Chapter 31 #2
“Nah,” I say. “I’ll stay here and chat. You two go along, I’ll catch up later. Kira was looking for you, Janessa,” I tack on the end, knowing that will get her moving.
“If you’re sure,” she says uncertainly, but she’s already walking away. Lexie narrows her eyes at me and I give her a meaningful stare. She’s a smart cookie, so she takes my hint and disappears with Janessa.
“You want to chat?” Leonard asks arrogantly. “Feeling cocky, you little shit? We were drunk and taken by surprise last time you saw us. But we aren’t unprepared this time.”
He pats his pocket and I almost scoff. Never show your enemy where you’re stashing your knives, idiot.
And if it’s in his pocket, then it’s probably a folding knife, meaning it takes an extra second to get the blade out. In a fight, one second is all it takes for somebody else to end you. He’s more helpless than he thinks.
“Do you have something you want to tell me?” I ask, wondering if they’ll admit that they have instructions for me. Maybe Young-gi was right, maybe the brothers are the blackmailers, and I can end this right here and now. “Spit it out.”
Impatience burns through me, making my words terse and rude.
If I can take care of this, wrap it in a bow and toss it in the trash for him, then there won’t be any more trouble around me.
And there won’t be any reason for Young-gi to get tired of me, to reject me.
Maybe, if I can just shut these two fuckers up and solve this, I’ll feel braver.
Maybe it will be easier to tell him how I feel.
Maybe.
Gregory’s disbelieving chuckle is hard and angry. “Are you serious? You want to pick a fight? Yeah, fine, whatever you say. Follow us and we’ll tell you exactly what you need to hear.”
I scowl. They aren’t saying anything specific enough to be linked to blackmail, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t them.
To go, or not to go?
“Where?” I ask. “Why should I bother?”
“Oh, I think you’ll want to hear what we have to say,” Leonard sneers. “Or we could just tell Kira. I wonder how she’d react. Or worse, her uncle. You’ll be out on your ass before we even finish talking.”
That’s interesting. So they think they have something over me. Something that Kira and Young-gi don’t know about yet.
This could be it. It could be them.
“Fine,” I concede. “Let’s go, lead the way. We’ll talk.”
Gregory smiles, excited and cruel. Leonard pats my shoulder roughly, too roughly, and leads me toward the far wall, opposite the overlook where Kira just went.
I expect them to be taking me to some side exit, perhaps to an alley or out to the street.
But instead, they duck under a dusty rope and start to climb a set of old, creaky stairs. Without hesitating, I follow them.
As we climb, my confusion and chaos percolates into determination.
Whether or not these fools are the blackmailers I’m looking for, they’re threatening to disrupt what I have with Young-gi.
Which means that, no matter what they have on me, I need to take care of it before it becomes a real issue.
I’m already enough of a problem; I don’t need Young-gi to realize I’m more trouble than I’m worth.
The door at the top of these darkened stairs is marked for employees only, leading to the rooftop.
I can hear the storm much more clearly up here, raging outside, but Gregory pushes right on through, leaving me no choice but to follow.
Leonard shuts it behind us, and clicks the lock, a quiet sound in the loud storm that I only hear because I’m listening for it.
My shoulders tense up and I look around, taking in this battlefield.
It’s pouring rain, but we’re under the old belltower roof.
Three of the four walls are open to the air, pillars at each corner, but the final wall is rough brick with the door set into it, blocking at least some of the wind.
The tower is open over the front of the church building, so we can see out onto the street.
The floor where the ropes used to hang on pulleys is boarded up with rough, unfinished wood.
The bell is long gone, leaving just this rickety shelter from the rain.
Dust and old pigeon nests are getting soaked in the corners where the rain is spraying in despite the roof over our heads.
The thunder and rain is tremendously loud, the darkness up here impossible to see through from below. We might as well be a million miles from any witnesses.
Perfect.
“What do you want to tell me?” I ask, stepping to the side and leaning against the brick wall, making sure they can’t get behind me. Leonard ends up right beside me in the cramped space, because he’d been hovering at the door, and he backs up quick.
He’s nervous. Good. He should be.
“We know the truth about you,” Gregory smirks, pulling a pair of brass knuckles from his back pocket.
“You’re nothing but trash. And a fraud. We looked into you, ‘Claremont’–” he puts air quotes around my name, then slips on the knuckles.
“You’re a grifter. I don’t know how you managed to pass the Sokolov’s inspection, maybe you’re just that good, or maybe you bend over for whoever takes too close a look. ”
My heart speeds up with adrenaline and I fixate on the present moment. I feel predatory, deadly, and they have no idea that they’re the ones in danger here.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I bluff, even-toned, as unreadable as the bricks behind me.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Leonard scoffs. “But we did our digging. Ghost accounts, fake paper trails. The works. You put a lot of effort into hiding who you really were, but any real investigation turned up a whole lot of nothing.”
I don’t show my confusion, but I try to process what he’s telling me. Because ghost accounts? Paper trails? What the fuck is he talking about?
And then it hits me. Young-gi must have made those for me.
He knew I was nobody, but he wanted me to stay and did what it takes to make that happen.
Even if it was just when he wanted me to play pretend with Kira, even if it was before he and I ever became more, it still makes my lips twitch with the urge to smile.
“So, this is blackmail?” I ask, trying to get a confession. Because this sounds like blackmail, but not the same blackmail. This isn’t about me being gay; it’s not even involving Young-gi at all.
“Nah,” Leonard laughs. “This is payback.”
I thought so. Being right is usually satisfying, but this is just annoying.
The brothers try to corner me, and I straighten to my full height, square up against them. “You fuckers are wasting my time.”
“Hold still and take your beating like a man,” Gregory threatens, while Leonard gets out his blade. “Or we’ll tell everyone that you’re a fraud. Kira will be humiliated, Sokolov will probably kill you. You’ll be dead in a ditch before sunrise.”
I scrub my face, tired of all of this. “Y’all are really gonna do this, huh?”
“Don’t act like you didn’t jump out of a two-story window to escape us once, Claremont, or whatever your real name is,” Leonard sneers, waving his knife around like a guy who doesn’t know how to use it. “You wanna jump? Go for it. It’ll be funny.”
With a sigh, I shove his shoulder, knocking him off balance. Not enough to hurt, but enough to get him out of my way. With the door clear, I grab the knob–but let it go again to duck under Gregory’s wild swing. His brass knuckles clang against the door, denting the old wood.
“Fuck!” Gregory cusses, pulling back and shaking his hand out with a wince.
“Yeah, those things hurt,” I chuckle without much humor.
Before I can unlock the door, Leonard slashes at me, and I have to jump back to avoid a cut. A knife is no toy, and he’s going to make this fight a lot more serious if he waves it around like that.
“Don’t,” I warn him, a real edge in my voice. Thunder clashes overhead, and lightning strobes on our dramatic scene. Wind whips between us as we face off.
They’re still blocking the door.
“Don’t?” Gregory mocks me. “Or what? You’ll cry? Beg, and maybe we won’t beat the shit out of you and toss you off this building.”
“Try it!” I snarl, losing my patience. “You want to fight? Get it the fuck over with, then. Come at me! Try to tackle me off the fucking roof if you want! But goddamn, just get started so I can go back inside!”
“I don’t think he gets it, Greg,” Leonard elbows his brother. “He thinks he’s gonna walk away from this and rejoin the party like it’s nothing.”
“Even if we let you,” Gregory threatens, the rain pounding like war drums all around us, “we still know the truth about you. It would be so fucking easy to expose your long con for what it is.”
“We probably should,” Leonard says with a cruel smile. “Kira shouldn’t be tricked into marrying a fraud. We should protect her, shouldn’t we?”
“I’m going to make this really simple for you,” I growl, cutting off their charade.
“We have two choices now. This is where your stupidity has brought us, so listen close. Either we fight, and all risk getting seriously injured or even tossed off this fucking roof to the concrete three stories down, or you back the fuck off and get out of my way.”
“Ha! No, I don’t think so,” Gregory blusters, both brothers getting flustered and edgy at my continued disregard for their threats.
“Either you take our payback like a real man, or we’ll tell everyone that you’re a fucking grifter that’s preying on Kira for her money.
You won’t be able to leave town fast enough to avoid Sokolov. He’ll gut you, dude.”
I don’t see any good way out of this. Even if they let me go, and I run straight to Young-gi to tell him that his smoke screen for my past has been breached, what good does that do me?
It just gives him more work to do, more fires to put out.
More shit to shovel just to deal with me and my issues.
This is all my fault, and I don’t see how it’s right to ask him to fix it for me.
And I can’t falsify records, make a new past for myself. I can’t fix it like that. I only know one way to fix my problems.
“You’re right,” I say grimly, finally letting go of the idea of getting to the door, which has started to rattle in its frame from the storm raging around us. “I’m not Tommy Claremont. I never have been.”
The atmosphere changes when I stop looking for a way past them and start looking at them, taking them apart with my eyes, picking out their weak points.
“W-we know!” Leonard stutters, raising his knife defensively, reacting to my change in tone. “So hold still while we get even and maybe we’ll keep your dirty little secret.”
“Shit,” I laugh grimly. “What a stupid way to die.”
“What are you–?!”
I don’t let them finish talking. I’m already in motion.