Chapter 34
thirty-four
Killian
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Tessa asks as we stand outside of the prison.
I take her hand in mine, letting her warmth envelope me and squeeze. “I think it’s the only way I’m going to get any kind of honest answers.”
In three months, Nathaniel’s trial will begin and there’s not a single doubt he’s going to lie or manipulate the truth in order to get a lesser sentence for himself. I’m not naive enough to think I’ll get the truth today, but maybe if it’s just him and I, I’ll get some answers.
She lifts up on her toes and kisses my cheek. “Then, I’ll be right here when you’re done.”
When we first spoke about this a few weeks ago, I was completely against it. There’s really no point to it other than to say what I need to say.
I’m hoping I’ll figure out exactly what to say when I get in there because the scenarios that have played out in my head have gone a hundred ways.
No matter how many times I convinced myself that I didn’t need or want to confront Nathaniel, Tessa could see the truth.
It’s been bothering me.
It’s the one dark cloud hanging in our nearly perfect skies.
Tessa keeps it away. She brings me the sun and the cloud free days, but it’s always there, just lurking and ready to dump buckets of rain once it opens.
Instead of giving it the power, I’m going to cut it open myself and let the flood come down now that I’m prepared.
“I love you,” I tell her.
“I love you. No matter what information you do or don’t get today, just know it changes nothing in your life.”
I nod and kiss her temple, inhaling her sweet scent. “I know. I have you, the ranch, and I’m happy, I think this will just close that chapter of my life.”
“I agree.”
It’s time to put the past behind me. I was able to fold my stake in the company without any issues thanks to the legal team I hired.
Now Nathaniel is the sole owner of a pile of shit.
There was no managing the PR nightmare he created for the real estate company, but Tessa decided we needed to be proactive and had Ainsley’s paper cover the story.
They held to the facts and kept my arrest completely out of it.
We enter the prison where he’s being held, sign in, and I kiss Tessa once more before following the guard back into the visiting area.
I sit at the metal table, the room is cold and has faint scent of rust and paint.
It’s the least inviting place possible. Gray, monotone, and you can feel the despair through the doors.
After about three minutes, there is a loud buzzer then a clanking noise, before the door swings open and Nathaniel enters.
He has a beard that is longer than he’s ever worn and the shackles cling as he enters. His hair is messy, not the normal slick back he always wore and his orange jumpsuit almost makes him look paler than usual.
We don’t say a word as he is brought to the table. He keeps his hands extended as they uncuff him and then move to his ankles.
“You have fifteen minutes,” the guard says.
Nathaniel nods once to him and then he sits across from me.
Looking at him, all I can think is how this isn’t the man I knew.
I remind myself that I may have never really known him because the guy I was friends with for most of my life would’ve never done the fucked up shit he did.
He wouldn’t have sacrificed his best friend for whatever goals he had.
Yet, that is the man in front of me.
After another few minutes of silence, he clears his throat. “I’m going to assume you weren’t just in the area and wanted to visit.”
I raise one brow and almost laugh. “No.”
“You’ve never been one to beat around the bush, go ahead and ask whatever it is that brought you here.”
There are so many things I want to ask from the part of me who cared about this man like a brother, hoping he’s not being abused in here to the other part that partially does hope someone is teaching him a lesson.
It might be wrong. It might make me a really terrible person, but a part of me just doesn’t care.
He tried to ruin my life and I’m not sure I feel all that bad about his going up in flames.
I think of Tessa, what she would say, how she encouraged me to be honest, but also be the man I am at my core.
“Are you doing all right?” I ask first, remembering that there was a time when Nathaniel was a brother to me and if I start off there, at least there’s room to go.
He laughs once. “Yeah, I’m doing great.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re enjoying your forced vacation.”
Nathaniel sighs slowly. “Is that what you drove out here to find out? If I’m enjoying prison?”
“Not really.”
“I didn’t think so. I’m fine, Killian. I fucked up, I’m in jail and I’ll probably spend a good portion of my life paying for it. But, I’m not getting my ass kicked or anything. I stay to myself. I know how to manage.”
He was also a linebacker in college and can hold his own.
“Okay then.”
His eyes move to the clock and then back to me. “Time is running out for you to get to it.”
Always to the point.
I guess small talk is over and I might as well jump in. “Why did you do it?”
Nathaniel’s thumb bounces against the metal table and I would bet his knee is going in time with it. He does that when his mind is working quickly.
I watch him, waiting for any sign that he’s lying.
“I wish I had some grand reason like a dying family member, but I don’t.
I knew James from high school. He was friends with the Gibrelli family’s youngest son.
I sold one of James’s properties and he connected us because of how fast I got it done.
I didn’t know much about the Gibrellis other than, they were feared throughout the area.
They were said to be involved in gambling and drugs.
Business, though, was business. I took a few of their properties on, everything was on the up and up, like it always starts.
I wasn’t involved in either, so it didn’t really matter what they were doing outside of me listing properties for them. ”
“So you were selling properties for a crime ring? Knowingly?”
He exhales heavily. “Rumors aren’t facts, Killian. I heard things, but I never saw anything illegal. When one of their underground gambling rings was raided, that’s when things changed.”
“Changed how?” I ask through gritted teeth, already seeing where this is going.
“We had property.”
“And you let them use it.”
Nathaniel nods. “By this point, almost 50 percent of our sales were coming from their associates. They were using us to buy and sell like crazy. The money we were making…”
I remember. It was like one day were doing fine and the next we couldn’t keep a house on the market for more than a day. People were coming to us, signing, listing, selling. I always assumed it was just that Nathaniel and I had built a solid reputation.
“Then what?”
“Well,” he laughs without humor. “Then I was fucked. They threatened to pull all the listings, everything we had with them which would’ve sent us into bankruptcy because I had convinced you to invest in commercial properties, but they weren’t moving as fast. It felt impossible, but I also convinced myself it was fine.
Prices started becoming weird and the same buyer would come in at a ridiculously low price, they’d accept, and then that seller would list the property for three times as much a month later, but always through us so the commissions were great.
They needed a way to clean the dirty money, and all I was doing was selling property. ”
Only he wasn’t just selling properties. He was using our company to help clean dirty money.
“And how did it become the horses?” I ask.
His eyes widen before he schools his features. “It was a last resort.”
“How?” I ask again.
He leans back, clasping his hands in front of him.
“There were rumors that the Feds were onto the game with real estate. All of this is easy to track with tax records and names. They wanted to find a way that wasn’t as heavily monitored, where sales aren’t documented at the state and federal levels.
That’s when someone mentioned racehorses. ”
“So you just volunteered my ranch?” Anger seeps through each word as I stare at him.
“I didn’t have to. They knew who you were.
The Gibrelli family doesn’t not do their research.
You were doing well, had a winner or two, and they took the same idea of what we were doing with the housing market and approached Travis.
I know you don’t care or it doesn’t matter, but I refused to help if they involved you at all,” he says quickly.
“You’re right. It doesn’t matter because it did involve me, Nate.
I was cuffed, searched, held down on the ground in my fucking house while Tessa was beside me.
I was put in the back of a car, taken to jail, went before a judge, and you know what?
You didn’t get me out of it. You didn’t confess so that you spared me, the one fucking person who never betrayed you.
No, you kept quiet,” I say each word softly, using the tactic our college coach used—quiet rage.
“You would’ve let me take the fall, wouldn’t you? ”
His jaw tenses and that was the answer I knew was coming, but it still feels like a sucker punch to the stomach. He opens his mouth, but I shut him down.
“Don’t fucking lie. You would’ve let me go down for this.
You and Travis set me up so that if this fell apart, you, at the very least, would go free.
” I get to my feet, done with this. The whys and whos and hows don’t matter anymore.
He could explain it all and at the end, it changes nothing.
“I would’ve done anything for you, Nathaniel.
We’ve been friends since we were eighteen.
Decades of trust, loyalty, and a brotherhood you broke and for what? Money? I hope it was all worth it.”
Then I walk to the door, bang a few times and wait for the guard.
“Killian?” Nathaniel calls out. “It wasn’t worth it. None of it. I’m sorry.”