My heart is thundering in my chest. “You’re blackmailing me again.”
He shrugs, his massive shoulders swelling up and down. “I’m giving you a choice.”
He’s a villain, isn’t he?
How did I not see this before? How did I not see his true colors?
How did I ever — God, ever — fall in love with him?
But it’s okay.
It’s fine.
As I told him last night, I’m not the same girl. I’m not going to do his bidding. When he tells me to jump, I’m not going to ask him how high.
Time to show him that.
So I take a deep breath and smile. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”
He watches me. “You will.”
“Yes.” I nod, still smiling. “I mean, I don’t like it because I freaking hate you and I wish I never met you. But you’re right. There’s no need for me to be reckless and stupid when I can be smart. So if you’re offering me a ride, I’ll take it.”
Reed is suspicious.
He studies my features, and I school them to look serene and calm.
Which is hard, but somehow I manage to do it.
When he’s satisfied, he sighs and throws out a short nod. “Good.” Then he murmurs almost to himself, as he sips his coffee, “Because I didn’t bring your brother that deal just to have you snatched up by another villain because of your stupidity.”
Deal?
Mention of it throws me slightly and I almost slip up.
But again, somehow I manage to keep smiling as I tighten my grip around the lemonade and wait for my chance.
I get it when he looks away from me and puts the mug down on the table.
I spring up from my seat then and before I can second-guess it, I dump my lemonade on his lap. And before he can have any sort of reaction to that, I stomp on his foot.
The one that was super close to me when he decided to settle in and crash my brunch.
“You can pay the bill, asshole,” I snap.
I think he chuckles. I’m not really sure because my focus is on the next part of my plan: running and getting the heck out of there.
Wyn, who’s been sitting at a table by the door, looks at me with shocked eyes.
“Run, run, run,” I tell her and she jumps up from her seat and does what I asked her to.
Together, we push open the door and burst out of there.
My heart is beating in my ears. My body is full of adrenaline and I don’t know where I’m going.
I don’t know where I’m taking Wyn, but she doesn’t question me. She keeps running beside me even as people watch us zoom down the sidewalk, in our mustard-colored skirts and our flying braids.
We keep running until I come upon an alley, far enough away from Buttery Blossoms, and take a turn into it. Coming to a halt, we both prop ourselves against the brick wall, panting.
I’m not sure how much time has passed until Wyn asks, “What happened?”
I roll my head against the wall to look at her. “I dumped my lemonade on his lap.”
Wyn’s eyes go wide before a chuckle bursts out of her. “You did not!”
I chuckle too, unable to believe that I did that. “Then I stomped on his foot.”
At this, she explodes in a loud laugh. “Oh my God.”
I laugh too before I ask, “Do you think I hurt him?”
She laughs again. “Probably.”
Frowning and looking up at the gray sky, I say, “I don’t know why I care.”
She sighs beside me. “He broke your heart, didn’t he?”
I swallow, blinking my eyes. “Yes.”
“Well then, he deserved it.”
At her fierce tone, I look back at her. “He pressed charges against me.”
“What?”
I nod, looking up at the sky again, the color of his eyes. “I mean, I did steal his car and tried to destroy it. And it was his most prized possession. He built it himself.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know it at the time.” I swallow again as something painful presses against my throat. “At the time, all I wanted to do was hurt him the way he hurt me and… stealing his car seemed like the best idea. Destroying something that he loved like he destroyed me. I don’t fault him for wanting to see me punished for it. I just…”
“What?” Wyn asks with concern in her eyes.
I sniffle, realizing that I’ve started to cry.
God, what an idiot.
Ashamed, I clench my eyes shut and fist my hands as I whisper, “I just wish that he had fought for me like he did for his car, you know? I just wish that I was important. To him.”
I wish that I was more than a stupid girl to him who fell in love and stole his car. I wish I was…
All my thoughts pause when I remember what he said just now.
I didn’t bring your brother that deal…
That deal.
What deal?
Tempest was the one who told me.
That Reed had built his car himself.
She didn’t want to though.
She didn’t give me this piece of information for the longest time. Because she thought I had so much to deal with already. My heartbreak, rumors at school about the Thorne Princess falling for the Wild Mustang, her brothers’ enemy.
Everything happened publicly that night, didn’t it?
We fought at a party. I stole his car from that party. I didn’t show up for my own dance show.
I even got arrested; not publicly, but still.
So everyone at school knew everything and they all thought I was love-crazy. That whole month, they watched me like I was going to blow up any second.
But anyway.
One weekend while Tempest was hanging out at my place, it slipped out of her mouth. She said something about Reed working on his car and it snowballed from there.
I kept hounding her until she finally spilled the beans.
She told me that Reed loves cars.
He’s something of a car aficionado.
Not only that, but he worked at a garage out of town called Auto Alpha. No one knew about this, so I was supposed to keep it a secret, and that was where he got interested in cars and built his Mustang from parts.
I remember being so shocked. Speechless.
I was with him for months and I had no clue.
I had no clue that he’d built his own car, let alone worked at a garage. According to Tempest, he worked because he wanted to get away from their dad and also to stick it to him, even if secretly.
I also remember feeling a twist in my chest.
A sharp pinch.
Reed and his dad.
Even though I had no right to feel anything for him anymore and I shouldn’t even have felt the need to, I still couldn’t help myself from wanting to go to him.
Wanting to apologize about the car. About his dad.
Wanting to just… talk to him.
But it was so silly, wasn’t it?
He would never open up to me about his dad, and well, what would I have said to him anyway? It was better to keep my distance and so that’s what I did.
That was the last time Tempest and I talked about her brother, because that’s when we made the pact and so we never broached the subject.
I never sought out any information about Reed.
Never Googled him. Never stalked him on social media.
I buried him.
Somewhere deep inside of me. Somewhere only I could reach him when I wanted to remember and torture myself over my mistakes.
Until now.
Until today.
Because I need to know. I need to know what deal he made with my brother. What was he talking about?
Since today’s Saturday, it’s phone day at St. Mary’s.
Every week like clockwork my oldest brother, Conrad, calls me at 7PM. He calls me and then conferences the rest of my brothers i
n: Stellan, Shepard and Ledger.
Every week I eagerly wait for their call. I usually arrive at the phone room way before the time and hang out in the hallway until Miss Fletcher, the one usually manning the phones, calls for me. And when she does I run to grab it.
I run so I can talk to my brothers.
Whom I love to pieces.
Whom I only get to talk to once a week. Because of my stupidity.
Because of what I did, the crime that I committed and because of what I put them through.
You know, when I stole his car and drove it into the lake, I wasn’t thinking. Or rather, I was only thinking about the pain in my chest and the blow of his betrayal. Of all the lies he had told me.
I never once thought about what it would do to my brothers.
How it would upset them. How it would make trouble for them, having a thief for a sister.
Besides, I wasn’t the only one who got betrayed that night, was I? They got betrayed too. By me.
I was lying to them. I was lying to Ledger, the brother that I was closest to, and hanging out with his enemy. And then I went ahead and became a criminal as well.
I still can’t erase all the guilt of my sins. I still can’t get rid of this shame.
Even though they forgave me. They did.
God, did they.
Stellan was probably the first one, my rational brother. He got Shepard on board and Shep got Ledger. The brother whom I’d betrayed the most.
I still don’t know how he found it in his heart to forgive me, but he did.
I guess he was angrier at his enemy than at me. Whom he actually beat up after everything happened. I only know because Reed came to school that Monday with bruises all over his face.
Anyway, that whole summer, along with Tempest, my brothers helped with my grief too. They all had their plans — Ledger and Shep were set to go on a road trip with their friends; Stellan had a summer job in the city — but they all canceled everything and hung out with me.
I guess that’s why my guilt is so huge even now.
Because they’re all so wonderful and amazing. They still treat me as their baby sister before I betrayed them.
Except Conrad.
He was mad at the time. Madder than all three of my other brothers. More disappointed too. He could barely stand to be in the same room as me.
He still feels the same.
And so when he calls, he’s the one who talks the least. Which wouldn’t be too atypical because my oldest brother doesn’t talk a lot to begin with, but his silence these days is laced with disappointment and anger at me.
I know that. I can feel it.
But still, I need to know.
I need to know what deal Reed was talking about back at Buttery Blossoms this morning and in order to do that, I’m breaking the norm.
Instead of waiting for Con’s call, I’m calling him. I need to get him alone to talk about this.
Unlike many girls at St. Mary’s, I do have the privilege of making my own phone calls. It’s one of those difficult privileges to have that I’ve earned after a lot of good girl behavior and excellent grades.
And tonight, I’m going to use it.
I’m in the phone room, inside a mustard-colored booth, with the black headset of a rotary phone pressed to my ear. I’ve already dialed the number and my brother picks up after the first ring.
From the tone of his voice, it sounds like Conrad must’ve jumped to answer the phone. “Callie?”
“Yes. Hi, I —”
He doesn’t let me speak. “Are you okay?”
Oh!
Crap.
He probably thinks that something is wrong with me. That’s why I’m calling instead of waiting for him to call.
I grab the receiver with the other hand as well, as I reply, “Yes, I am. I just –”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, not at all. I’m not hurt. Everything is fine, Con. I just –”
“Then what the hell is going on? Did you do something?”
“What?”
“What the fuck did you do, Callie?” he booms into the phone.
I flinch. “Nothing. I did nothing. Why would you assume that I did something?”
His voice is sharp as ever when he replies, “You’re calling me out of the blue, ten minutes before I’m supposed to call you. What else would I think?”
Right.
I get it. I understand his point.
It’s not as if he’s wrong to think that.
I did screw up once, and well, I did it in such a massive way that only once was enough.
Swallowing, I say, “I didn’t do anything, Con, and I’m sorry I worried you. I just… I wanted to ask you something.”
“What?”
I wince slightly at his curt tone.
Okay, do it.
Ask him.
Ask the question, Callie.
“When I was… when everything happened and they arrested me. And they told us that there’d be a hearing and they’d most probably send me to a juvenile detention center. How come… why didn’t they? Why did they reduce my charges so I only ended up at St. Mary’s?”
They did.
They reduced the charges against me.
The cops came to the house the very next day in the afternoon and since I was a minor, Conrad had to go into the station with me. Even though I’d told him everything — I confessed about lying and falling in love and then stealing his car the night before — it still came as a shock.
It still jarred my brothers that I was being taken into custody and the charges against me were such that I could actually end up in a juvenile detention center.
At least the cop who took me in was nice. He used to be Con’s friend from Bardstown High and he kept reassuring us that even though things looked bleak just then, we could hire a lawyer who could turn this all around.
And then I remember Con stepping out of the room.
I remember hearing his loud, booming voice, demanding to talk to someone in charge, someone with a fucking brain who knew this charge was bullshit, and that he would get a lawyer and sue every single one of them including that son of a bitch who pressed charges against me.
I also remember crying in the interrogation room before Con came back in and said that it was settled.
That they were reducing my charges and that I was free to go now. But as my punishment, I’d have to attend St. Mary’s come that fall.
When I asked him what happened, he said that it was none of my concern and that he’d taken care of everything because the charges were bullshit to begin with.
That was all.
That was all he said and I was too embarrassed, too scared to ask anything else, to be anything else other than relieved, so I never ever broached the question again.
I was just grateful that I wasn’t going to juvie. I was grateful that I had a brother who loved me enough — even though I embarrassed him so brutally — to have my back like that.
Is it any wonder then, that he’s still mad at me?
“Why?” my brother asks curtly, pulling me out of my thoughts, pulling me out of those few hours that were the scariest of my life.
“Because I need to know,” I say with almost a strangled voice. “Because I… I need to know what you did, Con. H-how you took care of it. I’m sorry I never asked before. I was too scared. Too embarrassed to ask you. But I should have. I should have been a good sister like you were a good brother. I should’ve asked what you went through to… to get me off. What you did to get me free.”
Or almost free.
He’s silent for a few seconds.
And my heart is thudding in my chest. My heart that’s broken and beaten and so painful to live with is pounding and pounding as I wait for my brother to say something.
Anything.
As I hear his words over and over.
I didn’t bring your brother that deal…
“Nothing,” Conrad clips.
“What?”
“I did nothing.”
“I don’t understand.”
His exhale is sharp and short. “I didn’t have to do anything. It was him.”
The way my brother says him, I don’t have to ask who he’s talking about. His tone is all harsh and clipped and self-explanatory.
“W-what do you mean?” I ask.
“It means that I was all ready to go to court and fight this thing. I was all ready to hire a lawyer and teach that rich prick a lesson. But he called me and he said that he’d gotten all the charges reduced and all you had to do was attend St. Mary’s. I was opposed to it. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like his fucking face. And I told him that. I told him that I’d go to court and fight his bullshit charge. And that fucking punk reminded me that even if I did go to court, I would never win. Because the Jacksons own the town. They own the police, the judges, the lawyers. And so this was the only way. And when I told him that I was going to break his fucking face for what he did to you, he was generous enough to say that I was welcome to it. Only I’d have to take a fucking number because Ledger wanted to get there first.”
Conrad has never ever spoken so many words together, in one conversation.
And the fact that he did it now convinces me that he still has a lot of anger inside of him. At me, at him.
At his old star player.
Con has always hated the rivalry between Ledger and Reed. But he’s especially hated Reed for being reckless and selfish on the field.
But I don’t get it.
Why have me arrested in the first place and then have the charges reduced? Just like that.
“W-why would he bring you the deal when he was the one who pressed charges?”
A moment passes.
Then two, and I’m about to prod him because I can’t take it anymore, but Conrad breaks his silence. “It wasn’t him.”
“What?”
“It was his father.”
“His father?”
“Yes.”
“B-but they said Mr. Jackson and…”
“He’s not the only Mr. Jackson, is he?”
A Gorgeous Villain Page 21