by York, Marie
“Nixon.” Mr. Fox, Beckham’s father, strolled in like he owned the damn place. His dark gray suit was impeccable and showed he meant business. He was a fucking asshole who Beckham couldn’t stand, but I always liked him. He didn’t take shit from anyone, and because of that, he was at the top of his game in his field. The opposition feared him, judges respected him, and his clients always walked away victorious. I had no doubt in my mind that I’d be out of here by morning.
“Mr. Fox.” I stood up to shake his hand. “I appreciate you coming.” He accepted my hand with a firm grasp.
“I’m just happy for once it’s not my son I’m bailing out,” he stated dryly and I laughed, remembering the time Beckham got caught “breaking and entering.” Turned out, he was just sneaking into some slut’s bedroom, and he got caught like a jackass. “Have you called your parents?”
My jaw ticked at his question. “No,” I spat. “Let’s keep them out of this.”
He placed his briefcase on the table and pushed the clasps, causing it to pop open as he sat. “Fine. I got briefed on my way here. I have a case in the morning and don’t want to waste any time. Why don’t you begin by telling me what happened?”
I started at the beginning. I told him how Brooklyn came to the gym, how she flinched when I got close to her, the bruises I had seen when we met earlier that night, and how it was clear she was broken and scared.
“What I need to know is why you were there, and why you were holding the knife.”
“She had fucking bruises on her arms. I shouldn’t have let her go back to him to begin with. And, when I finally realized that, I went after her, but…” I ran a hand over my face, disgusted with myself for allowing her to go back there alone. I glanced up and admitted my first and only regret. “I was too late. He was already dead. She was crouched over him with the knife.”
“So she killed him, not you,” Mr. Fox said, so matter-of-factly it pissed me off.
I slammed my hand on the table. “He beat the shit out of her. If she didn’t, I would’ve done it my fucking self.”
“We’re not here to talk about the what ifs. We’re here to discuss the facts. And the fact is, she committed the crime not you.”
“It was self-defense.”
Mr. Fox leaned back in his chair and nodded. “You said he beat her up.”
“When I got there, her eye was swollen shut, she was bleeding, and she collapsed as they took me away.” I rested my hands on my head, and tugged at the tips of my hair. “I don’t even know if she’s okay.”
“The proof is there. I’ll find out where she is. And, if it was self-defense like you said it was, then they don’t have a case. But the problem is, you were holding the knife.”
“If I wanted to kill him, I wouldn’t need a fucking weapon. My body is my weapon. I could’ve killed him in twenty different moves without breaking a sweat,” I growled through my teeth.
“Understood, but the prosecutor may not see it that way.”
“I saw a friend in need and I tried to take her out of the situation without thinking where it would land me. Stupid decision. Wrong place, wrong time. Pick one. And I can guarantee her finger prints are on that knife, too. If I killed him, why would she have ever held that knife?”
He nodded, and I knew he believed me. “I’ll find her. Talk to her. Get her side, and make sure the two stories line up. If they do, you’ll be out of here by tomorrow.”
He closed his briefcase and stood. I shook his hand again. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, and headed to the door.
“And Mr. Fox?”
He stopped and turned around.
“The only way I want out of here is if you can guarantee the both of us are free. She is never to step foot into this place.”
“Are you saying that you’re willing to take the fall if it comes to that?”
“I fucked up once, and I won’t do it again. Whatever I have to do to keep her safe, I’m going to do it.”
“What if I can’t guarantee you that?”
I looked straight at him and shrugged. “Then it was nice knowing you.”
Chapter 25
Everything hurt. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. My eyelids weighed five hundred pounds and I wasn’t strong enough. But I was! I killed him. I killed the bastard. I stabbed him and ended his life before he could end mine.
I felt no guilt only relief.
I wanted to tell Nixon that I remembered everything he taught me. Nixon. Oh no. They had him! They arrested him for a crime he didn’t commit. It was me! I tried to scream but the words didn’t come out. I tried again, but it was useless, all that I was met with was silence.
He came for me and now he was taking the fall for me. Everything that I hoped to avoid was happening. No! It was me! I tried to scream again, fight the blackness that was growing. It was me! Silence rang in my ear as I sank into darkness.
***
Nixon
Morning had come and gone, yet there was still no word from Mr. Fox. I was beginning to think the small cell with the uncomfortable mattress would be my home for the rest of my life when I heard footsteps.
I sat up and peered through the bars to see an officer walking toward me. I tried not to get my hopes up since the same guy had passed by several times before. This time, though, he stopped in front of me.
“Nixon Bennett, you’re out of here.”
I jumped up from the thin, lumpy mattress, and went right to the bars. As they parted and I stepped into my freedom, I only had one thing on my mind. Brooklyn. I needed to find her. To see her. To hold her in my arms, and make sure she was okay.
The desire to run was strong, but I knew I wasn’t really free just yet. There was a process, and I needed to get my things. So, I went through the motions, trying to keep my cool, but losing it more than once. Finally, an hour later, I was stepping out and into the waiting area.
I went to beeline for the door when I spotted Beckham. He got up from the chair. He looked like I felt, absolute shit.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked.
He tugged at that stupid pile of hair on his head and smiled. “Figured you’d need a ride home.”
“You flew across the fucking country to drive me somewhere that’s ten minutes away?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“More like a waste of time. I can find my own ride.” I pushed out the door and walked outside, figuring I could walk to the hospital, if that’s where Brooklyn even was. It was a place to start though.
“Can you for two seconds stop being a fucking dick?” Beckham yelled after me.
“Why would I do that?”
“So that’s it? Ten years of friendship down the fucking drain.”
I didn’t say anything. The silence was enough of a response.
“I called my dad for you.”
“Would you like a cookie?” I moved around him and continued toward the street, but he kept following.
“You fucking son of a bitch. You know how much I hate that man. I did you a goddamned favor. The least you can do is thank me.”
“Thank you! For what? Fucking my sister? Choosing her over me? Doing the one fucking thing I asked you not to do? It’ll be a cold day in hell before I thank you. Consider us even. Now, get the fuck away from me.”
“I could, but then you wouldn’t know where Brooklyn is.”
I spun around, grabbed him by his t-shirt, and yanked him to me. “Where is she?” My jaw clenched and my teeth ground against each other.
“Are you going to stop acting like an asshole?” Beckham asked, not even batting an eye at my death grip.
I tightened my hold on him, and wound my hand back, ready to knock him the fuck out.
“Go ahead. Hit me. Then, I’ll go inside, press charges, and get your ass thrown back behind those bars. Or you can let me go, talk to me like the fucking man I know you can be, and I’ll tell you where to find your girl. I’ll even dr
ive you there.”
My fingers dug into the material of his shirt, hauling him closer before I shoved him away. “Dick move,” I growled.
“What can I say? I learned from the best.”
I smirked despite myself. “Whatever you have to say, you can say it in the car. We’ve already wasted enough fucking time.”
We hopped into Beckham’s rental, and he headed west. “She’s at the hospital. My dad said she’ll be okay, but they’re holding her for a few more tests. He also said she’s had no visitors. Apparently, she moved here to get away from the guy, and has no one.”
I hated that she was there alone, and that I was stuck in a prison cell when I should have been with her. Hated that Beckham knew more about the girl I was in love with than I did.
“Can’t this car move any faster?” I seethed, wishing I had Tanya with me. I would’ve been halfway to the hospital by now, instead of just getting to the end of the fucking street. Beckham laughed. “What the fuck is so funny?” I demanded.
“I just never thought I’d see the day where Nixon ‘Viper’ Bennett was affected by a girl. What happened to, ‘they’re nothing more than a body and a hole’?”
I cracked my neck from side to side. “She’s different.”
“Maybe now you get it.”
“Get what?”
“When it happens, it just happens. You don’t choose it. It’s what happened with me and your sister.”
I held my hand up. “Stop talking.”
“For fuck sakes, Nix. I’m trying here.”
“When did you turn into such a bitch?” I asked, and he dramatically rested his head on the headrest. I could see his frustrations in the way he gripped the wheel, and maybe I wasn’t ready to forgive, but maybe for now, I could forget. “Look. I don’t give a shit what you do. I just don’t want to know about it. Okay?”
His grip loosened on the steering wheel. “I can live with that.”
“Good. Can you stop acting like a sniffling bitch now?”
“One more thing.”
“What? What now?”
He scratched at his chin, and then glanced in my direction. “Talk to your sister.”
“Not going to happen.” After all the years of watching her get praise from our parents while I got shit on, witnessed her be the perfect child I could never be, setting a bar so impossibly high that she purposely made me look like an asshole. There was no way I was just going to talk to her.
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. She hates your guts right now, anyway. I’d doubt she’d even talk to you.”
“And that’s how it should be,” I spat.
“For now,” he muttered, and I could’ve argued, but I just let it go. With Brooklyn in the hospital, everything else seemed like a waste of breath.
I didn’t know fear and I assumed what was eating at my gut would be the closest thing to fear I would ever feel. It was a nagging, annoying pang in my stomach that wouldn’t go away.
I kept reminding myself that Brooklyn was strong, but I couldn’t hide from the thoughts in the back of my mind. The way she looked the last time I had seen her… bruised, bloody and broken.
Sometimes strength wasn’t enough.
Chapter 26
Nixon
Beckham pulled into the parking lot, and I was out of the car before he even had a chance to come to a stop. I ran toward the doors when I heard Beckham call out my name.
“Room 222. Second floor.”
I nodded and took off as he climbed back into the car. I ignored the check in sign, and as I flew past it, the woman behind the desk yelled out. “Hey! You need to check in first.”
I didn’t fucking think so, I thought as I kept going, besides it’s not like she’d run after me. I bet the only exercise she got was lifting her arm to stuff a donut in her face. I’d already had enough distractions and wasted too much damn time. I wasn’t about to stop and go through some fucking spiel when the only thing keeping me from Brooklyn was a ceiling.
There was a line at the elevator so fuck that. I ran to the stairs and took them two at a time. I pushed through the door and searched for something that would tell me where 222 was. I finally spotted a plaque with numbers and an arrow pointing to the right for rooms 215-225.
Brooklyn’s room was at the end of the hall, and I nearly took out a nurse as I hurried to get to it. “Brooklyn?” I yelled, as I grabbed the door to stop my momentum, and made a quick turn into the room.
I looked to my right only to find a woman who looked half dead, her mouth open, and she was snoring louder than a freight train. The dividing curtain was pulled all the way forward, so I bypassed the lying dead to finally get to Brooklyn.
Her face looked even worse than I remembered. Blacks mixed with blues and yellows mixed with purples. Her one eye was still swollen shut and the other was now marked with broken blood vessels.
Seeing her like that made me sick. Consumed me in guilt. I wanted to go to the morgue and beat the shit out of Karl’s already dead body, but I doubted that would bring me any real satisfaction. I was so outraged at him for what he did to her, but more pissed off at myself for not getting there on time
The asshole was dead, and I should’ve been grateful for that, but a part of me wished he had made it, so I could’ve had my turn with him. I would’ve killed him all right, but it would have been a long, slow and torturous death. By the time I’d been done with him, he’d have been begging for me to end his miserable, pathetic life. And I would have done so with a smile on my face.
Unfortunately, I would never have the satisfaction in taking life away from the man who abused the only girl I ever wanted. I only hoped that Brooklyn would feel vindication in her actions and not guilt nor regret.
She looked like fucking hell, but I didn’t care. She was alive, breathing and healing. It was the best sight I had ever seen. Her good eye glanced up at me and the smile I was expecting was lost to the trepidation engulfing her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
I sat down on the bed and the desire to touch her turned into a need. I took her hand in mine and ran my thumb across her bruised knuckles. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been locked up, and the entire time all I could think about was you, and how I wasn’t here. How you were dealing with this on your own.”
She pulled her hand back from me, and tucked it beneath her arm. It wasn’t just her hand, either; she was pulling away from me in every way she could. “I’m fine.”
Anger reared its ugly head at her blatant lie. “You’re not fine. Have you looked in a goddamned mirror?”
“It’s just a few bruises. They’ll go away. I appreciate you coming, but I’ve been on my own for some time now. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
I rested a gentle hand on her arm. “That’s because you didn’t have anyone to take care of you, but I’m here now.”
She shook her head and a determined look settled on her face. “That’s the thing. Karl thought he was taking care of me, too, and for a while, I thought he was. Just assumed the abuse went along with it… Now, I know.”
“Know what?” I asked.
“When a guy wants to take care of you, it’s because they want to control you. And I’m not…”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I interrupted her, unwilling to hear any more of the bullshit coming out of her mouth. I jumped up from the bed, slammed my hand down on her bedside table. I saw her wince and immediately regretted it. I came to a stop at the foot of the bed and stared at her. “Don’t you for even one second, compare me to that piece of shit.”
“I’m not. It’s just… I don’t even really know you. How do I know that two months from now you aren’t going to be a completely different person?”
As hard as it was, I shoved the anger down, and sat back on the bed beside her. I reached up and ran a finger down the side of her face, being careful not to hurt her as I relished in the warmth of her skin. “You don’t. And the God’s honest truth. I don�
��t either. This is all new to me. But what I do know. Seeing you like this…it’s making me sick to my stomach. Thinking that someone could even think to raise a hand to you makes my blood boil. I would never hurt you. I don’t make promises because they’re impossible to keep, but I can promise you that. I swear to never lay a finger on you or to make you feel inferior to me because you’re not. You’re my equal. The only one I’ve ever met. Don’t push me away.”
For a moment, I thought I saw tears building in her beautiful eyes, but with a blink, they were gone, and made me wonder if I imagined it.
She took a deep breath and carefully sat up farther on her pillows. “I just need time.”
“Time for what?”
“For me. Time to figure this all out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out. You left him, and if he hadn’t showed up, I know damn well we would’ve been together.”
“You don’t know that.”
I shot up from the bed again, losing my patience and needing to calm my ass down before I said or did something I would later regret. Which was annoying in itself, since I didn’t care enough to ever regret anything. Brooklyn was messing with my goddamned head, and now she kicked it, sending it spiraling in circles.
I took two deep breaths, and went back to her, taking her hand in mine again. “Tell me you don’t feel this. This crazy, unexplainable energy whenever I touch you. The need for more, knowing no matter what it’ll never be enough, but willing to accept any taste of it you can get. Tell me you don’t feel it, and I’ll walk out that door right now. You’ll never hear from me again.” She looked up at me, but didn’t say anything. “Tell me,” I urged.
“I’m scared,” she finally whispered, and for the first time since I got in the room, I could see her opening up to me.
I closed my other hand around hers, and brought it to my lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “You don’t have to be. Not with me.”