Her children her priority.
Her life.
Exactly what they were supposed to be.
Emotion surged my throat when the images popped onto the screen, the bright light glaring into my darkened apartment. Thomas had taken picture after picture of his sisters. Mallory being crazy and funny and the brightest thing on the Earth, and Sophie wrecking all that mayhem, the child nothing but a handful that I would do anything to hold.
There were some that Thomas had taken of himself. The boy stoic and proud and scared and too mature for his age.
My chest tightened.
Everything ached.
Then there was Grace. Always there. Always present. Always loving.
God, how could I have been so selfish to think I could fit into their world? That’s what I’d fucking done, wasn’t it? Started to imagine what it might be like to belong.
Really belong.
When the only thing I’d ever truly belonged to was selfishness and greed.
I clicked into a video.
Cringed a bit when I realized it was taken at the Dearborne estate. Still, I couldn’t stop watching it, their little voices breaking into the unbearable silence of my condo.
“Thomas, Thomas, are you recording me? I’m going to sing you your favorite song!”
Thomas scoffed. “Pssh . . . all you’re gonna do is ruin it.”
“Nuh-uh! I’m the best singer in the world and I’m gonna go to New York and be an actress or maybe to Hollywood so I can be in movies and then you’re gonna be sad you didn’t believe my dreams when I’m famous and you want to be my best friend. And I’m going to write all my own songs because I’m a writer and I’ll probably write all the movies, too. Maybe you can record them since you take such good pictures. Just don’t make me mad,” she warned with some of that sass.
A soft smile pulled at my mouth, while my shredded heart ached.
Mal Pal.
Pain sheared through the middle of me. And I just watched. Unable to stop.
“Sophie dance!” Sophie was bouncing around Mallory, always wanting to be in the middle of it.
Mallory started singing.
New Kids on the Block.
Good God, I was going to have to have a talk with Grace about that shit.
With the thought, a hot blade pierced my chest.
How the fuck had it gotten to the point that Grace no longer had the influence? That her right was taken away?
“Tom Tom,, dance, Tom Tom, dance!” Sophie chanted.
Thomas was angling his camera to get a close-up, her big blue eyes so excited and trusting.
The screen bounced around, and I could tell Thomas was setting up his tablet to record where he balanced it upright on a table. Then all three of them were in the middle of the room, dancing and singing and laughing.
My breath hitched.
It was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen.
Only thing wrong with it was the location and the fact Grace wasn’t there.
A female voice called, “Lunch,” and the three of them took off. Thomas had completely forgotten about his tablet, leaving it recording as they scrambled off to eat.
I started to click out of that video so I could move onto another one when a male’s voice broke through the speaker, so distinct and recognizable my blood went cold.
“I told you she was going to be a problem.”
Lawrence Bennet.
I shot forward on the couch, clutching the tablet in my hand, staring at the screen that only captured a stilled picture of a living room. But it was the voices caught from somewhere off to the side that had tension racing.
Gripping and clutching.
“And I told you she was my problem and not to worry about it,” another voice hissed. One I wouldn’t recognize if it weren’t for the two foul interactions I’d had with him a little over a week ago.
Reed Dearborne.
“There’s a point where you no longer get to make that call. You put everything at risk, and I’m going to step in. I think you should know me well enough by now.”
Finally, finally, both of them stepped into the frame. Reed glanced around, his voice held low and hostility vibrating from his demeanor.
“You think you’re going to come into my house and start making demands? Do you know who I am?” Reed demanded.
Asshole was clearly offended Lawrence had the audacity to question him.
Lawrence lifted his chin like the cocky old bastard that he was. “I think the better question is, have you forgotten who I am? I built this company. This town. You. I own everything. So, when there’s a problem? It’s my job to fix it. Including when your pretty little wife goes rogue.”
My blood that had run cold froze over.
Reed flew into his face, like the fucker cared. “Stay away from her. If she’s an issue, then I will be the one to handle it.”
“She’s already an issue. The fact that she isn’t here and you can’t control her is proof enough.”
“And what do you think the media is going to say if she goes missing? Shows up floating in the river? All eyes are going to be on me. No one gives a fuck if one of the junkie whores goes missing. But a mother of three who just so happens to be my ex-wife? You don’t think that’s going to look suspicious or raise some questions? You know we don’t need that right now.”
Panic pounded through my veins. Rage jumped in to take a ride, too.
Lawrence straightened his tie. “Car accidents happen every day.”
“That’s the mother of my children you’re talking about.”
“Who is a liability. She will do anything to get custody of her children, including hire my fucking attorney. She’ll throw you under the bus faster than you can say go. Last chance, Reed. Get her back here by the end of the month or I will take matters into my own hands.”
Vomit climbed my throat when I realized it was the last day of the month.
Thanksgiving gone without me even realizing it.
“Just like I had to do with Dear Industries,” Lawrence continued.
Dear Industries.
My mind started to spin. I’d heard that company name before.
My chest tightened, and dread sank to the pit of my stomach when I realized from where.
It was the last documents I’d signed off on.
Documents that made it look like Lawrence had legitimately taken over a business when it’d amounted to little more than a heist.
Documents that had come from a fake man’s name with a fake social security number from a fake bank account with a huge transaction of cash that I’d filtered into some of his more legitimate companies.
One I’d forged as legit.
“My accountant went through those numbers a hundred times,” Reed growled. “The numbers are good. Nothing is ever going to come out exact. A few dollars aren’t going to kill anyone.”
“I wouldn’t call five hundred thousand dollars a few dollars. And I’m pretty sure that it would.” The implication rode on the air, so palpable between the two of them I could feel it from where I sat.
“I won’t be stolen from. I don’t give a fuck who you are. Not to mention, you overdrew on Williamstown by two million. You had a deadline. Now I will take back what is mine.”
Williamstown.
My head spun.
That was the name of the rundown apartment complex where my mother and I had lived when I’d met Bennet. When he’d taken me in and given me a job and treated me like a son, when really, he had been suckering me into his shady business that I’d been too naïve to see at the time.
Petty theft and sifting through people’s garbage cans hardly amounted to my being shrewd enough to grasp the full extent of the debased wickedness and corruption and greed.
Evil.
Bennet had owned that building.
God.
What a fool I’d been.
I’d buried my head in the sand and stupidly believed that Lawrence had stumbled upon me outside
that complex.
Noticing that I was half starved and wholly desperate.
I’d thought him a powerful businessman who would own half of the city.
Realization slammed me.
What the fucker had been doing was running a prostitution ring.
One my mother had gotten involved in.
Sickness twisted my guts into a thousand knots.
Was that why we’d gone there in the first place? Was that why she’d packed us up and promised me we were starting a new life when, in reality, she was driving right to her demise?
Dead six months later.
Because of me.
Forever and ever. Her voice spun through my mind.
You left me, mine whispered back.
Did I really think I was any better?
I’d dived right into the middle of it, sucked under, never let up for air until it was the only thing I breathed.
I’d become the devil. Just like these two.
No fucking better.
My pen and my voice had been my weapon.
I was nothing but a flimsy piece of paper that amounted to a cover for the disgusting empire Lawrence had built.
“I needed that money for the campaign.” Reed’s voice was twisted in his own kind of hatred. “You know the deal. I get the guns here and you get me the money.”
My mind immediately flashed to the picture Grace had been able to smuggle out of Reed’s house.
Down on the dock.
The Dearborne money came from imports and exports. The reason his great grandfather had settled in Charleston to begin with.
It all crashed over me.
How deep this went. What was happening.
I shot to my feet while the video was still playing, a clatter of footsteps echoing across the floor as Mallory ran into the room. “Daddy, can we go to the movies?”
Both men jerked away from the other. Reed’s expression showed nothing but annoyance. “I’m working, Mallory. Go back in the kitchen.”
“But, Dad—”
“Go!”
Go.
Yeah, fucker, you could count on it. Because I was already running out the door.
Forty-One
Ian
My tires screeched as I flew out of the parking garage. Adrenaline surged, seeping into my muscles that flexed and bowed, at the ready for a fucking fight.
My sight clouded with rage, and my heart thundered with fury. I pushed the phone button on the steering wheel and instructed it to call Mack.
He answered on the third ring, voice groggy from sleep. “Ian, man, what’s going on?”
“Heading to Bennet’s office. Meet me there. Pretty sure that’s where I’m going to find the proof that he and Reed have been working together. Wasn’t some fluke that those pictures of me were snagged at that club. Lawrence and Reed are involved in some major shady shit.”
“Pull over. I’ll meet you.”
“Not going to happen. I’m going. Bring backup. And get a cruiser to Grace’s house. She isn’t safe.”
“Shit.” I could almost see him scrubbing a big palm over his face to break up the sleep. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. I just need the papers to prove it.”
“Give me five, man. Then I’m out the door and on my way to you. I don’t want you to do anything that will get you into trouble.”
Cold laughter rippled out. “Think it’s too late for that, my friend. Just get down there. Be prepared to do your job, no matter what.”
Worry bled through the line, Mack’s hesitation thick. “What are you saying, Ian?”
“I’ll see you in fifteen.”
I ended the call and flew down the street. Ten minutes later, I screeched to a stop at the curb in front of Bennet’s office. Didn’t even try to hide my car.
This wasn’t about going covert.
This was going all in.
The last thing I had to give.
Heart hammering wildly, I grabbed my phone and tapped out a text.
Me: An officer is on their way to your house. Stay put, don’t let anyone inside until they’re there. You’re not safe.
Even though it was the middle of the night, her response was almost instant. Like she’d been lying awake like me, tossing in torment.
Grace: What’s happening? Are you okay? Are the kids okay?
Me: It’s all going to be okay. I promise you. But I need you to be extra careful right now.
I bit my lip, knowing I shouldn’t do it, but I was unable to stop myself. Not with what was getting ready to go down. My fingers flew across the screen.
Me: If I could be a better man, I’d be him for you. If I could live a better life, I’d live it for you. I’m sorry for bringing this burden on your family. They are beautiful, Grace. The most amazing people I’ve ever had the honor of knowing in all of my pathetic life. Keep writing your story. Hold them close. Love them hard. That’s the way I’m going to forever love you. Goodbye, Angel Girl.
I pushed send, threw open the door of my car, and slipped out.
Cold blasted across the fire that burned my skin and that adrenaline sloshed as I strode toward the building.
Didn’t give two fucks when I grabbed one of the decorative rocks and smashed in the pane of glass to the side of the door. The sound of it crashing to the ground echoed through the night.
An alarm started to blare.
So loud.
So loud.
It only amplified the determination that lined my heart like a coat of steel. The willingness to do absolutely anything to save that family.
Guessed I hadn’t really understood what that meant until tonight.
What it was really going to cost.
Everything. Everything.
I didn’t care.
I stepped through the broken window in the brick wall, glass crunching under my feet, ducking down beneath the dangling shards that still hung from the upper frame.
I blew right by the front office desk and went for Bennet’s office, which was locked up tight for the night. I picked up my foot and kicked it in. It flew open, wood banging against the interior wall.
I strode in like I owned the place, going right for his computer and punching in the same password as I had the last time I was there.
Only, this time, I knew exactly what I was looking for.
The alarm was deafening where it blared in the small room, stampeding my heart even faster.
Like every scream urged me to hurry.
I clicked open the file that was encrypted and moved through about fifteen options for passwords before I found the one that was right—a combination of Bennet’s phone number he’d had when I’d met him and his mother’s birthdate.
The file popped open.
Vomit pooled and sloshed.
Had to give the asshole credit. His blackmail skills were on point.
There was a copy of the same picture Grace had managed to smuggle out originally.
Reed down on the docks with the armed guards.
Only there was another one that had clearly been taken at the same time, Lawrence caught whispering with someone off to the side as they inspected the opened crates that had been brought up from the bowels of Reed’s ship.
I continued to click through the photos kept in the hidden folder.
There were a ton of Reed with prostitutes climbing all over him, the man caught in the act of Bennet’s depravity, clearly spanning years. I raced to click through them, the images getting older and older until it came to one where Reed couldn’t have been much older than a teenager.
Clearly set up.
Hooks sunk into him just the same as Lawrence had done with me.
All of us corrupt.
Lawrence at the helm driving the debauchery.
Round and round.
I quickly flicked through the pictures of Reed.
My eyes squinted, studying the grainy photos.
Every single one of the women had a tattoo on her shoulder, a
broken circle with a number.
The realization slammed me.
These women were numbered.
Possessions.
Marked.
Disgust churned, and I struggled to see through the haze of repulsion.
The proof of what Lawrence had been involved in mixed with the horrors of my childhood ripped me open wide, old wounds bleeding, that hatred and shame of what my mother had had to do right there at the forefront.
I tried to stop them. But images flashed.
Pulsing from where I’d tried to keep them trapped in the recesses of my mind.
The tattoo my mother had always had since I could remember.
On her shoulder. The full circle with a Roman numeral one in the middle of it.
It was the same as what had been engraved on the bottom of the silver box. The one thing she’d had left of my father.
Nausea rolled, so violently my body recoiled, lurching with a sickness, bowing me in two.
Oh God.
Oh God.
I could barely see.
Could barely stand.
I sucked it down. I could deal with the implications of this shit later.
Grace needed me.
Those kids needed me.
I pushed print on a few of the pictures, before I quickly clicked into the Dear Industries folder and started printing every document in there.
My own personal glowing accolades.
Document after document.
Companies I’d falsified, helped Lawrence create, laundered money through.
I found three that I realized could be directly tied to Reed.
Alarms continued to blare.
My blood pounded in sync.
Harsh and hard.
I froze when I heard the cocking of a gun at the back of my head. I’d been so caught up on this suicide mission, clicking through as many documents to print them before someone erased them, that I hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t alone.
Sweat gathered at my nape. Cold and clammy. I swallowed hard.
“Having fun?” Bennet’s voice was a growl at my ear.
Hatred flooded out with the low roll of my laughter. “Best day of my life.”
All of Me: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 36