Ryland
Guess who’d come to pay yours truly a visit? No, not her. Not my little lotus flower.
I’m referring to my old friend darkness. No big surprise there, of course. But this time, it threatened to devour me. Coaxing me deeper into that empty abyss, welcoming with open arms. It’d be easy to fall into that trap again. But one image quashed any thoughts of self-pity I may have entertained.
Want to have a stab at what it could be?
Not necessary, I’d tell you anyway. It was Brighton, crumpled into a tiny pocket of metal. Blood coating her legs, a ghastly white face beneath the light of the moon while I clutched a revolver in my hand. A revolver I’d held to her brother’s head only moments before, oblivious to the fact that my girl… my life… was suffering from my actions.
If ever there had been a moment suspended in time, it was that one. I hardly believed it was real. That my recklessness could have caused such a horrific and unexpected outcome. My body attempted in vain to reach her before my mind ever caught up. But I couldn’t. It was history, repeated. Only this time, I’d orchestrated everything myself. The only light in my life was slipping away, and there was nobody else to blame. It wasn’t Brayden. It wasn’t Frankie, or Alfredo, or my father. It was me.
A gun is a cowardly way to kill someone. Also a merciful one. In my mind, it hadn’t gone down like that at all. Brayden was meant to suffer- as I had. But I’d gotten sloppy. Impatient. The longer the situation with Brighton continued, the more I doubted my intentions. It boiled down to revenge, or her. I just needed to get it over with, I decided. Let the chips fall where they may.
Funny thing about Karma. She’s a bitch.
I knew I deserved Brighton’s loathing. Her hatred. Her venomous words. I’d take all of it and more, so long as she was in my arms again. But still. Fresh ideas were scarce, and the old were well and truly exhausted. For a man who thrived on planning out his every move with meticulous care, this was a dangerous thing.
But you already knew that, right?
Know what’s worse than cold turkey? Just a little bump. One tiny sip to take the edge off. The edges never went away, they only got sharper. Every addict would tell you. Gray areas couldn’t exist in a sober environment.
This game of cat and mouse was doing my fucking head in. There was a time when Brighton trusted me to know what was right for her. I’d taken for granted what a beautiful thing her trust was. Now it had withered up and died like everything else.
Left to my own devices, I’d sit and stare at the empty walls of my office all day and drink myself to death. Hypocritical, no? Few men handled this type of emotional baggage well, and I- even less. Word was spreading round the building like a serpent, employees whispering behind my back at every turn. Neither here nor there, really. Let them talk. But it was the sympathetic glances that unraveled me.
While we’re delving into the past, I may as well tell you why I changed my name. My father ensured the media coverage was locked down and sealed up tight. His last ditch effort at protecting me, he’d finally done something properly.
Frankie’s crew hadn’t a clue I existed until I had the balls to walk up and face them myself. Probably, they inspired fear in most of the average joes to pay a little visit to their HQ, but I had nothing left to lose. So I made a deal. A deal with the devil himself.
Once they knew of me and we had an agreement in place, I settled on the next course of action. Changing my name didn’t buy me safety. I did that on my own. But it bought me something else. An out from the irreverent pity and half-hearted condolences.
I didn’t want pity. I wanted my fucking revenge.
That little nugget of hope kept me warm at night. Until Brighton. Now I didn’t even have her. I’d given them both up, and what had it gotten me?
A whole lot of fucking misery, that’s what.
But if being miserable was the cost of weathering this storm, so be it. I’d made my bed of nails, and I was content to lie in it. Patience wasn’t one of my virtues, but for her, I’d try. Five years of lying in wait had already done a number on my tolerance level. In a way, I blamed this for things imploding so badly. The anticipation really was too much for me. By the time I finally got hands on her, self-control was in short supply. More beast than man at that point, I’d allowed myself to indulge in every dark fantasy I ever had.
Five years was a long time to stew on all the sick and twisted shit you want to do. I reasoned that Brighton could fulfill whatever childlike dreams she entertained in her head by then. She could go to prom and date nice boys. Or bad ones, with her family history. I wasn’t exactly certain which way the pendulum would swing. She blindsided me completely when I took her innocence.
It all snowballed from there. If you haven’t already gathered this about me, I was completely hedonistic. Some might say selfish. Entitled. Whatever label you want to give it, I always got my way. And until Brighton understood this, I just needed to learn how to bide my time. Find a new direction. One that didn’t involve killing Brayden. Because I would have her. She was already mine, and this stalemate couldn’t go on forever. I’d see it through, till’ she came back to me.
She had to. Right?
My dicking around and day drinking was interrupted by Matt poking his head into my office. Ah, perfect. Another shitty item on my agenda. Mind you, I was doing this for Nicole.
“You wanted to see me?” he asked.
I nodded and gestured to the chair. He sat down. “Heard from Nicole, lately?”
He shook his head and stared at the floor. Guess I wasn’t the only sap in the room.
“That makes two of us then.”
I walked over to the cabinet in my office and rummaged through my whiskey collection. Jack, Jim, Johnnie… the boys were all there. Something stronger was in order for what came next. It wasn’t often in my life I admitted regret, but it’d been happening an awful frigging lot as of late.
Would Jackson see it as a betrayal? I imagined myself in his shoes. Wondered what I’d want for Brighton if I wasn’t around. Nobody could ever love her the way I did. The thought alone made me want to crack some skulls. But if I wasn’t there, she’d need someone to take care of her. I was too blind to admit before that Nicole did too.
“I need to talk to you,” I began. “About Jackson.”
Matt’s face grew wary, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why. I hadn’t mentioned Jackson’s name since he died. The one time Matt tried to bring it up, I clocked him in the jaw. Needless to say, it’d been a dead subject ever since.
“What about him?” Matt asked.
I sat back down at my desk and scrubbed the heels of my hands across my face. This was even harder than I thought.
“About what he would have wanted for Nicole.”