Chapter Eleven
Julien
I drove on autopilot. What the fuck had happened back in that hotel room? I hadn’t dreamt that dream in a long time. Thought it was over, forgotten. But fuck me, it was like I was watching Charlie do it, watching him throw the rope over the beam, watching him slide his neck into the noose he’d made so fucking expertly.
I pressed on the accelerator. Mia glanced my way, but I was beyond caring.
He’d been fifteen when he’d done it. I’d been a year older than him. The foster care system had fucked us, over and over again, but at least they’d kept us together. I’d thought we could survive it because we had each other.
It was when I was told I would be moved, that we wouldn’t be together anymore, that he finally did it.
The couple who had taken us in, the last one, had seemed okay at the beginning. Nice. They’d paid special attention to Charlie right from the start. If I hadn’t had my head up my own ass, I might have seen when things changed, when the abuse started. He never said a word to me though. He just grew more and more quiet.
I was the one who found him. He’d done it in the closet in the attic. I still wasn’t sure for how long he’d been planning it, and some part of me was still angry at him for not having talked to me. For not having told me. But he’d left a note for me in my schoolbag. That was when I knew for sure. The man who’d adopted us had been abusing him for two years. His bitch wife had known about it too, but she’d just looked the other way.
I wiped the back of my hand across my nose and shook my head. I hadn’t been able to save Charlie but I had avenged his death. They’d been my first murders, our ‘guardians’. They were the reason for the tattoo Mia had asked me about at the restaurant the other day.
Mia.
Fuck.
She sat with her hands in her lap looking out at the road, not talking. I bet she had a thousand and one questions. She baffled me. She could have run. She could have gotten out, but she hadn’t.
“What did your stepbrother do to you?”
“What?” Her head snapped around, confusion wrinkling her brow.
“What did he do to you that’s got you on the run now? Why did he go to prison, and why is he after you now?”
“His family laundered money for crooks. That’s why he went to prison.”
“No, his father laundered the money. Jason St. Rose didn’t go to prison for that. At least they couldn’t find anything linking him. Not yet anyway. All I know is it was your testimony that put him away, but you were a minor at the time and the file is sealed. What did he do to you?”
She looked out the window, shaking her head once, then turning back to me. “I’m coming into some money which he thinks belongs to him.”
Well, this just got more interesting.
“What money?”
She studied me as if weighing her options. “My sister left me a million dollars in her will. I can’t claim it until I’m twenty-five and then I have to do so within a month — or I lose it.”
“A million dollars?”
“Guilt money.”
“But money nonetheless. Tell me about the guilt.”
“No.”
“What did you do, Mia?”’
“I didn’t do anything. In fact, that was the point. It was to buy my silence, my sister’s silence. And our obedience. She just felt guilty about it afterwards and didn’t spend a fucking penny apparently. And I, obviously, didn’t stay silent for long.”
“You’re angry at her?”
She shrugged a shoulder and looked away. “It doesn’t matter. She’s dead.”
“It does matter.”
“You still angry at Charlie?” she asked, surprising me. I wondered if she’d meant to do it, to ask that question to piss me off. But it didn’t, somehow.
I wasn’t even sure she expected an answer or even wanted one — but she was getting one.
“Yeah, I am in fact.”
I exited the highway to begin the ascent to the village where I’d been born. I hadn’t been there in a long time and seeing it at the top of the hill, I was glad it was still some distance away. I needed time to manage the shit that was coming up.
I looked at Mia. “I’m angry because if he’d told me what had been going on, I would have helped him. We would have left together. But he didn’t. He shut me out and killed himself instead. So, I’m angry for a whole list of reasons.”
Tears reddened her eyes as she listened. “I’m sorry.”
I guess I expected more, so I just shrugged a shoulder at her response. “Tell me about this million.”
“Sounds more appealing than a quarter of a million to hand me over to Jason, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” I wouldn’t kid myself and say it was the only reason I was asking, but I wasn’t about to tell her that.
“I can pay you more than Jason will. I’ll double it, what he’s offering, if you’ll help me get the money. I don’t care about what you did… what you do. If you hand me back to Jason, I’m dead. If I can get the money, I can disappear. It’s what I want. I’ll just disappear and it will be like you and I never met, like I never saw you with that woman. The will stipulates that I have to go in person to sign the paperwork in order to claim the money. The attorney who is executing it is my step-father’s attorney and it was written in a way that if I don’t claim it within a month of my twenty-fifth birthday, it goes to Jason and Allison.”
“Who’s Allison?”
“Jason’s sister. She’s okay. I still have contact with her.”
I glanced at her. “She’s okay? How is she okay? She stands to gain half a million dollars if you don’t show up — or you turn up dead — and you think she’s okay?”
Mia looked confused, as if she’d not once thought about that possibility. But then she shook her head. “No, Allison’s not like that. She’s afraid of him too.” She paused before adding: “She knows what he’s capable of.”
“And what is it he’s capable of, Mia?” She wanted to tell me. I just needed to help her along. And besides, I did have some idea. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.
“A lot of things.”
I nodded. That was fine, I’d wait. “Well, just be smart. Money is a greater motivator than anything else to most people.”
“Not everyone’s a mercenary.”
“Be careful, Mia.”
She paused, her eyes on me. “Is that where we’re going?” She craned her neck to look up at the hilltop village.
“Yes. It’s called Pitigliano.”
“It’s pretty.”
I only nodded. It was pretty.
“So will you help me?”
“I’m still considering. Do you have some proof of the million?”
She shook her head, exhaling loudly. “Yes. Or I did. It’s back at the hotel in my suitcase.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient.”
“Look, all you have to do is take me to get the money. If I’m lying, which I’m not, you can turn me in to Jason then and collect your quarter of a million. But if you’re patient, that quarter gets doubled. You can’t tell me you don’t want that. I mean, it’s kind of obvious, right?”
I chuckled, taking the last curve. “Yeah, but it means I have to put up with your smart mouth.”
“Screw you.”
“See what I mean?” I drove into the village. It had been years since I’d been here. I hadn’t even called my grandmother to tell her I was coming. Not that I owed her a call. I paid her well to keep the house up. Hell, I’d barely talked to her at all in the last five years.
My grandmother had had my mom young, and out of wedlock — which was not done here. She’d gotten married some years later, but that hadn’t worked out for her either and she’d been on her own ever since. If she hadn’t been a drunk, what happened to Charlie wouldn’t have happened. She’d have become our guardian. Everything would have been different if she’d wanted us. If she’d been able to take care of us. But she hadn’t, and that was that.
The past was dead, as was my brother.
I parked the car as close as I could to the house, but we’d have to walk a little ways. I turned to Mia, watching her watching me.
“All right, so the math is obvious. I keep you alive, get you to where you need to be by your birthday, and I get half a million. Where is it you need to be, anyway?”
“Philadelphia.”
“Okay. How long is it to your birthday exactly?”
“Two weeks from now.” She rolled her eyes as she said it, but I could tell she was nervous.
“I have one condition.”
“What condition?”
“I make all the calls. You do as you’re told in all things, and that’s it.”
“What kind of calls?”
That made me grin. “Any kind.” I knew what she was talking about, just as surely as I knew her confusion about what she wanted, about how she reacted to me. “Are you prepared to accept that?”
She studied me for a moment, and I watched her choosing her words, trying to find a way to ask what she wanted to ask, but without seeming to care. She did care though. The bright red of her face told me that.
“Do you mean… I...” She glanced away, then looked at me once more. “What happened at the hotel…”
This was too good. “Any kind.”
“You can’t…”
“Did you come when I licked your cunt, Mia?”
Her mouth fell open, her eyes going wide, her face flaming red.
“Did you come when I fucked you this morning? Because I think you did.”
“I… You can’t—”
“Did you come?” I asked, trying to keep her off balance. People liked to hide from the truth when the truth didn’t serve them. I’d be damned if I was going to let her do that.
“I… that doesn’t mean—”
“Did you come? Yes or no? It’s a simple question, requiring a simple answer.”
“You’re a fucking prick.”
“That’s twice now that you’ve been disrespectful. Since I’ve been counting, that is. We’ll address that in a minute. For now, answer my question.”
“Fine. Yes.” She looked out her window, and bit her lip to keep her mouth shut. It made me smile, her defiance. She wanted this, but wanted to be made to give it.
Screw that. She’d face who she really was.
“I won’t take anything you don’t give me — but I can guarantee you’ll be giving it. Do you agree to my condition?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Sure you do. Your stepbrother is your other choice.”
“Like I said, no choice.”
“I could really use a cup of coffee.” I raised my eyebrows, waiting on her to say it.
“Fine. Yes. I agree.”
Smiling, I opened the car door. “Welcome to Pitigliano, Mia.”