11. Brogan
I’d foolishly thought nothing could top the clusterfuck of the day before, but I had been mistaken when I’d arrived at Sinclair Pharmaceuticals and found my father waiting for me in my office.
Granted, it used to be his office, but I’d taken it over after his retirement.
Even though he no longer controlled the day-to-day business, he still owned the majority shares in the company and had the board in his pocket.
Essentially, he was still a thorn in my side.
“You’re late, son,” he said without even trying to hide his disapproval. “Only two things would excuse that. You’re not dead, so the only other thing could be a woman.” At my bored expression, he narrowed his eyes. “You did not just roll out of bed with him, did you?”
I closed the office door, then leaned against it. “He has a name, and no, I actually have been up for several hours, but I had some errands to run.”
“Would one of those include fucking with the security system here?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied.
I did have a tech guy, and he’d been able to scramble the cameras for several hours, both on this floor and throughout the entire building, including its parking garage. No one would be able to go back and see Enslee arriving, leaving, or being here at all.
“Stop trying to be cute, Brogan. If the police were to go back to review footage and see that it’s been tampered with, they—”
“I didn’t tamper with anything. Why would I? You know all my secrets, so what do I have to hide?”
He growled and continued to purse his lips together. “You’re not looking like a devastated fiancé. If you ever expect anyone to take your grief seriously—”
“Grief is reserved for those that have passed. I have no proof one way or the other that Layla has met that fate, unless you know otherwise.”
“Of course, I don’t know what the hell happened to her. Do you think I’d let the scandal destroy the company I’d worked my ass off in for the likes of you?”
“I can feel the love, Dad. You might want to keep that disgust from your voice, or else someone might think you actually hate me despite the bullshit game we play in public.”
This man in front of me had nearly ruined my life. Hell, he’d nearly ended it. He’d sent me to Europe and said he was fixing what was broken inside of me, but in reality, he’d just been torturing me.
And if it hadn’t been for him finding out that I’d kissed another male, it would’ve been for something else.
That had just been a convenient trigger for him.
I’d tried to walk away from him and this legacy so many times, but I deserved what I had as much as I deserved to be happy.
I suppose it was easier to just suffer than walk away.
Ignoring the scars of the past had only been possible after I’d fallen apart so many goddamn times. Stanley Sinclair wanted me to hate myself, but I realized over the years that he hated me enough for the both of us, so I’d kept my true self out of the public eye ever since.
“Shut up, Brogan. You’re in deep trouble this time. The police are tired of the stall tactics. They’ll bring you in whether there’s evidence or not. I would say a few nights in jail getting your ass torn open might make you confess, but you’d like it too—”
His words were cut off the moment I balled my hand into a fist and struck him. All satisfaction in seeing his head jerk back as blood started to ooze from his nose should’ve been mine, but it wasn’t. I was oddly hollow.
“You’re this close,” he said as he brought two of his fingers in front of my face, “to losing my help and resources. You need to find that damn woman or at least confess to what you’ve done. It’s the only way I’ll be able to save you.”
“Is it me that you really want to save? Or is it you and your fucking reputation?”
He rose from his seat, and I watched as he pulled a handkerchief from the inside of his jacket pocket, then dabbed at his nose before tossing it back inside.
“Do you know what your problem is, Brogan?”
I stood there and sighed in boredom. “No, but I’m sure you’re going to enlighten me.”
He moved in front of me, then grabbed me by my tie.
“You’ve always been an entitled little punk, a loser who got far too much love from your mother.
She made you fucking soft… and weak… half of a man.
They think you killed the fiancée, but you’re too much of a pussy to ever do that.
Layla had to have come to her senses and walked away.
If you’d only come to yours for once in your miserable life, you’d get her back and stop dragging the good Sinclair name through the mud. ”
I chuckled at that. He thought he could hurt me with his insults, but he couldn’t. Regardless of what he thought about me, I was my father’s son. “The good Sinclair name. What a fucking joke, although you are the perfect punchline.”
“Why you—”
“Let’s revisit the camera situation. The reason there’s not one in this office is because you liked to bring your mistresses here where there’d be no evidence of your infidelity.
You’d fuck them on the desk I’d had burned upon my arrival.
Because I’m a lot like you, I never rectified the security situation either, and instead used it to my advantage like you did.
In fact, I had my dick sucked yesterday right where you sat. Did you smell us as you waited for me?”
“You’re repulsive. I keep wondering where I went wrong with you. I hate everything about you, son.”
“If so, you can do to yourself what you did to me. It didn’t get the ‘gayness’ out of me, but maybe you’ll be luckier, and it’ll get the hate out of your head.”
“Find. The. Girl.” He punctuated his words by stabbing me in the chest with his finger between each one. “You will not sully our good name any longer.”
“Ahh yes, the Sinclair family. Models of integrity, morality, virtue, and legality. Spare me the sanctimonious shit. I had nothing to do with the cameras. It sounds like it was a building-wide glitch. Save your righteous indignation and take your fucking threats with you.”
He opened his mouth to say something but quickly closed it and released me from his grip. From there, he’d stormed out of my office, and I moved to my desk and took a seat. Any peace I thought I would find was quickly swallowed up as well when my lawyer stopped in.
Declan had called me several times while the attorney told me the detectives were preparing a case to present to a grand jury.
I’d mention the lack of a body or even any evidence of wrongdoing, to which he told me that they could find circumstantial evidence, including digital kinds.
I knew they’d know then that I hadn’t been in my penthouse that night as I’d claimed.
There was also the impression of suspicious behavior only made worse by my nonchalance to the public about her disappearance.
While they might not have reasonable doubt now, they didn’t need it for an indictment.
Regardless of whether it resulted in a conviction wouldn’t matter.
Most murder cases in New York could take two years or longer to ever go to trial.
And unfortunately, in New York state, the usual statutory speedy trial law didn’t apply to murder offenses.
I could spend several years in jail before ever facing a jury.
My lawyer was also right that I hadn’t shown enough concern over everything, which would be presented at trial.
Most of the public didn’t have high opinions of those within the pharmaceutical world as is, and the notoriety of this case alone could sway them to convict.
I didn’t have anything to do with Layla’s running away, but if she returned, then I might not be able to say the same. Right now, I wanted to throttle her, then bury her lifeless body alongside the fucking hush money I’d been willing to pay her. The money we’d agreed upon that she now reneged on.
By the time the lawyer left, I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers.
The shit with Layla was one thing, but that didn’t even include the clusterfuck I also faced when it came to Enslee.
At the time I came up with the plan, I’d been out of my mind.
Granted, I always felt as if I was floating after sex with Declan, but I now digressed.
So worried over all the implications of what she saw and could do with that information made me do something foolish that would only hurt any case the police decided to bring against me. I’d thought I was doing this to protect Declan, but it was only to protect me.
Everything I’d said to and about my own father was a deflection because the one I had been looking out for had been me. It was why when Declan called several more times, I hadn’t even called him back. I was ashamed to once more realize I was taking advantage of him.
I had never loved another sexual partner in my life, but I did love him completely.
And present tense, not past tense. When my father had tortured me, it’d been my still new at the time feelings for him that had gotten me through.
The shame afterward, though, was the same kind filling me now, but I knew as I did back then that I’d continue to seek him out.
How could I not? He’s the only light in my miserable fucking existence.
Still, I needed time to think about what my father and lawyer had both said. I’d ended up holing myself in the office and working on enough stuff to keep me preoccupied. It wasn’t until I left the office and found myself on the way to Staten Island that any semblance of peace filled me.
It all evaporated the moment I let myself in. Expecting to at least see Declan awake, he was lying on the couch asleep. That wasn’t what made me stop suddenly in my tracks, though. Draped across him was Enslee, and she had one of her hands underneath his shirt.
I had no idea how long I’d stood there staring at my entire world in the arms of the one guaranteed to be the downfall of us all. Was it jealousy? I didn’t know, but it wasn’t something I relished feeling. Everything looked innocent, yet so right at the same time.
This is what you deserve, baby. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to give it to you.
All loving me had gotten him was shame, and eventually it would be his incarceration.
I was going to ruin his life. The honorable thing to do would be to set him free.
Let him go on to find someone whose days were not numbered.
I’d looked up the sentencing for accomplice to murder, and he could be looking at anywhere from a year in county jail if convicted under a misdemeanor up to life imprisonment if convicted of aiding and abetting me.
I turned on my heel and left out the same door I had come in. Hurrying out to my car, I’d no sooner made it to the gate when my cell phone began to ring, and I saw that it was Declan. The closing of the door must’ve awakened him.
Rejecting the call, I put my Porsche Taycan in gear, then drove back toward the city.
Calls continued to come in that I ignored, and once back in my private garage, I went upstairs.
As soon as I’d gotten out of the private elevator to my penthouse, I heard it chime announcing someone else’s arrival.
I dropped my keys onto the maple coffee table just as a very pissed off Declan stepped inside.
I’d forgotten that he naturally had the same access to this place as I did to his homes.
Letting out an exhale, I was about to say something before he reached me.
In a flash, he grabbed me by the neck, then pinned me against the stone column nearest to me.