by K. I. Lynn
“Hey, Daddy? Yeah. Listen, don’t kill me, but I need a huge favor.” She walks away so we can’t hear the rest of the conversation.
Oh my God, I have no idea how I’m going to ever repay her.
She comes back about five minutes later and smiles at me. “My dad’s not happy having to step in about this. And he’s definitely not going to be willing to help Brayden out with his sentencing so I didn’t bother asking, but he said he should have you in there in a few minutes.”
I jump to my feet and throw my arms around her. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” A single tear leaks out of my eye.
She hugs me back even harder. “Anytime, girl. But after this, you and I are going to sit down and have a serious talk.”
I don’t have to ask what she means by that. It’s pretty obvious that they’ve all realized my drastic change when it comes to Brayden.
I’ll worry about that later. For right now, all I care about is getting in there.
The captain of the precinct exits his office and walks to the lady at the front desk. They speak in hushed tones and their eyes cut in our direction.
I’m pretty sure my eyes are pleading with them both.
The captain walks away and the woman turns to us fully. “Which one of you is Ms. Roth?”
I rush forward.
“Fifteen minutes max.” She motions for another officer to come lead me to the cells.
Throat tight, I nod and start walking toward the small swinging door that separates the back of the precinct from the waiting area.
“No personal items,” the lady says before I can cross through.
Jenna comes up to take my purse, phone, and Brayden’s phone.
My heart thunders against my ribs as I follow the officer past the admin area and out into another hall. It’s bare, stark, and obviously this leads to where the holding cells are.
We reach a heavy door with a key scanner. “Don’t get close to the cells. Absolutely no touching.” He swipes the key and I hear the door unlock. He pushes it open and steps aside so I can go through.
There’s only four cells, two on each side, facing each other down a wide hallway. It only takes two steps for me to see them both.
They’re sitting in their own separate cells, facing each other.
Both of them are still bloodied. There’s still caked blood on their faces. They haven’t been given any sort of medical attention.
They’re glaring at each other, and it’s obvious by the hatred in their eyes that those bars are the only thing stopping them from going back at it.
Brayden’s name leaves me on a whisper.
His head snaps in my direction and his swollen eyes widen as much as they possibly can.
They both say my name at the same time.
I’m only focused on one of them.
Brayden shoots to his feet.
I run to his cell, forgetting all about the instructions I was given to not get too close. My hands wrap around the bars.
His hands wrap around my own, squeezing them.
That’s all it takes for everything to come barreling out of me. I hear a sob break free, and my vision blurs as tears flood my eyes.
“Kira. Baby. No.” Brayden looks wrecked by my tears. “It’s okay, Kira. It’s okay.”
I shake my head, my voice breaking with each sob. “N-no. No it-it’s not. Th-this is all my fault.”
“Stop.” He leans down enough to get eye level with me. “This is not your fault.”
“He’s right, Kira,” Austin says behind me.
The rage leaks into Brayden’s eyes once more and he snaps his head back to scowl at Austin. “She’s not fucking talking to you, so leave her alone.”
“See? This is why I broke your face in. Because you don’t know when to step the fuck off.”
“Says the man who doesn’t know how to take no for an answer. And newsflash, you pathetic fuck, you’re the one with the gash on your forehead.”
“Stop!” I cry. “Both of you just stop already!”
They fall silent.
The door at the end of the hall opens. “No touching!”
Brayden glares at the officer like he wants to kill him, too.
Hastily, I step away from him before he ends up saying something to the officer that gets us into even more trouble.
His eyes snap to me, and the anguish of a million lifetimes shimmers in his emerald eyes.
My heart shatters and my self-control almost dies with it. But I have to stay away from him. No matter how much I just want to tear at those bars and wrap my arms around him, I can’t do anything that’s going to make his predicament worse.
There’s also something else I need to accomplish. Something that’s been a long time coming.
I don’t know what the future holds for Brayden and I, but it’s time I set Austin straight once and for all.
The officer gives us one last silent warning and the door closes behind him again.
“Kira, baby—”
I shake my head at Brayden and step backwards away from him.
His expression falls.
I know what he’s thinking. There’s no time to explain anything to him. I’m on a time limit and I can’t leave here without making some things clear.
As if Brayden calling me “baby” doesn’t go a long way toward clearing things up with Austin.
When I turn to Austin, his light blue eyes are as devastated as Brayden’s are.
He already knows. He knows what I’m about to tell him. His eyes plead with me, and I can almost hear his voice in my head.
Don’t do this. I love you. I’ll never give up on you.
But how? How did this man fall so deeply in love with me? I’m so stupid. I should’ve seen the signs. I was selfish and ignorant, and now I’m going to tear him apart because of it.
As more tears leak out of my eyes, his name leaves me on a whimper, “Austin.”
His hands tighten around the bars.
Behind me, Brayden groans with anguish.
I know he hates this. I’m hurting him too because I do care for Austin and it shows in the way I just said his name.
I keep destroying them both and no matter what I do it’ll always be like this. All I can do is try to set one of them free and hope that one day he’ll forgive me for my immature foolishness.
Crying, I open my mouth again—
“It’s him. You’re picking him,” Austin says through gritted teeth.
I start to nod, but I catch myself before doing so.
“You love him?”
Lips pressed together, I refuse to answer Austin’s question. Brayden is behind me. Even if I’ve admitted to myself that the emotion still exists within me, I’m not ready to divulge it to him.
And why should I? Regardless of what I feel for Brayden, I can never have him. There’s too much behind us. Between us. Too many bad notes, too many mistakes.
Not to mention the largest obstacle of all, and Austin is aware of that.
“How are you supposed to be with him when he’s your fucking stepbrother, Kira?”
Ding. Ding. Ding. I’m not. Brayden and me, we’re not meant to be. It can never happen, I know this.
Brayden doesn’t. Or he doesn’t care.
“What the fuck do you care? She’s making it clear she wants me and it’s none of your fucking business how we work things out.”
Austin ignores him, his eyes on fire as he stares at me. “Exactly how are you planning on working this out? Or are you going to just continue hiding?”
I flinch. Low blow, yeah, but I know he isn’t being malicious. It’s a valid point.
He narrows his eyes in Brayden’s direction. “What are you going to do? Hide her all the time?” Brayden starts talking but Austin focuses on me again and cuts him off. “I can give you so much more than he can, Kira, and we both know that.”
Austin never hurt me, never tore me apart. He’s also right about being able to openly be with me. His love is pure. Untaint
ed.
And I want no part of it.
If I’m going to decide on anyone’s love, I know whose I want. Stained, dark, sick, painful, and obsessive, and yet it’s the one I’d pick if I could.
Tears continue to silently leak down my face. I press my lips together and look up into Austin’s eyes. The words won’t leave me. I know exactly what I have to tell him to end this once and for all, yet I can’t.
Not just because Brayden’s here and I’m not ready to let him know everything happening inside me. Hurting Austin like this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
I can’t speak, but I have to end this here and now and there’s only one way.
When Austin asks me one last time, “Kira, be honest with me. Fully honest. You can’t see yourself ever trying with me?”
All I can do is shake my head no.
The look in his eyes is too much. I close my own like the coward I am, unable to see it anymore.
“So that’s it. You want me to just leave you alone?”
I nod, but I’m crying so hard at this point that I doubt my response is believable.
The door opens out in the hall and the officer calls me out. My time is up.
“I’m sorry, Austin. It just can’t ever happen between us.”
His jaw clenches stubbornly. I’m breaking his heart and yet the defiance in his stare tells me he’s not finished with me.
Until another man actually claims me, he’s never going to let me go.
I spin around to talk to Brayden one last time. He’s staring at me with both hope and betrayal in his expression.
He can’t tell if I want Austin or not. I know. My inability to shut down Austin entirely is giving off mixed signals.
I’ll fix it later, I promise myself.
I run up to him and ignore when the officer yells that it’s time to leave. “I’m going to call your dad, okay? Make sure everything is fixed. I’ll be waiting for you at home when you get out, I swear.”
Some of the hurt leaks from his eyes. “Call my mom instead.”
I nod and walk down the hall before the officer decides to come drag me out. Once outside, I pause on my way to the front and try to wipe my face clean of tears.
Futile. They won’t stop. I’m destroyed by what’s happened to those two because of me.
The girls are anxiously standing, waiting for me with worried expressions. As one, they come around me and hug me tight.
I let them, needing their support more than ever. Without them here, I honestly don’t know what I’d do.
“Call my mom instead.”
The words are still ringing in my ears as I sit on the hard bench, waiting. Why in the world I said his dad . . . Force of habit, most likely. That, and his mom lives two hours away.
She should be here soon, which is good for two reasons—she’s not Steven and she’s a nurse.
Brayden’s wounds need some actual attention. The officers literally left both he and Austin like that.
My knee bounces up and down as I bite on my thumbnail. Jenna, Marilyn, and Ashley whisper around me, but I’m too focused on Brayden and all I didn’t get to say. All that I couldn’t say to Austin.
That was two hours ago. The first hour I spent filling the girls in on my history with Brayden.
I started from the beginning.
It was brutal, but in the end, they understood why I’d never told them everything.
The history between us isn’t pretty. It’s jagged and jaded. Filled with every emotion under the sun magnified by a strength only hormones can induce.
Scary. Frightening. Overpowering in how it affects me . . . affects us both.
I’ve been trapped in my brain, left to stew about the night’s events. The cataclysmic result of something I started seven months ago when I tried to forget him and gave Austin a piece of me.
It was a way to forget Brayden, but also an attempt to hurt him.
Our toxic relationship only thrived in the chaos.
In the end, it doesn’t matter.
There’s only one man I’ve ever wanted.
And yet, ultimately, to the world I’m Brayden Hunt’s little sister.
“Kira!”
I blink up, staring at a woman walking toward me that I haven’t seen in years. The one who used to be my neighbor, who was always so nice. I wonder if I can even look her in the eyes knowing why she isn’t my neighbor anymore.
My mom is the one her ex cheated on her with.
“Mrs. Hunt.” The name sounds strange to my ears. Even though my mom didn’t change her last name because of me and Ryan, she is the current Mrs. Hunt. I stand to greet her, my posture stiff, unsure of what she thinks of me after everything.
She smiles at me as the gap between us closes and she wraps her arms around me. “That’s not me anymore. Just call me Abby.”
My muscles relax as she guides us to sit a few feet from my friends.
“I’m sorry you had to come all this way. He didn’t want me to call Steve.” The words fly from my mouth before I can stop them.
She stares at me, then pats me on the knee. “It’s okay, I’m glad you did.”
I’m surprised by her calm. The last times I’d seen her she looked worn. Tired and angry and sad. Staring at her now, there is worry, but she looks . . . happy. Not happy about the situation, but that maybe her life is better than it was when she was married to Steven.
“How did you know?” I ask.
She raises her brows. “Know what?”
“That I was calling about Brayden? You immediately asked if he was okay after I said my name.”
She studies me for a moment, trying to gauge something. “Well, because you called me.”
“Why me? What does that matter?” What has he told her?
“You have no other reason to call me.”
“And you aren’t curious why it was me?”
Her eyes twinkle. “Kira, if you’re referring to if I know about my only son’s undying love for you, I do.”
“Y-you do?” Wait . . . undying love?
She nods. “I’ve known for years how he feels about you.”
“How?”
“You’re full of questions. Shouldn’t it be me asking what got my child in lockup?”
I sit back and cross my arms. “You two are the same. It’s like trying to pull teeth!”
Her head falls back with a laugh. “So true.” She bumps me with her shoulder. “He was always sweet on you. I know my boy, so when he came to live with me before college, I knew something was up. A little molasses cookie torture and he caved, telling me everything. Ever since then, I’m the only one he could talk to about you.”
“He talked about me?”
She nods. “He left out some details, the kind moms just don’t want to know, but the deep feelings for you have always been there. I hoped for both your sakes that it would turn out to be a crush, but after a while, after he said he couldn’t go home the next summer, I knew it was more. Your age difference was hard on him.”
“But he never . . . He’s always been against love.” And now he seems devoted to me. It’s odd, goes against the Brayden I grew up knowing.
Her lips form a thin line. “That’s our fault, his father and me. I’m afraid the example we gave him poisoned him on the idea.”
“It did. Long ago, when we were kids, he told me.”
Abby gives me a sad smile. “Now you’re older, adults, not as ruled by teenage hormones. He’s at your mercy. He’ll do anything for you.”
“Anything?”
“To keep you, protect you, there’s nothing that would stop him.”
Oh, God.
I can’t stop the image of his beaten, pleading expression through the bars as I moved to talk to Austin.
The pain he’d been exuding made a small vindictive part of me happy, because I saw it as balance. But the part that always tried to soothe him took over and had me running to him.
I will always run to him, even after e
verything.
“But . . . we can’t even be together.”
She studies me for a moment. “Legally, there’s nothing separating you two.”
“Maybe not, but to society he’s my brother.”
She purses her lips. “I wish I could argue against you, because the last thing I want is an obstacle in front of his happiness, but you’re going to college with a lot of your classmates who know you as Brayden’s younger sister. Even if it is by marriage.”
“We can’t be a real couple.”
“I wouldn’t say that, but I also wouldn’t say it’s going to be easy.”
Nothing between us has been easy in years. Easy was when we were kids. Now everything is hard and emotionally draining.
“Why don’t you go on home? I’ll deal with getting him out and finding out what the damage is.”
I nod and stand, my mind already whirling with how bad it could be. Will he go to jail? I don’t even know what the charge is let alone if it’s a slap on the wrist kind of one or more serious.
I turn back to her and smile. “Thanks, Abby.”
Walking up to the girls, I can tell right away something is off. The expressions and whispered words as they all tuck their phones away set off alarms.
“What? What is it?” I ask.
Jenna tries to give me a it’s nothing smile, but fails.
“Let’s get you home,” Marilyn says as she stands and takes my hand. “Besides, I think you’ve got more to tell us.”
Diverted, but I let them take me away.
My heart tears in my chest with each step away from Brayden. The image of him locked in that cell all beat up kills me, but there’s nothing more I can do.
Let his mom handle it and I’ll try to handle any damage on the other end.
As we walk out, Marilyn wraps her arm around mine and Jenna throws her arm over my shoulder.
I love my girls. Not only are they standing by me and up for me, but it’s after one in the morning and they’re next to me as we walk out of the police station.
We all slip back into Jenna’s car and I look back to the station in defeat and worry.
“Stop that,” Marilyn says, swatting at my hand.
I’m about to snap at her, my brow furrowing as I almost unleash some bitchiness, when I realize what I’m doing.
Damn, six nails down. Mangled by anxiety. On occasion, usually in times of stress, I chew on my nails.