“Bess! Wait!” Camper yelled after me. “Hold up!”
She caught up with me and bundled me tightly in her arms, where I cried for what felt like hours, not caring who saw me. She rocked me gently from side to side, her voice low as she said, “I’m sorry, Bess. I never really understood how bad you were. I let you down as a friend. You’re so beautiful and perfect, you didn’t deserve that.” Pressing her cheek against my hair, she sighed as she rubbed one hand in soothing circles on my back, trying to calm me down.
“I need to get out of here,” I said, and my heart sank as I realized that Lane didn’t come after me. Hiccupping, I pointed at the parking lot across the street. “That’s my car.”
“Let me come with you,” Camper said as we crossed the street, her tone brooking no argument.
“I live ninety minutes away near Ligonier, that’s crazy,” I said, but by that time Camper was already standing at my car door, ignoring Brooks’s excited barking as she held her hand out for the keys.
Lane
“How could you just stand there like that?” I yelled at Jake. “You’re an even bigger asshole than I thought!” Furious, I hit him in the chest, but since he was as fit as I was, he absorbed it with barely a flinch.
I was no longer the well-dressed, well-educated, well-mannered brother. Unraveling by the second, my emotions were a ball of yarn undone, a bunch of string sitting in a big, twisted, mixed-up heap on the floor.
Fuck that; I was a bull pawing at the dirt, about to charge. Standing there in the middle of a civilized coffee shop, I was losing it like a little girl with a foul mouth.
“Jake! Fucking look at me,” I shouted as my hair flopped into my eyes. “You! You’ve got the nerve to say you didn’t judge her? I’ve never once asked you to do anything for me when it comes to women. You had to know this one—the one I sent you to check on in the middle of the wilderness—meant something to me. And you can’t say something that would help me? No, you fucking made it worse!”
“Lane, get a hold of yourself,” my brother said, putting his hands on my shoulders, trying to calm me.
I pushed his meaty hands out of the way with my own. Mine might have been smooth, unlike his rough ones, but they were the same size. A reminder that we were from the same DNA, so how could we be so very different?
“I will not get a hold of myself,” I hissed. “I’ve had a hold of myself for too damn long! Did you know that chick too? Did you know she knew Bess? Was this a fucking setup?”
“No! She looked at me kind of strange and asked if I had a brother, and I thought maybe you or I slept with her, but never this. Never.” He tried to get me to sit, trying to push me toward a seat.
Fuck him.
“Listen, Lane,” he said in a low voice. “You’re sounding crazy. And you’re letting her get away.” He pointed toward the front door.
“Don’t you fucking tell me I’m crazy. You and I both know what you owe me. Everything, Jake. Everything! So, give me a break and don’t tell me what to do or who is walking away. We were never meant to be, Bess and me. Let it fucking go!”
I didn’t have a chance to hear what my pain-in-the-ass brother said next because the manager came over and politely told us to take our disagreement elsewhere.
Since I was in a dense fog, Jake guided me out the back door to the alley that led to his gym. Unable to think straight, my brain was clouded with images of Bess—coming down the escalator in Florida, wading nude in my pool, and resting on her couch with her feet in my lap.
When my brain fog cleared a moment later, it occurred to me that I didn’t have a car, had no way to escape. I had nothing, not even my self-respect.
“Fuck!” I roared to no one, my voice bouncing off the brick walls, swallowing me up. I was pathetic, nothing but a shell of a man, broken beyond repair.
When they wheeled Bess out of Jake’s gym years ago, it was my chance for redemption, to do something selfless and good for someone who was truly in need, but I didn’t. I could have stayed and made sure she was okay, climbed on board the ambulance and sat next to her while they took her to the hospital, but I didn’t.
I added another fucking lie to a box full of them that were buried in my black heart. My body was a graveyard for dead lies, ones that couldn’t be resurrected and fixed. Like a fool, I’d thought I could slip my way into Bess’s life, leaving the transgressions of my past decaying in my soul, and act like we could have a fresh start at something spectacular. But we couldn’t because my life was shit.
I’d never been a violent person, but years of guilt and holding things in had built up inside me and were pushing on my pores to get out. It was an impossible situation—either let the demons out, or keep them captive inside my own living hell.
I wasn’t even sure which side was going to win.
“Fuck!” I yelled again in the alley as Jake kept a respectful amount of space between him and me. We hadn’t fought or wrestled since high school—and he might work out for a living—but he knew I packed a punch. I’d never fought anyone else in my life, leaving that to him. Jake had taken people out on the baseball diamond and at various fraternities scattered around campus, but not me. I was always the one with a perfect GPA and my emotions in check.
Well, not any-fucking-more, and I knew exactly where I was going to start. I might have lost any chance at redeeming myself from my sins of the past two decades, but in the last few hours, I’d changed into a darker version of myself. A deeply sordid Lane. The demons were rising, and I couldn’t stop them. Not anymore.
I had succumbed to the evil I’d tried so hard to keep at bay. Finally free, it rushed through my body, spilling onto the concrete wherever I stepped. It both preceded and followed me, my new fucking calling card.
“Get your car, Jake. Now.”
I think he nodded. While I waited, I paced the alley, stalking its length as I made my plans.
And then he pulled up in his black-on-black Hummer. Which was perfect, because I was prepared to steamroll an asshole or two.
“Hurry the fuck up!” I yelled at Jake. He was speeding up the curves of the mountain in the pitch black, but it wasn’t fast enough.
“Faster,” I shouted.
My fingers were working overtime on my phone, beating the thing to a pulp. With twenty percent battery left, I screamed, “Yes! Got you, motherfucker!” And then I punched an address into the GPS.
I might not be getting my girl back, but that didn’t mean anyone else could have her. Or my precious fucking diamonds.
Yes, I was a possessive prick. How the hell did I get to be so goddamn rich? I’d toppled over everyone else to get the accounts I deserved. I’d never been that way in my personal life, believing I didn’t deserve the riches of love and happiness. But I was going to make an exception, because neither did AJ Streets.
Doc had given that asshole’s name to my insurance company as a person of interest in the necklace’s disappearance. Earlier today, I had decided to stay out of it, only concerned with Bess and her health. But now, as nighttime fell dark and heavy, things were different.
With Bess gone, I was no longer chasing forgiveness. I wanted retribution.
I made a quick call to Doc, pretending to ask a question related to Bess, and a little chitchat was all it took for him to reveal Anthony Jon Streets’s full name to me. All I had to do was ask, “Hey, Doc, refresh my memory, who was it you told the insurance company was at Bess’s house today?” And he ran right down the list. I already knew everyone involved except for him.
The fucker who’d been inside Bess.
The man who wanted to lay claim to the woman I had fallen for.
The piece of shit who I was going to set straight.
The glow of the GPS and the annoying woman’s voice did little to calm my nerves as Jake drove without a word. His silence bought him freedom from my wrath. We were fucking identical twins, so he knew how to deal with me. We’d been through it all together—birth, the death of our parents, wet dreams a
nd puberty, college—we knew all of each other’s hot buttons. And since Jake knew when to shut the hell up, he didn’t disappoint as he drove me to my destruction.
As we barreled up a gravel road to nowhere, a huge house came into sight. So the motherfucker apparently had money, which let him buy a new life. But that wasn’t going to help him now.
Jumping out of the passenger side while Jake rolled to a stop in front of a three-car garage, I didn’t wait for him to shift into park. I ran up the set of stairs to the impressive wraparound deck and threw open the screen door, then pounded my fist against the front door.
“Open up,” I yelled.
The door flung open, banging backward into the wall with a thud.
“Who the fuck are you?” he growled.
I was fit, but AJ Streets was big. The guy screamed blue-collar tough in flannel with his oversized muscles flexing through the thick fabric.
Oh, fuck it. I can hold my own. And I had Jake.
“That doesn’t matter,” I bit out with my hands balled into fists at my sides. “I’m here for the necklace we all know you took from Bess. And while I’m here, I’ll warn you—stay the fuck away from her. You don’t deserve to be in the same goddamn country as her.”
We were in a standoff. I was on one side of the threshold, him on the other. Neither of us gave an inch, both of us with our chests puffed out, staking a silent claim.
He let out a snort. “Oh, I should’ve known you were that guy. The rich fucking prick, the asshole who thought he’d swoop in with his money and expensive sweaters and take my girl,” he said, a little spittle running out of his mouth. The dude reeked of nicotine and booze.
He grabbed a handful of his own shirt and slurred, “This is what real men wear. Flannel. Not cashmere, you fucking pussy.”
I grabbed his neck and pushed him back into the wall behind him, entering the hallway of his house. It was fucking freezing in there; all the windows were open, the cross breeze running the length of the house, howling.
Leaning into his face, I spit out, “I don’t need to know what to wear, buddy. I don’t need any lessons from you unless you want to tell me how to break a young girl’s soul, you lying sack of shit.”
I only broke hearts.
He pushed me off him and I went flying into a table. From the corner of my eye, I saw Jake step into the foyer, ready to jump in at any moment. I righted myself and motioned for my brother to hold back. I didn’t need him to wade in and rescue me; this son of a bitch was all mine.
Rolling my shoulders, I stalked forward. “Well, I know who the fuck you are—Bess’s so-called sponsor who seduced her while you pretended you were being her goddamn support. Fuck you, you lousy drunk bastard.”
I had a good hold of his flannel shirt this time and I whipped him into the wall. A trickle of sweat slid down the center of my back as adrenaline surged through me. “So you go over there and fucking torment her some more until she passes out, then you fucking run away . . . you coward!”
Lifting my knee, I caught him off guard in the belly. The balls would have been too obvious, although I wanted to cut those fuckers off.
AJ bent over to catch his breath and gagged. Smelling the contents of his stomach as they came back up, I quickly sidestepped out of the way before he emptied a gallon of cheap liquor on his floor.
“Asshole,” I muttered as I kicked him all the way down to the floor.
And then the sorry excuse for a man started crying like a baby. “Shit, I’m a mess, man. Don’t you see that? Been clean for coming on a decade, but your girl messed with my head. I thought she wanted me, cared for me. Maybe she did, but then you stepped in with all your fancy-ass shit, and now I’m all alone with a bottle of Jim Beam.” He rolled over to his side, allowing me to stare at his back.
Running a hand through my sweat-soaked hair, I caught my breath. God, I’d never been a violent person, yet I wanted to kill this guy. If he hadn’t gotten sick, I probably would have kept going.
As Jake finally came forward to intervene, it occurred to me that this was my retribution for a lifetime of bottling up secrets. Pure, unadulterated rage, and I was willing to wield it on anyone who crossed my path. Even a sad excuse for a man who couldn’t resist the bottle, who needed help—not to be slapped down.
But I wasn’t the nice guy anymore. Putting my foot on his shoulder, my designer boots probing him to move, I gave one last order. “Where’s my necklace?”
“Man, she doesn’t even like that kind of shit,” he whined. “I could afford to buy her that, but she would have rejected it, but from you—it’s all special. Fucking whore.”
That got him another swift kick, this time to the thigh. He rolled into the fetal position, and Jake crouched down by his ear.
“Listen, asswipe, I’ve had to haul ass twice today to this desolate excuse of a place because of you. I would suggest that you tell me where the jewelry is, then you can text someone to come and help you dry out.”
“Or,” I added, “I can hang you over the deck and let you do it the easy way. Cold turkey.”
Then Jake took the guy’s arm and pushed on some pressure point until AJ was screaming bloody murder.
“In the freezer! You fucks,” he yelled.
Jake dropped his arm and kicked him in the leg again before trailing behind me to get my shit.
“Her cunt wanted me first! Sweet little thing practically begged for it, clamping down on my cock—you hear that, you sorry sack of rich shit?” he shouted, slurring his words and moaning as he rolled on the floor in pain.
We didn’t bother to shut the door on the sorry excuse for a man when we left. I hoped he fucking froze to death.
Jake revved the engine before he spoke, staring at the necklace clutched in my hand. “Holy shit, that Bess must mean a whole lot to you. Look at that sucker—it’s worth more than my gym.”
I slammed my door shut, then snarled at him as I slapped my other palm against the dash. “It doesn’t matter anymore, let’s go.”
As we barreled down the driveway, an old piece-of-shit Buick passed us coming up the hill. The driver—a middle-aged woman—slowed a little, and I swore I knew that face.
Fuck, I needed some sleep.
Bess
Two weeks later
It had been two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred thirty-six hours since I last saw Lane. Over twenty thousand minutes since any notion of ever having true love was shattered into dust. Like the hail now falling on the porch, that was the way my tears fell for the first three days after I fled from Pittsburgh.
Camper had driven me back, and I’d wanted her to leave. I’d been in no shape for any kind of reunion with my only friend from college. Not her, the one I had to shut out when I went to rehab at Rambling Brook. She was the one I was with when I used to pop Molly and smoke Mary and down Jack—all my oldest, closest friends. In the old days, we’d giggle and gossip and party some more, and that bad influence was the last thing I’d needed as I dried out in rehab.
Which made me think she was once again the last thing I needed as I fought my demons along with my pain. But Camper had stayed in the mountains with me for three days, lying in bed with me, wiping my tears, and making me tea. She’d been a huge help, and I wished she was still with me now as I sat on my couch over a week later, not knowing what to do with myself.
My hands shook, chills running up and down my spine as the memory of Lane standing in the coffee shop played on a continuous loop in my mind. I’d had the same conversation with Camper over and over those three days she was here. The words still reverberated in my head.
She and I had been cuddled on my bed. My head was tucked in her arm and she was stroking my back just like we did sometimes while watching a movie back in college. At twenty years old, I had no idea how much my body and heart craved that kind of touchy-feely attention. Now I knew why I’d loved Camper back then. Not because we partied together, but because she was the only person who’d ever given me any affection.
Anyway, we’d been snuggling and I’d repeat the same word I’d spoken for two days straight. “Why didn’t he just tell me? Why the secret? Why? I told him I was an addict, and he could have said it then. I told him I went to Pitt, and he could have mentioned it then. Why didn’t he? Why?”
My throat was raw from the word that seemed to be stuck on repeat, falling from my lips over and over again.
“I don’t know the answer to that, Bess,” she said as she stroked my hair. “He didn’t. I’m not an innocent bystander either. I ran off that night, leaving him to deal with you when he started asking questions. I was afraid I’d get busted too.”
Waving my hand in front of my face, I said, “Forget that. We were stupid, young, naive, and dumb, especially me. I’m glad you didn’t get busted for anything. You seem to be fine, and in a good place now. Me, I was an addict through and through. I needed a clean break.”
More tears came, flowing freely down my face as I returned to the subject of Lane. “But why didn’t he tell me? I mean, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I’ve been so dead set on leaving that time in my past, but he didn’t know that. There’s something else, some other reason why.” I paused for a moment, thinking back to all the times he became different, moody somehow in a way I didn’t understand. “The cloudiness in his eyes, the hard clamp I’ve seen him hold on his jaw, other little things I’ve noticed. That’s why, Camper.”
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