CHAPTER SEVEN

TYSON

“Is this for real? What kind of sick motherfucker would do this?” For the life of me, I can’t swallow down what I’m reading. My stomach is contracting violently. I’m afraid I wouldn’t make it to the bathroom if the acidic bile decided it wanted to come up and blend itself in with the hostile taste these papers are leaving in my mouth. This has got to be the lowest thing a man can do. Good God Almighty.

I’m sitting here at The Seasonal Lounge with Dane, Riddick, and Jude, going over Jude’s recent discovery for us to pin Lynne’s dad’s ass to the fucking wall. Never in a million years did I expect to see information as horrendously ugly as this.

It’s been two days since I’ve talked to Lynne. We’ve managed to work through some of the most gut-wrenching moments of our lives. Talked for hours, drank a few beers on her deck, ate food that I haven’t eaten in years, and talked some more. I walked away after telling her our next form of communication was up to her. That both of us required time to allow everything we spoke to sink in.

This bit of information would bottle her progress right back up. It would mutilate the growth we’ve made. Possibly destroy us both if she were to find this out. I won’t keep it from her.

“Secrets and lies are what tore us apart. I have to tell her.” I look up at my friends, the file in my hand setting a new kind of fire to my skin. I’m ready to kill someone. My target: her father.

“It’s true, man. Everything in that file is a copy from what I discovered in his office. That man is one sly son of a bitch,” Dane adds, his jaw ticking, hands clenching into a fisted ball. If I didn’t hate Richard as much as I do, I might feel sorry for the cock-sucking maggot if I were to give these guys the all clear to beat his ass.

“I trust you. It blows my fucking mind that he would do this. I need to tell you guys something. Once I do, I think you’ll get a better understanding as to why I want to bury this guy.” The weight of the folder feels heavy in my hands as I close it and drag my gaze to the dark green binder that could potentially hurt more people than Lynne.

Leaning forward, I drop it on the table, pick up my cigar, my bottle of beer, and take a long pull of both to calm my nerves. I need to concentrate on one thing at a time. Right now, I’m about to tell my brothers a story I should have told them a long time ago.

The room suddenly becomes quiet. It’s a loud roar in my ears as I contemplate where to start. Most of all, how to say what needs to be said and how to go about telling them how a woman struggled for years with the aftershocks of a decision she shouldn’t have had to make. My chest tightens. A low rumble emerges from my gut and tension invades the air around us.

“I’ve been a complete dick to all of you about this over the years, and yet here you are still showing me that you’ll always have my back. I owe you all an apology. I’m sorry.” I drag my eyes to each one of them, so they can see the truth behind my words, the meaning behind my eyes, and that everything I say from here on out has been bottled up for so long that it’s killing me to admit it.

One thing I’ve always been is a man who believes in eye contact when he speaks. It shows respect, and I have it in spades for these men.

“There’s no need. We all care about each other. There’s no judgment here, Tyson.” No, there isn’t, and there never will be.

“I know, Riddick, and I appreciate it. My life was fucked since the day I was born. Lynne was the first person to give me a glimmer of hope. When she left me, I became someone I didn’t recognize. When I met you guys, I knew I had a family for life. You helped me through the hardest part of my life by just being there. I was fucked up. A loose cannon. And one day, when we were in the desert, I thought to myself, ‘Take a look at Riddick, man. His girl died and even though it gutted him, he’s still over there smiling.’ I tried. Lord knows I did. I just couldn’t get past what she had done. I’m still struggling with it. I may struggle for the rest of my life. Who knows.” I take a drag of my cigar, blow out the smoke, and continue. “When we came back from the war, I looked her up. She got married, and that fucked me up even more. Ripped my chest open and tore my heart out. I wanted to destroy her. So, I investigated her family to try and find something on them. Anything to make her pay. The need to know why she left me ate away until I couldn’t take it anymore. What I found out nearly killed me. Lynne had cancer. That’s one of the reasons why she left me.”

“What?” Jude leans forward; his one-syllable word is the same thing I said to myself when I broke into her father’s office years ago and found a file with her name on it stashed all the way in the back of a filing cabinet. I dropped to my knees in tears after flipping through all those pages of medical jargon I barely understood. Cancer and hysterectomy were the only two words that stood out.

“I knew right then and there I didn’t have it in me to destroy her. She can’t have kids. Lynne had a full hysterectomy. She confessed that she left me because of it. Thought I wouldn’t stand by her side. The not so funny thing is, I would have never left her because she couldn’t have my child. I’m not wired that way. I loved her. Christ, I always have.” My hand grips tightly around the bottle of beer. Uncontrolled anger is rippling through me. A tsunami. Tidal wave. Destruction.

“Is she alright? Is her cancer back? Is that why she’s back here. To make peace?” Jude enquires.

Riddick and Dane slide their bodies forward. Aligning perfectly with Jude’s. The silence has resolved itself to a dull thud around our small table as they wait out my answer.

“You said one of the reasons. What’s the other?” Riddick glances down to the tainted file as if he knows it has to do with her father. He’s spot on.

“She’s cancer free. Has been since she had surgery. Look, I don’t want to share the things she and I talked about. It’s her private life. Lynne is here for me. We have a road full of recovery to travel on. It’s going to be hard as fuck, but I’m willing to give it a try. This right here”—I signal my head down toward the file—“Him. Her dirty fucking father, he’s the other reason why we didn’t get married.” It’s essential that I remain in control over this. The likelihood of me flying off the handle has beaten my odds a time or two. This has to be handled with care. Meticulousness, or he’ll find out I know before I’m ready. Maybe I want him to know. To see him fidget in my grasp. Rattle his cage a bit while I decide how far I want to go with this information.

“Tyson, what the hell did he do?” Dane speaks first. I consider what Richard Chapman did to Cora, how he failed to protect an innocent girl when I know without a shadow of a doubt that motherfucker knew her brother was behind the killing of her parents. He had to have known, or at the least expected it.

“It’s not about what he did to me; it’s what he did to his own daughter. How he took the tragedy of her illness, her mental state, and twisted it to his advantage.” I look each one of them square in the eye again for several drawn-out seconds before I spend the next half hour exposing everything that man and his wife did to their own daughter when she needed them to be her parents. But, most of all, she needed me.

“Jesus Christ. I knew that fucker was slime the minute I met him. How in the fuck could he make his daughter give up on the two of you like that? He purposely hurt her.” He did a hell of a lot more than that. He wrecked her. Well, I have the answer, and it will piss them off even more.

I tilt my bottle in Riddick’s direction and reply.

“Who the fuck knows his reason why. I’m sure her mother had her hands in it as well. That woman is a viper. They both left her alone to deal with the aftermath of what she lost. The very next day, they flew home. They didn’t console her, fight with her through any of it. I want her mother checked out. We’ll start on her after we deal with this.”

“Jesus Christ. I can’t even imagine how she must have felt. For fuck’s sake.” Riddick closes his eyes; when he opens them, there’s a slow-burning fire igniting behind them.

“I could use your help. I just need to make sure you’re both up for this. You just got married, and you have a teenager to raise. Not taking my chances on anyone getting hurt.” Richard has never come at me with violence before. Who the hell knows what he will do when I drop this in his lap. He may try to pull the trigger himself. I need Jude’s computer knowledge and Riddick to watch everyone’s back.

“Positive,” they both respond in unison.

“I’m going to bring in Dominic. You know that big fucker is always putting down for a fight. He’ll tail Richard. See what else he’s hiding,” Dane adds, already reaching into his pocket for his phone.

“You sure? Not going to twist anyone’s arm or anything?” I ask, followed by a deep chuckle, knowing full well what their answer will be.

“Hell, yeah, we’re sure. You take care of this. I’ll keep my eye on Lynne,” Riddick says, reaches over, and grips my shoulder.

“I’ll keep digging around, see if there’s a way to hack into his personal email. After all, it’s a criminal investigation, right?” he adds with a slight smirk. It isn’t, but who the hell cares at this point. Not like we haven’t bent the rulebook before.

“Thanks. It means a lot to me,” I say, struggling hard to fight back an emotion new to me. Gratitude.

“You need a lift?”

“I got him,” Dane says. Neither he nor Jude had a thing to drink. Jude, I see why he’s pretty much stopped. He has Theo, who looks up to him in the highest regards. Can’t blame him at all for wanting to set a good example for his kid. Dane, I’m not sure what’s going on with him. He’s never been one to not want to knock back a few beers and relax.

“We’ll talk later. Let us know how you want to handle this.” I let out that uncontrolled breath after we pay our tabs and hit the late evening air. The urge to beat the hell out of someone creeps out of every crevice in the sidewalk.

“I will,” I respond to the guys through gritted teeth. This trying to remain calm is far from easy. I need to set about doing this the right way. There are innocent people involved who make this a hell of a lot harder to seek out a proper punishment for this crazy fuck I hate with every fiber in my body.

Another thing that has me wound up tight as we all climb into truck similar to each other’s is the fact that Riddick and Jude are headed home to their families. It pisses me off even more that I’m traveling in the opposite direction. Back to an empty apartment. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. I could grab a bottle and drink, fuck my insecurities away. Neither one of them appeals to me anymore. Not when the object of my desire is so close to me I can taste her.

Fuck, all of this information is going to break her all over again. There has to be a way to get through to her father before all hell breaks loose. I couldn’t care less what it does to the rest of her family, but Lynne, she doesn’t deserve this. Although, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Ellen doesn’t already know. She’s a nosey fucking bitch. Dumber than a two by four to put up with a man like this. Nevertheless, she’s a cunt who deserves it.

“Tyson, you need to be sure about this,” Dane barks out, breaking through my troubling thoughts.

“I’ve never been surer in my life. Everything I’ve wanted has been stolen from me. That fucker took it and wiped his ass with it. He’s in over his Goddamn head with this. How he’s kept it hidden for this long beats the hell out of us all, Dane. It’s time he pays. I’ll deal with how this will affect Lynne if she’s who you’re worried about.” I leer a penetrating stare his way, trying to decipher where exactly he’s going with this. Not once has Dane questioned anything we’ve involved him in; he grabs the shit by the balls the same way we do and jerks those fuckers off. He’s brutal when he attacks. Something is eating away at him. I know it.

His shadowed jaw ticks slightly under the dashboard lights of his truck and disappears when he turns down my darkened street. He shocks the fuck out of me when he slips into a parking spot and glances my way. The low tone of his voice is quietening my thoughts, stabbing my throat, and piercing my gut. Shit. What the hell happened to him?

“Not too many people know this story. Dominic and I never talk about it. Not even to each other.” He pauses, grips the steering wheel tight, and slices me open when I catch a shiny glimmer in his eyes. “Diana, our sister. She killed herself eight years ago after she found out her husband had been cheating on her. My sister wanted kids in a bad way. She pretty much raised Dominic and me. At the time, our parents were married to their jobs. Wanting to set a good example and all that. Anyway, that’s beside the point. My point is, Frankie, her husband, told her he didn’t want them. Of course, the spineless dick married her first before he let loose that piece of information. She learned to accept it, because she loved the fucker. It wasn’t until this woman, the one he had been cheating with, knocked on my sister’s door with two little boys. Those boys were Frankie’s kids. They’re married now, while my sister’s remains are in the cold dirt. He ruined her.” What in the ever-loving hell?

“Jesus, Dane. I’m sorry, man.” What the fuck is wrong with people? Men and women cheating and shit. Don’t they give a fuck what it does to the person on the receiving end? Fuck.

“I am, too. I’m telling you this, because I’ve seen you self-destruct many times. Now that you have Lynne back in your life, make sure you handle this in the right way. She may have told you she doesn’t want anything to do with her family, but fuck, Tyson. What we know could shatter her. People can spend a long time in a transitional period. Walking around half empty, always wondering if they’d be full if things would have been done differently. There is no coming back when your life is wrecked. This information is a wreck waiting to happen.” He says this as if he’s trying to convince himself more than me. To ease his guilty conscience for not being able to help his sister.

“I hear you, Dane. The only thing holding me back from tossing this information in the trash is that this is her father and not her husband. You don’t know him like I do. He isn’t going to sit around and allow the two of us to be together. He’ll fight her. I’ll figure out a way to tell her about this. You, on the other hand, should step back from this. I’m so damn sorry about your sister. I would have never asked you to help me out if I knew this was going to pour salt in your wound. Fuck, I never even knew you guys would find information like this. I was looking for corruption, for lies to destroy his career. Not this, never something as bad as this.” The right to defend myself is all I’ve got to give him. I feel guilty as hell for sitting here spewing out words that I hope he understands.

“You have nothing to feel guilty about. It’s him, her father. It’s Frankie. Those two are the ones to blame. I’m not backing off from helping you out. I may be invested now for my own private vendetta. I couldn’t help my sister, because she kept her pain hidden. But I can help you, help Lynne, and protect the innocent.” I eye him suspiciously. Dane is a good guy. He’s followed through with us many times. I need to be sure he can handle this.

“Don’t deny me or Dominic this. It may help us heal.” The minute he speaks is the minute I know exactly what we need to do. “Then let’s go pay him a visit, shall we? Turn the truck around. We’re heading to LA.”

***

“You tell your boss if he doesn’t see us now, I’ll have a search order in my hands within the hour.” I’m losing my patience with this woman standing behind this fancy desk with an attitude about as ugly as her personality. Richard sure knows how to pick ‘em. Straight off the bitch block.

I ran into my apartment last night. Grabbed a change of clothes and everything I needed for this hostile little visit. Dane did the same, and we drove the short distance to LA, where we found a hotel for the night. Plotted. And now this bitch, who I remember so well from the interrogation involving Cora’s brother, is denying me to see him. She was fucking him then. I know for a fact. She probably still is, and I’ll rain hell’s balls of fire on her if she thinks for one Goddamn second she can keep me away. I have no doubt everyone in this lavish-as-fuck office was told to keep me out. He knows I’m gunning for him. I am. Just not for the reason he thinks.

“Do not pick up that phone,” she belts out at the red-headed timid secretary who keeps looking back and forth between the two of us, then keeps her sight trained on me.

“You think that scares me?” The snarly bitch raises her voice even more. Leans her body over the desk to intimidate me. What a smelly worthless piece of shit. She literally stinks with her deceit.

“If it doesn’t now, it will when I expose the two of you. I’m not fucking around here, bitch. Either you pick up that phone, or I’ll have your ass spread all over the news tonight instead of all over your boss’ desk. Something tells me you don’t want that.”

I give a friendly little wink to the secretary when she gasps so loud that this bloodhound’s fangs hang out.

“Fuck you,” she snarls, her face turning red. Her eyes begin to bug out of her resting bitch face head.

“No, thanks. Not after you’ve been fucking him.” The secretary laughs. I hope to God the people milling about this place heard me. Every damn one of them.

“How dare you. Haven’t you done enough to his family?” Her voice lowers to a mere whisper. I have never wanted to punch a woman as much as I do her. Not even Lynne’s mom. This chick is a straight up cunt.

“Not even close. I’m only beginning, sweetheart. Pull up a Goddamn chair and watch.”

“My God, he was right about you.”

“Probably. Don’t really care what he thinks of me. Last chance, sweetheart. You do not get a warning bell here. No time-outs. No breaks. You tell him I’m here, or I’m planting your ass firmly in one of those chairs, cuff you to it, and it will not be for pleasure.” I point to a row of chairs stationed against the wall behind me.

“What the hell is going on out here?”

“Well, what do you know? It’s the asshole subject of this conversation. You want me to say what I came for out here or in private? It’s up to you.” I take the few steps needed to reach Richard. Dane is right behind me. Fuck, he’s is one ugly son of a bitch. How the hell he produced a woman as beautiful as Lynne I’ll never know.

“Hold all my calls. If you value your job, you’ll keep your mouth shut.” He lifts his arm, points it in the direction of his secretary, and snarls.

“Fuck him; you want a job, call me. I’ll treat you a hell of a lot better than this fucker does.” I grin at Dane’s comment, crane my neck to make sure the cute little secretary is alright, and laugh when he pulls a business card from his wallet and hands it to her.

“I may do that,” she says with a devious smile. I love her already.

“You’ll never work in this town again,” I hear the bitch say before Richard slams the door and locks it. Something tells me the redhead doesn’t even care.

“Damn. I think you lost a secretary, Dick. How’s the house?” He doesn’t respond. He can’t. Not when the hostility in this room is set at a hundred degrees. It’s palpable. Ricocheting off his walls, shining from the glass on his windows, and smacking him upside his head.

“You have five minutes, you little motherfucker. Or I’m calling the cops.”

“Five minutes. That’s more than you gave your daughter.” I toss the file on his desk. “I’m ready to burn you alive, Richard. There isn’t a cop in this state, a judge in your pocket that can save your ass from the information inside of there. Dare to take a guess at what I found out? I’ll bet my life you’re hiding a lot more than this. You screwed with the wrong guy. Revenge is a tricky motherfucker, Richard, and it’s finally walked through your door.”