Echo: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Bleeding Hearts Book 1)

by Zavarelli, A

  ***

  I ended up taking a week off. It wasn’t my original plan, but when the process for Brayden’s exoneration picked up momentum, I stayed glued to Ryland’s tablet waiting for google alerts. The only articles I could find stated there was new evidence being reviewed, along with a new witness testimony. The press wouldn’t release the name of the witness which I found strange.

  The biggest question surrounded the fact that the car Brayden had supposedly been driving was registered to a known drug dealer by the name of Steven Arnett. The police had never been able to track him down, and it was always presumed that he’d skipped town when the news broke.

  There were questions as to whether he could have been responsible, somehow convincing a young boy to take the fall for him. One article speculated that Brayden worked for the man and he was terrified for his life. Some of the stories were good, and it gave me a little hope. But there was still a lot of doubt in the eyes of public opinion.

  When I thought about it, I still couldn’t make sense of it myself. Why would Brayden ever take the fall for a drug-dealer? He’d never touch the stuff, so it didn’t add up. But in the months before the accident, his behavior had been a little odd. Norma-Jean was freaking out and acting like a mother for a change, actually worrying about him. Neither one of them would ever tell me what was going on, though. It was the same story with everyone in my life, and it was a difficult pill to swallow. Because no matter how much my relationship with Ryland evolved, there were still secrets he was hiding.

  On Wednesday, when he told me he had to fly out on business for a couple days, I grew even more suspicious. He didn’t look altogether pleased about whatever he had to do. When I tried to question him, he insisted I have the rest of the week off work and get some rest. But by Friday any new information on Brayden had trickled down to nothing. When I asked Ryland about it upon his return, he said it was in the court’s hands, but it was only a matter of time now. He was confident, but I wasn’t.

  When I returned to work on Monday, I had a sea of emails and voice messages to sort through. As I played them all back and jotted down notes, I could understand Stacey’s need for a caffeine drip. I was exhausted already and feeling picky about what was important. There was a message from the doctor Ryland had chosen for me. She was saying something about a follow-up appointment, but I wasn’t hearing a word. Because when I caught sight of a man barging past, I did a double take when I saw his face, certain I must be delusional.

  “Brayden?” I hung up the phone immediately.

  “I’m not here to see you,” he snarled, forging towards Ryland’s office with purpose.

  I flung my chair back and chased after him, nearly toppling over in my heels as I rounded the corner. I was fast, but I wasn’t as fast as him.

  I burst into Ryland’s office, just in time to see the surprise on his face as Brayden barreled around his desk. Ryland stood up, only to be met with Brayden’s fist across his jaw.

  I’d seen Brayden’s fist knock other men out cold, but Ryland didn’t even flinch from the pain or the bloody lip he’d inflicted. He wiped it across his sleeve with a look of disgust and took a menacing step forward.

  “You son of a bitch!” Brayden drew back his arm again.

  Ryland wore a malicious smile that scared me, and I needed to act fast. I inserted myself in the middle of them and slammed my hands against Brayden’s chest, shoving him backwards.

  “Stop it!” I screamed. “Just stop it. What the hell are you doing, Brayden?”

  “No, what the hell are you doing?” his voice was filled with disgust. “How could you sleep with this bastard?”

  “Because I love him,” I bit back. “And who I do, or do not sleep with is none of your business. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  “No, you certainly aren’t,” he sneered. “I don’t even recognize you. Norma-Jean was right, you’ve given up on this family.”

  His words shocked and infuriated me, and before I could stop myself, I reached out and slapped him.

  “How dare you put that on me?” I snapped. “You have no idea what I’ve had to do these last five years. You have no idea what I had to do to get you out!”

  “I didn’t want out.” He waved his hand towards Ryland. “Couldn’t you understand that? I didn’t want you anywhere near him. This is what he wanted all along.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend?” Brayden seethed.

  I turned to Ryland, and he disregarded me. His jaw was set and his eyes cold as they remained fixed on Brayden.

  “That’s right, he’s not going to tell you.” Brayden laughed dryly. “You have no fuckin’ clue who he is or what he’s capable of. And now you’re too wrapped up in him to see any of it.”

  “Then tell me,” I challenged him. “Tell me yourself what he’s done. What is it that you’ve both been hiding from me all these years? Because obviously, I can’t believe a word either one of you says.”

  Brayden looked at me and shook his head, all the fight suddenly gone out of him.

  “Come home, Brighton. Leave this mess behind and come home.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I’d thrown myself into my projects over the last two weeks, spending hours on end in the sewing room.

  Ryland would stop in from time to time, trying to find some semblance of conversation in the ocean between us. It wasn’t working. This time, I didn’t know how to fix the distance. I didn’t even know if I could.

  I was angry. So fucking angry. At him, at Brayden, at Norma-Jean… and everyone else who had ever lied to me. I’d never felt so much anger in my life, and quite frankly, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  So I bedazzled. I tore apart fabric with scissors and sewed it back together. Then I bedazzled some more.

  “I have to go to a business dinner.” Ryland’s voice carried from the doorway. “I’m assuming you’d like to take a pass on joining me?”

  I didn’t reply. I couldn’t even look at him, and I was thankful he hadn’t tried to touch me either. Because he knew. He knew I was about to implode. So he’d left me alone. Did I want to go to a business dinner with him? Hell fucking no, I didn’t.

  I heard him sigh as he padded away, and the click of the front door a few moments later. It resounded through the apartment like the sound of a prison door shutting. Closing me in. Because that’s where I was. Imprisoned in a game where I didn’t know the rules. Where I didn’t know who to trust anymore. Where I lost everyone I ever loved.

  I was still feeling sorry for myself an hour later when Nicole popped her head in and surprised me.

  “What is all this?” she asked as she stepped inside.

  I hadn’t told her I was sewing because I’d been too wrapped up in my emotions to have a real conversation with anyone.

  “It’s just a place for me to putter around,” I said.

  “This is really cool…” Her voice faltered when her eyes fell on the black sewing machine in front of me. For a moment, she looked like she was in pain.

  “Nicole?”

  She straightened her spine and walked back towards the door. “I brought you some dinner.”

  “Oh.” I blinked. “Thanks?”

  “Ryland told me to,” she admitted. “But I wanted to check on you myself and see how you were doing.”

  I stood up and folded up the piece I’d been working on, deciding I’d punished it enough for one evening.

  I followed Nicole out to the breakfast bar and sat down as she pulled out containers of Sushi. She handed me one, and I chewed through a California Roll in record time, not tasting a single thing.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I blurted, my eyes burning with unshed tears. “I can’t handle this anymore, Nicole. There are things I want to tell you…”

  Her eyes widened, and she coughed as she took a drink of water.

  “But I can’t,” I went on. “Or a
t least, I’m not supposed to.”

  She weighed my words carefully before reaching her hand towards me.

  “Brighton, there are things I want to tell you too…”

  Ryland’s home phone rang out, scaring the hell out of both of us. I’d never even heard it ring before. He usually handled everything on his cell phone.

  “He must have diverted his calls here by accident,” Nicole said nervously.

  I let it ring out, six times in total before the machine picked up. A shrill voice came on the other line, echoing through the apartment.

  “I’m a little short this month,” Norma-Jean blared through the speaker. “I’ve got my son home now, so I need some of next month’s payment in advance.”

  She sniffed into the phone, her voice growing more agitated and desperate by the moment.

  “I need it now. It’s real important that I get it now,” she persisted. “Or I might have to ask Brighton, and you wouldn’t want that would you?”

  There were muffled noises and a click before the dial tone sounded.

  I stood up and ran to the machine, and Nicole gave me a worried glance. I pressed the button, trying to get a playback, but the machine kept asking me for a security code.

  “She said my name,” I stated, as though I needed confirmation from Nicole. “That was my mother, and she called here for Ryland. Because she said my name.”

  My words weren’t coming out how I wanted or needed them to, but Nicole understood. She walked over and pulled me into her arms. She let me hug her back, using her strength to support me as I tried to understand what this meant.

  “Why is he giving my mother money?” I mumbled. “I don’t understand.”

  I paced back and forth across the kitchen while Nicole watched me wearily. She wasn’t asking me any questions, and I didn’t know why. I needed her to ask me questions. I needed her to help me make sense of this mess.

  But then it dawned on me. The one place I knew for sure had the information I wanted. And it was sitting in a house on Belvedere Island.

  I rushed to the box in the kitchen where Ryland kept his spare keys, checking each label before I found the ones I needed.

  “What are you doing?” Nicole asked.

  “I’m going to Belvedere Island,” I replied. “I’m going to get the answers I need.”

  ***

  I figured I had another hour before Ryland questioned my whereabouts. It took me thirty minutes just to get to the house.

  The keys on the key ring opened the front door without any resistance. But when I raced up to the third floor and wiggled them in the first door I came to, nothing happened. I tried to ignore the cold chill that moved up my spine as the lights flickered along the corridor, highlighting the eery atmosphere on this level of the home.

  I thought about trying to break the knob or pick the lock, but it wasn’t one of my skill sets. So with a resigned sigh I walked back to the second level, clenching my fingers together as I glanced around Ryland’s room. I went through the nightstand and the dresser, turning up nothing useful. But then I remembered his home office.

  I walked down to the office nestled into the back of the first floor. The door swung open on the first try. I stared at the oak monstrosity before me, noting how neat and orderly everything appeared. Just like his office at work.

  It was one of the things I loved about the man. The painful realization I might not be able to handle his secrets socked me in the gut, stealing some of my resolve. For a moment, I told myself I didn’t have to do this. That I could walk back out of this house and pretend everything was okay. That’s what Norma-Jean always did. But look at how it worked out for her.

  I liked to think I was stronger than her. But there was only one surefire way to find out.

  I dug through drawers and cabinets, boxes and envelopes. I didn’t care about the mess anymore, and I didn’t bother putting anything back. The only thing I cared about was the key.

  My fingers slipped over cool metal, and I held my breath as I pulled it from the back of the drawer, obscured beneath a mountain of paperwork.

  When I held it up into the light, my chest constricted at the sight of the skeleton key. This was it. It had to be.

  After barreling back up to the third floor, I forced it into the first lock impatiently. I closed my eyes and turned, my palm sweating against the knob as the weight of the lock released.

  I pushed against the wood and held my breath, stepping into another bedroom. A master bedroom, even larger than Rylands. It held two walk-in closets and a bathroom off to the side. I glanced around in confusion as I wondered whose it could be.

  The bed had been made, and a woman’s nightgown hung from one of the bedposts. The room was clean and orderly, except for the thick layer of dust that covered every surface. An abandoned teacup and saucer sat on the nightstand, along with a book splayed open to the last page. At one point, someone else had lived in this room. Someone other than Ryland.

  I backed out the door, deciding there were no answers in here. There was something in that last room, though. The one I’d seen Ryland in. But along the way I paused at another room, too tempting to pass.

  I set the lock free and opened the door, discovering what was undoubtedly a little girl’s room. Pink frills and lace covered every inch of the four poster bed, and photos of a tiny ballet dancer adorned the walls. My stomach heaved at the sight of it. On some level, I already knew who it belonged to, but I didn’t want to accept it. I didn’t want to accept the awful possibility, so I slammed the door and edged away.

  My shaky legs carried me to the last and final room. And when the door opened, I reached for the first thing I could. The picture frame.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. I had to be hallucinating. But another glance at the face in the photo confirmed I wasn’t.

  The woman in the photo was younger, but it was definitely Nicole. She stood beside a young man with his arm wrapped around her. A young man I recognized, but didn’t want to. He shared the same eyes as Ryland. The same shocking blue that had crippled my heart. Only his hair was blonde and not dark. And his face was light and carefree. Happy.

  My mouth burned from the sour taste rising up my throat, and the frame clattered unceremoniously onto the dresser.

  My brain fired off a thousand different responses, but my legs moved me towards the box still sitting on the floor where Ryland left it. Answers. I needed more answers.

  In my haste, I tore open the lid, completely unprepared for what I was about to find. I dumped the contents onto the floor and sifted through them. But once I got a glimpse, I wished I hadn’t.

  Article after article of the Lockhart family murder. Three ghostly faces of Jackson, Sophia, and Katherine stared back at me. And suddenly, it all fell into place. A teenage boy, a little girl, and their mother. Three of the people that Brayden was convicted of killing.

  It wasn’t any less painful to read the articles now, five years after the fact. The stories about the family outing that turned deadly when a drunk driver hit them and left them for dead down the side of an embankment. But the coroner’s examination confirmed that wasn’t the case. The only two passengers who died instantly were Katherine and Jackson. Between the time of the accident, and the time the ambulance arrived two hours later, the little girl had also succumbed to her injuries.

  It was the reason why one of the charges was upgraded to murder. But there were still so many unanswered questions. Like the shell casings found at the scene, and the evidence that led back to Brayden. When they brought him in, he tested positive for gunshot residue, but he wouldn’t tell them why. They never did find the gun when they tore our house apart, so I had thought it was a mistake.

  But these reports held so much more details than I ever knew. Brayden’s footprints were matched to the ones at the scene. There was also DNA collected from the vomit beside the car. It was undoubtedly his. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t underst
and any of it. He was there that night, but why?

  At the bottom of the stack were photos. Photos of the family together as one. And my confusion bled out when I saw a young Ryland standing side by side the smiling faces of the family. Only his name wasn’t Ryland. It was Jacob. And he was a part of that family.

  My heart beat so hard I thought it might explode. How did I not see it?

  It was there all along.

  Except, it wasn’t really. He’d hidden it from the world. Changed his name and his story, only allowing people to know what he wanted them to. The news never even mentioned him. I didn’t know he existed because he kept it that way for a reason.

  My body burned with guilt and shame and a thousand other emotions I couldn’t pinpoint. The further I dug, the worse it got.

  Full investigation reports, witness statements, hospital records. But as my eyes passed over them, everything blurred together. They couldn’t be accurate. Because they said Jacob was in the car too. But that was impossible. Every news article stated there were four victims, including his father. But according to hospital records and witness statements that wasn’t the case.

  “Jacob Ryland Lockhart was finally able to free himself from the wreckage and climb to the freeway for help, despite being critically injured. When the ambulance reached the family fifteen minutes later, they found him unconscious as he clutched Sophia Lockhart’s hand in his own. She was dead upon arrival, and all efforts to revive her were unsuccessful. The only remaining survivors were Jacob and his father Michael.”

  Tears poured from my eyes like acid, burning my skin as the image of Ryland like that broke the last ounce of strength that held me together. I couldn’t take anymore, but I couldn’t stop myself either.

  At the bottom of the box, I found a Manila envelope, sealed up tight. I picked it up with trembling hands and broke the seal, revealing more photos. Photos I wouldn’t ever be able to erase from my memory.

  A little girl’s leg dangling from a ballet tight as it mangled with protruding metal. A bloody hand on the door handle as though it were trying to escape from the wreckage. A mother slumped over the steering wheel with an unrecognizable face. A mass of metal so crumpled and distorted, the type of car was completely indistinguishable. And finally, three bodies covered with white sheets in a ditch.