by K. V. Rose
I can feel the cool metal of the gun digging into my head.
I don’t cry.
All I feel is rage. I know it should be fear. I know I might die here, but I don’t give a fuck, as long as Rolland dies, too.
“If you don’t let us walk out of here, she’ll leave in a body bag,” Rolland warns.
Benji’s eyes meet mine. He’s staring at me with such intensity, I feel he’s trying to tell me something. But I have no idea what. Maybe he’s trying to comfort me. I don’t see a way out of this. I don’t care either. I just want Rolland dead.
“Let her go,” Caden says. His voice is a growl. He’s staring at his father as if he wants to rip the man limb from limb. Tear him apart with his bare hands. I feel exactly the same way. For once, we’re on the same page. But it’s too late for that.
Rolland laughs. I feel him shake his head, his chin against my hair. “No, son. If I was capable of doing that, I would have. A long time ago.” He digs the barrel of the gun in a little deeper. “She’s truly a lot more trouble than she’s worth. And I never even fucked her. Not yet.” I deflate with those words. All this time, I never knew. I never knew what had happened after the video ended.
Now I do. But it’s too late.
Everything is too late.
Rolland sighs, his arm tightening around my waist. “I wish your brother had never dragged such a poor, pitiful soul into our home.”
Caden’s jaw flexes.
Benji seems, between all of us, the calmest.
I don’t dare move. It’s not that I mind Rolland taking me down. It’s that I want him to get his, too.
Finally, Benji takes a step back. He reaches out, grabs Caden’s arm. Caden shoots him a venomous look, but Benji doesn’t say a word, only yanks Caden backward.
“Go, then,” Benji says, and he jerks his chin toward the door. “Get the fuck out of here and never come back.”
“No,” Caden starts to say, but Benji looks at him, cutting him off.
Rolland doesn’t hesitate.
He walks with me forward, the gun still connecting with my head. Fear floods through me at the thought of leaving them, of being alone with Rolland, with no barriers between us anymore. No Adam. No Caden. No secrets.
He’s a murderer. He’s confessed to it.
He has nothing to lose.
Rolland’s movements seem eager, and he shoves me out of the house too quickly. It’s only when we’re outside, the hot summer air alive on my skin, that he lowers the gun.
He lowers the gun and shoves me down the steps. I stumble, falling to the walkway, skinning the palms of my hands.
“You fucking idiot.”
I barely have time to recognize those words aren’t from Rolland when I hear a sickening thud and something cracks. I spin around, my palms flat on the ground behind me.
Rolland falls to his knees, the gun falls from his hand, and then he collapses, face first, at my feet.
Behind him, Caden is holding a baseball bat, the one that was on the wall above the mirror, and he’s got it raised again. His eyes don’t leave his father.
Rolland moves on the ground, trying to lift himself up.
Benji is behind Caden, shadowing him in the doorway of the house.
Caden takes the steps down, the bat still raised as he watches his father.
Rolland heaves himself up, turning to face his son, his legs sprawled out in front of him. He’s breathing heavily, and I can’t move. I’m frozen to the spot, wondering how far Caden will go.
How far he should go.
Because a man like Rolland is dangerous.
He doesn’t deserve to live.
I want the bat to be in my hands.
“You disappoint me,” Rolland says through heavy breaths. He shakes his head wearily. I can’t see his face and I’m grateful. “Hurting your own father over a piece of used—”
He doesn’t get the last word out before Caden brings the bat down again, straight on top of Rolland’s head. I see blood on the bat.
Rolland doesn’t move for a moment, as if he’s frozen in place, but he doesn’t speak either.
And then, after a breath, he topples over.
Caden hits him again.
Thirty-Seven
Present
Benji and I sit in Riley’s living room, in an apartment that’s no bigger than my entire kitchen. Which I wouldn’t judge her for. I’ve done far too fucking much of that.
I’ve realized, over the past twelve hours, that I don’t give a damn what she’s done. If she’s fucked every man between here and Toronto willingly. Including my brother.
I still want her.
She’s still mine.
And what I’ve done to her, after what happened…I don’t fucking deserve her.
Rolland—I can no longer think of him as my father—is in the hospital. I haven’t gone to see him, and I won’t go to see him. If he dies, I won’t attend the funeral. He’s already dead to me as it is. I have no regrets over bringing that fucking baseball bat down over his head.
The police took our statements, and my own personal lawyer has already given me the rundown to keep me out of trouble, but with Benji and Riley giving testimony, I don’t think I’m going to have any issues.
We haven’t told anyone what he did to my brother or to Riley. She doesn’t want anyone else to know. And besides, I want to pay him back personally for both of those crimes. If he doesn’t die soon all on his own.
Riley’s mom is speaking with her somewhere else, in a bedroom, tucked away. I can’t quite look at her mom without feeling pissed off and resentful. She’s in a wheelchair, which I suppose means I should have some sort of respect for the woman, but I don’t.
She brought it upon herself.
Worse than that, she put Riley in a position to be Rolland’s pawn.
And Riley confessed all of it to me: how the video happened in the first place (this makes me hate her mother more, but it makes me want to slice the skin from my father’s bones), and the blackmail over the years about showing me the video. About how she didn’t want to hurt me.
Me.
I’ve spent all this time hating her, wishing her to hurt like I do. And she’s spent it all sparing my heart. And my dad has spent it getting away with murder, with sexual assault, and with drugging Riley.
Benji must notice I’m lost in my own world. Down the couch from me, he shifts in his seat and cocks his head. We haven’t slept in far too long.
“You okay, man?”
I don’t reply for a few seconds, my gaze on his. I’m not okay. Nothing about this is okay. I’ve spent the last three years trying to keep Riley out of my head, trying not to think about her, and when I did, I only wanted to hurt her. To punish her.
I had no fucking idea she was already hurting.
I had no fucking clue my father was already ruining her life.
I couldn’t know that Jack hadn’t taken his own life. He had always been volatile. And while he was never depressed, that I knew of, I could understand how that video could have sent him over the edge.
But no. It wasn’t him. It was never him.
It was Rolland.
I had thought he was fucking Riley, consensually, in exchange for money. That made me hate her more.
But it wasn’t that at all.
And I was too blinded by hatred to see it.
That kills me the most. I could have stopped this, way before now, I could have ended it.
“No. I’m not.” It’s an honest answer, and Benji doesn’t crack a smile or laugh. I almost feel sorry for him right now. He went to prison for assault, for bashing a dude’s head in that tried to hurt his ex. And here I’ve done the same to my own father and I likely won’t serve a single day of time. And more than that, my father has literally gotten away with murder these past three years.
Benji’s words come back to me though.
I went to prison for assault. I would do it again, too, if it meant reliving that night over. I�
�d do the same fucking thing.
I understand that now. I have a thousand regrets about how I handled everything with Riley. With my brother. In the aftermath of his death. But I have none about tonight, and I never will.
It hurts, still, knowing what I’m doing. Or at least, what I want to do, when it comes to Riley. It hurts, because I can only imagine what Jack would think. How he might despise me for it.
It hurts even more because I feel a strange, fucked-up sense of relief knowing he didn’t know about us.
But I would have told him. I would have made him understand. We could have lived through this.
But we didn’t get the chance. And Riley…my God, I don’t deserve her.
I hope to God Rolland Virani won’t walk out of that hospital. If he doesn’t, he’ll be lucky.
I hate it for my mom.
But even she will be better off.
I hear a creak behind me and turn, angling my head toward the sound.
It’s Riley. Her mom is nowhere to be seen and I’m fucking glad.
She looks so tired. She changed, into a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants, her hair tumbling down around her shoulders, shadows beneath her eyes. But she’s so goddamn beautiful, it almost hurts to look at her. To know what I let her go through. To know what I put her through.
I get to my feet, and we cross the room to one another, Benji laughing quietly at my back. Laughing, because he probably knew this would happen all along. He stopped me in my basement, stopped me from doing something I might have regretted, and he was the one who saw it. Who saw she was hurting.
She folds herself into my arms and for once, I don’t feel anything but happiness at her touch. Not fear, or anxiety, or rage. Just…happiness.
“Are you okay?” I murmur against the top of her head. She’s so small in my arms. I let her go all those years ago, let her carry the weight of the world on her shoulders when I should have talked to her. I should have asked her questions. But when I realized she’d hidden something from me, I’d blamed her because I was full of shame myself. Blamed her because I hadn’t been home to stop Jack.
But it wasn’t Jack I needed to stop.
She pulls back from me, her beautiful green eyes shining as she looks up at me.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, swallowing. I hear the pain in her words. “I’m so sorry that I lied to you all this time. That I never told you...” She shakes her head, and I feel her trembling in my arms.
“Shh,” I say quietly, leaning down, pressing my brow to hers. “That’s over now. That’s not your fault. You have nothing to be sorry for. But I…I do. My biggest mistake, Riley…it was shutting you out.”
She takes a shaky breath, her eyes searching mine. “What do we do now?”
I take a long moment to answer, because I want to see how she’s feeling without my words. I want to know what it is she wants to do. Because this isn’t just about me or my brother or Rolland. This is about her.
“What do you want to do?” I ask her.
She presses closer against me.
I hear Benji groan in the background. “Look guys, I’m not really up for another threesome yet, but maybe in a few—”
Jealousy shoots through me and I turn around to glare at him. “That will never happen again. Never. Do you hear me?”
He smirks at me, the little shit.
But it’s Riley that gives a polite little cough, drawing my attention back to her. We’re still in each other’s arms, but she cocks her head, a smile playing on her lips, and she asks, so innocently, “Never?”
And that jealousy runs deeper, through my veins. My hands are hot, my breathing shallow. Because it fucking hurts, thinking of anyone else in her again and yet, I kind of like it.
I’m a sick fuck.
“Only if you behave,” I whisper against her ear.
She breathes a laugh, and so does Benji, and while I want to snap his fucking neck…I’d do anything for her. Anything.
“I think you’ve fucked me up,” I murmur against her skin.
“There’s no way back from this.” Her mouth finds my neck. She kisses me, gently. “And I don’t want to go back.”
I press my hands against her low back, so she feels what I’m feeling for her. She moans a little, in my ear.
“You never told me what you want.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asks me, grinding against me.
I press harder against her and savor the way her breath catches when she feels my cock throbbing for her. “After I fuck you from behind, after you’re moaning my name loud enough for Benji and your mom to hear…what do you want then?”
She stops moving against me and looks up at me, lips parted, eyes trailing from my temple to my mouth to my body.
“You.”
Thirty-Eight
Present
Rolland Virani is out of the hospital and back in the Virani mansion in Toronto. I’m also back in Toronto, temporarily, this time staying in Caden’s house. He plans to speak with his mother soon, and tonight, I’m having dinner with Tyler.
Tyler sits across the booth from me, his hands wrapped around a rum and Coke, same as mine. He takes a drink, golden eyes on mine.
“Tell me everything.”
I led him to believe nothing would be between Caden and me again. I misled, obviously. Because now I can’t imagine leaving Caden’s side. Not again. That might make me a terrible person, because of Jack. It might send me straight to hell.
But I don’t care.
Caden and I…we were made to burn together.
I finish my drink, my second of the night, and we haven’t even ordered yet.
“You never asked what happened with Adam,” I say with a little smile, trying to dodge the subject, at least for the moment. Thinking of Rolland murdering his own son makes me feel sick. I haven’t thought about it. Or rather, I’ve tried not to. I know Caden has done the same.
But Tyler isn’t playing that game. He spins the glass in his fingers. “I didn’t have to. Adam is a dick bag. I knew it was only a matter of time.” He grins at me. “Besides, I also knew you were only using him to get over Caden and Jack. Although, why you couldn’t choose someone in your own country, I don’t get that.” He shakes his head and rakes a hand through his wavy hair.
I laugh out loud. “Says the guy whose boyfriend lives in Vancouver. The flight from Toronto to Raleigh is, like, a fifth of your flight time!”
Tyler narrows his eyes. “Don’t you dare turn this around. Adam is a cunt. He was always hovering around you in school, always waiting for Jack to slip up. Besides,” Tyler shrugs his broad shoulders, “guy hates gays.”
My eyes widen. That I didn’t know.
Tyler nods, seeing my reaction. “Oh yeah. Big time homophobe. You know he was on the wrestling team for about two seconds before he found out I was gay, and then he quit?” He finishes his drink after he finishes his sentence.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that?” I ask, appalled. I had no idea. Adam and I never really did much talking. We texted during our time away from each other and fucked during our time together.
Tyler pulls his menu closer to him, eyeing the appetizers. “Didn’t really matter. I knew you’d break it off with him soon. It wasn’t like you were going to marry the guy.”
“You let me date an asshole!” I accuse.
Tyler’s eyes flit to mine. “Seems like I’m letting you do that all over again, aren’t I?” But his gaze softens as he watches me. “Don’t worry about it, Ry. I knew you needed someone to help you move on, and Adam was there, waiting around like a sick puppy.” He taps his finger to something on the menu and leans back, crossing his arms, his biceps bulging beneath his band shirt. “Now, if this will finally get you talking about Caden, what happened? Between you and dick bag? Adam,” he clarifies with a sarcastic laugh.
I roll my eyes, glance at the menu without reading it. “Benji—”
“Oh yeah, Caden’s convict friend—”
“
Benji,” I start again, glaring at Tyler, “sent me a text. A photo. Of Adam in the midst of fucking another woman at that sex club downtown.”
Tyler stares at me for a second, as if he can’t believe what I’m saying. And then he slaps his hand on the table and bursts into laughter. “I didn’t think the dude had it in him!” he says between snorts.
I feel my cheeks warm. “Really funny.”
The waitress comes to the table. Before she can say a word, I ask for another round of drinks for us, Tyler still gulping down air and laughing his ass off.
“Anyhow,” Tyler tries to feign seriousness, “I’m very glad you dumped his ass.”
“And blocked his number,” I add with a small smile.
“Now.” He clears his throat and nods his thanks as the waitress sets down our drinks. “Tell me about Caden.”
I look down at my lap. I’m wearing black pants, a sleeveless emerald-green top. Picked out by Caden last night after we landed. We spent Thursday day at the apartment—which he paid the rent for until I graduate from school next year, after I refused to let him move me—and flew here last night. I promised Mom I’d be back after the weekend, but I didn’t pack anything to take with me. Being with Caden seemed like all I’d need. He was like a drug that I couldn’t get enough of, now that we could finally, truly be together.
It was scary, actually. How hard I was falling. How hard I’d been falling over three years.
Tyler coughs dramatically, waiting for me to answer him. He doesn’t know about what happened with Rolland. Any of it. From three years ago, and from the night before last. He knows nothing.
I didn’t tell anyone, all this time, because I was ashamed. Because I wanted to prevent Caden’s heart from breaking more than it already had.
But now, I tell Tyler everything.
Every single fucking thing, even though I have to stop talking at some points. It’s not okay. It’s not alright. It’s fucked up, what Rolland did. And the blackmail was the least of his crimes.
As I hear myself tell my best friend all the dirty parts of myself, of the past few years, I realize I’m fucked up.