Chapter 53
CURITIBA PARANá
Bryson showered quickly. He should have been happy, but the day’s events ate at him. Rolland was dead, and all he could think about was Regan’s voice, which kept ringing in his ears.
He was a monster.
The water ran red at his feet as the blood of their enemy washed off of him.
Seth and Kaydon were there, and Bryson watched Kaydon wipe a streak of blood off Seth’s face. The way they were so close, so tender and in sync, it clawed at Bryson.
“Want help with your back?” Kaydon asked.
Bryson shook his head, getting out of the shower.
Killing Rolland wasn’t the issue. The issue was the look on Sophia’s face when they had entered the house. That I gotcha stare. She knew just what to say to get him to act. Saw something in him that was easy to fiddle with. Like he was a wind-up toy, and Bryson had let her pull his strings.
He couldn’t even trust his own mind. Bryson had been so sure that taking out Rolland was the right thing to do. That it also served as a step in protecting Adria, but really what he had done was put her in more danger.
And when Adria caught them.
Saved them.
She wasn’t even mad.
She just wanted to be included. A fact that had never occurred to him.
“Because you aren’t meant to be loved.”
“Fuck you!” Bryson whispered to his reflection.
“What’s that?” Seth said.
Bryson brought the towel to his face. “Nothing.”
The bedroom was cold compared to the steam-filled bathroom. When the three of them exited, they found Adria sitting on the bed.
“Bryson, we need to talk,” she said, looking around. “All of us really.”
He waited.
“You say you didn’t know that your father was working with Alessandro—”
“I didn’t,” he said quickly.
Her eyes were soft. “And I believe you. But with Cole coming, that means there might be some real evidence against him.”
Why did she have to look at him like that?
Adria moved towards him and touched his arm. “I want to know how you feel about that?”
Anger bubbled in him. Bryson didn’t even know what he was angry about. Taking a step back, he pulled away from her touch.
“How am I supposed to feel? He’s a piece of shit. Why should I care?”
She shook her head, and Kaydon said, “Bryce, it’s okay to have feelings about it.”
“Yeah, we all understand how complicated those feelings can be,” Seth said.
Bryson’s skin itched. He fought the urge to bolt from the room. Why wasn’t anyone listening to him?
“It’s not complicated. If he fucked with the Triune, I’m not stepping in the middle of that,” he said, making sure to look everyone in the eye.
“Trust me, the world would be a better place without him,” he said.
“We could look into other things,” Adria said.
“What the fuck for!” he yelled into the room, stepping towards her. “I’m sick of this dancing around the truth shit. Everyone thinks I care, but I don’t.”
Adria didn’t step back. And Bryson got right in her face. He watched Kaydon move to stand between them, but Adria waved him away.
“Your father was a piece of shit, too. You gonna tell me you’re not glad that he’s dead?” Bryson spat.
She balked. “He died of a heart attack. It’s a little different. I don’t think you understand the gravity—”
“No.” He poked her in the shoulder. “It’s you that doesn’t understand the gravity. You’re too fixated on roses and honey to notice what’s right in front of you.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Which is?”
“Your mother. Is. Lying to you.”
She pressed her lips into a line.
“We don’t know that,” Kaydon said.
Bryson shot him a look. Big surprise.
“Seth, tell her,” Bryson said, knowing Seth would back his play.
Adria turned to Seth, and he opened and closed his mouth several times before saying, “I do think it’s weird that she lied.”
Adria threw her hands up. “It’s complicated. She kept things a secret to protect me.”
“To protect you from what?” Bryson said. “Knowing that she was sleeping in an eight-billion-dollar bed every night?”
Adria stood frozen, seeming to reconcile things.
“But instead of focusing on your own shit, you want to focus on my father, push me, when I’ve already said one hundred times that I don’t give a shit.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“Well, I don’t fucking care,” he said slowly. “Get used to it.”
She tensed, saying, “Seth, Kaydon, get out.”
Bryson seethed, his hands flexing at his sides.
“Adria, I don’t—” Seth said.
Her eyes didn’t leave Bryson. “Seth, I’m a big girl. I want you out now. Take Kaydon with you.”
Bryson watched as the two of them left, shutting the door behind them.
“What the fuck, Adria? You can’t possibly be this na?ve. You have to know your mother is up to something,” Bryson said, trying to sound calmer.
“What happened with Regan?”
He opened his mouth to say something and froze.
Shaking his head, he said, “Nothing.”
“Nothing,” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said, firmer yet.
“So, nothing happened and you feel nothing about sentencing your father to death. That’s a lot of nothings, Bryson.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Is it?”
She stepped closer to him, and he stepped back.
“Why aren’t you Dom-ing Seth or Kaydon?” she asked.
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?” she pressed.
“Adria, just don’t right now. Okay,” he said. “Just back off.”
But it seemed that was the exact opposite of what she was going to do.
Getting right in his face, Adria pushed him.
He stepped back, and she stepped into him again, pushing him again.
Over and over she pushed him until her hands came up firm on his chest and his back pressed into the wall behind them.
His heart pounded, and heat radiated into his face.
“In my experience, men, rather than show emotion, just decide it’s better to bury it, pretend it doesn’t exist.” She hit his chest again, snapping his attention to her face. “But it does exist, and it’s going to eat away at you until there is nothing left.”
She went to push him again, but he grabbed her wrists, and held them. “You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” he said, voice low.
“Your father burned you,” she said, wrists still in his hands.
“So, what, lots of kids have shitty childhoods?”
“Belted you.”
He shrugged, like it mattered. It was in the past.
“Hurt Kaydon and Seth.”
He ignored her.
“Maybe you want him dead,” she whispered.
Bryson met her eyes, feeling a coldness growing in his.
“Maybe I do. But maybe it’s not for the reason you want it to be,” he said.
She held his eye contact.
He continued, “Maybe I’d burn the entire world down to save you. Maybe I don’t care who dies, even if it’s my father. Maybe you don’t want to hear that.”
She blinked rapidly. Why was it so hard for her to understand how he felt about her?
“Why haven’t you told me about what happened with Regan?” she asked again. Her voice so sincere it threatened to crack his carefully built but fragile shell.
“You never even bothered to ask. You said you would, but you didn’t,” he said, sneering at her.
It didn’t feel good to attack her, but it felt safer than the alternative.
“I was giving you space,” she said, ripping her wrists from his grasp.
“No,” he followed her distance, “just like with your mom, you don’t want to know. Sometimes the truth is too hard to hear.”
She rounded on him, her voice hard. “You think I can’t handle it?”
He grabbed her. Spinning, he slammed her against the wall behind him. “I know you can’t handle it, so stop FUCKING asking.”
She didn’t tremble or cower from his outburst; her chest just heaved under him.
What the fuck was he doing? He was attacking her now.
“You think I don’t know pain? That your brothers don’t know pain?” she said, her voice soft but firm.
“I know that all of you are fucking moving on and I’m stuck here, watching,” he said, gripping her arms, knowing that there would be bruises where his fingers were.
Fuck.
He let go of her, like her skin was burning him.
“I waited. You never opened up. Did you want me to force you?” she asked.
“You did with Kaydon.” The words were out before he could stop himself.
She stepped closer to him, her voice barely a whisper, “Is that what you want, Bryson? Someone to force you? Because you might think you want that, but I can tell it isn’t what you need.”
“What the fuck do I need then?” he said.
She moved, and time seemed to slow down as she knelt in front of him. Bryson held his breath, surprised, dumbfounded, and confused.
She looked up at him, her green eyes peering into his.
Holding him.
Seeing more than he ever wanted anyone to see.
And after she cracked him wide open, she said, “To know if you fall, someone will be there to catch you.”