Chapter Sixteen
Catherine
Heartbreak was ruthless.
I rolled over and found the bed empty the next morning. Trixie whined at the back door of the hostel room, scratching with her one paw relentlessly. The sun outside was deep gold. It was afternoon. I wasn’t surprised I slept that long. We’d spent ten hours hiking yesterday. Parts of me were sore that had no right hurting.
When we’d gotten back to the room, Brando had torn my clothes off and made love to me twice. Long, deep love. The kind of sex that rearranged the soul, as if his had linked with mine and forged. I walked on clouds over to the back door.
“Put your pants back on, Trix.” I let her out and then looked around for Brando.
I didn’t know his bags were gone until I returned from the shower, thinking he went out for food or for something else, and sank to my knees near my own bags.
My heart stilled. I looked around hectically. Everything that was his was gone except for my bag. Even his empty water bottle that sat on the floor near his bed was gone. He’d had it there so he could take his pain pills.
My world felt unsteady, like someone tipped the gameboard to the right, and all the pawns were falling over the edge. I grappled with my cell phone, waiting impatiently for it to turn on. I ignored the missed calls and texts from Klay and Madi, and immediately called Brando’s cell. It went straight to voicemail.
“You’ve reached Detective Hawkins. Leave a message.”
He’d never changed his voicemail. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. But something about his name still being Detective Hawkins put a horrible lump in my throat.
I threw on some clothes. Still clutching my cell, I went out to the lobby. The clerk was wearing a tank top and a bandanna. When he saw me, he pulled out his headphones and nodded. “What’s up?” he asked, probably in his late teens.
“Did you see my boyfriend leave?”
He nodded. “Checked out early this morning. Paid until the end of the week. Said to give you this.” He reached under the desk and pulled out a letter.
I snatched it and tore it open, my heart stopping. It was written in his handwriting on the back of a tourist guide pamphlet. It was folded up at least ten times, like he’d spent a long time writing it. I read my name in the beginning, and then skipped to the ending, but nothing I saw explained anything, and I didn’t want to read it in front of the clerk. I tucked it in my bra, my soul heaving.
“What did he say?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, really. Said he’d like to check out and pay out the bill until the end of the week. You check out on Friday at noon, by the way.”
That didn’t make sense. None of it did. “Thanks,” I threw out, stomping back to my room. I sank on my bed—our bed—and plucked the letter from my bra.
Catherine,
You were right. When I woke up in the hospital, you said, You are not okay. You were right. I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay for a very long time. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to leave you, Cat. I don’t want to leave you ever. You make me want things I never dreamed of wanting. Happiness. Love. I wanted you from the moment we met. A match was struck. You felt it. I know you did. I see that light every time I look into your eyes.
That’s why I left. I refuse to take that light. I want to know it exists somewhere, somehow.
I was selfish. So selfish. Loving you knowing I could never keep you.
You knew we’d be a disaster. You knew we’d be the best kind of bad and the worst kind of good. Stay the week. Go home. Smile. Never stop looking for magic. I have to do this, Cat, so they can be at peace.
It was always my plan to find the men who killed my family.
And it was always my plan to make them pay.
There was a reason you were hesitant. Your fear kept you safe, because our souls weren’t going to stop until we were together. Our fears, on the other hand, were probably right.
You’re my storm.
My heart.
My only happy thing.
I’d put you in my safe if you could fit. Carry you everywhere I went.
I love you, Catherine Abbott. That’s all the magic I needed.
I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to love you.
Love,
Brando
Cold moved through me.
I was in paradise, but I no longer felt the heat. I felt the ice of his betrayal. He hadn’t come to Portland to get better. He’d gone to Portland to chase.
How did I not see it? I picked apart his letter, word for word, for hours. Was he going to kill them? The people that killed his family? The ice in my heart turned into shards. He’d known, all this time, what he was going to do.
I had to stop him.
I couldn’t see through my tears as I packed. Throwing my things into my bag and Trixie’s too. I wrangled her from the backyard and jumped into my shoes. I lugged my things with me outside and called for an Uber.
“We’re going to the airport?” the driver asked.
“Yes,” I answered, getting Trixie into the backseat. I refused to let myself think. If I did, I imagined things I didn’t want to imagine.
I’d been protecting myself from Brando. My heart from this feeling.
I hadn’t known that he was protecting something too. And it wasn’t his heart.
It was me. From the truth.
When I got to the airport, I was met with disappointment. The only flight out to PDX already left this morning. On the edge of tears again, I tried to breathe, to think. I checked other cities nearby, like Seattle, but there was a huge storm moving over the west coast and all flights there were cancelled. That’s why he took me hiking yesterday. He knew there wouldn’t be another flight out to Portland until Friday. He knew that was our last chance to be together before he left me stranded in paradise with my heart seeping through his fist.
I drug my bags over to a coffee shop in the airport and tied Trixie’s leash around my chair handle. Brando’s flight already landed at PDX two hours ago. I called Klayton’s number, chewing on my thumb as it rang. It was Monday morning. Odds were they were both in the shop. I tried Madi’s cell next, my heart stopping when I heard her voice.
“Cat, you are in some serious shit,” she greeted. “Klay’s so pissed, he’s been mean.”
“Madi, is Brando there?”
“No. He’s been gone as long as you have.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“No.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Has Klay?”
“I don’t know. Cat? What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” I exhaled miserably. “Is Klay available?”
“Um … that’s probably not a good idea. He’s seriously pissed.”
I got that. If he left me high and dry, I’d have his balls for sure. But Klay had his magic. I’d wanted mine too. The thought had me doubling over. I buried my face in my hands and hyperventilated. I already felt his absence.
Like all the love and magic in the world had been taken with him. I didn’t see light or wonder. All I saw was pain and betrayal.
“Cat!”
I picked up my cell and sighed sadly into the receiver. “I need you to do me a favor, Madi.”
“What?” She sounded resigned.
“Go to Brando’s apartment.”
“And do what?”
“See if he’s there. Call him. I don’t know. Call his landlord. Do something. Please? You have to do something. You have to stop him, Madison.”
“Stop him from what? Where have you two been?”
“Call me back once you’re done.” I hung up and then dialed his cell again, only to hear his sexy gruff voice telling me to leave a message. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, Brando Hawkins, but you’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing. Leaving me? Me!” I shrieked, not caring who saw me. “I love you, you stupid bastard. And you let me fall in love with you, knowing you were plotting revenge the entire time. That no matter how much I wanted you, there was no shot at us? Why didn’t you tell me to go home when you woke up in the hospital? Why would you wait until now? Until I couldn’t breathe without you?”
Beneath the table, Trixie whined. I hung up and wiped my tears.
If heartbreak was relentless, strength was too. Even now, I couldn’t break. Breaking wasn’t in my blood.
I was able to catch a flight to New York. A ten-hour non-stop flight to the other side of the United States. When I landed, I immediately turned my phone on to find one text from Madison.
Madison: He’s gone. Landlord said he paid out five months in advance when he got the apartment. Funny thing about it is that the apartment’s in your name. And it’s fully furnished. What’s going on?
My tears begged to fall, but I shoved them back so I could think. He left me his apartment? The dread in my guts made me sick with worry. Why blow his bank on a trip to Hawaii, hotel stays, and leasing out an apartment? Unless he never planned on coming back.
I’d never fainted before. Until that exact moment and I realized what Brando planned on doing. He didn’t need money, if he wasn’t alive to spend it.
He hadn’t taken us to Hawaii for love. He’d taken me to Hawaii. For one last war in our twisted love story.
I woke up on the airport floor with strangers standing over me and Trixie licking my face. I denied their help and dragged us to the ticket counter. All flights were cancelled to the western states, but I managed to get a flight to Vegas. After that, I plugged in Klay’s Uber account—I was in the negative in my bank account, after having spent over two thousand dollars to get home—and drove head first into a snow storm. When I got to Brando’s apartment complex, I was out of breath, strung out on exhaustion, and motivated by heartache.
I found the leasing office and the manager confirmed Madison’s text message. Brando leased his apartment in my name. The manager hadn’t minded, what with an all cash deposit and five months’ worth of rent.
“So you’re saying it’s mine?” I asked, shaking the snow from my hair. Trixie was over by the water cooler sniffing the carpet.
“All yours,” he assured, giving me an odd look. “You signed the lease, Mrs. Hawkins.” He pointed to my name on the lease. Catherine Hawkins.
“Sure looks like I did.”
As much as I wanted to put on my armor and pick up my sword, I didn’t know where to go. I had to figure things out. I didn’t have a key, however, but I figured if Brando was smart enough to trick me into falling over and under for him, he was smart enough to lay out a trail of breadcrumbs. I took the stairs to his apartment on the third floor. I touched my hand to his door and tried to feel him.
But love wasn’t cultivated by touch or distance. It was grown by emotion and fed with sacrifice.
I dropped my luggage and kneeled, searching through the contents. I’d torn my bag apart before I accepted there was no key in it. I sat on the floor in the middle of the empty apartment hallway and tried to think like a lying ex-cop who owned my damn heart.
My eyes fell on Trixie. In my haste and the chaos of travel, I hadn’t stopped to see the gold key hanging from her collar. Right next to her purple cheetah dog tag.
“Come here, girl.” I kissed her face, hugging her to my chest. “I miss him already. Is that crazy?” She nuzzled me. “Let’s go inside. See the rubble.”
Brando’s apartment was in fact fully furnished. And it was so me. Black furniture with pops of color. Yellow throw pillows, a deep gold rug. A painting on the wall of a dandelion weed turning into a rose. I could see that he’d painted it. I could feel him in it. The energy of trapped emotion, the love burning on the edge of everything he felt painting it. On the corner of the painting was his signature. BH.
He might as well have signed it on the corner of my heart.
In a defiant act of rebellion, I decided right then and there that my heart was his. I would never seek magic in anyone else other than him. And if not him, my magic would fizzle.
I sank onto his sofa numbly and pulled out his letter from my back pocket, rereading it. Everything we’d done in the past couple months felt like a lie. Every step he made, every choice he decided—I had to wonder why he’d done what he’d done. Quitting his job and coming out to Portland.
Getting his own apartment only to put it in my name.
I burned to know what was in his safe. A search of the apartment told me everything I needed to know. He’d taken it. Of course, he had. I hated that damn safe suddenly. Hated that I’d toted it around for him. Toted around his lies. I’d seen past all the signs.
But that was the stitch, wasn’t it? Love was worth the insight, and it was stronger because of the doubt.
Trixie and I slept in his bed, rich of his scent. I inhaled his pillow with every breath until I passed out from the tears. When I woke up, I expected to be in Hawaii. That Brando leaving me was a nightmare. But it wasn’t, unfortunately. The nightmare part was true, but the waking up and going back to paradise wasn’t.
Trixie was sniffing around his bedroom when I woke, head pounding. Crying headaches were the worst. I tossed the covers aside and padded into the kitchen wearing the same clothes I’d worn since I left the island. He’d thought of everything to make this easier on me. The apartment was stocked with food, coffee, and booze. Everything I needed to forget him.
I turned the coffee on and then hopped into his shower, lathering my body in his soap until I smelled of only him. The entire city was drenched in snow. I took Trixie down for a pee break. My breath clouded in the snow-covered street. I felt truly alone in that moment. Ripped free of all that I found in Hawaii.
When I made it back upstairs, I immediately searched through his apartment. He’d barely lived in it. But he had to have left something behind other than me. After a search turned up nothing, I started to feel crazy. My reality from a few days ago, and my reality now crashed into the other. One was happy. The other was lost.
I’d given him space, not knowing that the space I’d given him was also giving him all the room he needed to hunt.
I ran my hand through my hair in the middle of my new apartment and hated every inch of this space. I hated being in those four walls without his storm kicking up my windfall.
“How could he do this?” I demanded out loud.
His intentions seemed so harsh in contrast to his heart. His heart was like mine. Damaged but alive; it beat harder when we were together. Apart, our hearts barely made a sound. Brando couldn’t possibly be hunting the men who killed his family. Why wait this long? Unless he’d had nothing to go on until now. I swallowed the betrayal—I’d deal with it later—and tried to think like him.
A man in pain.
I took a cup of coffee with me to the sofa and logged into the apartment’s free Wi-Fi. I opened my internet app and punched in one name. Brando Hawkins was the same on the internet as he was in real life. Stoic, cold, and dressed in a suit. Most of the articles I found tied him to Madi’s disappearance and the manhunt for her abductor. There were articles from small time newspapers listing him as a responding officer when he worked patrol, but nothing that didn’t revolve around his career. The man had a squeaky-clean past.
He didn’t even have a Facebook page.
Status: Broke Cat’s heart. But I still have my safe.
“His safe,” I whispered, trying to remember what he’d said about his past.
I opened a fresh tab in my phone’s browser and punched in Hard Riders in Texas. My heart did a fearful flip. They were in fact a motorcycle gang that spun chaos and danger in San Antonio, Texas for the better part of two decades. The article clippings were endless. Petty crimes like robbery ranging up to larger crimes like first degree murder. They put the Sons of Anarchy to shame. I typed in Hawkins Hard Riders Texas. There was nothing concrete—people were obviously afraid of the Hard Riders MC Gang—and what there was available was cryptic. Allegations on the president of the MC, Franco Hawkins, preceded by Harlow Hawkins, his brother, and Brando’s uncle.
Then I found the news article about his family’s murder.
Family slain two nights before Thanksgiving.
Officers responded to a 911 call at 1713 Lowend Road in San Antonio at two in the morning with calls of shots fired. When officers entered the property, they found a bloodbath. Three homicides and one stab wound victim. The homeowner was a known gang member in the notorious motorcycle club, Hard Riders. The second responding officers engaged in a foot pursuit with two suspects, both officers perishing in the chase from gunfire. It is not known if the slayings were gang related at this point.
I scrolled too quickly, unaware that there were scenes from the murder included in the article.
My heart seized at the image of a woman lying in her bed, on her back, a bullet hole in her skull. Melanie Hawkins. Beside her murder picture was a picture of her smiling. My heart stuttered at the sight of her. Her hair was golden blond and her eyes were the color of clear, blue glass. She was sweet looking. My eyes teared up at the light in her eyes, and then shot to her lifeless body. The blood on the back wall looked like a twisted abstract painting smeared in red.
Melanie Hawkins, mother of two, slain while sleeping in her San Antonio home, execution style.
I knew I’d hate what I found, but I kept scrolling.
There was a murder scene photo posted about his father, Franco, shot five times in his garage in cold blood. His black hair was matted in blood. The picture beside that one was a startlingly handsome man. Dark, vibrant green eyes. Long black hair. Gorgeous and bad. I knew why his mother had fallen for him. He looked like Brando.
Franco Hawkins, suspected member of the Hard Riders MC, found murdered in his home.
I kept scrolling, on the edge of puking. The coffee was lead in my stomach.
There was an image of a little boy killed much the same in his bed. My tears spilled over at the sight of his alive picture. He looked like Melanie, vibrant and alive.
Kenny Hawkins, nine-year-old, shot execution style in his bedroom.
The last image was of Brando. A thirteen-year-old teenager lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Horror was etched in his face and there was a large gaping gash on his throat where his scar was now. Paramedics were in the background, moving toward him.
It was two nights before Thanksgiving. The anniversary of his family’s murder.
I knew where he’d gone.
I covered my face in my hands and choked in my sob. I forgave him immediately. Let my anger go. He hadn’t betrayed me. He’d remained loyal to his family.