by Cora Brent
“I’m gonna fix this, baby.”
As I finished talking, Creed took my phone back. I knew who he was calling.
“He’s not answering,” I said flatly.
Creed shook his head and took the phone away from his ear, staring at it as if he could force Chase to respond. He made another call.
“It’s me, man. You need to get home, Cordero. Something’s up.”
As Creed and I waited for Cord to show up it would be tough to say which of us felt more uncomfortable. Wordlessly he went to the kitchen and brought me a glass of water.
“Thanks,” I muttered as he sighed and sat down again. I drank water and tried to calm down. “I’m sorry about all of this.”
Creed actually looked at me with some sadness. “What those animals did to you was fucking terrible. I almost want to kill them so I can imagine how my brother feels.”
Just then Cord came busting through the front door. He rushed into the living room, breathless and bewildered. “Well now that you’ve scared the shit out of me, how about you tell me what’s up? Where’s Saylor?”
“She’s still at work.”
Cord stared at me. “Where’s Chase?”
“That’s why we’re all here.”
I kept my head down while Creed briefed him on current events. Cord cursed and sat down on my other side. He knew, without being told, what Chase had gone to do.
“You have any idea where Chase might start looking?” he asked.
I shrugged. “He doesn’t really have anything to go on. I’ve never handed out names and there’s nothing connecting him to anyone-“ I stopped short. The brothers both leaned forward and waited for me to finish.
There was something connecting him to that world. We’d had a friend in common all along. Last night Chase had even admitted that the man I’d seen him with in a parking lot one afternoon was not just an acquaintance from rehab.
Still, Chase had no reason to believe Alonzo had a thing to do with the video.
With an escalating sense of anxiety I pulled out my phone and began playing the video. Creed put a hand on my shoulder. “We don’t need to see it, Steph.”
“Yes, we do.” We needed to know if there were any faces visible in the crowd, anyone Chase might have recognized. Cord couldn’t watch. He would glance at the screen and then his face would dissolve into the most pitying expression before he looked away. Creed stared stonily at the show of my abject humiliation. I knew it pained him, and that he was thinking about how he would react if it were Truly who’d been treated this way. He was putting himself inside Chase’s head.
Finally, when there were only a few seconds remaining in the video, I found what I’d feared. There was someone I could clearly identify, though his head was down and his shoulders sagged. He had climbed the steps of the narrow stage to stand beside me, extending an arm to hand me back my clothes. I dialed his number without hesitation.
“Why the hell can’t anyone answer their phones? Alonzo, it’s Stephanie. You need to call me right away. Right fucking away goddammit!”
Chase’s brothers were already on their feet before I’d finished shouting into the phone.
“You know where to find this guy?” Creed asked.
“I know where he lives,” I answered. “I’ll drive.”
It felt strange being alone with Chase’s brothers. In the dim interior of the car they looked more like each other, and more like him, in a way that made my insides hurt. I just wanted to find Chase and bring him home.
“He’s not the violent type,” I said out loud, maybe more to convince myself than anything else.
“He’s not,” Cord agreed from the backseat.
“Not usually,” Creed confirmed, drumming his fingers on his leg as he stared anxiously out the passenger window.
Cord sighed in the back. “Tables are turned now,” he said.
“I thought about that,” Creed answered quietly.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Cord was the one who offered an explanation. “You know about Chase getting jumped, right? How the sons of bitches blindsided him from behind and nearly killed him?”
I shuddered. Of course I’d seen his scars. The assault itself wasn’t something he liked to talk about, but those painful days were when he was introduced to the pills that would become a problem he couldn’t deal with alone.
“We found out who did it,” Cord continued. “We were going after them, no matter what it cost us. Blood, jail, it didn’t matter. We just wanted the bastards to pay.”
Creed spoke up. “Chase asked us to forget about revenge and stay with him. He begged us.”
I didn’t know this part of the story. “And you did?”
“No,” Creed admitted slowly. “I didn’t. Luckily Cordero is a better listener than I am. He stepped between me and violence. We were able to return to Chase, where we belonged.” Creed exhaled thickly and held his head in his hands. “This has to be fucking killing him.”
“I know,” I croaked, thinking of the torment I’d seen in Chase’s face earlier. Cord reached from the backseat and patted my shoulder comfortingly.
“This is it,” I said, pulling into the small, run down apartment complex where I knew Alonzo occupied a studio unit.
“And there’s the truck,” Cord pointed, opening the back door.
Creed hopped out and was the first one to reach the scruffy parked Chevy. They both peered in the windows and glanced around the dark shadows, as if Chase would somehow materialize.
“Which apartment?” Cord called.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. The brothers looked around with some uncertainty but I stalked up to the first door I saw and started hammering away.
A young Asian man answered. He appeared supremely annoyed by the interruption.
“You know a guy named Alonzo?” I asked.
“No,” he sneered and slammed the door.
“Asshole,” I muttered and heard Creed chuckling. He was actually looking at me with something fairly close to respect as I went to the next door and repeated the brief skit. Finally, after three more doors a blonde woman with an ugly scar running down her cheek nodded tiredly when I mentioned Alonzo’s name. She told me he lived directly upstairs.
“Wait,” growled Creed, pulling me back when I started to climb the stairs. He insisted on being the first one up there and motioned to Cord to keep me behind him. I supposed they were trying to protect me, but this was my world, and my mess. I would be the first one to face it.
Cord was startled when I pushed past him. Creed let out a curse when I shoved him aside to get to the door first.
“Alonzo!” I yelled, kicking the bottom of the door. “Open up the hell up!”
He must have been waiting. He opened the door so suddenly I nearly fell through it. Creed caught me and tried to protectively move me behind him but I wasn’t having any of that shit. I shook him off and faced the man who’d been my brother’s friend, the man who still might actually be my friend.
“Come in, everyone,” said Alonzo in a mild tone as he held the door open. The right side of his face appeared swollen and he didn’t seem surprised to see any of us.
“Chase!”
He had been standing beside a frayed sofa but he was moving and grabbing me up in a fierce embrace before I could take another step in his direction. I couldn’t talk. I could only relish the solid feel of him.
“Let’s go home,” I whispered but he shook his head. He turned around and looked at someone. When I’d burst through the door I only had eyes for Chase. I hadn’t even noticed the man who’d been sitting on the couch behind him.
“Hey, Steffie,” the man said softly and all I could do was stare.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Chase
The day I’d dropped Alonzo off at his apartment I’d seen what door he disappeared behind. I knew exactly where to look for him first. As I stood outside the door I called his number and heard it ringing just on the other side.
“Gentry,” he sighed when he answered. “Figured I’d hear from you soon.”
“So tell me, buddy, are you gonna open the fucking door or do I need to break it down?”
He opened it. The expression of sober regret on his face made me pause but only for a moment. I barreled hard into his chest, knocking him over. I slammed the door behind me.
“Shit,” he shouted as he crashed into a chair. “Calm the hell down.”
“Fuck you. You figure out yet why I’m here, asshole?”
He hung his head and swallowed. “Yeah. I didn’t know Stephanie was your girl or I would have warned you sooner.”
That unleashed a growl from my throat and I went for him again. I got in a solid hit to the right side of his face and it felt good, satisfying, to do at least a little damage. From what little I was able to see of him in the video he wasn’t the ringleader, but he’d fucking been there and that was enough. And he was the only in front of me to hit, for now.
“Dammit, Chase,” Al grumbled, holding onto his face and stumbling. “Look I get it and if all you need to do is beat the hell out of me, then you just keep going.”
I was rearing back for another blow but I paused. “You think you can explain this shit away? Go ahead Al or Alonzo or whatever the fuck you’d like me to call you. Tell me how you got off on watching a girl get forced into ruin.”
“I didn’t!” he shouted and his face was twisted into a painful expression. “Jesus, that was fucking awful watching her up there.”
“Not as fucking awful as it was for her,” I snarled and hit him again.
Al staggered and sat down hard on the floor. I’d figured out by now that he wasn’t going to fight back. His obvious guilt over being present for the cruelty inflicted on Stephanie seemed genuine. What I didn’t know was who the hell she was to him. So I asked.
He sighed and answered in a grim monotone. “Her brother Robbie was my best friend. When I ran into her out here I promised myself I would look out for her, try to keep her out of real trouble.” He winced and leaned back into the wall. “Instead I led her to the wolves.”
My eyes narrowed and my blood boiled. “What wolves?”
Al’s dark eyes snapped to my face. “Don’t go there, Gentry. Don’t even think about it. Just go home and take care of her as best you can.”
“I want their fucking names Al.”
“Well tough shit. I’m not fucking giving you that. And before you say it, you ought to know that they aren’t the ones I’m protecting here.” He struggled to his feet and looked at me imploringly. “Get out of here, Chase.”
“That’s good advice,” said a voice and for the first time I realized we weren’t alone.
I didn’t know how the hell I missed seeing the guy since the apartment was tiny but there he was, sitting on a crappy sofa and observing us silently. There was something disturbingly familiar about him and the combination of his tense posture and the sharp look in his brown eyes told me he might be one tough son of a bitch. I also noticed the way he kept his right hand inside the pocket of a jacket he didn’t need to be wearing indoors.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked, watching the way his hand stayed hidden, as if he was holding onto something I couldn’t see.
A knife? A gun?
Whatever he was hiding wasn’t going to keep me from demanding to know his role in all this.
Al shot me a warning look and cleared his throat before addressing the man. “This is Chase Gentry.”
“So I figured,” the man nodded and I realized his words had the same sharply clipped accent I was used to hearing from Stephanie.
“Were you there too?” I sneered. “Were you fucking cheering?”
A shadow crossed the man’s face and I recognized it as scarcely contained rage. “If I had been there,” he said through clenched teeth, “if would have ended pretty fucking differently than what you saw.” He turned his sharp glare in Al’s direction and Al closed his eyes.
“Who are you?” I asked again, more curious than hostile this time.
Suddenly I heard a scuffle outside and then it sounded like a battering ram was trying to shatter the door.
“Alonzo!” Stephanie yelled. “Open the hell up.”
Al was already in the process of doing just that and a second later Stephanie fell into the room. I shot a quick glance at the man at the couch. He didn’t appear to be on the verge of doing anything weird but I stood in front of him just in case. Stephanie stumbled and I grabbed her up in my arms as my brothers poured through the door after her.
Steph clutched me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Let’s go home,” she begged but I shook my head because we weren’t finished here. I turned and looked at the man behind me. Stephanie saw him for the first time and her face lost all color.
“Hey, Steffie,” said the man in a gentle voice.
She let go of me and took a tentative step in his direction as he got to his feet.
“Michael,” she finally whispered.
Of course. This is Michael Bransky.
His hair was dark and hers was light but now that they were standing together I could see the similarities that marked them as siblings. They had the same nose and the same eyes. Michael finally took his hand out of his pocket as he stared down at his little sister.
“Where have you been?” she asked in a girlish, shocked voice. “And what the hell are you doing here?”
Cord and Creed were hovering uncomfortably in the doorway. Al eyed them for a minute, then went to the small kitchen and pulled a steak out of the freezer.
“Let’s step outside, Gentry boys, and let the Bransky kids talk privately.” He scowled as he pressed the frozen meat against the right side of his face. “Didn’t think you’d hit me so fucking hard,” he muttered ruefully, nudging me on his way out.
My brothers looked at me, questioning silently, but I nodded and the three of us followed Al outside. Just before I closed the door I saw Stephanie and Michael sit on opposite sides of the couch and stare at each other.
Creed jerked a thumb inside the room. “Who the hell’s that guy?”
“Her brother,” Al answered.
Cord looked him up and down. “And who the hell are you?”
“Al’s a friend,” I answered. Al took the frozen steak away from his face and gave me a small smile.
Creed was still watching the door, frowning. “You sure she’s okay in there with him?”
“He wouldn’t hurt her,” I said, looking to Al for a nod of confirmation. Stephanie had mentioned that she’d never been close to Michael, even before her family fell apart, but I’d seen the way his eyes grew soft when he was face to face with her. No matter what kind of a creep he might be in other ways, he cared about his sister. I was sure of it.
Creed grunted and leaned over the second floor railing. Al wandered down the stairs and sat on the bottom step, staring quietly into the dark parking lot. Maybe he sensed that the boys needed to have a word with me.
Cord slapped a hand on my shoulder. “You all right, man?”
“What? I’m fine.” I stood beside Creed. “She told you guys about it, huh?”
Creedence made a face and I could tell that despite his misgivings about Stephanie, he felt honestly bad about what had happened to her.
“Fuckers,” he muttered and spat on the ground below.
Cord was still worried. “What were you planning when you headed out this way, Chase?”
“Shit, I’m not even sure,” I sighed. “But seeing her like that, knowing what had been done to her and that no one was paying for it, was just intolerable. I promised her I would fix it. I needed to try, somehow, to do just that.”
Cord shook his head. “Doesn’t work quite that way. Blood vengeance doesn’t heal the heart.”
“I know.”
“You taught us that,” said Creed in a soft voice.
“I know,” I said again.
If I closed my eyes I could summon the sheer heartb
reak in Stephanie’s voice as she sobbed out the details of what she’d suffered. But I needed to stop doing that. There were too many other things, beautiful things, to think about. In a lot of ways that girl was a walking contradiction; brash and difficult on one front, and then shy and sweet on another. She enthralled the hell out of me every day. I wanted every inch of her body and every piece of her heart. She already had mine.
“I love her,” I choked out, wanting the boys to understand.
“Then love her,” Creed urged and I realized he did indeed understand. After all, he was reminding me of something I’d taught him. It meant I shouldn’t have left Stephanie’s side tonight, not for a minute. It meant I needed to stay beside her from now on and forget about revenge and other things that would only end badly.
It wasn’t long before Stephanie opened the door to Al’s apartment. I opened my arms and she gave me a stunning smile before falling into them.
“Now can we go home?” she asked as she held me tightly.
“Yes, sweetheart,” I told her, stroking her hair, “and we can stay there.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Stephanie
Michael was only fourteen months older than me. When I was around eight my mother admitted that my arrival had been something of a surprise, as she and my father weren’t planning on having more children after Michael was born.
“But a wonderful surprise you were,” she’d said, kissing the tip of my nose.
I used to believe that was why Michael didn’t like me, because I had in essence stolen his thunder and seized his role as youngest child. As I grew older I realized his contempt was more universal. No one was immune. Not my parents, not Robbie, no one.
Both of my brothers were chronic troublemakers but Robbie had more of a playful nature. Michael was hard-edged and unyielding. Girls adored him no matter how callously he treated them. I had grown used to thinking of Michael as someone who didn’t have feelings. But I had glimpsed his desolation on the day my mother died when he locked himself in his room and sobbed so loudly the horrible sound echoed through the barren house. Several days later, when Robbie was murdered, Michael screamed at our father and called him a fucking coward. I never knew why. Michael was basically checked out after that. He left with only a month remaining of high school. He also left me alone to deal with Nick Bransky’s trial and the shunning of our family.