by Lane Hart
I know Knox and Ivan would do their best to take care of Gabby; but unless they want to die trying, they can’t stop Mario from coming for her. He’s already manipulated her into dancing naked, which makes me want to kill him.
Everything is going to hell, and I have no idea what the fuck I’m gonna do. Time is running out to save my own ass, though.
Drastic times calls for drastic measures. And I sure as fuck don’t plan on going down without a fucking fight.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Gabby
Cold, bone-chilling rain pours down from the sky, soaking us despite our coats and umbrellas as we stand in the graveyard while some preacher I’ve never met before says a prayer for Robbie.
The weather suits my mood today. It’s been dreary every day since I found out my brother was gone. At this point, it’s hard to even imagine that the clouds will ever part and reveal the bright, warm sun again.
“Now let us pray,” the preacher says, so I bow my head and close my swollen, burning eyes. “Our father in Heaven. You are our Creator, the author of the precious gift of life. We come here today to commemorate and honor the life of Robert Kelly. As we mourn this brother and friend who is no longer with us, we are aching with a void that has been created in our hearts. We lift up our sadness and grief to you. Lord, and we ask that you comfort us in our pain, and bring us an abundance of your gentle healing mercies. In Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.”
“Amen,” I repeat before using the tissues clutched in my fist to mop off the tears from my cheeks.
With those final words, the men from the funeral home begin to lower my brother’s oak casket into the dirt, along with the two dozen long-stemmed red roses draped on top. Today, even the beautiful flowers aren’t capable of lifting my spirits an inch. This is the last I’ll see Robbie, and he already feels so far away…
“You okay, baby?” Cain asks, slipping his free arm around me and sheltering us with an umbrella in the other.
“Yeah,” I answer, because I know it’s the response he needs to hear.
The truth is I’m not okay. I can’t let go of all the unknowns. Before I can have closure, I need to know what happened, to look my brother’s killer in the face and have him tell me what he did. Otherwise, I’ll always wonder, thinking the worst happened, that Robbie died in agony.
“Are you ready to go, or do you want to stay a little longer?” Cain asks over the sound of rain pouring down even harder around us as if urging us to escape the cemetery.
“Yeah, I’m ready to go,” I tell him, wanting to go home and get dry and warm again while having Cain hold me.
Turning away from the lowering casket, Cain walks me down to the parking lot with his arm around me. We’re almost to the car Knox borrowed from a friend for us to use today when Cain stops walking and pulls me to a halt.
That’s when I see the police cars on the other side of the funeral home’s hearse.
“What are they doing here?” I ask Cain, who curses under his breath.
The woman I recognize as the detective, who told me Robbie was dead, gets out of an unmarked car and approaches us with at least three officers flanking her.
“Cain Knight, you’re under arrest for the murder of Robert Kelly,” she says, stopping my heart with the weight of those crushing words.
“What?” I ask. “Cain?” I turn to him, and he cups the side of my face in his palm.
“I’m so damn sorry, angel,” he says as a tear rolls down his face. “I love you, and I never meant for this to happen.”
“For what to happen?” I ask.
Rather than answer, Cain brushes his lips over mine while I stand there stunned, frozen. When he pulls away, he wraps my hands around the umbrella handle and then steps out into the rain offering his wrists out to the police. Only when they turn him around to slap the handcuffs on him does it actually hit me.
They think Cain killed my brother.
“No,” I say as I storm up to the detective, nearly smacking her in the face with the edge of my umbrella. “Cain didn’t do this! You’ve got the wrong guy!”
“I’m sorry, Gabrielle, but several witnesses have come forward and identified Cain as the man who fought your brother that night. He beat him brutally and didn’t try to get him any help.”
“No, I don’t believe that!” I yell at her. “Cain, tell them that’s bullshit!”
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you,” one of the cops tells Cain as he starts guiding him to the police cars.
“No! Stop! You can’t do this!” I shout at them. Someone grabs my upper arm, but I break their grip when I drop the umbrella and run for the car. “Wait! I’m going with him!” I tell the officer when Cain disappears into the backseat.
“Sorry, ma’am, but we can’t let you do that,” the officer says, pushing me back by my shoulders to shut the door.
“Please don’t do this!” I plead with the man. “I just buried my brother, I can’t lose Cain too!” I scream, hitting his chest with both fists until someone pulls me off of him.
“Gabby! Gabby, stop!” Knox says as he carries me back to the sidewalk while we watch the police car with Cain in the back pull away.
“No!” I cry out, falling to my knees on the soggy ground as I succumb to sobs so strong they take my breath away.
My entire life just crumbled apart, and I hate this helpless feeling of knowing there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
…
Cain
“We have three independent witnesses who saw you fighting Robert Kelly on Friday, November tenth, hitting him until he was unconscious,” the detective says to me while I stare unblinkingly at my hands that are now cuffed to the metal table in front of me.
I should’ve told Gabby the truth from the beginning. But I didn’t, and now it’s my fault that on the day her world came crashing down around her, I managed to heap a few more tons of shit on her shoulders.
“Did you hear me, Mr. Knight?” Detective Horton asks.
“I heard you,” I mutter.
“Do you admit to what those witnesses wrote down and swore was true under oath?” she asks.
I don’t say a damn thing. Even if I know I’m fucked, there’s no way I’m gonna admit shit.
“Did you mean to kill him, or was it an accident?”
I purse my lips together even tighter.
“Fine,” the detective says. “If you don’t want to talk about you, let’s talk about someone else. Mario Guerra is the man responsible for hosting the fights, isn’t he?” When I don’t respond, Detective Horton slams her file folder on the metal desk making quite a racquet to get my attention. “I don’t want to put you away for the rest of your life, Cain, but if you don’t start talking, and soon, that’s exactly what’s going to happen!”
“I want an attorney,” I say, knowing those are the magical words that will end the interrogation.
“Why do you want an attorney unless you’re guilty?” she asks, but I don’t fall for that shit either.
“Fine,” she relents, picking up her files and getting to her feet. “You’ll sit and rot in a county jail cell until your court-appointed attorney comes to see you in a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” I ask, unable to help myself. “I don’t have weeks!”
Thinking about how upset Gabby must be right now with that rat bastard Mario gunning for her is all it takes for me to break.
“Get me an attorney in here today, and I’ll tell you everything I know,” I say.
“Good. I’ll see what I can do,” Detective Horton replies with a smug grin before she walks out the door.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Gabby
“What the fuck is going on?” I yell at Knox and Ivan as soon as we get back into the apartment and I’m capable of speaking again.
My clothes are so wet they’re actually dr
ipping, forming a puddle at my feet, which are frozen solid.
“Go get some dry clothes on and we’ll talk,” Ivan says.
“No, I want to talk now!” I tell him.
“Get dry before you get pneumonia!” he says, raising his voice for the first time ever. “Please?” he adds, softer this time. “I know you’ve had a terrible day and are upset, but you must be freezing to death. Cain would kill us if we let you get sick.”
“Fine,” I concede since I’m tired of shivering and my teeth chattering. The problem is that I’m not sure if this deep, piercing cold that goes down to my bones could ever be warmed again. The two men I love are both lost to me. Robbie’s in the ground, and I didn’t even get a chance to tell him goodbye. And now Cain’s sitting in a jail, accused of his murder.
Slinking off to my room, I peel off my wet clothes and take a quick, hot shower before I dry off and put on a warm hoodie and sweatpants.
When I return to the living room, both guys are there in dry clothes, sitting on opposite sides of the sofa, waiting for me.
I take the seat in between them and say, “Start talking.”
“Cain was the one who fought Robbie that night,” Knox starts.
“Oh, my God,” I mutter, burying my face in my hands.
“But Cain had to win, and Robbie wouldn’t take the fall,” Knox adds.
“What do you mean Cain had to win?” I ask into my palms. “He didn’t have to do anything!”
“He had an agreement with Mario. If he lost a fight, you lost your clothes,” Ivan explains.
“What?” I look up at him and ask in confusion.
“Mario told Cain he would keep you off the stage at Escapades, but Cain had to win every single fight. If he lost even one, Mario would have you dancing naked and fucking a different man every night,” Knox tells me without any finesse.
“Wow,” I mutter. I knew Cain had to fight to keep me from dancing, but I didn’t know he also had to win. No wonder he was under so much pressure when it came to fights, and why he was adamant about abstaining from sex to be at top performance.
“Cain was worried he would lose against Robbie, so he asked him to take the fall for you,” Ivan says. “Robbie refused. Told him the payday was too big.”
“Robbie wouldn’t –” I start, but Knox holds up a hand and interrupts.
“I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead,” he says. “But Robbie was a piece of shit who sold your ass to the mafia years ago. That’s not exactly showing brotherly love.”
“You’re sure?” I ask. “How do you know he sold me? I asked Robbie, and he said he didn’t.”
“That’s where all the girls come from,” Ivan tells me. “Sorry, Gabby. I know you don’t want to believe it, but it’s true. Your brother got paid when he turned you over.”
“He said he was doing what was best for me, to make sure I had food and shelter…”
“Maybe that part is true,” Knox says softly. “But he had to have gotten something out of it too.”
“Anyway,” I say, wanting to forget that part and get to the current clusterfuck. “Cain fought Robbie and won?”
“Yeah, Cain knocked him out, but there’s no way Cain meant to kill him or that he even knew he had,” Knox tells me with a hand on my knee. “He was angry at him for not trying to protect you, and worried he would lose, so Cain cheated.”
“Cheated?” I ask.
“He used Plaster of Paris on his wrap, so it would harden when he started to sweat,” Ivan explains. “But your brother cheated too. He was using brass knuckles on Cain.”
“Wow,” I mutter with a shake of my head trying to take all of this in.
“After the fight, Cain walked away, and they carried Robbie off, still unconscious. I know, because I was there,” Ivan adds.
“So Cain had no idea how bad off he was?” I ask.
“No. And Robbie could’ve had a bad concussion or swelling and bleeding in his brain,” Ivan offers before Knox reaches behind me and slaps the back of his head. “Sorry, but I’m just trying to provide an explanation. If his brain was swelling or bleeding, Robbie needed a hospital, and you know Mario would never agree to that. It would mean too many questions about how he got hurt in the first place.”
“Mario wouldn’t do shit to bring down his business,” Knox agrees. “Maybe that’s what happened. Robbie was unconcious, and he made the call to put him out instead of getting him help.”
My heart aches for my brother, even if it’s true that he sold me, he didn’t deserve to die so young or in pain.
“And now Cain has been charged with the murder,” I say. “What are we gonna do?”
“No fucking clue,” Knox grumbles. “Mario can’t get away with this shit. If he does, Cain could spend the rest of his life behind bars for an accident.”
“Do you think that, if we talked to the detective, she could help us?” I ask the guys.
“Who the fuck knows?” Ivan replies. “How do we know we can trust her? It’s possible that she’s in Mario’s pocket, that he ratted out Cain and paid her a little cash to put him away.”
“Nah, man,” Knox says. “I don’t think that chick is in anyone’s pocket. She was too uptight and gung-ho to get answers from us during the interviews.”
“What if he paid her off after she started snooping around his way?” Ivan asks. “Maybe Mario gave up Cain to get her off his ass.”
“Oh, I definitely think Mario is the rat here,” Knox says. “For all his stupid talk about protecting each other’s backs, I bet he had his ‘witnesses’ throw Cain under the bus to save his own skin, but that has nothing to do with bribing a cop.”
“So, should we go talk to her?” I ask. “Tell her that Cain is only guilty of illegal fighting and that we suspect Mario is behind Robbie’s death?”
“Suspect is the keyword,” Ivan points out. “We don’t have shit for proof.”
“That’s true,” Knox agrees on a sigh as he flops back against the sofa cushion. “We’ve got to find us some goddamn proof.”
…
Cain
“Mr. Knight, are you sure you want to go through with this?” my attorney, Brenden Freeman, a young guy still wet behind the ears and probably fresh out of law school, says to me. We just met about an hour ago, long enough for me to tell him the whole goddamn truth and ask if giving up Mario will be enough to get me free and clear of most of this shit.
“Yes, I’m sure, but only if you think it will work? Will they be able to haul Mario’s ass in?” I ask him.
“I don’t know. That’s going to be a call the Detective will have to make. Once she talks to you, if she thinks there’s enough probable cause for a warrant, she’ll go after him. Cops always want the big fish.”
“Okay, then let’s do this,” I tell him.
“All right, I’ll tell them we’re ready,” he says before he stands up with his briefcase in his hand and knocks on the heavy, steel door. A moment later, one of the cops opens it.
“We’re ready for Detective Horton,” he tells him.
“Take a seat, and she’ll come to you,” the officer says, so Freeman comes back to the table and sits down.
“How many cases have you handled?” I ask the kid who can’t be much older than me.
“Half a dozen,” he says with a shrug.
“That’s it?” I ask. “And how did they turn out?”
Clearing his throat, he tugs on the knot of his tie and says, “They’re all still pending.”
“Jesus, Christ. They gave me a goddamn baby,” I mutter, reaching up to run my fingers through my hair in frustration before I remember they’re cuffed to the table.
“I was at the top of my class in law school,” he tells me proudly.
“I don’t give a shit if you were at the top of the Eifel Tower. If you haven’t won any cases yet, then that doesn’t tell me a damn thing about you.”
“Fair enough,” he agrees right as the door opens and the detective comes in with h
er uniformed officer who stands at the door. I can’t help but wonder if she gets a bodyguard to follow her around all day because she’s a chick and has assholes gunning for her. I bet male detectives don’t have a backup like that.
“So, Mr. Knight, you’re ready to talk?” she asks while setting down a small tape recorder on the table between us and taking a seat next to my attorney, diagonally from me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, just because she probably hates the reminder that she’s a woman in a male-dominated field.
“I’ll be recording this for the record,” she says before she presses the red circular button. “This is Detective Horton with Attorney Brenden Freeman and his client, Cain Knight, on November twenty-fifth. We’re sitting in the Raleigh PD, and Mr. Knight has agreed to sit down and talk to me about the investigation of Robert Kelly’s murder. Let’s hear it, Mr. Knight,” she finishes with a nod of her head to me.
“Right, so, I am a fighter for Mario Guerra. So was Robbie. We were scheduled by him to fight on that Friday, November tenth. I didn’t like Robbie very much, and he didn’t care for me either, but I thought he would take the fall and lose the fight since my losing meant his sister had to dance naked at Mario’s club Escapades…”
“Back up,” the detective interrupts, holding up her hand. “Are you saying that Mario Guerra was blackmailing you?”
“I never wanted to fucking fight,” I tell her honestly. “I did it for Gabby, because Mario left me no other choice.”
“Okay, go on,” she says with her brow pinched.
“I should probably go back and mention that Robbie sold Gabby to Vito Scarfone three years ago.”
“Jeez,” the detective says, holding her palm up to stop me again. “Are you making shit up to waste my time?” she asks.
“No, I’m just giving you the backstory you need to understand why I would’ve done anything to beat Robbie in that fight, but I didn’t kill him. At least not on purpose.”