20. Draven #2
“It wasn’t always just me and Dom,” I told him, staring at a dusty pink patch of coneflower out past the path. “We were actually a trio, growing up. It was me, Dom, and our friend Brody.”
Max found a squat rock and sat down on it, peering up at me. “Three of you,” he said.
“We grew up together. Then threw parties together, when we were older. Brody was always there, sometimes instigating things more than I was. When Brody went into the police force, following in his father’s footsteps, it was only a good thing for us.”
Max’s eyes narrowed slightly. “A friend in the police force?”
“A powerful friend in the police force,” I added.
It felt like my heart was slowly turning to stone as I told the story. A story I’d never had to tell anyone before, because everyone involved already knew and everyone else never would.
“I see.”
“Brody McGowan’s father was chief, and then he had a heart attack and died. There were plenty of other people who should have taken over as chief—but instead, somehow, Brody himself ended up landing a position as the youngest police chief the department had ever had, at age 28.”
Max nodded.
“It got me out of a lot. Especially in combination with my father’s connections, there was basically nothing short of murder that Dom, Brody and I couldn’t get away with.
I told you about the parties. The fights, the gambling, the sex.
I didn’t dabble much in hard drugs, but Brody did, here and there. ”
“Never a good thing.”
“No,” I agreed.
I looked over at the clearing of dirt. Behind it, my house. In front of it, a few shrub junipers and flowers.
The spot where my footprints had been .
“Brody liked Lily from the moment she arrived in our world,” I said.
I turned to Max, and when I saw his expression darken, I nodded.
“Lily never did any drugs. Don’t worry. But you know your sister.
She’s charming, and that was no different to anyone here, either.
I felt bad about bringing her into my world since day one, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Of course, at first, it was just her curiosity, but eventually, she kept company with us because she was being handsomely paid to do so. ”
“I still don’t buy it,” Max murmured. “Maybe she was getting payments from your father, yes, but I know her. She still cared about you.”
“Against her own good common sense, maybe. A little.”
I pulled in a long breath, watching that slight grey strip in the distant sky become a little darker, a little thicker.
“After I found out about my father’s cheating, I wanted more,” I said. “More info. Anything I could fucking get on him. And one thing that Brody was particularly fond of was PI work.”
“He acted as a private investigator?”
“Nothing official. Wasn’t exactly part of his job description. Being a police chief is almost all management, and Brody wasn’t that great at it, even though he faked it well. When I say ‘PI work’ it was more of a hobby for him.”
Max’s gaze was cold. “He liked spying on people for fun?”
“Exactly,” I said. “And when I wanted more shit on my dad, that was fertile ground for Brody to run on. All I asked for was to see what he could dig up, but he dove deep into it. Decided to tail my dad, around his property. Take pictures with a long, telephoto lens. Try to always get past Dad’s security. ”
“Creep.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
My stomach turned, remembering the glee on his face as he came to me, that day.
“So,” I said, “there was a day I had been out here on Veil. A day like today. I was riding, I was pissed at my dad after an argument, I felt powerless. Brody came driving over, hopped out of his Porsche, walked over here. He had a grin on his face, I can still remember so clearly. And he showed me some photos.”
Max looked concerned. “Bad photos?”
“Not photos I was expecting,” I said. I clenched one of my fists until my knuckles hurt, letting it go a moment later. “They weren’t of Dad. They were of Dominic. And Lily.”
Max’s expression went blank. “Lily?”
“When Brody was taking photos on Dad’s property, he discovered something else. Dominic had been there for a financial meeting, Lily had been there for obvious reasons. But the two of them were in a side room, and through a window, Brody had seen them… together.”
“Fucking?”
“Not quite. But on the way to it,” I told him.
“Were you hurt?” Max asked. “Your best friend…”
“At that point I knew Lily was on Dad’s payroll. I knew everything with her was most likely a farce. But I wasn’t certain until that point.”
“Dominic was lying to you,” Max said.
My heart sank in my chest. Fresh, like it had been that day.
“Dominic lied to me for months,” I confirmed.
“Did you hurt him?” Max breathed, his voice barely audible.
I crossed over in the dirt, walking over to the rock and sitting on the bare spot near Max. I clasped my hands together in front of me, staring at a spot ahead, where a stray juniper branch lay on the greyish dirt.
“I’ve never hurt Dominic in my life. I didn’t hurt him then. I wasn’t angry, I was… hollowed out. It was like finally confirming something you’d known your whole life.”
“That your relationship with Lily wasn’t real?”
“That of course they weren’t thinking of me,” I said. “I’ve never felt loved, Max. Nothing changed in that moment other than getting a sharper view of reality.”
“Fuck,” Max said beside me.
“It wasn’t Dom who I hurt. It was Brody,” I said.
My chest tightened.
There it was.
The truth. A glimpse of it. Right there, out in the open.
“Brody was fucking gleeful,” I continued, tipping my head back to look at the sky from under the brim of my hat.
“Gleeful. He smiled as he showed me the photos of Dom and Lily together. Didn’t think of how I’d feel.
He laughed at it, like he’d just gotten a juicy piece of gossip he couldn’t wait to share with me. ”
“Horrible.”
“I remember exactly what he said: ‘ Come on, Drave. You always must have known she was a slut.’ That’s when I first punched him in the jaw.”
“Wow,” Max said softly.
“Then, Brody got more descriptive,” I explained, my chest stirring with rage, recalling it. “Brody said that he vouched for me . He didn’t just take the photos and run. He went inside. He told me that he pulled Lily off of Dom, for me . He said that he tossed her onto the ground, for me .”
“No.”
“And then Dominic reached into his bag by the couch and pulled out his 9 millimeter Glock.”
“Jesus, fuck ,” Max said, standing up from the rock and looking down at me. “This happened to Lily? In front of Lily?”
“I screamed at Brody,” I continued. “I asked him, over and over again, if he hurt Lily. He balked, saying she fell into a pile of clothes, talking about it not being a big deal . He kept reminding me that she was cheating on me, as if that should have mattered.”
“What the fuck ? — ”
“And then I annihilated him, Max,” I said, my voice low and heavy.
“Brody isn’t dead. But he would have been dead within a single minute if I didn’t think of Lily first. I didn’t want to be a murderer, because I didn’t want her to ever have that in her history.
I couldn’t be a murderer, even if I wanted to exact every shred of vengeance I could.
I had to protect her. From a life where she had been with a murderer.
A life where she’d been paid to be with a murderer. ”
“I’m going to be sick,” Max said.
I got up from the rock and crossed over to him, grabbing his hand in mine. “Everything is taken care of, Max,” I said, insistence coming out in my voice. “You’ve seen your sister since then. She is fine . Brody was…”
“ Fuck ,” Max whispered, collapsing down onto the rock again.
I followed him, sitting beside him, draping my arm around him and holding him close.
“Brody was unconscious. He… he was barely alive. Out cold in the dirt. I felt like a monster, but I didn’t regret any of it.
And I left him there. I watched him, for a moment, struggling to hold onto life, and then I took off to my father’s property to find Lily.
The worst part of it, Max, fuck , the worst part of it was that when I finally walked in that room, where Dom and Lily were together?
I didn’t see relief in their eyes. I saw fear. ”
“It’s so fucked up, Draven.”
“My best friend, Dominic, scared of me, even when his Glock was resting on a table beside him,” I said. “Lily, a woman I thought I could love, scared of me. Even when I’d nearly killed someone for trying to hurt her.”
I turned to Max and saw a tear rolling down his cheek. I wiped it away, my heart hardening inside me.
This is what I do.
I bring nothing but pain to anyone around me.
Whether it's from me directly or not.
“All of this,” Max said, his voice rough. “All of this was happening to her, and I was in fucking Bestens,” he spat.
“You didn’t know.”
“I was in Tennessee, because it’s always where I’ve been,” he continued, his tone more ragged than I’d ever heard. “Afraid to leave. Afraid to fly. A fucking failure to launch.”
“ No, ” I told him, like it was a command. “You couldn’t have known, Max.”
“I really was naive,” he said, shaking his head, his blue eyes in a deadened stare out toward the land. “As naive as people used to say I was. I didn’t think things like this happened in the world. Not to people I know. People I love.”
“I immediately told Dom and Lily that it was okay,” I said. “I told them I wanted them to be happy. Reassured them, over and over. And then I told Dom that I’d done something very bad to Brody.”
“Your fucking police chief friend, in the dirt,” Max said.
“It wasn’t a good situation,” I agreed. “I knew Brody did have power over me, but I also knew I had so much on him , over the years and years of our friendship. It was like a stalemate. After he woke up in a hospital, I was certain he’d say something to someone.
But he didn’t share a fucking peep. Each day passed without me knowing if I’d be arrested at any moment’s notice.
When Lily got the invite to a wedding back down in Tennessee… I knew it was the right move to leave.”
Max pulled in a long breath. “You came to Tennessee on a fucking whim, because Lily got invited to a wedding?”
“It was all we could do,” I said. “Lily still had to keep up the act with me, for Dad’s payments.
Dad never found out about her and Dom, although I lived in fear every day that Brody would show them to him.
Tennessee was the best option. What neither of us realized was that Dad would cut off her payments and terminate her contract as soon as we left. ”
“Does that mean Brody showed him the photos?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. I think Dad has other reasons. Maybe he just doesn’t see it as a worthy investment, anymore. Dad cares less and less for me each passing day.”
Max let out a groan that turned into a frustrated, rageful noise. “How is it possible?” he asked. “What is wrong with your father?”
“He doesn’t have a heart? Fuck if I know.”
“How could Brody do those things to you? How could your father not do something, if he found out?”
I was silent for a moment. The wind was picking up now, blowing over the smell of ozone in the air, like a storm was truly on the way.
“It’s always been that way, Max,” I told him.
“I always liked rose bushes. We had them on the property I grew up on, too. When I was twelve, I told my dad one day after school that I’d kissed a boy by the rose bush.
Dad hit me. He shoved me into the rose bushes, into a cluster of thorns.
I bled through my shirt, my arms were fucked up, my back was even worse.
The scar on my face was from a fat thorn near the top, where he took my face and shoved it deeper. ”
“I can’t. Why, Draven? Why is it all like this?”
“It wasn’t even his worst moment,” I said.
“But it stuck out to me, because I learned: Dad only wants me to be with girls. My body was lacerated with slashes from the thorns for weeks. Dad had every single rose bush ripped out of the property. Naturally, I planted dozens, when I got my own land. I tattooed them on my skin. I always wanted to be my own person. I was always defiant. But it always ended with me being hurt. Sometimes, hurting others.”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Draven,” Max breathed.
My heart felt too large for my chest. “I’ve never known love, Baby Blue,” I told him, my voice going strange, my throat tensing. “When… when you tell me you’re falling in love with me, I can’t fathom it. It’s like a mirage. It’s like something I know will disappear. How could I be loved?”
“Because it would be impossible not to love you,” Max finally said, and when I turned, his eyes were glassy.
He leaned in and kissed my cheek.
Lightly.
Then tipped his own hat off so he could move in, pressing a kiss to my lips.
“It’s no good, loving me,” I whispered.
He answered with another kiss.
“That’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told yourself,” he said after, a hollow sadness in his eyes. “And you’re not a monster.”
“You heard it all. Everything I just told you.”
“And I’m still here,” he said. “You think I shouldn’t be. But I am, because I love you. I love you, even if it’s bad. I love you, even if it takes you a million years to believe it.”
He was breaking my heart and putting it back together, all at once.
“ Max ,” I whispered.
“Even if you push me away, and I never see you again, I’ll still be loving you. There’s nothing that could change that now.”