The Blame Game_A Brook Brothers Novel

by Tracie Delaney

  “Critical. He’s in a coma.”

  “Oh, baby.” Jax held out his arm. “Come here.”

  She folded herself inside, taking the last drop of comfort he’d ever give her before he knew the full, sordid truth. He stroked her hair, his movements soft and rhythmic.

  “I thought you were dead,” she said, squeezing him as hard as she dared.

  “For a second, when I started to fall, I thought that was it too.”

  She craned her neck so she could look at him. “What did he say to you when he turned up?”

  He squinted as though trying to recall the correct file in his brain. “I can’t remember most of it. He said he wanted to talk, but then he started rambling.”

  “About what?” Her heart leaped up into her throat.

  “Something about the sins of the father.” He shook his head. “It’s all a bit fuzzy.”

  A sob caught in her throat. She sat up, rubbing at her stinging eyes. “It’s all my fault.”

  Jax frowned, but he must have seen the guilt within her eyes, because his face grew serious. “Talk to me, Indie. What’s going on?”

  Her shoulders curved forward. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to see his love turn to disgust and, finally, hate.

  “My dad knew your dad,” she said, deciding to start right at the beginning.

  Jax drew a sharp breath. “He did?”

  She nodded. “I don’t think they were friends or anything, but before they met, we had a comfortable life. Not rich by a long shot, but well enough off that we lived in a nice house in a good neighborhood. We had vacations at the Cape and a new car every few years. Then, from what Phil gleaned from Dad, something went badly wrong between our dads. Your father set out to get revenge. And he got it. Dad lost it all. Ended up in debt. We had to sell everything we owned, move to a filthy rundown apartment in the Bronx. Every day, Dad drank. Some days we didn’t eat. Most days he beat us. Well, Phil had it much worse than me. Phil would protect me as best he could. It changed him. Made him bitter, vengeful, hateful.”

  Jax rubbed at the space between his eyebrows, bewilderment marring his features. “How old were you when you had to move?”

  “Eight. Phil was sixteen, so it was harder on him in a way. The younger you are, the easier it is to adapt.”

  Jax shook his head, a frown drawing his brows low. “I don’t know anything about this.”

  “Why would you? Your dad wouldn’t exactly come home bragging that he’d purposely lost every penny of someone’s hard-earned savings in some desperate need for revenge.”

  Jax’s eyes narrowed. “Now, hold on—”

  “It’s all true, Jax. You don’t have to believe me, but it is.”

  Jax pinched his nose. “And you don’t know what the so-called argument between them was about?”

  “No. Dad never said. He spoke about your father plenty, but always with hatred and bitterness, not details and facts. Neither Phil nor I ever knew the full story, but Dad did a real number on Phil. He filled Phil’s head with all sorts of nonsense about how he owed it to me and Dad to seek his own revenge.”

  She covered her face with her hands and took a deep breath. When she dropped them, she met Jax’s confused gaze. “By the time Dad passed away, Phil had been completely indoctrinated. Getting even was all he ever talked about. I’d already got myself a job in a restaurant in Queens, and as soon as we had the funeral, I moved away. He made it clear, though, that when he needed my help to put his plan of revenge into action, he’d come knocking.

  “I worked as many shifts as I could, studying the rest of the time and snatching sleep when I could. Over time, Phil completely lost his way. He became a bit of a drifter, moving from place to place, job to job, never really settling down to anything. I thought he’d forgotten all about the threat he’d made when Dad passed away. Then about six months ago, he arrived at my door and said it was time. He said I owed him, and he’d come to collect.”

  Tears spilled from her eyes, but she let them fall, let them dry on her cheeks. She stared toward the window at the weak winter sunshine that cast a shadow inside Jax’s hospital room.

  “He said he finally knew what needed to be done. As he couldn’t take revenge on your father, he’d pick the next best thing.”

  “Me,” Jax said softly.

  Indie lifted her head and nodded. “You.”

  “Atone for the sins of the father,” he said almost to himself. “But I still don’t get it. His plan was to—what? Beat me up? Kill me?”

  She drew in a shuddering breath. As soon as she told the next part of her story, she’d lose Jax forever.

  “He had two separate plans if you like, both designed to cause you the most amount of pain and suffering. Last night, he planted a bomb at the hotel.”

  Jax’s head snapped back, a flash of fear darkening his features. “Please tell me my hotel is okay, Indie.”

  She squeezed his arm reassuringly. “The hotel is fine. The bomb squad dismantled it and took it away, although, according to Cole, Phil hadn’t made the bomb correctly anyway. It wouldn’t have gone off. I honestly had no idea that’s what he had planned, Jax. He only ever said he wanted to ruin you financially like your father had ruined ours. But I thought he was all talk. You have to believe me.”

  “Baby, calm down,” he said, his tone warm and loving. “Everything’s okay. The hotel’s fine, and I’ll be good as new in a few weeks.”

  If only. She didn’t have to tell him. She could keep the other part of Phil’s plan a secret. Even if her brother recovered, he’d be taken into custody. She could keep him away from Jax. He might never find out. But a relationship built on lies wasn’t something to plan a future on. No, Jax deserved the truth. She’d tell him and hope that, one day, he’d find it in his heart to forgive her.

  “That’s not all,” she said. “You have to understand, Jax. Phil isn’t a bad person. He was simply brainwashed by a man he adored and looked up to—a man who changed into someone cold and heartless after he lost everything. No, it’s not Phil who’s the bad person. It’s me.”

  Jax scratched his uninjured cheek. “Indie, what are you talking about?”

  A tight band squeezed around her chest, making it hard to take in a proper lungful of air, and nausea churned in her stomach. With a mouth empty of saliva, her top lip stuck to her teeth. She swept her tongue over them and swallowed.

  “The other part of Phil’s plan involved me. Well, you and me, to be precise. I should have told him no. I should never have agreed to be a part of it. But I owed him, you see. For all the beatings he took instead of me. I owed him.” She was speaking so fast, she fell over her words. Her tongue felt huge inside her mouth.

  Jax squeezed her hand. “Slow down, Indie. You’re not making any sense.”

  As she looked into his eyes, his confusion obvious, she almost lost her nerve. The pang in her heart wasn’t panic. It was much worse. It was the beginning of the end, the loss of the man who should have been her future. How could he ever forgive her when she couldn’t forgive herself?

  “Our meeting wasn’t entirely unplanned, although the manner of it was. I agreed with Phil that I’d make you fall in love with me…” She took a breath. “And then after he’d taken everything from you financially, I’d break your heart by leaving you. Then you’d have nothing, just like us.”

  Jax’s eyes narrowed, and his head flinched back slightly. His gaze flitted about, over her face, into her eyes, somewhere over her shoulder.

  “So it was all a lie. You and me?” he said as the realization of what she was confessing hit home.

  “In the beginning, yes. When you walked into my office that day, it was a lucky break I hadn’t planned for. Before then, I was just supposed to maybe follow you to a bar or a restaurant, casually bump into you on the street—anything to make you notice me—and then gradually reel you in. But our plan got fast-tracked when you came looking for additional funds for the hotel.”

  “Lucky me.” His to
ne was full of bitterness and hurt.

  “But all that changed, Jax.” She grasped for his hand. “The more I got to know you, the more I realized you were nothing like your father.”

  He yanked his hand out of her grip. “My father was a good man,” he spat out. “A loving husband, a great father, a wonderful provider. I’m proud to be his son. If those are traits you don’t value, Indie, then it’s just as well our relationship is built on a fucking great lie.”

  She flinched as a heavy weight settled on her chest, and she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. She began to feel lightheaded. She took a deep, calming breath. It didn’t work.

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Jax. That was the man you knew. But your father had a different side. One he showed to my father. And Phil and I paid for it.”

  “Says who?” Jax said, his voice rising in volume. “We only have your word for that, don’t we, Indie? And as you’ve proven, your word is worth jack shit.”

  “Listen to me,” she said, reaching for him once more.

  Jax recoiled, an expression of horror darkening his face. “I put you ahead of my family. I chose you over them because I thought it was my turn to have something for me and me alone.” He laughed without mirth, the sound so cutting that she winced. “I put my faith in you. Put my future happiness in your hands. Yet you took my trust and burned it. You tricked me into choosing the wrong side.”

  “Please, Jax,” she begged. “Our relationship might have started out based on a lie, but what I’m telling you now is the truth. I do love you. With all my heart. I told Phil yesterday that I wanted out and that I didn’t want to be part of his thirst for revenge any longer. The dinner last night was for us to talk it over, or so I thought. But when I got there, his apartment was empty. That’s when I knew something was wrong. I searched his computer and found out he’d been researching how to make a bomb. And then I put it all together and raced over to the hotel.”

  She might as well have been talking into a void. Jax had stopped listening. He stared at a spot on the wall to his left, his face averted.

  “You have to believe me.”

  His head turned slowly, his eyes flat and hard. “No, I don’t.”

  Indie blanched, and a cry broke from her throat. “It’s all such a mess.”

  Jax’s pained expression tore through her. “It’s very clear to me. My hotel is fine. Your brother, if he survives, will face jail, and you and I are over.”

  She exhaled on a shudder. “Please give me a chance. Give us a chance.”

  He looked away again, his gaze back on that favored spot on the wall. “Go away, Indie. Go and pull in some other sucker, because this ride is over.”

  Indie clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself breaking down. She would break down, but not in front of him. She’d wait until she was on her own, and then she’d allow her heart to fracture.

  She scrambled to her feet and ran from the room.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jax scowled at the nurse as she helped him into the wheelchair. Clearly, she found it irrelevant that he not only had a pair of crutches but was also perfectly capable of using them. The wheels were his only way out of the hospital, or so she told him.

  He couldn’t wait to get home, and yet he dreaded it at the same time. Without Indie, all those things that used to matter didn’t anymore. He felt himself sinking into depression. How could he have fallen for her bullshit? He’d always thought he had good instincts. It turned out they were crap.

  “Ready?” Cole said, slinging Jax’s overnight bag across his shoulder.

  “Yep,” Jax said, concentrating on picking at the skin around his thumb rather than having to look at the concerned expression on Cole’s face.

  “If you want to talk—”

  “I don’t.”

  “Fair enough. I’m here if you change your mind.”

  “Will you fucking drop it?” Jax snapped. He was beginning to wish he’d never told his brothers what had happened with Indie. It would have been easier if he’d made up some bullshit story about her going to look after a sick aunt.

  Cole fell silent. He walked alongside the wheelchair as the nurse pushed Jax to the entrance, a hospital porter shuffling along beside them, holding Jax’s crutches under his arm.

  When they reached the entrance, he struggled out of the chair and slid the crutches up his arms. His broken fingers made it a little tricky to hold the crutches, but nothing that practice wouldn’t fix. Cole went on ahead and opened the cab door. It took forever to maneuver himself inside, and by the time the car set off, he was as exhausted as if he’d run a marathon.

  Jax let out a groan as they stopped outside the hotel. He flashed Cole an irritated look. “What’s with the welcome party?” he said, referring not only to Calum and Nate, who were waiting on the steps, but to Paul and Alana too. “Actually, forget it. I don’t want to know. Just get rid of them.”

  Cole gave him a hard stare as he passed the driver his fare. “Don’t be a dick. I know you’re hurting because of what Indie did, but that does not mean I’m going to let you beat up on everyone who cares about you. They wanted to be here, and I said it was a good idea. So put a fucking smile on your face and get out.”

  Jax glared at him, but Cole refused to back down. After too many seconds had scraped by without either of them budging, Jax huffed. “Fine.”

  Cole flashed a triumphant grin. “Calum owes me twenty bucks,” he said as he pulled on the door handle.

  “Why?”

  “He said you’d tell me to go fuck myself.”

  Despite his black mood, Jax found himself chuckling. “I still might.”

  Cole held the door open, and after a huge effort during which not one of his welcoming committee helped—they knew he wouldn’t want them to—he managed to struggle up the steps and into the hotel. Getting downstairs to the living quarters was trickier, but he managed. He flopped onto the couch, completely wiped out, and let out a sigh of relief.

  “Glad to be home?” Alana asked, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

  He patted her hand. “Yeah.”

  Paul walked over to the fridge and grabbed a couple of beers. He twisted off the cap and handed one to Jax. “I’m not surprised you’re glad to be back. I’ve heard hospital food is the pits.”

  Jax gave him a wan smile. “I’ll never laugh at Calum’s cooking again.”

  His family and friends kept the banter light, but as Jax’s eyes began to droop, Alana gave Paul a nudge. “Time to go. Jax needs his rest.”

  Paul clapped Jax on the shoulder. “I’ll pop over this week. Not sure when because work is crazy. Maybe Wednesday. We can catch the game on ESPN. I’ll text you.”

  “Sounds good.” Jax gave Alana a kiss on the cheek as she bent down. “Thanks for coming.”

  “If you need anything—and I mean anything, sweetheart—you make sure to let me know,” Alana said with the kind of expression reserved for those suffering enormous grief. He guessed he was, in a way. He’d planned a future with Indie, and all along, she’d been lying to him.

  “I can’t believe it either,” Alana whispered, correctly guessing where his thoughts had gone. “I thought she was lovely.”

  “That’s enough,” Paul said, clearing his throat. “Let the man get some rest now, love.”

  After they left, Jax struggled to his feet. Walking with crutches was going to wear thin really fast. Already, he missed the ease with which he’d moved before “the accident,” as he chose to refer to it.

  “I’m going to take a nap.”

  “Good idea,” Calum said. “You look wiped.”

  “Want a hand getting undressed?” Nate said with a rare grin, no doubt because he knew what Jax’s response would be.

  “Fuck you.”

  Nate’s grin widened.

  Jax closed his bedroom door behind him and leaned against it to catch his breath. The slightest effort exhausted him. He picked up his pills and dry swallowed two. His leg was i
n agony, and his fingers throbbed, but he’d take all that and more if he could switch off the emotional pain. Four days had passed since he’d last seen Indie—four days in which he missed her so badly yet had to accept a future without her. A relationship without trust wasn’t worth shit. And she’d broken his in such a spectacular fashion that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to trust freely again.

  He straightened and was about to head for the bathroom when Calum’s voice leaked through the door.

  “You heard from her?”

  He stopped.

  “No,” Cole replied.

  “Good,” Calum said. “Because if she comes sniffing around here ever again, I’m going to break her fucking neck.”

  “He loves her,” Cole said. “Sure, he’s hurting right now, but when he’s had time to reflect, he’ll realize she loves him too.”

  “Love?” Calum scoffed. “She lied to him throughout the whole time they were together. Does that sound like love to you?”

  “It sounds like someone who was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t,” Cole said in his most patient tone, the one he used solely when he thought Calum was being unreasonable. “All she wanted was to make her brother happy. Okay, the way she went about it was fucked up, but really, were her intentions so bad?”

  “When the only way to make her brother happy was to make ours miserable, yeah, it’s fucking bad.”

  Cole let out a deep sigh. “Don’t judge her too harshly, Calum.”

  Calum barked out a laugh. “Wrong guy for that.”

  In the pause that followed, Jax could imagine Cole shaking his head.

  “And what about you, Nate?” Calum said. “You’ve not opened your mouth, as fucking usual.”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “None of your business? Jesus, your brother is in there with a messed-up leg and a fucked-up head, and you think it’s none of your business? You really have checked out of this family, haven’t you?”

  “Calum!” Cole snapped.