“She’d better not have given you nothing.”
I leaned in, getting really close to him. He smelled like death already.
“She gave me everything I wanted. I know all about the houses and cars and her business. And I saw your safe.” I laughed, wishing I had strangled this asshole when we were kids. Things would have worked out so differently. “You took her from me once. I promise you, that won’t happen again.”
He rocked in the chair, trying to head-butt me. “That’s my fucking money.”
Money made him buck. It made him moan. It made him show real emotion for the first time since I’d stepped in this room.
He was one greedy motherfucker who didn’t give a shit about anything else.
“The money will be of no use to you when you’re dead.”
Looking back at my phone, I found the button to record a voice message and pressed it. I couldn’t take a video; I didn’t want Kyle to see what we had done to him. I didn’t want her to have to see his face ever again. I held the phone out toward him, so it could catch everything that was about to be said.
“You ruined so many fucking lives, Anthony. But there’s one person who had to put up with your abuse the longest. You destroyed everything she wanted, and you owe her an apology.”
“Who? My whore of a sister?”
I nodded toward one of the guys standing on the far wall. He took the signal and walked over to Anthony, whipping the back of Anthony’s head with the butt of his gun. Anthony grunted, a clot of blood shooting out of his mouth.
“Let’s try this again,” I said. “Apologize. Now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Mean it, asshole.”
He slowly looked up. “I’m fucking sorry, all right? I wasn’t a good brother to you, and I know that. But you finally got Garin. I hope he’s everything you wanted, you cunt.”
This motherfucker.
After everything he did to Kyle, and this was the best he had. I should have expected that from a guy who killed his own best friend.
I turned the recording off and slid the phone in my pocket. Then, I reached behind my back as one of the guys handed me a blade. It was nine inches, just long and sharp enough to do what I needed. I let Anthony watch as I folded my fingers around the base. I wanted him to know what was going to happen. I wanted him to see how much it was going to hurt.
“Do you have anything else you want to say?” I asked.
A string of drool hung from his lip, and he licked it away. He had no teeth to show me, but it didn’t stop him from trying to smile. “I should have killed you when I still had the chance, you worthless—”
Before he could say another word, I jerked my arm forward and stabbed the blade into the middle of his throat. A rush of blood squirted out from the wound. It filled his mouth and gurgled on his tongue as he tried to choke in air. His chest pumped, and his shoulders twitched until his head slumped forward. Then, all his movements stopped.
One of the guys went over and checked his pulse. “He’s dead, Garin.”
He reached for the blade, and I handed it to him. He would clean my prints off the weapon, and then he’d destroy it.
“Grind that fucker up and bring him to the beach,” I ordered to all the guys in the room. “I want to lie on his goddamn bones the next time I’m there.”
As I walked out, Mario joined me, and we went outside to his car.
“You did good, kid.” He patted me on the back. “I thought you were going to tell him how much you’ve been fucking his sister. You know, more salt on the wound.”
“I won’t talk about her like that, even to a dead man.”
“Oh, fuck,” he said, stopping several feet from his car. “This is more serious than I thought. Does that mean you’re not going to tell me anything about your trip to Florida?”
I laughed. “That’s exactly what it means.”
He pulled a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. “Are you going to tell her?”
“That I saved her life? Nah. She doesn’t need to know that.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
I put my arm around his shoulders and shook his meaty muscles. “Let’s go get something to eat. I know you get hungry after you watch someone die.”
He took a puff and blew the smoke behind me. “That’s my boy.”
Thirty-Nine
Kyle
I dropped my phone on my lap, unable to listen to my mother’s sobs anymore, and continued to stare at the front of my house.
Anthony’s house.
He wouldn’t be calling me later to bark about the amount of cash I needed to move. He wouldn’t text me, asking for the daily numbers. He wouldn’t be coming to visit at the first of the month. He would never give me another order again.
He was dead.
Gone.
It was all over with.
I found myself getting out of the car and unlocking the front door, standing in the foyer as my eyes wandered over the inside. Nothing felt like it was mine. None of it felt right. It was as though I’d seen it all before in a magazine, but I hadn’t touched any of it. I hadn’t owned it. I hadn’t felt comfortable around it.
It all reminded me of my brother.
I walked over to the kitchen window and stared out onto the water. The view was beautiful. Serene. Relaxing. So many nights, I had gazed at this scenery and wondered what was next. I had tried to plan for my future, to see past everything Anthony had taken away from me, and to find happiness in the things he had given me.
But I couldn’t.
Anthony had chosen Florida. He had chosen both houses. He had picked the building where the shop was, he had influenced what I was going to sell and what services I would offer, he had chosen the employees who worked there.
It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t even close to mine.
None of it.
And I didn’t love it.
This was my prison.
He
was my prison.
But he was gone. There was no one keeping me here anymore. No one was making me stay in Florida. No one was making sure I went to work in the morning.
The bars had been lifted.
So, what the hell was I going to do with my freedom?
I opened a bottle of wine from the fridge and brought it into the bathroom, setting it on the edge of the tub with my phone. I ran the warm water, stripped off all my clothes, and left them in a pile on the floor. Once I added in some bath salts and lit a few candles, I climbed in.
I was still sore. My muscles hadn’t fully healed. The cuts and scrapes and bruises were just starting to lighten from my body. My appetite hadn’t completely returned, and my stomach still had a hard time processing everything I ate. The doctor had assured me that this was all normal. I needed time and things would all gradually return to the way they had been before the accident.
Time was something I had now.
Just as I closed my eyes and tried to shut my brain off, my phone rang from the side of the tub.
“Hey, Garin,” I said as I answered.
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
I looked at the bottle of wine that was now half gone. They were sips that I didn’t remember taking, and I couldn’t recall when the candle closest to me had blown out. In the shred of light that was left, I saw the outline of my body in the water. My skin looked so dark, almost dirty.
Dirty like I had been in the dream.
“It has nothing to do with losing Anthony,” I said. I felt like shit for saying that, but it was the truth. After what Anthony had done to me, it was hard to mourn him. Hard to feel anything for him at all. “I just don’t know what to do now. I can’t be here anymore—that, I do know.”
“Come here.”
“To Jersey?”
“No, to Vegas. I’m flying there in the morning. I can come down to Florida and get you, and we can fly there together.”
I sat up quickly, the water splashing over the side of the tub. “You want me…in Vegas?”
“It’s where I live, where I work. So, yeah, it’s where I want you. Come live with me, Kyle.”
He wanted me. He wanted me to live with him. He wanted me there, so I could touch him every day, so I could kiss him whenever I wanted, so I could tell him to his face that I loved him.
I took a deep breath. “Come get me.”
“That was easy.”
“It’s a little late for me to play hard to get since you’ve already had me.” I stepped out of the tub and wrapped myself in a towel. “Besides, I’m done playing, Garin. I want you more than anything. And I want us.”
“You’re going to have it all, everything you’ve ever wanted. I’ll make sure of it. Close your eyes, and get some sleep, baby. I’ll be there when you wake up.”
Forty
Garin
Present Day
“Mmm,” I groaned, rubbing my nose against the side of Kyle’s throat.
I’d missed this neck, the scent of her skin. I couldn’t live without either of them now. And I’d missed how she always had a part of her touching a part of me.
She stirred as I climbed into bed, and when she tried to roll over, I pushed my chest into her back, so she couldn’t.
“I hope that’s you, and I’m not dreaming this,” she said.
It made me smile whenever she brought up the dream. She never told me many details about it, but I wished she would.
I kissed her shoulder all the way up to her ear. She was so warm, her skin so fucking soft. I loved that she slept naked, so I could touch her without having to rip any unnecessary clothes away.
“Oh!” She ground her ass over my cock that had been hard since I walked through her front door. “Now, I know I’m definitely not dreaming.”
I smiled again.
This girl
.
“Should I get up and shower, so we can go to your plane, or do you want me right where I am?”
I growled into the back of her neck. So willing. So submissive. We’d spent so much time in this bed during my last visit here.
But before I slid inside that pussy again, I had somewhere I wanted to bring her.
“I was thinking we could stay here one more night and go to Vegas in the morning.”
She rolled over as I lightened my grip. There was worry in her eyes, and her hand immediately went to my face. I kissed the side of it.
“Are you having second thoughts about me coming with you?”
“Oh, no, baby. You’re coming to Vegas with me, but there’s one thing my town doesn’t have, and that’s an ocean.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I want to take you to the beach, Kyle. Like when we were kids.” I watched her face as she realized what I was saying, and then I kissed her when she leaned forward.
“My favorite place…you know that.” She bit her bottom lip as she grinned. She knew that drove me fucking crazy. The only teeth allowed to bite that lip were mine. “But none of my suits have holes in them. It won’t be the same.”
“I bought you a new one. See? Some things never change.”
“You didn’t.”
I nodded. “It’s in your bathroom. Go put it on for me.”
Knowing I was going to push Vegas off for one more day, I’d had Mario’s assistant go buy some suits for Kyle and me. I knew it would bring back a good memory for her. The only ones I wanted her to remember were the good ones.
She gave me another kiss. This time, it lasted a little longer. “You’re too much,” she said. And then she disappeared into the bathroom.
I got out of bed and went into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge. Since I’d asked her to move in with me just last night, that hadn’t given her much time to pack. But there wasn’t a single box anywhere in here. I hadn’t even seen a suitcase in her room.
“What do you think?”
I turned toward the entrance of the hallway where she was standing in just the bikini. “I prefer you naked.” I walked over to her, hoping I could ease the scowl off her face. “That’s only because your body is too fucking gorgeous to be covered.”
“Garin…”
“You look incredible. Every guy on that beach is going to be jealous of what I have.” I wrapped my hand around her throat, smelling the toothpaste on her lips. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes.”
“I noticed you forgot to pack. Does that mean you’re having second thoughts?”
She pulled away from my mouth and licked her lips. “I don’t want to take anything with me.”
“Nothing?”
“Just a small bag for some of my clothes, cosmetics, and jewelry. But I’m leaving the rest. I need a fresh start, and I need to leave my old life here, behind me, where it belongs.”
“Are you going to rent out the house?”
“I want to sell it.” She took the bottle of water out of my hand and drank quite a few sips. “The deed is in my name, and there’s no mortgage. I don’t have any debt to pay off, so I came up with an idea.”
“I’ll introduce you to my financial advisor. He’s great. He’ll—”
“I don’t want the money.”
I took the bottle out of her hand and pulled her into my arms. “What are you going to do with it? If you give it to your ma, you know what’s going to happen.”
“I want to donate all of it to the community center. They did so much for me, for all of us. I want to make sure they can continue taking care of the kids who live in The Heart. I want them to have more than we did, Garin.”
Before we were old enough to hustle, the community center was where we had gone when our stomachs were empty and aching. They’d given us a roof, beds, and clean sheets when our power had been shut off. They’d dressed us in warm clothes. A donation as large as Kyle’s would only benefit the kids and give them extras they didn’t even know they were missing.
Kyle was nothing like her brother. Hell, she was nothing like me either.
She was better than both of us.
“Whatever the amount is,” I said, “I’ll match you.”
Her arms tightened around me. “I want to sell my business, too.”
“Let my team help you. They’ll fly here, they’ll get everything ready to sell, and they’ll draw up all the paperwork for you to sign. They’ll make it so much easier for you.”
She looked around the kitchen, as though she were saying good-bye to it all. “I would love that.”
“Good.” I slapped her ass, but before I pulled my hand away, I grabbed the bottom of her cheek. “Go get some towels and sunscreen, so we can go.”
On our way to the beach, Kyle asked the driver to stop at the grocery store. She went in alone and returned a few minutes later with two bags, packing them into the cooler that she had insisted we bring.