“Found your stash behind the coffee table books.”
He raised his eyes, meeting mine, and I stood there, squeezing the docs in my hand, because I couldn’t squeeze his neck.
He picked up a photo of me, the one with the bruises on my ribs from when he’d kicked me when I was fifteen. “You know, it does make me feel a little badly,” he said. “Looking at all of this together like this makes it look like you really went through hell.”
I’d thought about taking the pictures with my phone. Indestructible with the cloud and easy to send and receive digitally.
But he checked my phone, so I documented the abuse for a rainy day with an old Polaroid camera for a while. In the beginning when I thought I was smart and I could use it if I had to run for my life.
I’d stopped keeping evidence by the time I was seventeen. By then, I just held on with every thread I could muster.
“I was aggravated at first…when I found these.” He circled the table, picking up another and studying it. “But everything is an opportunity, isn’t it?”
I narrowed my eyes, the papers crinkling in my fist.
“I’m not going to take your advice,” he said, throwing the pic on the table and sliding his hands into his pockets. “They’ll be charged, but the DA will suggest a plea bargain.”
“Fuck you!” I gritted out. “They won’t plea shit. They’ll always win.”
“I almost think you want them to.”
Against him? Hell, yes. Whatever they did beyond that was none of my concern. I was leaving town tonight.
I wouldn’t be able to keep Grand-Mère at Asprey Lodge, but I’d work hard enough to afford something decent in San Francisco. All that mattered was that we were free.
Martin approached me, pulling his phone out of his pocket and tapping a few buttons.
Then he handed it over, but I didn’t take it as I looked down and watched someone in a white mask with a red stripe—Will—rear his arm back and launch a bottle of liquor affixed with a burning rag at my gazebo.
The camera shook, but I heard the glass break and then flames burst everywhere, the zoom coming back out to take in the whole scene as my work was consumed in fire.
I turned my eyes away, looking at Will through the glass.
“It’s over,” Martin said. “The end of an era. They’ll plea. They won’t fight the charges. And you’re going to help me make sure they don’t.”
I shook my head. That would never happen.
“They’ll go away for a couple years,” he continued. “Just long enough for me and my associates to get a hold on this town, and then they can come home.”
“And what makes you think they won’t fight this?” I pressed, turning my gaze back on him. “You’re fucking insane.”
“Because if they do,’ he told me, inching in, “I’ll be forced to air a much darker scandal. They victimized women in high school. Assaulted them. Beat on them. Forced them into the catacombs to satisfy their deviant desires. They’re not boys. They’re devils.”
I laughed under my breath. He was insane. I’d be the first to admit they abused their power, but after helping one of them hide a body, I knew now that people were more complicated than that.
Everything used to be black and white until I realized that was just my perspective. I judged, because thinking was too hard.
They weren’t evil.
“Not all the girls will come forward, but we have one on record.” He walked to the table and spread out my selfies as if it were evidence. “And I’m confident more will follow.”
I watched as he pushed a paper across the table and laid a pen on top of it.
I picked it up, reading it.
“She’ll sign that paper, attesting to the validity of her claims,” he instructed, and I stopped breathing, starting to understand. “Even if there are no findings, the accusations will be enough to ruin their lives.”
I skimmed the statement, detailing how the guys “roughed me up” and forced me into the catacombs at St. Killian’s and…
And hey, here were pictures to prove their abuse.
Oh, my God. He was going to pass my pictures off as evidence against them.
“I wish you would die,” I said, tears filling my eyes.
“But I can make all this go away, Mr. Mori,” he went on. “And Mr. Torrance and Mr. Grayson. They fucked up. They’re young. They’ll serve some time, get out, and move on with their lives. It will be as if it never happened. The girl will be satisfied. I can keep her quiet. Perhaps with a small monetary donation to sweeten the deal?”
I forced down the lump in my throat. No. He could try it, but it would never happen. I’d never let him use me like this.
“I mean, this is actually a blessing,” he continued. “If she’s allowed to speak out, it could get so much worse for your sons.”
“Fuck you.”
“Sign it.”
“Fuck you!”
He grabbed the back of my hair and shoved my head down to the paper, sticking the pen in my face.
I growled, pushing myself away from the table.
“Sign it, and you’re free,” he bit out as I backed up to the glass, my eyes burning. “You don’t have to feel guilty. I mean, what’s on those videos is only a small fraction of what they’ve done, Emory. How they’ve taken advantage of the people here. Let their money and family names save their asses time and again.”
I whipped around, staring at Will still sitting at that table. Where was his lawyer?
I won’t…I won’t hurt you. I shook with sobs. I’ll never hurt you again.
“Just think of all the women he’s had,” Martin pointed out. “All the life he’s wasted as a burden on his family, never doing or living for anything important. For anything larger than himself. He’s taken, Em. All he does is take. He fucks and screws and forgets about you.”
I closed my eyes, about to cover my ears.
“They deserve some consequences. You know I’m right. They did commit crimes.”
No. If it happened, it happened, but I wouldn’t help Martin send them to jail.
“Those videos weren’t the only ones on that phone, you know?” he pressed. “If they were poor, they would’ve been in jail a dozen times by now.”
I stopped, my pulse ringing in my ears.
Phone…
“That’s what they used to document their pranks, right?” he asked. “A cell phone?”
I looked over at him, my cheeks wet with tears.
He shrugged, feigning sympathy. “If more videos were to surface….” He tsked, continuing, “Arson, assault, robbery, grand theft auto, breaking and entering, sexual deviances… I can only imagine the videos lurking out there somewhere that haven’t been posted yet.”
My stomach sank, and I rose, standing up straight as I gaped at him. The vomit churned, and I almost dry-heaved.
No.
Pulling something off the table, he handed me one more piece of paper, and I read the check for over thirty-seven-thousand dollars made out to me.
“The balance of what’s left,” he told me. “And you have the power of attorney transferred to you. All you have to do is sign. You can take her, and we never have to see each other again. You’ll be able to pay for top-notch care. And they won’t even know it’s you in the photos. Your full face isn’t in them anyway, and it won’t be on the unofficial statement I take to them.”
I stared at the check.
He was giving me what I wanted. I could move my grandmother to somewhere close to me, pay for her care for however long she had left, and my education wouldn’t be interrupted.
I set my palm on the glass, feeling warmth where everything else was cold.
He had a point, right? I’d heard that Will was messing up. Even his last year in high school, I heard he was getting high all the time. Would he clean up his act unless he were forced to?
I just wanted to go to school and take care of my grandma. I deserved for good things to happen, I’d f
ought long enough, and if I didn’t give in and agree to this, he might go to jail anyway and for longer. What if Martin knew who uploaded the videos? What if he were telling the truth, and he could get them to upload more?
I clutched the thin piece of paper, everything I wanted one signature away.
One signature I’d never make.
“I want you to die,” I whispered.
He stood there quietly. “You know what life is like inside of a one-star nursing home?” he finally asked.
I closed my eyes, seeing Damon Torrance with his hand wrapped around his mother’s throat, and I could damn-near feel it.
I wanted to know what that felt like.
“Sometimes the patients will have bruises they shouldn’t have or they’ll find the elderly lying in their own waste for hours,” he went on. “She doesn’t know what the fuck is going on half the time anyway, so she won’t care.”
My blood boiled, every muscle inside of me tightening.
“You’re bluffing,” I breathed out. “Even you wouldn’t do that to her.”
I saw him turn toward me out of the corner of my eye. “She was transferred this morning,” he told me.
I whipped around to face him, and then I screamed, shoving him in the chest with both of my hands and then running in to knee him between the legs.
“Motherfucker!” I yelled.
He collapsed to the ground, and my body moved of its own accord. I couldn’t stop it. I swung my leg back to kick him, but he launched up and grabbed it as it came in and yanked me down to the floor.
Gripping the back of my head, he grabbed a fistful of the flesh at my waist and crushed it in his hand. I cried out and dove in, biting his face.
He howled, and I swung, slamming him across his jaw before he grabbed me by the collar and slapped me across the face.
I whipped around, my body crashing back to the floor, and I coughed, scrambling to my feet as the sharp sting spread across my face.
Swinging my leg back, I kicked him in the head, not hesitating a moment before I did it again. And again.
The taste of copper filled my mouth as blood sputtered from his mouth, and he tried to sit up on his knees, but he just fell over again.
You’ll never lay a hand on me again.
Unlike Damon, I knew how to really hide a dead body.
Pulling the chair out at the table, I sat down, silent tears blurring my eyes and blood coating my teeth as I reached over and grabbed the statement and then the pen.
Clicking the button at the top, I looked up, gazing at Will through the glass.
I could tell myself all sorts of things to make this okay.
If they weren’t who they were, they’d go to jail anyway.
I was saving them, actually. More videos coming to light would increase the charges.
They did commit crimes. And there were tons more no one knew about.
But the bottom line was…this was wrong.
I scribbled my name at the bottom of the statement that would convince their families to accept the charges in order to not risk more charges. I shoved it across the table, stood up, and grabbed the check and power of attorney, walking to the window as shame made me look away from my reflection in the glass.
“Some of us will always be casualties,” I whispered to him. “Rungs on a ladder that others climb.”
He looked up suddenly, and it looked like he was looking right at me. Like he could see me.
“Some people can’t stop what happens to them,” I said. “They’re just born in the wrong place, wrong time, with the wrong people.”
Will deserved his vengeance.
I’d just thrown him under the bus to buy my grandmother’s last days.
“I’ll expect you,” I whispered to him.
I felt my brother rise from the floor, sniffling and grunting.
I turned, not looking back as I walked for the door.
“Safe trip home,” Martin choked out. “You’ll never see me again.”
I threw open the door, not bothering to clean up the blood on my face as I left the room.
I’ll see you again. Will would be coming for both of us.
Will
Present
“We put Rika and Winter through what we did for nothing!” I growled. “We spent years thinking it was about the fucking videos, and it was about you! I did that to my friends. I brought you into their lives.”
I didn’t give a shit about the story she’d just told us. I knew it wasn’t her idea. I knew she had no beef with us.
She just didn’t give a shit about me. How could she let anyone think I did those things to her?
I stepped closer. “Do you have any idea what prison feels like?” I said to her as Alex and I stood in our soaking clothes and Emmy dropped her eyes, her hair in her face. “You could’ve done anything. You could’ve come clean and told me what you did. You could’ve come to me before you signed that damn paper, and I would’ve had your grandmother sent to the best home in the country!” My voice grew harder again as I shouted. “My parents would’ve paid for your education. You never had to do anything alone!”
It had been years. If she felt badly about what she’d done, it would’ve eaten away at her enough by now that she would’ve owned up. But no. I’d found out through my grandfather who, of course, knew it was all bullshit. I couldn’t believe he, my parents, and Kai’s parents didn’t tell us seven years ago, but they probably knew we’d battle it and just wanted us to take the lesser sentence instead of taking any chances.
Everyone stood around, silent as the train whistle rang in the air outside, and I watched her chin tremble and the lump in her throat move up and down.
“What, are you gonna cry now?” I taunted. “You gonna cry?”
Again?
I’d fucking give her something to cry about. I could understand the position Martin put her in. I sympathized.
But my God, was she blind? All she had to do was tell me. Lean on me. Ask for help. That was all she ever had to do!
“Look at what you made of me,” I said, inching forward and slapping my chest of tattoos that depicted home and all the life I’d lost even before I went to prison. “You made me into this.” I screamed in her face. “You!”
She flinched, but just then, someone pushed my ass back, and I stumbled, looking up and meeting Micah’s eyes.
He slipped in between us, Rory joining him and both of them inserting themselves between Emmy and me and staring at me like a warning.
What the hell? I tipped my chin up, glaring as my guys—my guys—now stood in front of her instead of behind me.
Unbelievable.
Peering between their shoulders, I met her eyes once more. “I reached for you,” I told her. “In my head, all these years. Even after you dumped me like trash and I couldn’t fall out of love with you no matter how much I drank and snorted, my brain reached for you always.”
She remained frozen, not faltering as she stared at me.
“When nothing gave me a reason to get out of bed, my friends were falling in love, making babies, and I felt so alone…” I choked on the tears in my throat I wouldn’t let loose. “What do you think was the only thing that made me keep breathing?” My tone hardened as I clenched my jaw. “In my brain, I reached for you. I never stopped reaching for you.”
And she let her brother tell my family that, not only did I not love her, but I passed her around for my friends to abuse like she was nothing.
When she was everything.
I hardened my voice. “Get the fuck out of my face,” I gritted out. “And it’s fine if you want to get the fuck off the train, too. Go, run back to him.”
I won’t reach for you anymore.
She stood there a moment, her eyes darting around the people in the room and probably wondering something dumb like how she was going to save her pride or some shit.
But then…
She turned and walked away, still dressed in Aydin’s T-shirt and boxers as s
he slid open the door and slipped into the next compartment.
As soon as she was gone, silence sat like a ten-ton weight in the room, no one speaking.
But then, after a few moments, someone spun me around and threw her arms around me, all of my friends crowding around me as Winter hugged me.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “What happened in there? Why was she there?”
I couldn’t talk right now. I could barely draw in a breath.
Misha pulled me away and yanked me in next, squeezing me so tightly. “What can we do?” he asked. “What do you need?”
And then Damon. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
I held up my hands, sweat seeping out of my pores, and my stomach rolling with them so close. “I can’t.” I backed away, trying to get space. “Just…I can’t right now, okay?”
But Michael grabbed me anyway. “Are you okay?”
I growled, yanking away. “Don’t touch me.” I shook my head, the room spinning. “Don’t.”
“All right,” he breathed out, hands off. “I’m sorry.”
They all stopped and stepped away, falling silent. I could feel their eyes on me and their looks between each other, because they didn’t understand, and I couldn’t get into it right now.
I rubbed my eyes, smelling the familiar scent of the cellar on my hands from the rope I’d tied Aydin up with.
Aydin.
I held my nose between my hands, breathing in the house.
I wasn’t ready. I should still be there. I shouldn’t have left.
“I gotta make some phone calls,” I said, turning and heading for the door and leaving them. We were at least five cars from the engine. Hopefully Emmy was hiding her ass somewhere I wouldn’t have to look at her, because I was so mad I could strangle her right now.
“Your name is on your cabin door,” Ryen said, finally speaking up. “There’s clothes in there.”
I slid open the door, wind and the sounds of the wheels on the tracks rushing through, but then Winter spoke up before I could step through.
“Why would he do that?” she asked.
I stopped.
“Who?” Banks asked her.
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