Chapter 15 Leo
LEO
I pull into the parking lot of my shop and am hit by a ton of emotions.
Rage.
Fear.
Regret.
Sadness.
Everything that I’ve been working through over the last couple of hours seems to hit me even stronger now, but I do my best to get control of myself.
I unlock the shop and stalk toward my desk. “Asshole,” I mutter, thinking about my brother.
I close the folder on the desk and nearly have a heart attack when I notice something moving outside in the parking lot. I get up from the desk and grab an ancient iron wrench.
I head toward the door and grab a wrench because my dumb ass doesn’t have a weapon.
When the door is pulled open slowly, I get the shock of my goddamn life. “Tim?” I say, shock and horror at war in my chest.
My brother darts his eyes from left to right, looking like the fox caught in the henhouse. “You alone?” he asks. “Anybody else here?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I drop the wrench, and in two long strides, I’ve got my forearm pressed against Tim’s throat. He’s not even struggling, not even trying to fight me. “Where the fuck is Lia?”
“Who?” Tim coughs, and it’s then I can see it. He’s in a bad way. His eyes are rimmed with red, and he’s pale.
I shove him once more, hard against the door, but then I release him. “You’re drug sick,” I seethe. “You’re on what? Heroin?” I turn and start to walk away before I realize I need Tim alive, with me, if I want to make a trade for Lia, but I still don’t know if he’s the one who’s got her.
“You disappear for a year and leave me with the fallout? I oughta fucking call the cops and turn you in right now.”
I make like I’m going to pick up my phone, but Tim stops me. “You call, I’m dead,” he says simply. But he drops down in the chair opposite my desk and covers his face in his hands. “I’m probably dead anyway. Just—whatever, Leo.”
He shocks me by bursting into tears. Actual grown man fucking crying tears. “It’s so goddamn good to see you. I thought… I–I thought I’d never see you again. How are you?”
He makes me sick, and the tears make me feel nothing.
“How am I?” I shout. “How am I? How the fuck can you come in here ‘little bro’ing’ me when you left me? You left, Tim! What the fuck do you think I’m supposed to say, seeing you like this? Do you know what I’ve been through because of you?”
I pick up the wrench I dropped, and I throw it at the wall of the shop, and it bounces off the cinder block.
“Whoa, stay cool,” he urges. “Hear me out.”
“Hear you out?” I walk over to the wrench, grab it off the floor, and head back toward Tim with it.
“No, you asshole. You hear me out. The woman I love was kidnapped. Because of you. Now I either have to hand you over to the assholes who have her, or I don’t know what.
They kill her? Worse? And that’s only what your bullshit has cost me over the last few hours. ”
“Aw fuck, brother…” Tim sinks lower in the chair, covering his face with his hands. “Somebody got your girl? Are you sure?”
“I’m fucking sure,” I snarl.
I come around to his chair and get in his face. Now, he’s nothing to me. He’s the reason my life is in the toilet and being sucked down the goddamn drain. He holds my future and Lia’s life in his ruined hands.
“Are you behind this?” I demand. I pull out my phone and show him the text. “My girl for you,” I grit out. “They want you, so they took her.”
Tim looks around the shop wildly. “Do they know anything?” he asks.
“Anything about what?” I demand.
“About me,” he says. “Do you think they know how to find me?”
“Think about it, Einstein,” I say, using the slam we used on each other when we were kids and did something incredibly stupid. “Would they bother kidnapping a girl if they knew how to get to you?”
Tim gets up out of the chair, but I grab his shirt, not letting him walk away. I catch a whiff of him, and it’s obvious he’s been on the run. He smells rank, and I can feel his bones beneath his shirt.
“It’s not a good idea for you to leave,” I say. “Not until I get my girl home safe.”
Tim nods. “I know what they want.”
“So, you’re not behind this.” I need to hear him say it. “You didn’t kidnap my girlfriend as a ploy to throw off Arrow?”
“Arrow?” He seems totally confused. “Fuck. Arrow came to you, didn’t he?”
“You thought he wouldn’t?” I snap. “You put up my goddamn house.”
“Our house,” Tim corrects quietly.
“It’s my goddamn house!” I scream, shaking him by his bony shoulders. “You motherfucking left me and ran off. That’s when it stopped being ours.”
Once I start, I can’t stop. I’m screaming in rage.
“Do you know the bank took this place? I almost lost Gramps’s shop. The truck. Everything! Because of you! Because of your drugs. Because of your lies. Because you’re a selfish prick!”
Tim hangs his head. He doesn’t defend himself. Doesn’t try to stop any of the accusations flying from my mouth. It’s like he’s running through the same memories I am. The kids that we were. How we only had each other. How the two of us were alone until Gramps took us in—and even after that.
“We ran a business together for what—how many years?” I ask him. “After we lost Gramps, I thought we’d always have each other’s backs. We’d always have each other.”
“It’s good you found someone,” he says quietly.
“Someone you can rely on. Someone you can make a future with. You can’t do that with me,” he says.
“I’m wasted, Leo. I’m a waste.” He swallows hard and scratches a bunch of tiny scabs growing in the webs of skin between his fingers.
“Been addicted a long time,” he admits. “Since high school.”
“You’ve been on the run,” I say, accusing him.
He nods. “Doping to deal. It’s always been my way.”
“Doping to deal? With life?”
“Can’t help it, man. I’ve tried to get clean, okay?” Tim stares at his hands. “I thought when I got arrested, that would be the end of the run? I was relieved, to be honest. Happy, almost.”
I watch my older brother talk, and I look for signs of the guy I used to worship, look up to. I can see the features of his face—the nose, the color of his eyes—as familiar to me as my own are, but he’s like a stranger now.
Distracted.
Fidgety.
Filthy.
It scares me that someone I loved so much could be so different. So completely strange to me that I’m not even sure I can love this person in front of me. Not that he’s going to give me the chance.
“So, what changed?” I demand. “Why the fuck did you run off a year ago? You left me with nothing, and they took it, Tim. They took it all. The building is gone, seized by the bank and sold.”
He seems incapable of doing anything but nodding and agreeing. “Juliette,” he says. “I was gonna tell you about her, but we were both hooked on the shit. Maintenance-level stuff. I knew you’d freak out if you knew I was actively using, let alone had a girlfriend who was also using.”
He looks down at the floor.
“I was spending like three grand a week to support us,” he says.
“Three grand? Where did you get that kind of money?”
That kind of money going out on bags of smack… No wonder we lost the business.
“I just stopped paying the mortgage on the property, man. The drugs kept going faster and faster. But I love Juliette. She’s something special. She’s got a degree. She’s got potential.”
“She’s a junkie, just like you.”
“Well, yeah, she was,” he says. “But do you understand how goddamn hard it is to get clean in this country? How much the detox programs are?”
I shrug, not in the mood for a lecture about fairness and access to health care from a guy who shot an entire family legacy into his veins.
“Don’t you think if we had options that didn’t include ruining my kid brother’s life, we would have taken them?” Tim’s getting worked up now too, but it’s weak. I can see he’s defeated. He’s hoping I can see things through his eyes.
“I can’t imagine,” I say. I can’t help laying on the sarcasm. “Because while I got up every goddamn morning and worried how many more days I’d have before the bank took our business, you were out there high as a kite, living your junkie dream.”
Tim nods a slow, painful nod. “If this is a dream, man…you don’t want to live the nightmare.”
“Promise me you didn’t take her?” I press. “You have nothing to do with my girlfriend’s disappearance?”
Tim shakes his head. “Fuck no. You know me better than that, man.”
“I used to know you.” I wave my hand between us. “The person in front of me, I don’t know what he’s capable of, and at this point, I don’t care to know.
“Who are these assholes who want you enough to kidnap and hold somebody for ransom?”
Tim shudders. “Bad dudes.”
That was the wrong thing to say. I get up from my seat and round the desk, but Tim stops me before I can start swinging.
“I know what they want, Leo.”
“So do I,” I say, grabbing my phone. “They want you. And I’m going to hand you over to them right now.”
“Wait. Leo, please.” His hands shake as he tries to stand, and he collapses back against the chair in defeat.
But there is something in his voice that makes me stop. Makes me set down that phone before I send the text that ends this. “I’m listening,” I grit out. “You have ten seconds to change my mind.”
“I know who has her, and I know what they want.” He looks me square in the eyes. I want to believe he’s telling the truth.
“How can I trust you, Tim? How can I be so sure? You gonna just take me to them? Send over a text message and be, like, sorry, guys, small mix-up? Take me and not my brother’s girlfriend?”
Tim looks at me and raises his brows. “Can I get up?” he asks.
“You planning on running?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“I’ll fucking tackle you and break your face if you do. The kidnappers just need to be able to identify you. I can do a lot of damage and still leave your face, looking like you.”
Tim gets up from the chair and motions for me to follow him. He pulls a key ring from the pocket of his jeans and throws it to me.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask. There is a single key on a cheap plastic key ring. I recognize it instantly. “How did you…”
He shrugs. “Always kept it with me. No matter what.”
I finger the plastic like it’s as fragile as a memory. Because it is. The diamond-shaped plastic is red and has a chip in it. On one side in barely readable ink is the logo and address of a motel.
“The Red Pelican.” As I say the words, all the years collapse into this one moment.
Tim nods. “Any time I’ve ever had anything that mattered, I lock it up and use this keyring to protect the key.
” He sighs and scrubs a hand across his face.
Tears still wet his cheeks, but he’s not actively crying.
It’s like the tears are flowing in spite of himself.
“All these years, no matter where I was or what fucked-up state I was in, I never lost it. No matter how fucked up I got, as long as I held on to this, I knew I could come back.”
My parents stayed at the Red Pelican on their honeymoon—which was basically a one-night stay in the cheap motel away from the prying eyes of two sets of disapproving parents.
It was all they could afford, one night away from their after-school jobs when my mom got pregnant in high school and her parents kicked her out.
My gramps and gram took both kids in for a few months, until Tim was born and they were back on their feet. Mom and Dad spent a weekend at the Red Pelican every single year for their anniversary after that. Mom bought the key chain for a dollar to remember their honeymoon by.
She used that key chain every day for as long as I knew her, as long as I can remember.
House keys, car keys. No matter what hook it was hung on, what purse it was buried at the bottom of, that diamond-shaped plastic key chain from the Red Pelican is part of the fabric of the memories I have of my parents.
Of our family. It’s where our family started.
That key chain was the one thing after they passed away that was recovered from the accident that took them away from us.
“Why?” I demand. “Why give this to me now? What the fuck do you want me to do with it, Tim? Forgive you because you kept a memento of our parents while you were shooting thousands of dollars of shit into your arms? That because you saved the key chain, I shouldn’t care that you lost our fucking business?
” I shake my head at him, wanting him to feel even worse about all this than he’s making me feel.
I can’t fucking save him. I can’t stop him from wanting drugs, doing drugs.
I sure as hell couldn’t stop him from selling drugs even though we had a house, a business.
I thought we were doing all right, us two.
On our own. But he didn’t love me enough to stay clean.
He didn’t care enough about his little brother to not take it all away to feed his own pain.
Tim lowers his eyes, his chin practically touching his bony chest. “You can make me feel as bad as you want to, and I promise you, it won’t be half as bad as I feel about myself on my best day.
Give it all you’ve got, Leo. I’m a worthless piece of shit, and I let you down.
I know that. And I can’t say enough I’m sorrys to make it okay.
But I told you. I know who has your girlfriend, and I know what they want. ”
“Yeah, asshole,” I seethe. “They want you.”
Tim cocks his head. “Well, that’s what they said. They think they want me because they think I have all the shit I stole from them.”
My heart sinks. Of course, he did.
Arrow was right.
I’m not the only one my brother double-crossed.
“What do you have, Tim? What did you do?”
He walks up to me and points to the rusted-out piece-of-shit car that’s been sitting in my shop for days. “Open it. Trunk.”
My mouth drops open in disbelief. “You?” I ask, dumbfounded. “This goddamn Cadillac is yours?”
Tim nods. “That engine is fucked, right? I wondered if you’d suspect it was some kind of message from me. Remember what Gramps used to say? You think hiring a pro is expensive—”
“Try hiring an amateur.” I finish the phrase that I must have heard hundreds, maybe thousands of times growing up.
I can’t believe it. “So that woman, the one who had this towed in…”
“That’s Juliette. My wife.” He looks sad. But then he firms his lips. “I know what my girl means to me. Let me do what I can to help get yours back.”
I take the Red Pelican key chain and pop the trunk of the Cadillac and take a look inside.
“Hoooooollllly fuck.”