I’d thrown myself into my projects over the last two weeks, spending hours on end in the sewing room.

Ryland would stop in from time to time, trying to find some semblance of conversation in the ocean between us. It wasn’t working. This time, I didn’t know how to fix the distance. I didn’t even know if I could.

I was angry. So fucking angry. At him, at Brayden, at Norma-Jean… and everyone else who had ever lied to me. I’d never felt so much anger in my life, and quite frankly, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

So I bedazzled. I tore apart fabric with scissors and sewed it back together. Then I bedazzled some more.

“I have to go to a business dinner.” Ryland’s voice carried from the doorway. “I’m assuming you’d like to take a pass on joining me?”

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t even look at him, and I was thankful he hadn’t tried to touch me either. Because he knew. He knew I was about to implode. So he’d left me alone. Did I want to go to a business dinner with him? Hell fucking no, I didn’t.

I heard him sigh as he padded away, and the click of the front door a few moments later. It resounded through the apartment like the sound of a prison door shutting. Closing me in. Because that’s where I was. Imprisoned in a game where I didn’t know the rules. Where I didn’t know who to trust anymore. Where I lost everyone I ever loved.

I was still feeling sorry for myself an hour later when Nicole popped her head in and surprised me.

“What is all this?” she asked as she stepped inside.

I hadn’t told her I was sewing because I’d been too wrapped up in my emotions to have a real conversation with anyone.

“It’s just a place for me to putter around,” I said.

“This is really cool…” Her voice faltered when her eyes fell on the black sewing machine in front of me. For a moment, she looked like she was in pain.

“Nicole?”

She straightened her spine and walked back towards the door. “I brought you some dinner.”

“Oh.” I blinked. “Thanks?”

“Ryland told me to,” she admitted. “But I wanted to check on you myself and see how you were doing.”

I stood up and folded up the piece I’d been working on, deciding I’d punished it enough for one evening.

I followed Nicole out to the breakfast bar and sat down as she pulled out containers of Sushi. She handed me one, and I chewed through a California Roll in record time, not tasting a single thing.

“I don’t know what to do,” I blurted, my eyes burning with unshed tears. “I can’t handle this anymore, Nicole. There are things I want to tell you…”

Her eyes widened, and she coughed as she took a drink of water.

“But I can’t,” I went on. “Or at least, I’m not supposed to.”

She weighed my words carefully before reaching her hand towards me.

“Brighton, there are things I want to tell you too…”

Ryland’s home phone rang out, scaring the hell out of both of us. I’d never even heard it ring before. He usually handled everything on his cell phone.

“He must have diverted his calls here by accident,” Nicole said nervously.

I let it ring out, six times in total before the machine picked up. A shrill voice came on the other line, echoing through the apartment.

“I’m a little short this month,” Norma-Jean blared through the speaker. “I’ve got my son home now, so I need some of next month’s payment in advance.”

She sniffed into the phone, her voice growing more agitated and desperate by the moment.

“I need it now. It’s real important that I get it now,” she persisted. “Or I might have to ask Brighton, and you wouldn’t want that would you?”

There were muffled noises and a click before the dial tone sounded.

I stood up and ran to the machine, and Nicole gave me a worried glance. I pressed the button, trying to get a playback, but the machine kept asking me for a security code.

“She said my name,” I stated, as though I needed confirmation from Nicole. “That was my mother, and she called here for Ryland. Because she said my name.”

My words weren’t coming out how I wanted or needed them to, but Nicole understood. She walked over and pulled me into her arms. She let me hug her back, using her strength to support me as I tried to understand what this meant.

“Why is he giving my mother money?” I mumbled. “I don’t understand.”

I paced back and forth across the kitchen while Nicole watched me wearily. She wasn’t asking me any questions, and I didn’t know why. I needed her to ask me questions. I needed her to help me make sense of this mess.

But then it dawned on me. The one place I knew for sure had the information I wanted. And it was sitting in a house on Belvedere Island.

I rushed to the box in the kitchen where Ryland kept his spare keys, checking each label before I found the ones I needed.

“What are you doing?” Nicole asked.

“I’m going to Belvedere Island,” I replied. “I’m going to get the answers I need.”

 

***

 

I figured I had another hour before Ryland questioned my whereabouts. It took me thirty minutes just to get to the house.

The keys on the key ring opened the front door without any resistance. But when I raced up to the third floor and wiggled them in the first door I came to, nothing happened. I tried to ignore the cold chill that moved up my spine as the lights flickered along the corridor, highlighting the eery atmosphere on this level of the home.

I thought about trying to break the knob or pick the lock, but it wasn’t one of my skill sets. So with a resigned sigh, I walked back to the second level, clenching my fingers together as I glanced around Ryland’s room. I went through the nightstand and the dresser, turning up nothing useful. But then I remembered his home office.

I walked down to the office nestled into the back of the first floor. The door swung open on the first try. I stared at the oak monstrosity before me, noting how neat and orderly everything appeared. Just like his office at work.

It was one of the things I loved about the man. The painful realization I might not be able to handle his secrets socked me in the gut, stealing some of my resolve. For a moment, I told myself I didn’t have to do this. That I could walk back out of this house and pretend everything was okay. That’s what Norma-Jean always did. But look at how it worked out for her.

I liked to think I was stronger than her. But there was only one surefire way to find out.

I dug through drawers and cabinets, boxes and envelopes. I didn’t care about the mess anymore, and I didn’t bother putting anything back. The only thing I cared about was the key.

My fingers slipped over cool metal, and I held my breath as I pulled it from the back of the drawer, obscured beneath a mountain of paperwork.

When I held it up to the light, my chest constricted at the sight of the skeleton key. This was it. It had to be.

After barreling back up to the third floor, I forced it into the first lock impatiently. I closed my eyes and turned, my palm sweating against the knob as the weight of the lock released.

I pushed against the wood and held my breath, stepping into another bedroom. A master bedroom, even larger than Rylands. It held two walk-in closets and a bathroom off to the side. I glanced around in confusion as I wondered whose it could be.

The bed had been made, and a woman’s nightgown hung from one of the bedposts. The room was clean and orderly, except for the thick layer of dust that covered every surface. An abandoned teacup and saucer sat on the nightstand, along with a book splayed open to the last page. At one point, someone else had lived in this room. Someone other than Ryland.

I backed out the door, deciding there were no answers in here. There was something in that last room, though. The one I’d seen Ryland in. But along the way I paused at another room, too tempting to pass.

I set the lock free and opened the door, discovering what was undoubtedly a little girl’s room. Pink frills and lace covered every inch of the four poster bed, and photos of a tiny ballet dancer adorned the walls. My stomach heaved at the sight of it. On some level, I already knew who it belonged to, but I didn’t want to accept it. I didn’t want to accept the awful possibility, so I slammed the door and edged away. 

My shaky legs carried me to the last and final room. And when the door opened, I reached for the first thing I could. The picture frame.

I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. I had to be hallucinating. But another glance at the face in the photo confirmed I wasn’t.

The woman in the photo was younger, but it was definitely Nicole. She stood beside a young man with his arm wrapped around her. A young man I recognized but didn’t want to. He shared the same eyes as Ryland. The same shocking blue that had crippled my heart. Only his hair was blonde and not dark. And his face was light and carefree. Happy.

My mouth burned from the sour taste rising up my throat, and the frame clattered unceremoniously onto the dresser.

My brain fired off a thousand different responses, but my legs moved me towards the box still sitting on the floor where Ryland left it. Answers. I needed more answers.

In my haste, I tore open the lid, completely unprepared for what I was about to find. I dumped the contents onto the floor and sifted through them. But once I got a glimpse, I wished I hadn’t.

Article after article of the Lockhart family murder. Three ghostly faces of Jackson, Sophia, and Katherine stared back at me. And suddenly, it all fell into place. A teenage boy, a little girl, and their mother. Three of the people that Brayden was convicted of killing.

It wasn’t any less painful to read the articles now, five years after the fact. The stories about the family outing that turned deadly when a drunk driver hit them and left them for dead down the side of an embankment. But the coroner’s examination confirmed that wasn’t the case. The only two passengers who died instantly were Katherine and Jackson. Between the time of the accident, and the time the ambulance arrived two hours later, the little girl had also succumbed to her injuries.

It was the reason why one of the charges was upgraded to murder. But there were still so many unanswered questions. Like the shell casings found at the scene, and the evidence that led back to Brayden. When they brought him in, he tested positive for gunshot residue, but he wouldn’t tell them why. They never did find the gun when they tore our house apart, so I had thought it was a mistake.

But these reports held so much more details than I ever knew. Brayden’s footprints were matched to the ones at the scene. There was also DNA collected from the vomit beside the car. It was undoubtedly his. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand any of it. He was there that night, but why?

At the bottom of the stack were photos. Photos of the family together as one. And my confusion bled out when I saw a young Ryland standing side by side the smiling faces of the family. Only his name wasn’t Ryland. It was Jacob. And he was a part of that family.

My heart beat so hard I thought it might explode. How did I not see it?

It was there all along.

Except, it wasn’t really. He’d hidden it from the world. Changed his name and his story, only allowing people to know what he wanted them to. The news never even mentioned him. I didn’t know he existed because he kept it that way for a reason.

My body burned with guilt and shame and a thousand other emotions I couldn’t pinpoint. The further I dug, the worse it got.

Full investigation reports, witness statements, hospital records. But as my eyes passed over them, everything blurred together. They couldn’t be accurate. Because they said Jacob was in the car too. But that was impossible. Every news article stated there were four victims, including his father. But according to hospital records and witness statements that wasn’t the case.

“Jacob Ryland Lockhart was finally able to free himself from the wreckage and climb to the freeway for help, despite being critically injured. When the ambulance reached the family fifteen minutes later, they found him unconscious as he clutched Sophia Lockhart’s hand in his own. She was dead upon arrival, and all efforts to revive her were unsuccessful. The only remaining survivors were Jacob and his father, Michael.”

Tears poured from my eyes like acid, burning my skin as the image of Ryland like that broke the last ounce of strength that held me together. I couldn’t take anymore, but I couldn’t stop myself either.

At the bottom of the box, I found a Manila envelope, sealed up tight. I picked it up with trembling hands and broke the seal, revealing more photos. Photos I wouldn’t ever be able to erase from my memory.

A little girl’s leg dangling from a ballet tight as it mangled with protruding metal. A bloody hand on the door handle as though it were trying to escape from the wreckage. A mother slumped over the steering wheel with an unrecognizable face. A mass of metal so crumpled and distorted, the type of car was completely indistinguishable. And finally, three bodies covered with white sheets in a ditch.

I couldn’t look anymore. I didn’t want to. But when I heard a sharp inhale of breath behind me, I turned to see Ryland standing over me.

Stupidly, I tried to thrust everything back into the box. To get it out of my sight and pretend that this had never happened.

“By all means…” He kneeled down beside me. “Don’t stop on my account, Brighton.”

I whimpered and shook my head as he picked up the photos of the mangled body parts and thrust them into my face, demanding that I look at them.

“I want you to really understand,” he said. “I want you to digest it all.”

A bloody tutu skirt and the haunted expression of a lifeless little girl stared back at me from the glossy photo.

“I listened to her choke on her own blood for thirty minutes,” he said calmly. “Do you know how long thirty minutes is, Brighton?”

I didn’t know what to say. I had never seen him this way, and it was breaking my fucking heart. 

“Thirty minutes of her crying for me to help her. I had to tear the flesh off of my chest to reach her.”

A sob escaped me, and I closed my eyes and begged him to stop. To put the pictures away.

“Do you know why?” he continued ruthlessly. “Why I watched her die a slow and painful death? Why I sat with the lifeless faces of my brother and my mom while I waited for an ambulance that wasn’t coming? Or why my father willingly ate the barrel of a gun six months later?”

“It wasn’t Brayden,” I said weakly. “He would never do that.”

“Wouldn’t he?” he asked. “Because he was in the car that night. And if I recall correctly, he was also the one to walk down the embankment and hold the barrel of a 45 against my skull.”

I blinked up at him with bleary eyes, shaking my head uncertainly.

“Oh, Brighton,” he barked out a strange laugh. “You poor, dense little girl. All these years you’ve lived with the real monster, and you didn’t even know it.”

“No,” I denied his accusation. “He would never do that!”

“I know you’d like to believe that,” he replied. “But it’s in his blood, Brighton. It’s in your blood too.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Frank Gallo was your father,” he explained. “Otherwise known as the low-level scum who did the dirty work for the Chicago crime family.”

I blinked up at him, trying to digest his words while he waited patiently. I’d known my father was Italian, but my mother only ever referred to him as Frankie. But when she did, it was the only time I’d ever seen a shadow of fear pass over her face. Just like when Brayden started hanging out with his new friends. I didn’t think we had anything to worry about, but she did. And suddenly, I understood why. It was a possibility my mind had never even considered before, but Ryland sounded so certain.

“You think Frankie asked Brayden to do this?” I rasped.

“Yes,” he sneered. “The one and only.”

“But he must have forced him,” I argued. “Brayden would never take part in something like that by choice.”

“Wouldn’t he?” he snapped. “What about the code, Brighton? Family and honor. That’s how it goes, right?”

His words chilled me. Because it was the very thing Brayden had mentioned before he went away. He said he would do this. For his family and for his honor.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I thought… I thought…”

“Well you thought wrong,” he growled, pulling himself back up to his full height as he looked down at me with pity. “Because Brayden told me himself.”

“Ryland…” I sobbed. “I’m sorry…”

“You put up a valiant fight,” he said cruelly. “But you can see now that none of it matters.”

“I don’t understand,” I cried. “If you hate my family so much, why are you paying my mother?”

A cold smile fell over his face, and for the first time since we’d started the conversation, he looked at peace.

“Think about it, baby girl. Think really hard. You’ve been playing the game, but you can’t tell me you haven’t given a single thought as to how it would end?”

The harshness in his tone unsettled a startling reality for me. One I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen sooner. How Norma-Jean’s addiction had spiraled further and further out of control over the last five years.

“You… you’re trying to…”

The words wouldn’t come out. I was the last person to advocate for my mother, but that didn’t mean I wanted her dead. And the thought that Ryland had been slowly poisoning her over the years sickened me on a level I couldn’t even comprehend myself.

“Yes,” he spat. “I’m waiting for her to die. I’m funding her descent into hell, and at this rate, it should be any day now. And once that’s done, and Brayden has felt the pain I have felt, he will die too.”

The sympathy I had for him only a moment ago vanished somewhere during that statement, and I stood up on wobbly legs, staring him straight in the eyes.

“You did all of this on purpose?” I asked. “You sent him to prison and then had him released, just because you could?”

“You’re finally getting it.”

“That’s where you were last week?” I stared at him in disbelief. “You were the witness that the press wouldn’t print?”

“One and the same.”

“If what you say is true, you could have kept him in prison!” I accused. “You could have done the right thing, Ryland. Gave him what he deserves. But what you’re talking about is no better than what he did.”

“Don’t you ever compare me with that swine.” His eyes blazed with a hatred so strong it gutted me. “If he had called an ambulance that night, Sophia would still be alive. He deserves everything he has coming to him.”

“So this was it?” I croaked. “This is what it’s all about? Destroying my family?”

“Yes,” he admitted, his tone softening a fraction as he turned away and paced the floor.

“And that included me,” I supplied, hoping he would deny it.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “Maybe at first. But somewhere along the line, you changed things. It became about wanting you instead of hurting you.”

My heart plummeted into my stomach as I clutched my arms around myself, shaking my head as the tears flowed freely.

“You asked me several times,” he continued. “Why I chose you. I’ll tell you why, Brighton. I hated you. I hated everything you stood for. Seeing you on the porch that day, with your virginal innocence and your naivety. So imagine my surprise that all these years later, I can’t get enough of it.”

He sounded weak for admitting the last part, and it only added to my pain.

“You’re sick,” I shouted.

“You didn’t mind it while I was fucking you,” he said arrogantly. “Or don’t you remember?”

“I remember that you trapped me into an agreement to fulfill your need for revenge.”

“I can live with that,” he said. “And so can you, Brighton.  Things have evolved out of my control. I didn’t expect to feel anything for you, but I do. And I can’t let you go. This doesn’t have to change anything between us.”

“This changes everything!” I screamed. “You’re trying to kill my family. And I cannot even begin to imagine how you must feel Ryland, but you can’t keep going down this road. You said so yourself. You told me you had doubts…”

“I can and I will,” he said resolutely.

“Then you can’t possibly care for me."

“But I do,” he admitted. “I’m… I care about you very much. And that is not part of the game. It was never meant to be part of the game. But it happened, and I accept that. I want you in my life. Permanently.”

His words cracked some of my resolve, but I couldn’t show it.

“You can’t have us both,” I whispered. “You can’t have me and your revenge.”

“Don’t make me choose, baby girl," he said grimly. “You won’t win. I will see this out until the very end, even if it costs me everything.”

I clutched my chest and dragged in a breath as I willed myself to find strength. Ryland Bennett had just sliced open my heart. Now the only thing left to do was bleed.

“Then I guess you’ve already chosen.”

I turned and walked out the door.