Daring You

by Ketley Allison

  Mom’s crying, her shoulders shaking. Dad doesn’t sound like Dad. His voice is much higher, and crackles, and I think it’s the sound of sobbing.

  Sippy cup. I need my emergency apple juice, because I don’t feel very safe anymore.

  I turn back to my room, and as I do, the floorboard creaks under my foot.

  The man holding my mom snaps his head around.

  Sees me.

  “Well, lookie here,” he says, his pale grey eyes taking in the sight of me and my race car pajamas. “Hey, Lopez. We have an unexpected guest.”

  I whimper.

  Wishing for my sippy cup.

  Wishing for my mom.

  Gasping, I slam my palms against the edge of the table.

  “Sir?” The server rushes over, takes one look at me, and takes a step back. “Goodness, do you need an ambulance? Are you choking?”

  Those questions should really be asked in reverse, but I don’t have the voice to tell her so. I do everything I can to calm my breathing and blink away the sweat dripping into my vision. Clutching the table, I center back to the present, to the bar I’m in, to the memory of Aiden across from me, and internally chant that I’m not that child anymore.

  Ben never saw the carnage.

  Ben wouldn’t remember.

  “Oh, shit. Oh, God,” I think I sob out, before bowing my head and exhaling hard into my chest.

  Ryan remembers.

  28

  Astor

  As it happens, I get to keep my job, but not a whole lot of it.

  Yang gives me a what-for in his office, concentrating mostly on my hoarding of crucial information to the Staten Island Slaughters. But, Yang isn’t a dumb man.

  He’s not a fair one, either.

  “Your closeness to this young man, I can see how it sullied things for you,” Yang says from his side of his expansive oak desk, surrounded by various diplomas and requisite family-and-children photos. “It made you emotional, you weren’t thinking correctly. Do I have that right?”

  Yes, because if it were the reverse, if it were Ben learning about me, he would’ve easily handed over the evidence and called it a day. These damned lady-part emotions, just can’t get rid of ‘em.

  “I was also on my period,” I say, deadpan.

  His right eye twitches. “Ah. Well, luckily Mike talked you out of it and you were ultimately able to come to the right decision.”

  I swallow any derision and say, “What happens now? What will you do, knowing who Ryan is?”

  “It’s not exactly par-for-the-course, is it?” Yang taps a Mont Blanc against his ledger absently. “This is a delicate, extremely confidential matter, not that it wasn’t before. This firm can’t handle any blowback from the risk of outing an NFL player this way. But, we also can’t anger one of our favorite clients.”

  “Chavez.”

  “That’s right. Somehow, we have to play both hands. The less people that know about Ryan Delaney, the better. I’d like to keep that knowledge between you, me, Miss Maddox, and your fiancé. “

  I readily agree with him. “Does this mean we won’t go public with any of it?”

  “Not a bit.” Yang squints in my direction. “I’m one of Manhattan’s top ten defense lawyers for a reason, Miss Hayes. I do not have loose lips.”

  What about Chavez—I almost say, but stop myself. I haven’t studied Yang enough to determine if he’d ever let Ben’s identity slip to the mafia boss, and placing a hope and a prayer on Yang’s ego as a top defense attorney just doesn’t seem like enough.

  “We have to appease Chavez somehow,” I say instead.

  “Agreed. This is where you come in.”

  And this is how you keep your job, is left unsaid.

  I stay quiet.

  “You must convince Mr. Donahue to agree to a deposition. Written, no recording, no identifying characteristics. If we get that, I’ll make sure it’s enough to keep Chavez happy.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  Ben’s not talking to me anymore, I want to say. He hates me more than I ever hated him—and that’s a lot.

  “Then you’d better damn well try, Miss Hayes.”

  “He doesn’t…” I think the rest of what I want to say through before I continue. How much I can divulge while respecting Ben’s privacy? “Ben doesn’t remember anything.”

  “Then we get that on record and can wash our hands of this.”

  “He doesn’t want to be on record—”

  “You’ve already said as much. Change his mind.”

  I shake my head, but Yang’s desk phone rings. He gestures at me in dismissal, and I stand, both hating and loving that this meeting is over.

  “I expect results shortly,” Yang says to me before answering the call.

  I depart Yang’s office, unsure if I should sit at my cubicle looking stunned for a while longer, or going home and drowning my sorrows in wine.

  The latter. Definitely the latter.

  I swipe my jacket from my chair on the way to the elevators, drawing Taryn’s attention. I wave at her that I’m fine, no biggie, while my insides slosh like I’m on an ancient ship to the edge of the world.

  I don’t take a car home, preferring the clog of the subway. It’s easy to become no one in such a large, close knit crowd. To be nothing to anyone around you.

  When I unlock the door to the darkness of my apartment, it’s the first time I wish for a cat, or a dog, or a something, to greet me.

  I flick on the lights and kick my heels off in my foyer, heading to the kitchen and straight for the fridge, but I’m sidelined by a bottle of champagne on the counter.

  The good kind. The pink, sparkling gorgeousness that’s all over Pinterest.

  And the note that’s stuck to it sends acidic bubbles up into my throat.

  Congrats on such a find, babe. I could never compete with your brains.

  Celebrate on me!

  M.

  The greatest urge to hurl the bottle against the wall hits my arm, but I resist, both for the clean up and the fact that Mike is well aware of his penchant to make me throw things. I don’t want to do what he wants or expects, ever again.

  He manipulated Taryn, broke into my confidential files, took my work, and while everyone expected him to take all the credit, Mike gave it all to me, instead. Because he knew exactly the damage he was inflicting, and what I’d do to try and stop it.

  Mike didn’t need to personally ruin my career. I did it all for him.

  I played into Mike’s hands, and in doing so, handed Ben over on an exposed, silver platter.

  Mike knows about Ben.

  What Ben and I were doing together was all sex, pretty stupid, and even though I knew I’d end up hurt, I didn’t regret it.

  I loved him in college, and I love him for the man he is. To have a piece of him, to enjoy what we could be, to submit to his pleasure, were all good things.

  We were never meant to be anything more, I know that. It’s the accepting of it that’s left visible marks on my heart.

  I forego the wine and dump the champagne in the trash—then fish it out and make a mental note to give it to Locke and Carter. They’re always celebrating a new milestone of Lily’s every other week.

  Instead of guzzling away reality, I grab a glass of ice water, open my laptop, and do what I do best.

  Figure shit out.

  One side benefit of basically having Locke’s calendar in my phone—I can constantly see what his bozo friends are up to. And I say that with love.

  I find Ben on the Lower East Side, at what used to be his and Locke’s favorite happy hour joint, before my brother became sober.

  Being the punctual, highly trained and routine guy that he is, Ben is there early, as I suspected. I’m hoping to catch him for a few minutes—all I need is a fraction of that—before the rest troop in and inadvertently ruin any sewing up of this mess I can manage.

  I walk through the single, glass-paneled door decorated with LED beer signs still cl
ad in my suit from…when was it? This morning? Last night? I’ve lost track.

  My heel catches in the single panel of perpetually damp carpeting into the bar as it sinks in. In the span of less than twenty-four hours, I couldn’t care less what I look like, or the state of my hair.

  Ben’s elbows are propped on the bar, and so far, and the rest of the stools are peppered with people unwilling to invade the other’s comfort zone, so it’s easy for me to slip in beside him and take a seat before he notices.

  Ben’s gaze slides toward me, and any argument or plea I’d rehearsed on the way over here flees to the back of my head and stays there.

  “Ben?”

  I peer closer at him, horrified at the red-rimmed eyes, the sallow cheeks, the colorless palette his features have to deal with.

  “What are you doing here?” Ben rasps. His lips barely form the words.

  Asking him if he’s okay seems dumb. Putting my hand on him is a lethal mistake. His eyes sober and clear the longer he keeps his attention on me.

  “I can fix this,” I blurt. “I can help.”

  His chin jerks back, the rest of him barely following suit. I’m afraid he’ll fall off the stool. “What the hell are you hoping to fix? Soon, the world’s gonna know who I am. The mafia is gonna come and shoot me. Right here.” He pats his chest for emphasis. “If they don’t dismember me first.”

  I rub my lips together, wishing I hadn’t kicked the habit of chewing them off in law school. “Maybe…”

  No. This can’t be done another time. There is no more time. Even if Ben’s drunk.

  “The firm isn’t going to leak any information,” I say instead. “At least with Yang, your identity’s safe. He’s not going to tell the defendants…or their families…either.”

  “Oh, the firm, you say? Not your firm?” He leans forward, and his elbow nearly falls off the bar. “Did you lose your pretty pink job up there in your dark, evil tower?”

  Ben’s slurring, he’s going through some deep shit, and he’s possibly seeing two of me.

  Fuck him, anyway.

  “To the contrary,” I say. “I can save my job if I get you to testify.”

  Ben blinks. Then bursts into a high, uncharacteristic guffaw. I watch him, closed-lipped.

  He gets enough breath back to say, “Knew there was a reason you’d be here for your own benefit, Astor.”

  “I’m here to tell you not to do it.”

  He pauses in picking up his half-empty beer. “Come again?”

  “You may think you have me all figured out, that I aim high and fight low. I constantly have to prove myself in rooms full of testosterone and boys’ clubs and brotherhoods and I’m proud of every step and move I’ve made. I’ve worked hard to get where I am at such a young age. I’ve sacrificed plenty, though it’s easy to think I bite off children’s heads and feed them to vultures at night as some sort of ritualistic, bitchy sacrifice, because what does a woman like me deserve success for? Right?”

  Ben has trouble focusing on the bar. “Jesus, Astor. I didn’t ask for a speech—”

  “You didn’t. That’s right. You’re sitting here getting drunk, letting men like Yang railroad you—”

  “Hold up just a minute—”

  “I’m on your side, Ben!”

  I shout it loud enough that heads turn. I’ve certainly gained Ben’s full attention.

  “You may have convinced yourself that I work only for me, and when that’s not in my favor, I impress my boss enough that it benefits my career, but you have me so wrong. The minute this firm wanted to hunt down a child’s trauma for the good of known mafia consorts, it went too far. I gathered the information because I was on auto-pilot. I’d become so numb to everything, every emotion, and it didn’t seem to matter, then, if I imploded someone else’s life. But even before knowing it was you, well into tracing the inheritance funds, I knew it was wrong. I felt it. And I didn’t want it anymore.”

  Ben asks quietly, “Want what?”

  “This life.” My voice cracks. “I love what I do. I’m an excellent lawyer. But I’m terrible at being a human.”

  “That’s not true,” Ben says. He looks to his beer, swishing it around in the glass. “In all the craziness of trying to make sense of my situation, the fear, the anger, I’ve related to you most of all.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re the first person I want to come to when my life’s in shambles.” Ben pins me with bleary, pale blue eyes. “The woman I want to confide in. The one whose opinion is most important. I told you who I really was and…and you didn’t see me as Ryan. You still looked at me as Ben. That, more than anything, tells me you’re a person who cares.”

  “I care about you,” I say, my throat thick with emotion.

  “Then what are you here for?”

  “To try to make some sense out of this.” I sniff hard, then sift through my tote. “Here are all the documents pertaining to your old identity. I’ve deleted all traces from the firm’s database. I’m going to give them to you, so you can destroy them, or keep them, basically do whatever you want with them. It’s your choice.”

  “You’ll get fired for this.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you’re not scared? Disappointed?”

  “I’m terrified,” I laugh dully. “And incredibly disappointed in myself for letting it get this far, for allowing Mike to get his hands on it, for the information even getting to Altin Yang…there are a lot of things I regret. But this, being in this dank-ass bar with you, throwing these folders in front of your face and telling you to fuck ‘em, this is the proudest I’ve ever been.”

  Ever so slowly, Ben smiles.

  I mirror a tentative one back.

  He clears his throat, breaking the moment, then lays a hand on the folders on my lap. “What does this mean for me?”

  “I can’t do anything about Yang’s knowledge. But he’s built on integrity, and the only thing he wants is for you to be questioned in a closed-door deposition. As for Mike, I’m working on a plan for him, but he’s nothing if not an opportunistic asshole, so if this information doesn’t gain him anything, he likely won’t use it.”

  “Astor, sorry to be so blunt, but I fucked his fiancée. Dude wants to have me murdered.”

  “Ex-fiancée, and he’s not the type to whisper your name to known, violent drug gangs. Especially since in our line of work, we know it’s often the messenger that’s dismembered and made an ‘unavailable’ witness.”

  Ben taps a finger on the files, and I feel them against my thigh.

  “And you?” he asks. “What would you advise me to do?”

  “As a human being, or as your lawyer?”

  “Both,” he says.

  I take a deep breath. “I would say, you have two choices. You can nip this in the bud and take it to the press yourself. Tell them who you really are and that you remember nothing. Make it so public that the mafia—or anyone else—would be very stupid to come after you.”

  “People have orchestrated car accidents for less.”

  I concede his point, but say, “In this case, the benefits might outweigh the risks. You were a four-year-old boy who witnessed a crime a little over twenty years ago. If I had you on the stand, I could easily discredit you.”

  Ben furrows his brow as if insulted, but more likely he’s attempting to keep the Earth on its axis as he wobbles.

  “The fact that you’re recalling something decades old,” I continue, “And that you were a toddler with an unreliable memory to begin with, makes you a weak witness on both sides. You’ve lived peacefully and privately ever since, giving no indication that you’ve remembered anything to do with your parents’ murders.”

  “You’ve missed one key fact.”

  I arch a brow.

  “I remember.”

  Someone smacks a pool cue against the balls, sending a crack both inside and outside my head. “What?”

  “I’m…” Ben massages his brow
s. “I’m starting to remember. I think it’s all this talk about it. It’s forcing me to look back. But I remember a name that was said that night. Lopez.”

  I lay a hand on his denim-clad thigh. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you sure it’s not your mind playing tricks on you? That name has been thrown around a lot in the news—”

  “I’m not watching the news.”

  “—and it’s extremely common.”

  “Astor, listen to me.” He grips my wrist on his thigh with a firm, urgent tightness. “I”m remembering. I know what they did to my parents. I—I know…”

  “Okay,” I soothe, coming closer, moving a hand to his neck. “Okay, I believe you.”

  He lays his forehead on mine. “I’ve made my decision.”

  My eyelashes brush against his nose. “You don’t have to tell me anything. After what happened this morning…”

  “You’re here now. You’ve given me the files. You’ve compromised your career. I think you’ve gained my trust back.”

  “You’re also drunk,” I say in a low voice. “I don’t know if now’s the time to come to conclusions on something so big.”

  “I make my best decisions while drunk.”

  A surprising bubble of laughter reaches my throat.

  “It’s how I signed with the Giants and became the highest-grossing rookie receiver in the league.”

  “Well, with that kind of rep…”

  Ben sobers. Lifts away from my forehead so he can search my eyes. “Ever since the news broke of the arrest, of the suspects, I’ve known what the right move is. But I’ve been a coward. Confused. I had no idea I’d have to face my past like this. I’ve lived so long as another man, that it—it laid me out sideways.”

  I squeeze his bicep, remaining silent.

  “There is one thing that rings true. And it’s justice for my parents. The ones who only got to love me for four years. Who had their lives cut short because they were trying to do the right thing. For taking away my chance to grow up with them. To love them as much as they loved me.”

  I nod slowly.

  Ben’s mouth goes grim. “I want the fuckers to pay for what they did to my life. Their lives.”