by A. J. Pryor
Curtains, the color of a pearl billow to the floor, and the walls are painted the color of a cloudless sky. Quiet and empty, the room is meticulous, the furniture untouched.
He’s not here yet.
Taking a deep, settling breath, I walk into the lavish suite, remove my coat, and lay it across the back of a pale blue linen chair, the stubbles on the fabric grazing the backs of my fingers. I smooth down my navy pencil skirt, adjust my silk blouse.
A noise to my right draws my attention. A door to one of the bedrooms begins to open.
My breath catches.
His broad frame fills the doorway, his stance emphasizing the power of his thighs, the narrowness of his hips. A delicious amount of scruff covers his chiseled jaw, and his hair is sticking up on all ends making him look like that dirty kind of sexy. The type you want for one night, like a gust of wind that shakes your bones and rattles your teeth, leaving you breathless and shaken.
He stills when he spots me and pockets his strong, masculine hands, his face a mask of unshed emotion. The muscular outline of his shoulders strains against a crisp, white button-down and my heart pounds.
Nervously, I lick my dry lips. Swallow hard. Confidence and grace in a man that size is a rare find. An exhibit like no other.
The beginning of a smile tips the corners of his mouth, as his eyes meet mine. He runs a hand through his thick chocolate-brown hair, a few strands falling into his eyes.
“Hannah.” My name escapes his lips in relief. His voice is deep and husky.
I crumble. “Derek, I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you everything.” The words flee my lips as quickly as the tears flow down my cheeks. I detail the past week as one long run-on sentence, my sobs making it almost impossible for him to understand my words.
“When? ” He’s too calm, too controlled, like he’s using all his power to keep his anger at bay.
I look to the floor and nod. “I had a plan.”
He walks around me, keeping his distance, like he doesn’t trust himself to be that close to me. “What was your plan, Hannah?”
I’m standing in the middle of the room, tears streaming down my face, my legs weak, my stomach in knots, my voice barely above a whisper. “To tell you everything, even if it hurt, even if you hated me after. I was going to come clean and hope you’d stay quiet until Tom Cage freed my dad. But then my notes were stolen and I panicked. I froze unable to make the right decision, any decision at all.”
“How long have you known my life was a lie?”
Ashamed and broken, I detail the past week. “I wanted to find out who killed Lily before I told you about Madeline. I didn’t want to break your heart in bits and pieces. I thought if you knew everything at once, it would be easier.”
He stops pacing and takes a deep breath. “I would never hate you.”
“What?”
“I’m so mad at you right now, Hannah. Fuming. But I could never hate you.”
I nod. “Can you forgive me?”
He stares at me, his expression pained. “I honestly don’t know.”
I close my eyes, tears escaping through the tight crease and nod. I knew it would come to this. How can I even ask for his forgiveness when I don’t forgive myself?
“But I’ll try. I promise, I’ll try.”
I open my eyes, and he’s standing in front of me, his face stern, but his eyes compassionate. He tucks a stray curl behind my ear and I sniffle.
“I’m sorry.”
He nods. “If I ask you to tell me everything, will you? Do you think you can tell me and not leave anything out?”
A misplaced feeling of happiness jolts my heart. The idea that he wants me to talk, that he wants to hear what I have to say gives me hope. I nod to the couch and we both take a seat, close but not touching. I tell him everything, every detail, every incident. I detail his mother. Nothing prepared me for the pain of watching him flinch away from the information, his eyes shut, and his face lined with pain. I wish it were different, I wish I had a different story to tell. As I tell him about Travis McCoy and how he’s been stalking me, the photos, the letter on my car, the incident at the coffee shop and the day Tom Cage snuck into my backseat, his demeanor shifts. The pain is replaced with fury.
“All this time, Travis was following you, my family was torturing you, and you kept it to yourself?”
“I wanted to be the one to save you. I wanted to protect you.”
“Hannah,” his voice is laced with raw emotion, his eyes filled with moisture. He stands and tugs at his hair. “It’s my job to protect you. Not the other way around.”
“I’m sorry,” I finally say, standing to meet him.
He gazes down at me, like he wants to touch me, but is afraid I’ll burn him.
I take his hand and lead him back to the couch, sitting closer, our legs side by side. He doesn’t let go of my hand, his thumb sweeping across the back of my knuckles.
We sit silently for a long time. I’d do anything to have his arms around me, but the comforting rhythm of his thumb is all I’m going to get and since I don’t deserve even that, I’ll take it.
“I’m going to find him,” Derek says, releasing his grip and standing.
“Reggie?” I ask. “Where?”
“We have a summer house. It was my mom’s favorite place to vacation. Secluded and in the woods, right on the lake but with no neighbors for miles. I took Reggie there once. It was after Lily died. He loved it there. Told me he never wanted to leave. Said if he were Tom Cage’s son, that’s where he’d spend all his free time. Now that he is officially Tom Cage’s son, I can imagine that’s where he’d go.”
“He knew you were brothers.”
“What?”
“He’s always known Tom Cage was his father.”
His jaw tenses, his fists tighten. “Don’t leave this room.”
I jump off the couch and stop him, resting my hands on his broad shoulders. He flinches my hand away.
Hurt I back off. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to the cabin. I’m going to confront him.”
“Derek, don’t. Call the police, but don’t handle this on your own.”
“Tom Cage bought off everyone in this town years ago, Hannah. I don’t trust the police.”
“Please don’t go. Please.”
He stands frozen, watching me beg him to stay, to stay safe here in this room. In one step, he’s before me, his hands on my face, his lips pressed to mine. It’s not a long kiss, but it’s filled with passion, a message that there’s still something here. A promise. He pulls back, his hands still cupping my cheeks.
“Don’t leave this room.”
Without another word, he vanishes through the door.
“Dad, where are you?” My father answers on the first ring, like he was expecting this call, and it makes me press on the accelerator. I can’t get Hannah’s devastated face out of my mind. The crying, The turmoil. I’ll fucking kill my dad for putting her through this.
“At the cabin. I was looking for Reggie.”
“He’s not there?”
“No.”
“Don’t leave. I’m coming to you.”
It takes me two hours in the dead of night to reach the summer home that holds some of the best and worst memories of my life. After my mother disappeared, the cabin felt like a prison sentence. But we still went every July and stayed for over a month. My father refused to give up that tradition. I haven’t been in years, but I could drive there blindfolded if I had to.
A single light shines in the front room. I turn off the ignition and step into the quiet of the night, the sound of crickets and wilderness confronting me. The front door swings open, and my dad stands in the threshold.
“Come in.”
As I enter the house, memories I’d rather forget ambush me. I close the door and force myself to keep walking. I take a seat on the floral sofa that hasn’t changed in years.
“Is it true? Am I a byproduct of two of th
e most selfish and deceitful people in the world?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a bastard!” I stand. Pace the room, my hatred for this man boiling my blood. “It’s my life, and yet you so easily told Hannah what you’ve been hiding from me for years.”
“Derek.”
“Don’t! I’ve always wanted to believe my family held some semblance of normalcy. That there was a slice of sanity somewhere . . . anywhere, but there’s none.”
“I’ve spent my life trying to protect you from Reggie, but the minute the two of you met, it was as though the blood you shared fused. I couldn’t keep you away from each other. The best I could do was shield you from the truth.”
“Why didn’t you send him to another school? Why let him near me?”
He hangs his head. “His mother demanded it, and your mother was having a nervous breakdown. It was a weak moment on my part.”
“Weak? More like cowardly.” I stand still, pinning him with my eyes, needing to see his reaction to my next statement. “Did you know he killed Lily?”
Looking to the floor, he rises and walks to the fireplace, rests his arms on the mantel. “No. But I’d failed him as a father and I was failing you. I knew one of you was guilty of her death, and I had no interest in finding out which of you it was. I wasn’t willing to lose either of you.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Where, Dad?”
“I don’t know.”
I swipe my arm across the coffee table, scattering books and coasters to the floor. “My entire life has been a lie! For once tell me the fucking truth!” I pace the living room, fisting my hair, seeing red and rage and wanting to smash every piece of shit in this house. “Why are you hiding him?”
“Because he’s my son.”
“As of this moment, he’s your only one. Just like Mom, you can consider me dead.”
I stomp to the front door and swing it open, coming face to face with Reggie. Like a punch to the gut, I stumble backward.
“What’s up, bro? Having a family reunion and forgot to invite me?”
“You son of a bitch.” I cock my arm back and throw a fist at his face. He ducks, and I sail through the front door, landing in the hard, cold dirt.
“Got to be faster than that if you want a piece of me, brother. I’ve been studying you for years. I know all your moves.”
I stand and brush the dirt off my clothes. This fucker has been setting me up my entire life. Every brush with the law, every fight, every nickname and media story . . . it’s all been him. It’s always been him. Starting with the night Lily was killed. “Why?” I ask.
My dad appears behind Reggie, his face ashen, his eyes concerned.
“You were always such a stuck-up prick. Getting everything you ever wanted. Living like a prince in your mansion while my mom and I lived in the ghetto. We shared the same blood, and you thought you were so much better than me. I needed to show you what real life was like.”
He steps off the front porch and begins to slowly circle me, sidestepping each foot one by one, his eyes tracking me like I’m his prey.
“Why did you have to kill her?”
“Because she figured out who I was.”
I watch my father and see his shoulders slump and his eyes close in defeat. “Did you order him to kill her, Dad?”
Reggie coughs out a laugh, and I shift my attention back to him. “You think that coward would be man enough to order a hit? You don’t know your family, do you? He wasn’t man enough to face her, so I took care of it. Spent months writing her letters she was too afraid to show you. It was brilliant, until your name freed you. That damn last name. I’d wanted to be a real Cage my entire life, not be paid to stay quiet about who I really was. Once again that name screwed me.”
He stops walking and cocks his head. “You know, if I remember correctly, she begged me to spare her. Promised she wouldn’t tell anyone we were brothers. Funny, isn’t it? You fall in love with the same type of woman. They know all your secrets, and both jumped at the opportunity to save themselves while keeping you in the dark. You must be hard to love, big brother.”
A primal roar leaves my lungs. I charge him. My chest connects to his, and we both fall to the ground. He wraps me in a bear hug and rolls with me. I can’t free my arms to fight him off, so I go with the motion until we hit the bumper of my truck. Bad luck has me pinned beneath him.
He sits up, and before I can move, he has a fist headed straight for my face. My mouth fills with blood on impact. But my arms are finally free. I use all my strength to double punch him in the chest. He may be evil, but I’ve been training my entire life for this moment. There’s no way he can beat me in a street fight.
He falls to the side. I push him off, gaining the upper hand and throw a punch to his face then his abdomen. Lily’s sweet smile plays through my mind, and revenge springs to life in my fists.
I hear screaming and the loud piercing sounds of a siren, but nothing matters except hurting this asshole as much as he hurt me.
I’m still yelling when someone pulls me off his limp form. My arms are still swinging, my body a mass of raging hate.
“Derek!”
I hear her voice. It’s the only thing I hear, but I can’t look away from Reggie—bloody, lifeless, broken on the dirt ground before me.
“Derek!” She steps into my line of vision, and like the angel she is, she cups my face in her delicate hands. Unafraid, her eyes plead for me to see her.
Gasping for breath, the fight vanishes. I drop my head in defeat, close my eyes in shame.
I’m a broken man.
I let the rage win, and it’s going to cost me my life.
I’m going to prison for murder.
Derek is eerily silent as I drive him home from the precinct. He just gave his sworn testimony while his father signed a statement detailing the events of his life, down to the gruesome beating of his youngest son, Reggie Maddox.
“Pull over, Hannah.”
Startled, I look to the seat beside me where Derek is as pale as I’ve ever seen him.
“Seriously, pull over.”
I swerve to the side of the empty street and put the car in park. He opens his door and swings his legs out just in time to vomit in the gutter. I place a settling hand on his back. He vomits again, his head bowed, his body shaking.
“Derek.” I hold back a sob. “Derek, it’s going to be okay. I promise. It’s going to be okay.”
He shakes his head and re-enters the car.
“I almost killed him, Hannah.”
“I know.”
“If you hadn’t shown up, I would have killed him. My dad, he would have let me. He wasn’t planning to stop it.”
I rest my head back on the seat and place my hand on his knee. “It doesn’t make you a bad person, Derek. It only makes you human.”
He covers my hand with his and closes the door. “I’ve been the suspect in a murder case since I was seventeen years old. My entire adult life I’ve questioned myself, wondered if I had it in me to kill the way people speculated. Tonight I proved them all right.” He squeezes my fingers. “Does that frighten you?”
“No.” If it were me, I would have done the same thing.
“Well, it scares the shit out of me.”
I unbuckle my seatbelt and climb into his lap. He grips my hips. “What are you doing, Hannah?”
“This is how unafraid of you I am.” I cup his face in my palms. “I love you. And nothing is going to change that. If you hadn’t just left the contents of your stomach on the street, I’d kiss you.”
He smiles, and I see the faint shadow of him coming back to me. “I love you, and I’m not afraid of you.”
“I found out I’m created from the two worst humans on the planet, and I have a psychopath for a brother.”
“But you have me as a girlfriend. I’d say I even them out.” I inhale sharply. Am I still his girlfriend? After everything, does he still want me?
His expression softens. “Why do you love me, Hannah?”
“Because of the way you love me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I run my thumbs along the rough stubble of his jaw. “You opened your heart to me, Cage. You let me inside. I love you because you love me more than you love yourself, and it shows in everything you do. Even if you can’t forgive me for keeping things from you. You will always own my heart.”
“I forgave you the minute you stepped into that hotel room, Hannah. I don’t want to live a life without you in it. I’m so grateful for you.”
He wraps his hand around the back of my head, guiding my face to rest on his chest. He holds me, his fingers brushing through my hair, his lips pressed against my temple. “Thank you, Hannah. For everything.”
There is no answer. I’m here for this man, no matter what he needs. I delivered the answers he was looking for, breaking down the walls of his prison, and finally freeing him.
The month after I landed Reggie in the hospital with multiple broken bones and contusions, he was arrested for the murder of Lily Harold. His prints matched the one found on the bloodied rock. I was finally exonerated. Lily’s parents have not come forward or made a public appearance since the new events in the death of their daughter, but with Hannah’s help, I am finally learning to let go and move forward with my life. My father has canceled his bid for the presidency in the wake of the media fallout. I haven’t spoken to him since the night at the cabin, and I won’t ever speak to him again. My mother reached out to me last week and requested a meeting. I was hesitant, but Hannah encouraged me to accept her offer. If I want to put everything in the past, it’s the last loose end that needs tying.
Madeline’s condo is furnished well. Pictures line the walls, the important events of my life scattered everywhere.
“Here, this should warm you up.” Madeline hands me a mug of coffee, and I’m surprised to see my face on the side of the white ceramic.
“You didn’t miss anything. You were always there.”
“Not always,” she says, “but I tried.”
“Dad was a crappy father. You left me alone with a heartless fool.” I know in his strange way, he loved me. But it wasn’t enough. You can’t love someone if you’re saturating their life with so many lies.