Chapter 18
One Week Ago
The Monday morning rays of sunlight beat down heavily on my head, and humidity weighed down my every step, but I push through, following the directions Rick printed out for me few days ago. Today was my first day of work, and I didn’t want to be late. Hopefully, I could find the owner of this company and find out why he was offering a recent inmate so much.
I hadn’t even been given a name, just an address and time to be there. Glancing down at the crumbled paper in my hand and then back up at the glass building in front of me, I confirmed the address and reached for the door.
Andy’s Construction
The silver sign stood tall and proud on the front of the building, almost blinding me.
Stepping into the air-conditioned building, my shoes squeaked against the clean tiles, and my gaze instantly shot to an elderly lady working the lobby desk. She was busy stapling papers together, her attention occupied.
Walking up to the desk, I waited for her to finish before clearing my throat, startling her despite my efforts not to.
“Oh, heavens. I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t see you come in.” She placed a hand on her chest, and guilt surged through me.
“My apologies, ma’am. I’m wondering if you could help me. I’m supposed to be starting today. My name is—” she interrupts me, placing her wrinkled hand on one of mine that rested on the glass edge of the desk.
“You’re Easton Diggs. You look just like him,” she said, taking her hand away and dialing a number on her desk phone.
It rang twice before a man’s voice echoed in the lobby. “Andy speaking. How may I help you?”
“He’s here,” she said and then put the phone down, not waiting for a response. Eyeing her, she seemed to sense my unease and curved her cherry-red lips into a soft smile. “You’ve been a huge topic of conversation around here, Easton. We’ve been eagerly awaiting this day.”
I wanted to question the hidden meaning of her words. I needed to understand the emotion in her blue eyes.
Why was she looking at me like that? Was she afraid of me? Did everyone know I was a convict? Did they know I had no choice? Would I be treated differently here?
“Straight to the elevator, son. Go up to the tenth floor.” She pointed to two silver elevators behind her, and I followed her directions, muscles tensing as I pressed the silver up arrow and waited.
The elevator doors flew open with a loud beep that echoed off the walls, startling me. Trying to shake off the nerves, I stepped inside and released a deep breath, relaxing my tense shoulders. I pressed the tenth-floor button and let the elevator take me to the highest floor in the building.
The numbers ticked by slowly, and sweat gathered at the nape of my neck. My heartbeat increased with every number, and I struggled to calm my erratic breathing.
Be calm, Easton. Harley believes in you.
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped onto the tenth floor. My sneaker squeaked on the clean floor as I took in the gray desk across from me. A man and woman were sitting there, their heads bent together as they whispered behind a big computer screen. The room was surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass windows that illuminated the room with blinding clarity.
The air was crisp with the scent of lavender, and I inhaled a shaky breath. My shirt was suddenly too tight, the collar pressing uncomfortably against my throat as I swallowed past the lump. I cleared my throat, preparing to announce my arrival, but they both stood and rounded the desk.
They want you here.
“Good morning,” My voice cracked with nerves, and I shut my mouth, my steps halting as they continue to close the distance between us.
The woman was teetering on a pair of black heels, similar to the ones Harley was wearing Saturday night, but her steps were full of purpose, unlike Harley, who took each step with each calculated deliberation. She was dressed in a pair of black pants and a tight-fitting, white button-down shirt, her black hair pulled back into a slick ponytail that swished with every step.
Her red lips curved into a too-big smile, showcasing perfect, straight white teeth. There was a dimple tugging at the corner of both her lips, but what captured my attention were her ice-blue eyes.
Beside her was a tall man. His dark hair was in disarray, frown lines marring his forehead, and his brows furrowed. His dark eyes were focused on me, their gaze intense, searching. A light dusting of gray hair shadowed his jawline, and his lips remained turned down. He was dressed similarly to the woman in a white button-down shirt and black pants, shiny leather shoes clipping against the wood floor.
They stopped a mere five feet away from me, and I waited, watching them look me over. What were they expecting? Do they like what they see? Do I look like a criminal?
“We’ve been waiting a long time to meet you, Easton.” The woman’s voice was welcoming, soft and feminine, and the scent of her floral perfume tickled my nose.
“Thank you for this opportunity. I really appreciate you taking a chance on me.” I stepped closer to them, extending my hand to her. She paused, her eyes assessing as they glanced between my outreached hand and my face.
She closed the space, throwing her arms around me instead, her soft cries echoing around us as she wept into my neck. My eyes widened in surprise, and I stiffened.
“Layla,” the man growled, and I stiffened further beneath her. She didn’t loosen her hold, instead tightening it. “You promised,” he whispered.
“He’s here, Andy. He’s real.”
I looked at the man standing behind her, and the sadness and relief in his gaze was staggering. He cleared his throat, opened his mouth, but said nothing.
The woman released me and stepped back, wiping at her misty eyes. “Oh, God, I wasn’t supposed to do that.” She laughed nervously through her tears. I wanted to understand the silent conversation they shared with one look, but the voice in my head had me stepping away from them.
“I don’t understand.” I looked between them, searching for an answer to their weird behavior but received none.
“We weren’t going to tell you like this. I wasn’t supposed to,” Layla started to explain but then choked on her emotion.
Andy stepped closer, and putting his hand on her shoulder, he finished for her, “We’re your parents, Easton.”
“No.” I stepped back again, my back hitting the closed elevator doors. The cold seeped through the thin material of my shirt, shocking me, but I couldn’t move. “I don’t have parents.”
Layla clutched her chest with a loud sob. Andy wrapped his arms around her, holding her up as her knees buckled beneath her weight.
“It’s true. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she cried, her wails of desperation echoing around us. “I thought I made the right choice. I thought I did. I’m sorry.”
Andy’s dark eyes were drowning in unspoken emotion as he held up whom I presumed to be his wife. She fell apart, her sobs getting louder with each passing moment. I hated seeing women cry. Because I hated hearing my foster mother cry when our foster father beat her. I hated the weakness I associated with it.
“I don’t have parents.” I swallowed thickly, wishing I hadn’t come here today. I didn’t need this. I didn’t want their charity. I didn’t need this job; I would find another. I didn’t need more abusers in my life.
Giving them my back, I pressed the elevator button repeatedly, needing to get fresh air. The walls were closing in, and I couldn’t think straight with her cries bouncing around us.
“Please don’t go.” Andy’s gruff voice was soft, broken.
The doors opened, and I hesitated when her cries increased. “Andy, please. Andy! He’s leaving!” Her voice pierced my heart, and I turned to look at Layla fighting her husband, trying to get to me.
The elevator doors closed, and my opportunity to flee was gone.
Analyzing their appearances, I noted the similarities between me and them. I saw my eyes in hers, and my facial structure mirrored Andy’s. They could be telling the truth, or they could be lying. Just like my foster father lied about finding my real parents. Just like Gray lied that night.
I couldn’t trust them. I owed it to myself to leave, but I couldn’t move my fucking feet, not with Layla’s ice-blue eyes piercing me, begging me to stay.
“Show him, Andy. Show him.” Andy released her, and with quick strides to his big desk, he started throwing papers around until he found whatever he was looking for. Layla held herself, her chest heaving with soft sobs, her eyes scanning me.
Andy walked past his wife and thrust an old, wrinkled paper into my hands. My eyes skimmed over the big, bold letters.
Certificate of Birth
Child’s Name: Easton Ryder Briggs
Date of Birth: April 12th
“This doesn’t prove anything.” I didn’t look up as I continued to scan the contents of the certificate. Once I had finished going through the document, I looked up at the two strangers I was starting to believe might just be my parents.
“We were sixteen when I fell pregnant with you. Seventeen when you were born and in no way prepared to take care of a child. Your father and I grew up in a trailer park on the edge of town, with nothing to our names and parents who didn’t want anything to do with a baby.” Layla, my mother, wiped her wet cheeks and stepped away from Andy to close the space between us.
“It’s been twenty-six fucking years,” I gritted, seeing the resemblance in their faces more and more and wishing it wasn’t there.
“We’ve been trying to find you. When we found the adoption agency, they’d changed your last name to protect you from my parents,” Layla said, and I waited for her to explain why I would need protection from people who didn’t want me.
“Layla’s father, Bill, was an evil man who used children to do his bidding around town.” It couldn’t be. “We wanted to give you a better life, one we couldn’t provide at the time. You have to understand, Easton, we’ve been looking for you for years. The adoption agency you came from burned down a year after you were adopted and lost all their paperwork. There was no trace of you ever existing besides that.” Andy nodded toward the birth certificate in my trembling hands.
“Bill Cutco adopted me, and my foster brother, Gray Hughes.” I struggled to avoid crumpling the stupid fucking paper in my hands, the only thing linking me to these people in front of me.
“No,” Layla gasped, her hand wrapping around my forearm, her touch soft and gentle, everything I imagined it would be.
“Guess your father did find me. Sacrificing me and then taking away the life I should have had with two parents didn’t save me from him. He still fucking found me.” Rage slithered through my veins, tensing my muscles. I fought the familiar ache in my chest, and my scars burned almost as if they were fresh at the reminder of that man.
“Why didn’t you find him, Andy?! I begged you to find him.” Layla’s hand tightened around my arm, but her touch did nothing to soothe the hatred. Instead, it intensified.
“I hired every goddamn PI in town to find him; you know that, Layla. I did every fucking thing I could besides knocking on your father’s door,” Andy growled at her. Anger rippled through the air, and I fed off it. I ripped my arm from her touch. I didn’t want to feel her empathy now.
I needed my parents years ago.
I didn’t need these people now.
“I have to go. You can take everything back—the job, the apartment. I don’t need anything from you. I’ve survived without you for twenty-six years. I don’t need your handouts.”
“No, please, no! Don’t go. Give me—us—a chance.” My mother had latched onto me again, her nails biting into my skin.
“Let go of me! I don’t fucking owe you a thing.” Yanking my arm from her again, I turned away from her and Andy and pressed the elevator button repeatedly.
“Easton, son. Please.” Andy’s deep voice penetrated my walls, the one fucking word I’d yearned to be called my whole life, jilting my foundation.
“I am not your son,” I seethed, seeing dark spots invade my vision as rage clouded all my logic.
“Whether you want to admit it or not, you are our fucking son. You have your mother’s eyes and hair, and my goddamn nose and stubborn pride. We aren’t asking you to forgive us. We are asking for a chance to get to know you and the man you’ve become. And until you are ready, the apartment is yours, the car in the parking garage is yours, and the job is yours. We made mistakes, Easton, like all teenagers do, and we are trying to do what is best for you.”
Whirling around, I watched Andy pull his wife into his arms. She cried into his chest, and my heart splintered.
Did Bill beat her, too?
Did she know what her father was capable of?
Did she know what he made me do?
Did they know I was broken?
“You don’t know what is best for me because you don’t fucking know me,” I gritted through clenched teeth.
“Then give us a chance to get to know you, Easton. Let us be there for you however you need.” I didn’t want to see the similarities, but I couldn’t fight that he was right. I couldn’t argue that I didn’t have my mother’s eyes and hair.
I couldn’t fight because it was true.
The people I had been waiting to save me were finally here. But it was too fucking late to be saved.
“I don’t want special treatment. I just need a job, and I will pay you back for the apartment and everything else.”
Layla shook her head and opened her mouth to argue, but Andy stopped her.
“You don’t want special treatment, boy? You want to mop the fucking floors? Do you want us to treat you like a recent inmate, is that it? Will it stroke your fucking ego to be treated like dirt?”
His words were worse than any beating I’d received in the last five years.
I didn’t want to be just an inmate. I wanted to be Easton Diggs, the boy who had dreams before going to jail.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” I swallowed the rage burning inside my chest.
“Stop this! I won’t be part of any of this cruelty. I hurt you; we hurt you. My father hurt you. And I won’t ever be able to apologize or grovel enough to show you just how much I regret my choices. But Easton, I can spend the rest my life showing you how much I love you and want you in my life.” Layla, my mother, then turned and slapped Andy in the chest and pushed him away, inching closer to me, her steps slow and calculated.
“You’ll never be able to erase it,” I whispered, seeing the understanding and pain flickering in her eyes. She endured his abuse, too. She knew everything.
“Nobody will,” she whispered, closing the space and wrapping me in her small arms, her strength surrounding me with the simple gesture. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t understand it, Easton. I know what a monster he was, and I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from him, but I will help you heal. Your father and I will help you. You just have to let us in.”
“I was framed.” I choked on my truth, fighting to reign in my trembling emotions. “I was going to leave him, and instead, he turned on me.”
“I know, baby; I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. My poor boy, you’ve had the world on your shoulders. You aren’t alone anymore. You’ll never be alone again.” She held me to her small frame, and despite my best efforts, I broke, my walls collapsing with her touch and voice.