Beneath His Darkness (Healing Hearts #3)

by Renee Dyer

  She licks her lips before she comes to her senses and remembers what I just put her through. Storming away from me, she screams over her shoulder, “You’re a goddamn psycho!”

  “You’d do best to remember that, sweetheart,” I calmly reply.

  Her answer is to slam the door.

  Ten minutes later, I’m back to watching Avatar and trying to lose my shitty mood, when my cell phone beeps. Wonder who that could be?

  Davyd: Poor Mel. That wasn’t a very nice way to treat her.

  I instantly reply.

  I don’t give a fuck.

  Davyd: U should. I’m taking xtra payment for that.

  “FUUCCKK!”

  I throw my cell across my living room. The sound of it smashing does nothing to calm my pissed off nerves.

  Only Davyd’s head on a platter would make me feel better right now. His death can’t come soon enough.

  Chapter Thirty One

  Grant

  It’s the first day back to work and I’m a ball of nerves. I waited every day for Davyd to pull something, to show up, to call—hell, even a text—but he’s been quiet. His mind fucks can be worse than actually being fucked by him. He’s planning something awful and it’s making me paranoid. I keep looking over my shoulder at every sound. I even lock the men’s room when I use it now. That bastard has me second-guessing every step I take.

  To make matters worse, Cammie got stuck in Ohio. They had a blizzard and it grounded the planes. What I wouldn’t give to see her smile. I think it would set everything right in my world.

  In the midst of my mental ramblings, someone taps me on the shoulder. My body goes rigid. If that’s Davyd and he’s fucking with me out in the open like this, I may go postal on him. I slowly turn and to my surprise, it’s Tucker.

  “Can we step outside where we can talk in private please?” he asks.

  There’s a strain to his words and I wonder whether this is the conversation where he tells me to stay away from Cammie. I can’t imagine she told him we slept together, but she did tell me he’s like the brother she never had. The irony of that statement isn’t lost on me.

  I don’t respond to his request. Instead, I simply step past him and head for the door. We step outside and he does the most peculiar thing. He inspects me. He doesn’t check me out like Davyd does, but he stares at me like he’s seeing someone familiar. That’s when it dawns on me. He knows. Guess Tucker got a brother for Christmas.

  Unable to help myself, I smirk at him. He can see I’m trying to antagonize and he huffs. It brings me such joy to see the irritation on his face.

  “How long have you known?” he blurts out. I raise my brow at him, pretending I don’t know what he’s talking about. “Don’t play stupid. I know you’re not. How long have you known we’re brothers?”

  I allow my eyes to grow large, like he just blew my mind, and my mouth to fall open in false shock. He takes a step back and then he smiles in what I’m sure is meant to be a comforting way. It’s all too much for me to keep up the act.

  “Did you just find out, big brother, or did you finally get sick of little brother’s shit and wanted to put a stop to my antics?”

  “What? Why?” he stammers out.

  “Cat got your tongue? Always thought you were more eloquent than that. The god amongst men, Tucker Stavros, can’t think when his little brother asks a question.”

  Shock crosses his face, but he reels it in. “Why do you despise me so much, Grant?”

  “You really want to know why I hate you?”

  He nods. I start pacing. If I stand still, I fear I’ll punch him. And if I punch him, I won’t stop until there’s nothing left but a bloody pile of bones.

  “You had it all, Tucker boy. I’m just the bastard child who found out when the man I thought was my dad needed a kidney transplant to save his life. Guess what we found out when I went in to see if I was a match. Want to guess?”

  The further I get into my tale, my voice rises, but I don’t care. He had everything. He still does. I’m sick of watching him have it so damn easy.

  “I wasn’t his fucking son. It gutted him. They didn’t find a replacement in time and he was already living on one kidney. He stopped looking at me, stopped loving me. I was sixteen years old and the man I idolized died hating me. But, then I found out who my real daddy was and he only lived a couple towns over. I found out about you. I went to your senior play and he was there watching you perform. He walked away from me as a baby and never looked back because he already had a family. He had you.”

  The emphasis on ‘you’ has him staring at me hard. My eyes and stance challenge him to step in before I finish what I have to say. Thank God for him that he doesn’t.

  “I made it my goal after that to be in all the school plays. When I found out you went to L.A., I knew that’s where I was going. You took my life from me so I was taking yours from you. It was only fair, brother.”

  I’m not prepared for the rage Tucker fires back at me.

  “Listen, you little piss-ant, you seem to think you know so much about me, but you don’t know shit. Mikos may have fathered me, but he sure as fuck didn’t raise me. Not after the age of eight. Not after my mom died and that’s because he thought karma was kicking him in the ass for leaving you. I lost my mother and my father abandoned me in the same fucking week. I never even knew he came to my plays until he told me a week ago, so don’t you stand here telling me how fucking perfect my life was. Almost half of my childhood, I watched my mother fighting cancer and after that, I wondered every goddamn day why my father hated me so much that he left me. I thought he left because I was the reason she got sick and died. I’m all kinds of fucked up that even you probably wouldn’t understand. You’ve been attacking me because you’re pissed at him. Be pissed at him, I don’t fucking care. But take your anger out where it belongs because I’m done with your bullshit!”

  Tucker throws his hands in the air and walks back into the studio, not waiting for any response from me. I don’t know if any of what he said is true. His words echo through my head. I lost my mother and was abandoned by my father in the same fucking week.

  It has to be a lie. I saw Mikos at his play. Gloria told me of her talks with Mikos about Tucker. He left me to have a family with his other son. How dare he stand here and lie to my face because he didn’t like me calling him out on the family bullshit?

  How the fuck did a piece of shit like Tucker Stavros become my brother?

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Cammie

  Well, the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak. Tucker and Grant know they’re brothers. I fretted the entire time I was in Ohio over how I was going to get Grant to tell Tucker, but all my worrying was for nothing. I got back to Vancouver to find out the showdown had already happened. Both of them came to me. I was surprised Tucker did. Not because we aren’t friends, but because he knows how close Grant and I are. Um…well, maybe he doesn’t know HOW close we are.

  I was thrilled that the secret was out in the open. I figured the healing process could start, but these are two of the most stubborn asses I’ve ever known. They continue to treat each other more like enemies than family. I want to punch them both in the junk and while they’re bent over, smack their heads together. It might knock some sense into them.

  I’ve been texting Tucker’s girlfriend Adriana to see if there’s anything we can do to help with this divide. She’s not sure how she feels about Grant, but she did say she’d like to see Tucker mend fences with his family. I figured she’d feel this way, so I’m glad her man insisted we start getting to know each other, even if it is just through electronics for now. It’s been weeks of her and I conversing and we’ve gotten nowhere with the lugheads. We’re getting frustrated with their lack of compromise.

  Grant feels that Tucker is a selfish asshole who lies to his face and he needs to lose some of his perfect lifestyle to understand real pain. Tucker thinks Grant is a know-it-all, self-indulgent, whiney piss-ant who has a mommy com
plex. Yeah, they talk real sweet about each other.

  I’ve managed, with Eddie’s help, to get them to go to dinner twice. Both times were a catastrophe. They’re so busy blaming the other for what they missed out on in their lives, they aren’t seeing that they’re missing out on each other now. Ugh! They make me want to scream.

  And, Grant and I, we haven’t had sex since we celebrated Christmas. I know I never asked him whether it could happen again, but I sure as hell was hoping it would be a reoccurring event. Sex with Grant Andrews is definitely an event. I saw stars when I orgasmed and I want to reach for them next time. I have a feeling there will be no sex until some of his shit with Tucker gets resolved. He’s moodier than a teenage girl getting her first period.

  Today is Valentine’s Day. I thought Grant and I could have a movie night, but those have been impacted by the Tucker tension, too. Instead of cuddling up next to the man I really want to strip down and lick like my favorite piece of chocolate candy, I’m on my couch, downing a box of conversation hearts I picked up at the store.

  “Why, yes, I’ll be yours,” I say snidely to the purple heart before I pop it into my mouth.

  Who created this stupid ass Hallmark holiday anyway?

  Grant told me no movie night tonight because it’s Valentine’s Day and he didn’t want to send the wrong message. Wrong message? I wanted to tell him I’m not looking for flowers or chocolates, not jewelry either. I’d be happy if he bent me over his couch and showed me how it felt with him entering me from behind.

  Seeing that man in all his naked glory is a sight that is permanently etched in my memory. I’ve tried deleting the file so I can stop being hot and bothered every time I’m in his presence, but apparently, there’s a million fucking backups. I’m so entirely screwed over this man.

  Well, I want to be screwed by him.

  Isn’t that the problem?

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Grant

  It’s been over three months since Tucker confronted me about being his brother and today he’s taking me to meet our father. It’s Easter and I picked this day on purpose. I wanted Tucker to miss out on being with his girlfriend and whatever they had planned for the holiday. Although we’ve had these months of knowing we’re siblings, we haven’t formed a relationship. We hardly tolerate each other. He refuses to see how he ruined my life, but I will make him understand.

  We’re in Kansas, in what I’m told is my grandmother’s living room. There are pictures of Tucker all over, so I know it’s his grandmother, but I don’t feel any tie to this place. My nerves are starting to get to me. Mikos is supposed to be here in a few minutes and I have no idea how to handle this meeting.

  “What do I say to him?”

  I didn’t mean for the words to come out, but there they are, hanging in the awkward silence between Tucker and me. He looks at me and I can feel his unease. I want to tell him to forget it, but then he speaks.

  “I think you should ask him what you want answered the most…even if you’re afraid of what he’ll say.”

  I nod at him and start pacing. I’m kind of blown away at how good that advice was and how civil we just were to each other. That was close to how brothers should talk to each other.

  A knock sounds out at the door and I stop walking. My eyes try to see through the wood, try to give me some kind of warning as to what I’ll be dealing with, but I’m met with solid oak. Tucker’s hand comes down on my shoulder and I jump. “I’m going to bring him in here and then I’m going to sit in the kitchen while you two talk. If you need me, I’ll be right in there.”

  He points to a room adjacent to where I’m standing. I nod, unable to find words. He smiles before walking away to let our father in. I don’t see Mikos when Tucker opens the door, but I hear him thank Tucker for bringing me. It seems weird to hear yourself talked about like an object.

  Tucker walks Mikos up to me and introduces him. I flinch when he says father. I can’t help it. I’m twenty-three years old and I don’t know this man. He’s never been anything to me. Before Tucker leaves the room, he reminds me he’ll be in the kitchen. I don’t know why, but it’s reassuring.

  It takes a few minutes to find my voice, but when I do, I ask the question I need the answer to. “How could you walk away and never look back?”

  He seems regretful as he tells me about his wife, her battles with cancer, how he thought he was the reason she got it a second time. I listen to his stories about being a drunk for years, and how he tried to kill himself with booze because he felt he should never have been a father. At the end of the story, although I feel bad for his losses, it doesn’t answer one thing for me.

  “You agreed to leave me before you knew she was sick again. She sounds like a wonderful woman, like a woman who would have understood. Not like the whore who raised me.”

  “You will not speak of your mother that way, do you hear me?” I can’t believe he’s pulling the parental tone on me now, after being absent my whole fucking life.

  “She’s a whore and I can’t believe you don’t agree with me after what she did to you.”

  “I may not have raised you, but my blood flows through your veins and I will not stand here and listen to you call your mother names! You show some respect, boy! That woman raised you. She loves you. She may not have done everything right, but at the end of every day, you are everything to her.”

  My blood starts to boil at his blind faith in the slut who raised me. I was a goddamn science experiment that finally wielded a child for her.

  “Done everything right?” I sputter. “She fucked men behind my dad’s back to make me. Yes, men. Did you think you were the only one? Think again, Dad.”

  Judging by the look on his face, Mommy dearest left out that little detail in the story of my creation. Well, I guess it’s time Daddy knows the truth of how I came to be.

  “You were baby daddy number three. The first guy was a bust. Didn’t work. The second guy was so drunk, his dick was limp, but you…you were the fucking stallion who got her knocked up. Ding, ding, ding, tell the man what he’s won! A twenty-three year old son who’s completely fucked up because his mom is a whore and his dad died hating him when he found out his son wasn’t his. Don’t stand there telling me to respect her. She ruined my life.”

  “She GAVE you life!” he roars at me, surprising and angering me all over again. I watch him scratch his hand down his face. “We all make mistakes, Grant. I made mistakes, too. I walked away from both of my sons. I can’t ever make that right, not completely, but I’m here. I’m trying. Life is short. Don’t let hatred consume you so much that one day she’s gone and you never get to tell her that, deep down, you love her. When people are gone, you can’t tell them all the things you wished you had said.”

  He’s really going to sit here and still defend her?

  “You two would make a good pair, spouting about how much you want to make amends. Did you ever think that maybe you can’t fix things? Did you ever think maybe you broke things beyond repair?”

  I can see that he’s about to either start yelling again or give me a line about how sorry he is. Either way, I don’t want to hear the bullshit. I start to turn away.

  “Excuse me.” The sweetest voice sounds out behind me and I turn back around to a smiling face on an elderly woman around Cammie’s height. Her salt and peppered hair is pulled back in a bun. “You don’t know me, but it sounds like you’re going to leave and never come back and I’m not missing my only chance to meet my grandson.”

  She walks straight up to me and wraps her arms around me. For whatever reason, I don’t stop her. I look over to Tucker who is walking into the room with a gigantic smile on his face, nodding at me. It’s all the cue I need. I wrap my arms around this woman who feels like home to me and soak in her warmth.

  When she pulls away, I do something that probably shocks everyone in the room. “I’m sorry for the offensive words you heard me say, ma’am.”

  I watch Tucker almost pass out
at my words and Mikos has tears in his eyes. My grandmother is looking at me with love when she says, “Poppycock. You’ll call me Grams, just like everyone else. You are my grandson, after all.”

  I smile at her and actually feel it. Aside from when I’m with Cammie, I don’t ever feel true emotions, but here with my grandmother’s hand on my back, my father and brother in the same house, I have to wonder if I have the chance to finally have a family someday.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Grant

  It’s been a couple weeks since I met my father and I’ve been a fucking wreck. Other than going to work, I’ve been holed up in my apartment with the lights off and the shades drawn, trying to figure my shit out. I thought I knew who Tucker was. I used that knowledge to justify my actions. All the horrible crimes I’ve committed were in reaction to him taking the love I felt was owed to me.

  But he was abandoned, too.

  Cammie kept telling me he was a good guy. She told me to look past my hate, see my brother for the man he is, and stop wasting time. When that didn’t work, she told me everything that made him a great friend and why he’s like a brother to her. I never wanted to hear it. I thought it was her ability to see good in everyone, even when they didn’t deserve it. Shit, she thinks I’m worthy of her. My innocent, naïve buttercup. That’s what I thought, anyway.

  It turns out, she was right in many ways about my brother and now I’m struggling to wrap my mind around that concept. I have spent years warped by the hatred I felt for him, allowing my whole spirit to become consumed by revenge. The plan I set in motion is weeks from coming to fruition and it’s too late to stop it. Not only will it crush Tucker, but the entire crew of Facing Extinction. That means Cammie, too. What the hell have I done?

  I stare into the shadows of my living room, trying to find solace in the darkness like I used to, but all I find is emptiness. I created this shell of a life for myself. It’s what I deserve for the destruction I’m bringing down on so many good people. I can go to Tucker, tell him what I’ve done. There’s no way for our show to stop the fall out. We can’t rewrite the episodes, create sets, and reshoot in time to avoid catastrophe, but maybe he’ll know what to do. I owe him at least this much. He never deserved what I’ve done. He lost enough. I was just too blind to see.