Chapter 61 – Charlie
CHARLIE
When I finally leave the bathroom, I feel numb as I walk back to the kitchen. I find Mitchell still sitting at the table, only he’s finished his burger and now my laptop in front of him.
I grab my discarded burger and take the other vacant seat, biting into the now cold bun mechanically. “You good?” Not trusting my voice, I nod my head and take another large bite from the burger.
Instead of meeting his eye, I point to the laptop, tilting my head in question using the mouthful of food as an excuse to not have to speak. “I got a hit from one of the screenshots you took from the doorbell cams,” he explains, turning the screen so I can see.
I take another bite, forcing down the huff wanting to rise. I barely did anything. He’s the one who pulled the footage from each of the doorbell cams. All I did was press pause and take a screenshot.
“Brayden O’Brien. Eighteen years old. Has a six-year-old brother who hasn’t started school yet."
Chucking the burger back in the wrapping, I shove it aside and Mitchell continues to list the information he’s managed to find on the teenager and his family, while I was in the bathroom trying not to fall apart.
Dusting the crumbs off my hands, I watch Mitchell as he taps away at the keyboard, completely unbothered by what we did earlier. He’s completely focused, not distracted by a moral existential crisis. He’s exactly what Jace and Bonnie need right now. What I need to be right now.
“He’s working tonight. Gets off at midnight.” He keeps talking, but I'm not really listening, still stuck in my own head. “We’ll leave in two hours,” he finishes, closing the laptop with finality.
That pulls me out of my head. “What’s the plan here?” I ask, feeling a little uneasy.
“We should get there a couple minutes before he gets home-”
“Not what I meant Mitchell, and you know it. What is the plan when we get there?”
“We get the answers we need.”
“And how do you plan on getting those answers?”
He looks at me like he doesn’t understand the question, or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t understand why I’m asking it, when the answer is so obvious to him. “By whatever means necessary.”
“He’s a kid, Mitchell. Not some sixty-something-year old who broke the law and got people hurt.”
“He’s eighteen and he did break the law. He did get people hurt. He helped kidnap two people.”
“I know. I just…He's still a kid. I can’t kill-” my words cut off, my voice cracking and I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to fight the tears that have been threatening to spill since we left Adam’s house.
“That’s what this is about?” I hate how soft his voice has gotten; the pity I can hear in it. “Charlie, you didn’t kill Adam.”
“I may as well have! I stood there. I watched him die. I did nothing. I can’t do that with a kid. I can't hurt a kid. I can’t. I just, I can’t.” I shake my head, struggling to pull air into my lungs at the thought.
Mitchell is quiet, staring at me unblinkingly for a few seconds before he gives an almost imperceptible nod. “Okay.”
“Okay? Just like that?”
He lets out a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose before answering. “Yes, Charlie. You may not be my romantic partner, but you are my partner. You are allowed to have boundaries. To voice your opinions and concerns. This clearly means a lot to you, so…I’ll try.” I feel like I can breathe again.
I want Bonnie and Jace back more than anything. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do to achieve that, but…I just, I can't be a part of hurting someone so young. Or even standing by and watching it.
“But Charlie, if he knowingly and willingly did this, all bets are off. I don’t care how old he is or isn’t.”
Swallowing, I nod. “That’s all I ask.” If he was forced to do this, then we can help him. If he wasn’t…Well then, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But I find it hard to believe someone so young could willingly do something so horrible.
Brayden arrived home exactly five minutes ago, long enough to put his shit down and maybe jump in the shower, but not long enough that he’ll be in bed or settled in.
I stand back, giving Mitchell the space he needs to get the door unlocked. He pulls the small kit from his pocket, testing the handle before he gets started.
My brows rise when it turns easily. He leaves his front door unlocked when he gets home in the middle of the night?
With a small shake of his head, Mitchell puts the kit back in his pocket and opens the door. Once we’re both inside, I close it behind me, flicking the lock and deadbolt over.
I can hear a shower running somewhere down the hall, but I head left toward what I can see of the kitchen and loungeroom while Mitchell goes right.
Stepping into the kitchen, I can see someone has tried to keep it clean in here. But no amount of scrubbing can hide the years’ worth of staining on the countertops, or the missing handles and doors on the cabinets.
There’s a used mug sitting in the sink with a spoon next to it. Probably from a coffee or tea made at some point throughout the day, but other than that, I can’t see any other dirty dishes.
Something about that doesn’t sit right with me, but I can’t figure out what it is. Curious, I open the fridge, finding it practically empty with only a bottle of milk two days past its expiry, butter and some of those individually plastic wrapped cheese inside.
Opening the freezer, I find a couple of frozen dinners, pizzas and other cheap microwavable meals.
The microwave beeps, scaring the shit out of me and my head snaps to the hallway when I hear the shower shut off. Mitchell appearing a few seconds later.
“He’s alone,” Mitchell whispers, confirming my suspicions. The mother’s name was listed on the rental agreement as the tenant with her two children listed as occupants. So, where the hell is she? Where is his brother?
“Something’s not right.” Mitchell hums in agreement but before he can say anything, the sound of a dresser opening and closing stops our conversation.
A few seconds later, Brayden walks into the kitchen, a towel over his head as he dries his hair. He walks right by us, completely oblivious and stops in front of the microwave, taking his dinner out. Still with his back to us, he pulls a fork out of the top drawer and stirs his meal.
Letting out a resigned sigh, he shoves a mouthful in his mouth and turns around, freezing when he finally realises he isn’t alone in the house.
“Don’t,” I warn when his eyes immediately flick to the side, and I can see he’s preparing to run. “We’re not here to hurt you, we just want to know where you took them.”
I don’t explain who ‘them’ is. He clearly recognises us, so he knows exactly who I’m talking about. He gulps down the food in his mouth before tossing the rest at us and making a run for it.
He doesn’t get far, barely a half dozen steps before Mitchell is shoving him face first into the wall, his arm trapped behind his back. “Thought you weren’t gonna hurt me?”
“You just threw hot mac and cheese at us,” I point out, stepping up beside him in the direction his head is turned so he can see me.
“You broke into my house in the middle of the night,” he accuses.
“You kidnapped two members of our family.” Mitchell effectively shuts down Brayden’s complaints, dragging him to the loungeroom and throwing him onto the couch.
Brayden immediately tries to get up, but freezes when he looks at Mitchell, and slowly settles back into the couch with a gulp.
When I look at Mitchell, he’s taking a seat on the old coffee table directly in front of Brayden, maintaining eye contact while resting a gun in his lap as a silent threat.
I tense for a moment at the sight but remind myself of the promise he made earlier. I may not have known Mitchell very long, but I trust him. He doesn’t seem like the type of person to make empty promises.
With that in mind, I take a seat on the couch, wincing when one of the springs immediately starts digging into my arse.
“Start talking, kid.” I raise a brow at Mitchell condescendingly calling him a kid when earlier he was adamant he wasn’t one, but he doesn’t break eye contact with Brayden.
Brayden stubbornly juts his chin up but shrinks back when Mitchell’s hand on the gun shifts. “Look, it was nothing personal.”
“Oh, it was personal alright. Where did you take them?”
Brayden shakes his head. “I didn’t. They put them in the other car. Then they all got in that car and drove off. I don’t know where they went, I came here alone.”
“Alone? Isn’t the kid your brother?”
“What makes you think that?” he evades, and I let out a snort.
“You live nearly three hours away from us, and yet here we are, having found you and you’re questioning how we know the kid you used to help kidnap our partners is your brother? Great role model you are by the way.”
“Fuck you. You don’t know shit about me.”
“Then enlighten us. Why did you help kidnap them? You realise you can go to jail for that, right?” Or worse, but I refuse to go down that route. Hoping, praying, it won’t come to that.
He bristles at that, gritting his jaw before he visibly deflates. “It was the only way he’d let me see him.”
“Your brother?” He nods and I share a look with Mitchell.
“Where is your brother, Brayden? Where is Samuel?” Mitchell asks, his voice softer than I expected him to use with the eighteen-year-old.
“I wasn’t planning on going through with it. I just needed to play along long enough to figure out how to get Sammy and I out of there. But then he showed up.”
“Who?”
“The sperm donor," he sneers. "He figured out what I was planning to do and came to personally remind me why I had to do as I was told.”
“There was no father listed on either of your birth certificates,” Mitchell points out, not accusatorily but rather posing it as a question. One Brayden scoffs at, sneering in disgust.
“Of course there isn't. Wouldn’t want proof that you use your job to take advantage of young girls,” he spits out. “He was my mum's gynaecologist. He convinced her she had endometriosis and needed the surgery to confirm and remove it.
"She didn't know that that surgery is performed at a hospital. He convinced her it was standard practice to be performed in gynaecologist clinics.
"She had no idea what he did to her until a couple of weeks later when she went back. She thought she was having a complication from the surgery. Turns out she was just pregnant. He raped her when she was unconscious. She was barely eighteen."