Chapter 59
“Fuck!” Brodie yells, stumbling backward as I shake my throbbing fist. Pain blooms through my knuckles, but the satisfaction of seeing his head snap to the side is worth it. Even if he retaliates. “You punch like your brother,” he mutters, stretching his jaw from left to right.
“Which one?” I deadpan.
“Touché.” He smirks, eyes cold and hard.
Standing before me, Brodie is no longer the man I once believed he was. The real Brodie, the one who joked with my sister, coached Roman’s games, manned the grill, and who Brax loved is gone. Or maybe it was an act, and he never existed.
“It was you,” I say quietly. “Laurel agreed to do the exchange after she heard you because she thought Elliot would break if he ever found out what Chase’s best friend was mixed up in. She was scared if Elliot found out the truth, he’d step in to protect Chase.”
He rolls his eyes. “Nice job, Scooby Doo. Want a Scooby snack for cracking the case?”
My stomach rolls at the careless look in his eyes. The silence that consumes the space is deafening.
“It all makes sense now,” I say. “You told her the safest thing she could do was get rid of the drugs she had as leverage because you needed the drugs you stole from your father gone.”
Brodie’s eyes lock on mine, the storm raging inside them blacker than the night sky.
“You had Laurel go to Chase with a story about Elliot because you knew Chase would do anything for his brother, even risk his career.”
Brodie glares at me.
“You knew Chase would go to Brax for help,” I add. “And he did. Just as you wanted.”
Brodie’s lips twitch. “You think you’re so smart.”
“Smart enough to see that you knew Brax would be the perfect shield, especially since he has no idea what his father does. The Octopus would never suspect his distant son’s involvement.”
Brodie’s eyes flare.
“You needed them gone because if The Octopus ever found out his protégé was the thief—”
“He wouldn’t,” Brodie snaps. “My dad would never…” His voice wavers, betraying him.
“And yet, you did everything you could to make sure he never learned the truth.”
Brodie doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe. His face flashes crimson. “It was supposed to be a harmless experiment. I didn’t think he’d notice a small amount missing.”
Small.
I almost want to laugh at that word. Three lives were destroyed because of what he stole.
“Before you grabbed me,” I say, “I found the necklace Laurel gave Elliot. You planted it. Which means you were there that night when Elliot fought Jack.”
His eyes drop.
“Tell me why Elliot was at the stadium. Tell me what really happened.”
Brodie drags a hand through his hair. “He was leaving town,” he explains. “He didn’t know what Laurel and Chase did. I wanted it to stay that way.”
Of course he wanted it to stay that way.
He was only thinking of himself.
“He found my cap at the hotel,” Brodie continues. “The one I have for Roman’s Little League team. He recognized it. Put together I’d been in his room. We hadn’t met or talked. Laurel was the only other person I could have been there to see. He asked me to meet him.”
The piece of the puzzle we’ve been searching for finally surfaces.
Elliot was at the stadium because of Brodie.
“He confronted me. I told him I met Laurel at the club, that we partied and slept together, and I had no idea he was her boyfriend. Not until she begged me not to tell him.”
“You lied to him,” I whisper.
“He didn’t buy it,” Brodie says. “Said Laurel was clean. That she’d never cheat. So, I pushed. Told him if he wanted proof, I could describe the sounds she made when—”
“Stop.” My voice shudders with repulsion.
“He snapped,” Brodie continues quietly. “Attacked me. I got one hit in. It’s how I ended up with the necklace. Then Jack showed up. He arrived early to help with props and lighting for a figure skating recital.”
He was only there to help with a show?
“Jack tried to pull him off,” Brodie says. “Elliot didn’t see him. Didn’t hear him. He just…saw red. Rage took over. Jack ended up under him.”
Pain tears through me, splintering everything in its path.
“And you ran.”
“I couldn’t have stopped him. He was feral.”
I shake my head at his words as if he believes it excuses everything.
“When Chase called, Elliot was gone,” he explains. “I thought someone at the stadium would stop Elliot or call the cops, but the rage must have subdued enough for him to recognize what he’d done. He panicked and fled. Relapsed to numb it.”
My vision blurs before I can stop it.
“You let your friend…” I can’t finish my sentence. I shake my head, disgusted that he held a brush and painted Jack’s memory onto the ice.
“None of this would have happened if Elliot had just left town. If Chase had…”
“NO!” I scream. “You did this.”
Whatever was holding me together gives way.
My mind spirals and works in overdrive as I take in every painful part of the truth. Every thread leads back to him, and somehow, I ended up on his radar, too.
“How did you find out who I was?”
“It started with my grandfather,” he says quietly.
“Sebastian said he died in the fire he set.”
“He did,” Brodie says. “Last New Year, I found a photo album, one I’d never seen before. I found this,” Brodie says and hands me a worn photo.
I stare at the faces in front of me. Carlos. Clarissa Rose. Me.
Lucia Alvarez - age three is written on the back.
“Carlos is the spitting image of my grandfather. My dad never told me he had a brother.”
I stare at him, unable to speak.
“I searched for the girl in the photo for months, but Lucia Alvarez didn’t seem to exist anywhere.
It was as though someone made her disappear.
I didn’t know that’s exactly what had happened when I first came across it.
I learned Carlos was dead, so I looked for Clarissa Rose.
I found her, watched her, but there was no one in her life.
And I wondered what happened to my cousin. ”
Cousin.
The word slices me open.
He was looking for me long before he ever met me.
“I thought if I could find you, maybe we could be partners. Someone to build an empire with. I knew it wouldn’t be Brax. Perhaps it could have been Lucia.”
A sick twist knots my stomach.
“When did you realize I was the girl in the photo?”
“When Bella told me about your reunion with Rudy,” he says. “She told me your real name was Lucia Alvarez, and you were in foster care with him.” His chuckle is humorless. “You were right under my nose, and I had no clue.”
“So why bring Clarissa Rose here? Why send her the picture of me and Griff if you only wanted to find Lucia?”
“Finding out you were the girl in the photo, that you grew up in my girlfriend’s home, and then started dating my best friend… Maybe I was paranoid, but it just started to feel more planned than coincidental. It didn’t feel like you being in front of me this whole time was by chance.”
A sudden clarity settles over me, heavy and unyielding.
“You wanted to see my reaction to Clarissa Rose being in town to confirm if what you suspected about this being planned was true.”
“Yes.”
“You sent her more than a photo. What was in the package?”
“A copy of Carlos’s death certificate. And a few photos of Carlos and Sebastian from the album I found your picture in.”
A chill races up my spine as pieces slam into place from the day I was shot. Clarissa Rose’s grip on me, demanding to know who I talked to.
“She thought I knew Carlos wasn’t my father,” I whisper, it finally making sense. “That I told someone and she was being hunted. After I was shot, she fled. And then your father found her and killed her.”
“I sent her that stuff weeks before she showed up. I didn’t think she had taken the bait.
Finding out you were in the hospital is how I knew she had and that I was wrong about this being planned.
You didn’t tell Bella your mom was in town.
If you had, we would have come home. You wanted her to stay in California, away from what was happening. ”
I hate that he’s right.
“I had no idea how connected your mother was to my father when I started looking into her. I had no idea the stuff I sent her would reveal as many secrets as it did. My father hid an entire past from me.”
“Like father, like son, I guess. He has no idea what you’ve been hiding, either.”
Brodie scowls. “I’m not the only one that’s been keeping secrets.”
My brows pinch together.
“Our big brother knows all about the DNA that flows through your veins.”
Brax knew?
The information he was keeping from me—was it this?
“A few days after you were shot, my dad called to tell me he had a daughter and it was you. He wanted me to learn about you, wanted you to work with us. He was ecstatic to know we were already acquainted with one another, but I told him you were like Brax. That you’d want no part of our world.
He wanted me to try anyway,” Brodie explains, disdained that his father didn’t listen to him.
I don’t know why, but a broken laugh escapes me.
“I bet you wish you never found that album,” I say. “That you never took drugs from your father.”
He steps closer, eyes flaring with rage and disgust.
“I bet you thought Chase and Brax would drop everything after what happened to Jack and Elliot but you didn’t bother keeping tabs on them to confirm it.”
His eyes harden, the weight of my words sinking in like I’m pointing out the flaws in his plan he saw too late.
“You panicked after the Clarissa Rose fiasco when you realized the connections,” I say as my mind pieces it together. “You dumped the necklace at Brax’s. Left your research you’d collected over the last year at the lakehouse when you found out Laurel was back, hoping we’d blame Brax and Laurel.”
“Stop talking,” Brodie growls.
“The research was yours, which means that you were the one in Brax’s house,” I realize.
“In his office. Going through his things. Not Laurel,” I say.
“You didn’t have to sneak in. You’re his brother, you have an open invitation.
No one would ever suspect or question you being there at all—you wanted us to think it was Laurel. ”
“I said be quiet.”
“At what point did you realize Brax knew it was you?” I ask. “Before or after you sent a man to his house, where your nephew lives, to kill him, you asshole!”
“I didn’t tell him to shoot him,” Brodie seethes. “Just to get the necklace!”
“But you sent him!” I hiss back. “And when he failed, he shot Brax. “You didn’t fly home to celebrate—you came to get the necklace before Brax found it.”
“Shut up.”
“You just weren’t expecting Chase and I to be there.
And when Brax got hurt, you wanted him to go to the hospital, because you needed him to leave.
But he wouldn’t. He knew you wanted him to go.
You left after watching your plan implode.
But Brax knew you’d come back. He wanted you to. You just thought he’d be alone.”
Brodie’s hand cracks across my face. Pain explodes behind my eyes, blood sliding down my chin, but I refuse to show him it hurts. I turn my head to face him and that’s when I latch onto the gun on his hip.
“Your father wants to bring me into the fold,” I say. “I bet he told you to threaten the people I love if I refuse. But you won’t follow through on his order, will you Brodie?”
He stiffens.
“You can’t stand the idea of his attention shifting away from you. So, you’ll tell him I fought, that I refused, that I tried to escape, and you had no choice but to get rid of me because I knew too much.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“I’ll take that Scooby snack now.”
His hand goes to his gun. “Sorry,” he says, lifting it. “The only thing I’ve got for you is a bullet.” He cocks the gun. “Goodbye, Lucia.”
“My name is Erin!” I roar and drive my knee into his crotch.
He drops with a strangled cry.
And I run.