9. Brody
brODY
I want to check on her. It is a burning urge, something that devours me whole. It distracts me from the hate that I feel for her. I’m not supposed to obsess over her anymore, but I can’t help it. She is like a fucking drug in my system.
She was so reckless tonight. So wild. The vision of her in that slutty red dress flashes through my mind. She lets herself be seen, lets herself be used, like it doesn’t matter. It turns my stomach, and it lights a fire in my veins that won’t fucking die.
I see it every time I blink. Lola, spinning on that shitty club floor, sweat on her skin.
Neon slicing her curves. Blue light, red light, harsh as blood.
Her hair stuck to her damp neck, her ass in a tight dress, rolling for strangers.
I remember what it felt like to smack her ass while I would fuck her from behind. She always had a nice ass. Fuck.
I circle the block twice before I even pull into my driveway. Hate. Hunger. It’s all the same. I’m always circling her, even when I tell myself I’m done.
The house is dark except for the kitchen window. Richard’s home after all.
Perfect. Another round of father-son poison.
I kill the engine and slam the door, hard enough to echo into the night. My hands are still shaking.
Richard sits at the dining table, suit jacket off, shirtsleeves rolled halfway up.
He’s reading something. Case files, as always.
He doesn’t even look up when I walk in. That’s how he plays it.
Pretends my absence means nothing, that he hasn’t been waiting up.
That he doesn’t track the mud I drag in, the violence I leave behind.
I dump my keys on the marble counter and look at him.
He speaks first. “Rough night?”
I shrug. “I handled it.”
“Not quite,” he says, flipping a page. “You left a mess.”
“What mess?”
He closes the file, lining the edges up precisely. “The Martinez garage. There’s unfinished business.”
Martinez garage. The guy I left crumpled near the stairwell, blood pooling under his jaw. The taste of violence, still sweet in my mouth.
I don’t flinch. “He’s dead.”
Richard sighs, the patient way he does when I’m boring him. “That’s not the point, Brody. The dead don’t talk. It’s the living you need to worry about. The witnesses.”
I take a step closer. The light over the table is halogen, and it makes his eyes almost colorless. He stares up at me, no fear, no affection. Just the calculation.
“There’s a witness?”
He smooths the folder, tapping it twice. “Someone saw you leaving the scene. The problem is, they can’t identify you. The security camera was covered, but there’s a person of interest.”
I want to break the glass, just to hear it shatter. “Who?”
A smile flickers at the edge of his mouth, cold. “Girl in a hood. Small. Quick. Security says she was there after you left. They’re digging, but the description is… familiar.”
My gut seizes. I hate how fast I jump to her. I hate how my mind fills in the blank with Lola’s face, even though it’s stupid.
Richard sees it. He always sees too much. He leans back in his chair, folds his hands. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised. Trouble has a way of finding your ex-lovers.”
He lets that sit, watching me intently.
I don’t let him bait me. Not visibly. “You think it’s her?”
“Who else?” He’s lazy with it. “You and that Bloom girl were always magnets for disaster. Wouldn’t be the first time she showed up somewhere she didn’t belong.”
He’s pushing every button because he knows what happened the last time. He knows what Lola did to me. Or what I let her do.
I push back. “She has no reason to be there.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But maybe someone sent her.”
Marcus. Marcus. Marcus. The name beats at my skull.
Richard’s voice drops. “Women like her, they’re currency, Brody.
You think she’s not working for Marcus? You’re more na?ve than I thought.
” I want to hit him. Instead, I do what I always do.
Stand there and absorb it, let the words burn into the lining of my chest. Richard’s face is blank, only a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“You never did learn to pick the right side. That’s your mother in you. ”
Fuck that. I shake my head. “What do you want?”
His eyes narrow. “Clean up your own fucking work. Make sure there are no loose ends. I don’t care how you do it.”
He slides the folder across the table. I don’t open it. I know what’s inside. Photos, grainy security grabs, maybe a timeline.
I pick it up. “After tonight?”
“The world doesn’t stop for your misery, Brody.”
I stare at him. “You’re enjoying this.”
A small shrug. “I take pleasure in facts. The fact is, your girl is never going to be clean of this. Not with the family she’s got.
Not with the things she knows.” He pauses, then speaks again.
“You want to know why your mother died? Why nobody could fix it? Because the people involved made sure there was nothing left to fix. You remember what I told you about the company?”
I do. Night after night. Sitting on the stairs, listening to him sober and cold: There’s a company that arrange things. Accidents, disappearances, clean as a bone. He said they’re untouchable, and they work for Marcus Bloom.
Northline is one of them. The same company that was involved on the night of my mother’s alleged car accident. It was no accident.
Before the accident, everything was fine. Richard and Marcus didn’t cross paths much. There was no feud. I think Richard mentioned that he used to work with Marcus a long time ago. But after? It started a war between them. My dad is convinced that Marcus had something to do with my mother’s death.
When I asked him why he thought that, he said: Because you took something from him.
His daughter. This is his payback. Marcus likes to own things, to control things.
By dating his daughter, you made it impossible for him to do that.
So he intervened. And Lola, that skank, she’s a part of it. She played you, son.
I clutch the folder until the edges bend.
Richard’s eyes flick to my grip. “You’re angry. Good. Use it.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” My voice is coarse. “Who’s the girl in the footage? If it’s not Lola, who is it?”
“Why do you care? Unless that little bitch still has her teeth in you.”
He wants a reaction. He always does. I give it to him. I slam my palm down on the table, rattling the glass and making him blink, just once. “Tell me.”
He doesn’t move. “You want the truth? You can’t handle it.
You never could. That’s why she broke you.
” There’s a black hole under my ribs, pulling everything in.
Richard keeps talking. “She’s involved, Brody.
Maybe not directly, but you know how this works.
Her father owns those companies. He owns the people who arrange things.
The kind of men who send girls as bait, who use them as leverage.
If she was there, she was working for someone.
You think I’m the big bad wolf? He is the fucking ruler of Hell. ”
The words bounce around my skull, setting off old alarms. I remember the day they told me my mother was dead. Car accident, rain-soaked road, tow company there before the police. A NorthLine truck, logo blue and silver in the rain. An accident nobody could explain, but everyone wanted to forget.
A company. A girl in a hood, maybe Lola, maybe not.
I remember her face the last time I saw her. Terrified, bruised, wild with something like shame.
Richard stands up, smoothing his shirt. “You’ll take care of it tonight, or you’ll regret it. I’m not saving you again.”
He’s by the stairs before I can say anything, and then he’s gone. Just the soft tread of his expensive shoes, the closing of his door. I stand there in the stench of his threats and my own rotten hunger, folder in my hands, blood rushing in my veins. Brain full of Lola.
Always her. Always her. Whether it’s revenge or sex, hatred or longing, I can’t fucking separate it.
There’s a scene in my head I can’t shake: Lola, laughing, spinning away from danger, until it catches her and drags her under. Maybe I’m the danger. Maybe I always was.
It doesn’t matter. I want answers. I want her on her knees.
Maybe I want her to hurt, the way she made me hurt.
The folder’s thin; the photos even thinner.
A blurry girl in a hood, head ducked down, moving quickly across the parking levels.
No face. Just shape and habit: the way she walks, barely touching the ground.
It could be her. It could be anyone. But my mind wants it to be her because then it means something.
I toss the folder onto the counter. The kitchen window is cracked open, and the night air bites my skin. I stand there for a long time, not moving, just letting the thoughts consume me.
At some point, all I see is a memory.
It’s junior year. The old parking lot behind the field, summer heat still baked into the asphalt.
She waits by my car, hair up in a messy knot, wearing my hoodie and nothing else.
When she sees me, her whole face lights up.
Real, hungry, like I’m a sunrise. She runs to me and jumps, her legs wrapping around my waist, laughing. We kiss until the world spins.
I used to think I could be that light for her. Maybe I wasn’t dead inside. Now? Now I’m the monster in the night watching from the shadows, waiting for her to slip.
The memories rot. The sweetness curdles.
But the need never dies.
What’s left, after you strip away every excuse? All that’s left is obsession, and maybe some burned-up version of love.
I’ll get closer. I’ll get the answers. I’ll own her, or I’ll ruin her, or both.
I promise you, Bambi, you’re not getting rid of me. Not ever. Not until the whole story’s out. Not until you give me what I want.