file’s deets in your notes. If you can, I’d like your thoughts by tonight.”
“Tonight? Fuckin’ hell, Grayson. I just said I’m not up for any work.”
Ignoring me, he stands to his feet. “Do you love your girl, punk?”
The tightness of my jaw is heard in my reply. “If you need to ask, I clearly did a shit job of showing it back in the day.”
“Not then. Now. Do you love your girl now as you did back then?”
Grayson looks shocked when I shake my head. He has no reason to fret. “I love her more. She’s so brave, Grayson. So fucking strong.” I give my tired eyes a quick scrub before continuing, “But it’s not the time to show her that. Julian only broke off their engagement three days ago. Her heart is broken, so it isn’t right for me to pretend she is not hurting.” I also don’t think I am up to the task. I’m not myself. Not in the slightest.
My eyes float up from my clenched fists when Grayson asks, “So friends can’t help friends when they’re hurting? Friends can’t admit when they were wrong and underhandedly beg for forgiveness?”
Even knowing part of his comment resonates with his guilt over what happened to Melody, I won’t call him out on it—today. He didn’t technically knock me out the night Melody was raped, that was Tobias, but even if he had, what happened wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t even mine. It was Madden’s. It’s just going to take me more than three days to realize that.
Taking my silence as an inability to formulate a comeback to his question, Grayson jumps back into our conversation. “If you can’t tell her how you feel, be her friend then. If that inv
olves getting hot and heavy under a blanket while watching corny 90s movies, so be it. That’s what friends do, right?”
I shake my head while grumbling, “I’m never getting drunk with you again. Your lips are looser than your vagina.”
“Va-gin-a,” he parrots, talking like Jackie Chan when he attempts to impersonate Chris Rock.
After knocking his foot against mine, he heads for the door. “Call me when you need me.”
“Don’t you mean if?”
He cranks his neck back to face me, smiling. “Nah, punk. I said ‘when’ for a reason.” He drops his eyes to the pocket of my jeans. “And read that damn letter before you put it through the wash.”
I don’t argue that I’ve read Julian’s letter.
I’m not a fan of lying.
“What?” I ask Melody when her eyes float to mine for the fourth time the past two minutes. She came out of her meeting with the lead prosecutor from Saugerties with a spring in her step and a smile I was certain I wouldn’t see for months.
I keep forgetting she’s had seven years to handle the emotions bombarding me, so she’s got a better grasp on things than I do. I should feed off her positivity, but with every unexpected smile reminding me about how many I missed because of my brother, it’s a little difficult.
Nichole Aimes, ADA for this division of the New York District Attorney’s Office, is confident Madden will face time for his crime. The evidence Grayson gathered from both Melody’s ranch and mine is pretty condemning. Melody kept the clothes she was wearing when she was assaulted, and both the condom found in the sink in my bathroom and my bottle of cologne have trace matters that match Madden.
The urge to beat the living shit out of someone slammed into me hard and fast when Melody testified that the condom must have split as the underwear she hid in her childhood bedroom had semen residue in them. There was enough DNA to make it seem as if Madden didn’t use protection.
My anger only subsided when I realized why Melody kept the evidence. If she truly believed Joey had raped her, she wouldn’t have kept proof of his assault. He was dead, so justice would have never been sought. She preserved the evidence because she knew deep down inside that Joey would have never hurt her like that. He loved her like a sister and was as protective of her as I am.
Phillipa is still seeking answers on what truly happened to Joey the night of his death. She emailed me an update the morning following Castro’s arrest, but with everything going on, I’ve not had the chance to sit down and digest it all. I haven’t even had the time to ask Melody if she knew Julian had paid Rimi Castro 1.5 million dollars in cash for a pre-kidnap ransom.
With photographic evidence of Melody’s movements and a threatening letter, Julian paid the amount requested, utterly oblivious that his eagerness to protect Melody placed her in more danger. If you can afford to hand over 1.5 million dollars to stop your fiancée from being kidnapped, how much will you be willing to lose to save her life?
The only good that came from Julian’s generosity was the massive alteration it caused Castro’s plan. He wanted Melody dead, no matter what the cost, until he realized keeping her alive would be far more beneficial to his resurrection than old Russian money. Dimitri was paying him out the eye to keep his daughter alive, and now Castro had a new gold mine to excavate.
It’s probably lucky Dimitri stepped in when he did. There are no guarantees Castro would have kept both his ruses running. The kidnap game is already messy, but when it involves a kid, it’s a whole other kettle of fish.
I’m drawn from my thoughts when I spot Melody eyeballing me for the fifth time. “Will you quit staring at me like that, you’re giving me a complex.” The chuckle my words come out with ensures her there’s no malice in my tone. I’m not feeling myself, but that doesn’t mean I need to take my unease out on her.
“I can’t help it,” she replies, smiling. “I never saw you as a sports car type of guy, BJ. Dad would be rolling in his grave if he knew what you were getting around in.”
Although confident his unrest has nothing to do with my choice of vehicle, I keep that snippet of information to myself. “What’s wrong with my ride? She’s—”
“Flashy, pretentious, and nothing like her owner.”
She has me there. I was one of those suckers car salesmen see coming from a mile out. She didn’t sell me on style and sophistication. I got caught on its safety features and good mileage, which, in case you’re wondering, aren’t as good as the salesman made out. What can I say? I’m a sucker for dirty blondes with big brown eyes.
“What kind of car should I be driving?” I could let our conversation end, but since it’s the first we’ve had that doesn’t involve canceled weddings and rapist siblings, I’m going to run with it.
Melody taps on her lips that are super glossy thanks to the high-hanging sun. “Something classic with a fit body that heats up when it’s revved with excitement.” Like an a-grade fucking loser, my cheeks inflame during her last comment. “Yes,” she mutters, looking pleased, “Just like that.”
When I reach a T-intersection, I indicate to turn left. We’ve been holed up at the hotel the gala was held at for the past three days. We only ventured out today so Melody could give an official statement to the Special Victims Unit at Saugerties PD. Although she could have done that at a precinct closer to our hotel, Melody is hopeful keeping things local will slow the rumor mill. She’s not ashamed about what happened to her, but she’d rather tell her boss in person than have him discover it from someone else.
I peer at Melody when she says, “You should take a right.”
“Yeah?” I sound hesitant. Justly so. Right only leads one way.
Back to our family ranches.
“Yeah,” she copies, nodding. “I’m sure Socks would appreciate a visit.”
Her smile turns blinding when I argue, “Socks doesn’t give a shit about anyone—”
“As long as he’s getting fed,” she fills in, laughing.
After settling my unexpected laughter, I switch my turn signal from left to right. “Are you sure you’re up for this, Melody?” Only three days ago, she asked Grayson to gather the evidence from her house. I thought it was because she couldn’t face going there. Only now am I wondering if it’s because she didn’t want any holes in her defense. It would be mighty suspicious if the victim and the accused’s brother handed in the evidence. Grayson’s involvement made it official. He followed the correct procedures and conducted his search along with two deputies from Saugerties PD.
When Melody murmurs, “I’m sure. It’s time to stop letting my past haunt me,” I slowly apply pressure to the gas pedal. I won’t lie, this will be hard for both of us.
Twenty minutes later when I pull down a familiar street, Melody’s eyes stray to two faded white crosses tacked to a power pole on the corner where her parents lost their lives.
“They’re not there, you know.” I take my hand off the gearshift and place it high on Melody’s chest. “They’re in here. They have always been in here.”
Nodding, she places her hand over mine. It makes it hard to pull into her family ranch without downshifting the gears, but I manage. I’d rather stall and look like an idiot than take away her comfort when she needs it the most.
“Richie!” Melody shouts at a man entering the barn Socks is housed in. “I thought you weren’t due back until Friday?”
When she throws off her seat belt and tosses open my door, Richie peers back at her. As tunnel-vision forms, my lungs stop sucking in air. Even with his bald head covered by waves of black locks and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, I recognize Richie’s face. I scanned it into the FBI’s database too often the past two weeks to act oblivious.
After grabbing my gun from under my seat, the frantic stomps of my boots overtake the shrill of my pulse in my ears. “Melody, seek shelter now.” Out of habit, I stomp out her name as well as saying it.
As Melody spins around to face me, her face as white as a ghost, I take aim at the crea
se between Kwan’s dark brows. “BJ… what are you doing?” Melody asks, her voice fretful. “He’s a ranch hand. He isn’t dangerous.”
When Melody fails to take coverage as directed, I place myself between Kwan and her before tugging her behind me. Ignoring her numerous pleas that I’m mistaken, I demand Kwan to put down the bucket he’s holding and raise his hands in the air.
“It’s just animal feed. I’m not armed,” Kwan assures as he lowers a bucket full of horse pellets to the ground.
“Hands up!” I fire a warning shot over Kwan’s left shoulder, pissed he thought I wouldn’t see him moving for the gun strapped to his ankle. The bulge on his left ankle was the first thing I noticed during my approach. “If you make one more move for a gun, a coroner will spend his night digging a bullet out of your head.”
With a dangerous smirk, Kwan raises his hands into the air. “Henry won’t be happy.”
“I don’t give a fuck what Henry thinks.” I motion my head to the barn he was walking toward before Melody called out his alias. “Hands against the wall, then spread your legs wide.”
“I’m not getting frisked outside of a barn by you—” His words stop when the bullet I pop into his kneecap buckles his legs out from beneath him.
“Inside now,” I shout to Melody when Kwan’s stumble knocks off his disguise, exposing his infamous neck tattoo.
As Melody races up the front stairs of her family ranch, I kick the gun Kwan is stretching for out of his reach before attempting to knock him out as I did Col’s goon months ago.
Regretfully, Kwan’s neck is too thick for my move to be effective. So, instead, I keep him down by scolding the skin on his temple with the heat of a recently fired gun. “Why are you here?”
A bullet shattered his kneecap, and he’s being threatened to have one burrowed into his brain, yet Kwan still finds the time to smile. He must be certifiably insane. “I was feeding Socks… as I have every day for almost seven years.”