31. Declan
As soon as Brogan had hung up on me, I’d tried to call him back. His phone just went to voicemail, so I did the only thing that I could. “Benny,” I said as soon as I made a second call.
“What’s up?” the investigator said to me. “I thought you were in for the night? Have you found something?”
“No. Something’s come up, though. I need to leave right away.”
“Is everything okay? Does it involve our subject?”
“Nothing like that. It’s a personal matter, but I do need your help.”
“Name it, Declan,” he said to me.
“Stay in Cancun and continue looking for Ms. Harte. If she’s here in this fucking place, I want you to find her. Tear the entire city up if needed, but find her.”
“I’ll burn this bitch to the ground,” he said.
“And keep me posted on whatever you find. And remember, she’s to remain unharmed once you find her.”
“Got it,” he responded.
“Thanks. I’ll be back in touch soon.” From there, I disconnected the call and made another to the aircraft charter company. “How quickly can a plane be chartered for NYC?”
I really needed to stay here to find Layla, but the shit was hitting the fan back home, so I had no choice but to leave. Or, at least it had the potential to blow up in our faces. Brogan needed me, and although he wanted to pretend he didn’t, I knew better.
“I fucking know you,” I said as I packed my suitcase, then headed outside to meet my rideshare.
Thankfully, I had two of my investigators here.
They’d carry on with the mission and report back to me the minute she was found.
I could then remove that weight from atop Brogan’s shoulders.
After, I’d have to work on Enslee. That was for another time.
Getting home to my man was all that mattered to me right now.
I chartered the aircraft, which was already fueled and ready at the airstrip, then took the four-hour flight home.
During it, I used the in-air WIFI to try to reach Brogan, but it was to no avail.
He was either ignoring me or in a position where he couldn’t speak.
I wasn’t sure which option was worse, so I tried to settle my prickly nerves by looking at the local news back home.
The same sort of headlines popped up, and at this point, they were a pathetic regurgitation of everything the previous reports had said.
While things looked bad for Brogan, they had no proof that any crime had ever been committed.
Still, the various clickbait headlines made me scowl.
Alibi in question. What really happened the night Layla Harte went missing?
His alibi had never been given to the police to be in question, but it could be corroborated if need be. I knew so because he’d been with me. More specifically, he’d been balls deep inside of me. I could tell the authorities exactly what had happened that night, as far as he was concerned.
“The alibi leaves more questions than answers, so drop it,” Brogan had told me when I’d wanted to tell the authorities he couldn’t have been responsible.
I understood it, even if I didn’t like it. More importantly, I respected it. I respected him. Brogan was so used to dealing with everything on his own. In the past, he’d space out and go radio silent for hours, but in the past few months, it’d gotten worse.
That was the reason I’d been unable to sleep a wink on the entire flight. All I wanted and needed was to find Brogan to make sure he was okay. I should look for Enslee too, but she’d have to wait. Her hatred for us would still be there tomorrow. I couldn’t say the same about Brogan.
Upon touching down, I was ready to leave.
While on the flight, I’d asked Jenni to bring my car to the airport.
I’d also briefly exchanged a few text messages with her regarding Enslee, and I knew she was disappointed the girl had recovered her memories.
My assistant liked the other woman a lot and had even wanted to hang out with her someday. Someday now would never come.
I exited the plane once given the all clear, then retrieved my car.
Once in it, I tried Brogan again but nothing.
I had no idea where he even was. He could be in Staten Island or Manhattan.
I looked at the Life360 app, and I noticed his last known location was five hours ago at his penthouse.
Thankfully, I was closer to it than the property we shared in Staten Island.
I drove like a bat out of hell to his place and was relieved the moment I saw his Porsche. He was definitely here. Until I saw his condition, I couldn’t feel any relief, though. It was now nearly one a.m.. With any luck, he’d be asleep.
Since I had his key code, I didn't need to bother having the doorman let me into his private elevator. I did keep calling him, but it kept going to voicemail as if he’d shut it off completely. Brogan knew how much I worried about him, so ignoring me only pissed me off more.
I kept reminding myself that my man needed help.
He was in therapy, but it hadn’t solved all his issues.
Mostly the ones involving his mood swings.
I hated when he got into those moods. They usually included periods of dissociation where he’d be completely disconnected from everything around him.
He’d retreat into a world that brought him no comfort.
It only plunged him deeper into the madness.
It was like being strapped to an anchor.
Brogan would drop so quickly to the ocean floor, and he wouldn't even fight for air.
Those times terrified me, and with the added stress he was under between Layla’s disappearance and what happened with Enslee, it was a lot for anyone to deal with. We’d both just met the girl, and now after she’d recovered her memories, we weren’t even sure whether or not she’d blow our cover.
Secrets can never stay hidden forever.
It was something I'd always known to be true, and as much as I'd wanted to stand up and tell everyone that Brogan was my man, I'd respected his wishes. I'd kept it a secret and fake dated others to keep up appearances. It’d been something I’d seemingly done my entire adult life. The crazy thing was that I’d never even thought about a different life. I didn’t know what I would do without Brogan. And I didn't want to find out.
As the elevator ascended to his unit, I just prayed that he’d gotten drunk and was in one of the rooms sleeping this episode off.
He didn't often drink a lot, but the last few months had been brutal on him, so I wouldn’t fault him if he did.
They'd been hard on me too, and the guilt I felt over him and Layla was nearly crippling at times.
I'd always held it together, though, too afraid to let myself fall.
When I entered the penthouse, I rushed inside and came to a stop as I stared at the man on the floor in front of me. He was sitting cross-legged in nothing but a pair of black sweatpants. He was so still, but I knew he was alive because he was upright.
“Brogan,” I said softly not to startle him.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Brogan,” I said, raising my voice just a little louder as I moved closer to him.
Still nothing. Fucking Hell!
Closing the rest of the distance between us, I was just about to kneel down in front of him when his head snapped back and his hand moved.
It was then that I realized he was holding a gun, and there was a box of bullets sitting beside him.
I hadn't initially noticed it because I’d been too focused on his face. It now had my full attention.
“Brogan! What are you doing?”
He continued to stare ahead, straight past me. I turned to look to see if maybe, perhaps, he was looking at someone, even though it was too silent for anyone else to be here. When I turned, I saw nothing but the wall. My heart rate began to accelerate.
“Brogan, baby,” I said softly again as I tried to kick the ammunition away from him. When I did, his hand wrapped around my ankle, holding it in place. I glanced down at him, and his eyes flicked upward, and I saw the first flare of life within him.
“Thank fuck,” I cursed. “Let me have the gun.” The first thing I needed to do was disarm him. He shook his head. “Come on, please. Let me have it. “
“No,” he whispered brokenly.
I dropped to my knees directly in front of him, and as I went to reach for it, he scrambled away from me and stood up. I rose back to my feet as well while I attempted to grab the weapon again. I stopped and froze in place when he pressed the barrel to his head.
“No, Brogan. Listen to me. Please. Talk to me.”
“There's nothing to say.” His voice was so forlorn and reeked of resignation.
“There's always something to say. Look at me… Focus on me.”
“I am,” he said, and I shook my head.
“Put the weapon down. Just hand it to me.” He shook his head profusely. “We'll get through this. It's you and me. We're in this together—”
“Which is why I have to do this,” he replied.
“You don't have to do anything but put the weapon down.”
“I’d do almost anything for you, but I can’t do that.”
His voice still sounded robotic, and he wasn’t snapping out of this as quickly as he usually did. In the past, my voice would bring him back, but it wasn’t working tonight.
“Don't do this to me. Don't do this to us.”
He turned his head, and a sad smile curved his once sensual lips, which were usually full of color and vitality, but now were almost blue. “I love you,” he confessed in a near whisper.
“I love you too.”
Relief didn’t fill his features, but disappointment did instead.
Desperation was starting to fill me. I frantically wanted to reach for the weapon, but I was afraid he might discharge it if I startled him too much because his words and voice had signaled that he'd already given up. This wasn’t the man I knew. This wasn't the man I loved.
Brogan had always been the type of man who took no prisoners.
He took charge, gave no fucks, at least, about the things that didn't matter in his world. And to know my own pain and fear wasn't enough to fully snap him out of this scared me more than anything I'd ever experienced before. Not even when I thought I might lose my parents, or the first time I thought I’d lost him. I’d almost lost not just the boy I was experimenting with by kissing a few times, but the one that’d been my best friend.
Brogan had been beside me for as long as I could remember, and I’d done everything in my life with him.
All the things we’d gone through in the last ten years, the things we’d shared, the love we’d felt for one another…
It was real. I'd do anything for him, and I’d done everything I could to free him from the binds keeping him rooted in place, unable to move on. Now, I stood to lose it all.
“Brogan, just take a deep breath and we'll work through this. W-whatever it is, we'll fix it together.” Silence once more greeted me. “Did something else happen since we’d last talked?”
“Everything’s gone so wrong, and it’s been that way for so long. I’m so tired. I—”
“I know, baby. Just let—”
“I've been sitting here wondering how to fix it, and I realized there's only one way out. There’s only one way to stop the pain.”
The hand holding the gun grew steady once more. “No,” I said hurriedly as I tried to reach for the gun, but he stepped away, and I heard a warning click.
“Okay.” I threw my hands up in surrender.
“I can't let you go. I've tried. God knows I’ve fucking tried, but I just can’t.”
“You don’t have to because I'm not going anywhere. Not now, not ever.”
“You have to because I can't save you if I don't let you go.”
“I don't need to be saved. I just need you, Brogan. Just you!” He shook his head, and I continued hoping that I was getting through to him. “When you’d called me, I was so scared thinking I might lose you that I’d jumped on the first fucking flight and came straight here. I can't live without you.”
“You have to. I'm doing this all for you. I have to let you go, so leave.”
“I’m not leaving unless you're coming with me.” When his unsteady gaze met mine, I implored him to listen. “I’ll walk to the ends of this fucking Earth as long as you walk alongside me. I don't want to live without you. The very thought suffocates me… It cripples me… It obliterates me.”
“Save yourself and just go,” he told me as he waved his empty hand toward the door. “Do whatever you have to do to leave me behind, just as I’m trying to do for you.”
“How can you so easily walk away from me?”
“I can't walk away.” His voice was returning to some semblance of normal, but it still sounded so bitterly damaged. “You’ll never leave unless I force you to go.”
“If I mean anything at all to you, then don’t do—”
“You’ve been the most unexpected, yet beautiful gift in my life. When everyone else has walked away from me, you’ve always been here. You’ve always been my fucking lifeline, but now it's time to cut the cord. It's time to let you live the long, happy life I’ll never be able to give you.”
“But you do give me those things. I love you, Brogan. So goddamn much that—”
“If you love me like you say you do, then you’ll grant me this final wish and leave.”
“Leave so you can do what? Shoot yourself? How is your dying going to help me?”
A desolate laugh escaped from his lips. “My dying isn’t for you.
It’s for me because I couldn't go on breathing without you in my world, and I won't. It’s only a matter of time before I'm arrested for murder. Kidnapping charges will follow, then you’ll be taken from me. I won’t survive if that happens.
And I sure as fuck won’t breathe without you.
I can't because you're the most integral piece to my survival.”