Page 57 of Brazen Defiance (Brazen Boys #4)

Trips

I t horrifies me how easy it is to fall back into my role as Father’s little stick, while Trevor plays his up-and-coming carrot.

The rehearsal dinner and wedding have Clara and me side by side in family photos, and I’ve never wanted to yank the camera away from a photographer like I do when I think about her being linked with the Westerhouse name forever.

She’s so much better than our fucked-up family.

Mattie gloms onto us for the weekend, but she mentions nothing about us being locked up at night. I know she knows. She knows she knows. And in true Westerhouse tradition, we say nothing about it.

Instead, I spend half my time stealing drinks from her and the other half avoiding drinking my own. I need to be better, and as tempting as it is to survive this torture in a haze of alcohol, that’s not going to cut it. Not with Clara’s safety on the line.

After the festivities end, Clara and Mattie get taken back to the house, and I’m left with my father and a few of his business associates, Falk always half a step behind me.

My father likes to say that trust is earned.

He’s not wrong, either in the statement or in keeping Falk on me like a dirty piece of gum on a shoe.

There is no trust here. There never should have been.

Before, I was a broken kid, and I thought that his trust in me was something I should take pride in. Not something that would fuck me up beyond repair.

They always talk about how teenagers are dumb, that they don’t get how actions have consequences.

I don’t think they were talking about my situation, but the results were the same. A lifetime of consequences from choices I made as a kid. And my biggest failure was trusting that my father knows best.

Ignoring the conversation, knowing I’m not here for my charm, I try to push away the worry about the next few weeks.

Soon we’ll be back on campus. Soon the asshole progenitor will have to give us access to the internet.

Maybe even phones. Soon we’ll be able to check in, touch base, make sure things are still moving in the direction they should be.

Two days into this project, and the isolation is already making my skin crawl.

A commotion has me focusing back on the collection of men in front of me, Smith and another guard hauling a small man with a receding hairline and glasses away from the others, his shouts ignored by everyone left at the table.

This must be my job for the night.

I follow the guards out back as they get the man trussed up and shoved in the trunk, Falk sliding into the car beside me while the other two take the front.

The drive out to the cabin is familiar, even if a few of the landmarks have changed since the last time I was out this way. The crunch of gravel under the tires has the haze trying to take me over, the realization that we’re almost there ingrained in me, affecting my body before I can stop it.

But I breathe. I breathe so carefully, Falk gives me a good, long stare. Then he nods. Like he’s proud of me for trying my damnedest not to get lost in the adrenaline. Like keeping myself from hiding from the horror I’m about to enact is a positive.

Maybe it is. But it sure as shit doesn’t feel like it.

The other two haul the small man into the cabin. Falk waits with me outside. “It’s been a while,” he says.

“Not so long,” I say, remembering Bryce’s blood on my knuckles.

“Long enough.”

I lean back against the side of the car, staring up at the stars, the hot humid air suffocating in my formal wear. I pull off the jacket, tossing it in the car, adding the dress shirt and my watch too, leaving me in just my undershirt and Cucinelli slacks. Such a waste.

With a glance over his shoulder and a tilt of his chin, Falk walks into the woods a bit, and I follow him, knowing the game.

Once we’re away from any visible cameras, and knowing my father isn’t one for bugging random bits of forest, he turns to me.

“I’m assuming you didn’t just come back for shits and giggles. You’re up to something.”

Falk is on the list of people who, while not an enemy, isn’t an ally either. So, I just shrug.

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but either way, you should have left the girl out of it. You know the way your dad is with women.”

“Who’s to say she had a choice?” I ask, testing the waters.

Falk spits at the ground in front of my feet. “I thought you were better than that, Archie.”

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.” Closing my eyes, not blaming him for his anger, I lean back against the nearest trunk, debating if it’s time to drop breadcrumbs. “But call me Trips in private. Not Archie. And coming back was her choice. Despite my arguments against it.”

Silence greets this tiny piece of truth, but I don’t open my eyes to see if he buys it. He wouldn’t, not yet, so there’s nothing there to see.

His sigh confirms that assumption. He pushes me out of the woods, his hand hot on the back of my neck, a show for father. The other two guards come out of the cabin, Smith lighting up a cigarette as he leans against the rails of the porch. “Taking my job, kid?”

I sneer at him, knowing I have to play top-dog with this vermin. “No, you took mine. Now that I’m back, any blood you want to draw? Know I get first dibs.”

The man laughs, like I’m full of shit, but Falk just shoots the guy his own monster’s grin. “You laugh now, Smith. You’ll see.”

“Warning?” I ask, rolling my shoulders, trying to figure out how to get in the headspace for this without totally disconnecting from reality.

“Dead,” Smith bites out, a challenge in his eyes.

Fuck. I knew I’d be punished for leaving. My hands were never lily-white, but killing was always relegated to someone my father considered expendable. I’d been in the room when dozens of men and women had breathed their last. But I’d never been the one to take that last breath from them.

Maybe I’m expendable now, too, nothing but a stud horse and executioner. And I have no idea if that is better or worse than being half of a two-headed hydra meant to take over my father’s kingdom.

Ignoring the men behind me, I walk into the room, noting the camera is still in the northwest corner, that the floor is even darker and more rank than it was when I was last in here, and that the smell of fresh piss coats the air.

I can’t blame the man. I know my father is going to want this bloody. Snapping his neck, a merciful kill, isn’t an option. And it’s not like I’ve been trusted with a gun or a knife.

This will be a bloodbath. A torturous, terrifying way to end your days. And I’m stuck as the vessel of that destruction.

The rage that billows in my chest burns to an inferno at the injustice of this whole thing.

The man whimpering in front of me, promising that he won’t tell anyone, that he’ll stay silent, he has a wife and kids, he’s done nothing wrong.

Most likely, he’s a man of conscience, willing to stand up to those in power, to fight for what’s right.

Only those in power control me too, and there’s no easy out.

Clara’s in that house, and if I fuck this up, she’ll be the one to pay with her blood on the floor, my father’s anger only sated once she’s unable to get back onto her feet.

With no other options, I march up to this small man with a big heart, grip what little hair he has, and put my mouth right next to his ear.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got a girl of my own, and it’s you or her.

The best I can do is knock you out quickly, so you don’t suffer. Is that the way you want to go?”

Stepping back, I wait for his sad little nod, even as he continues to proclaim his innocence. I can’t save him. But I can save him from the worst of it. I slam my fist into his temple, one, two, three, four times before he finally slumps over. Out. The only mercy I’m allowed to give.

And despite my best efforts to stay present, I feel myself disconnecting, hazy and hovering as I pound him, some distant part of me imagining each hit I land is on my father, while another part just wants to cry for the poor bastard in front of me. For both of us.

Blood splatters me with every hit I land, like I’m fighting a pile of macabre water balloons, bursting upon impact.

Blood gurgles out of his mouth as his ribs break, his breath sluggish and wet.

Blood seeps under my nails, into my soul, but I keep pounding on him until I’m certain he’s not waking up again.

No one should have to wake up after their body has become nothing more than a bag of crushed bones and sinew.

I know exactly how that feels, and it’s enough to want to kill yourself to get away from the pain, if only you could move a single part of yourself to make it happen. And I won’t let Clara ever feel that way, not if I can help it.

Even if it means killing a man with my bare hands.

When I finally return to my body, I want to vomit looking at what I’ve done. I want to run away, to cry, to scream. To disappear from my reality again.

Because in this reality, I’m a killer.

My hands shaking, I struggle to find a place on the remains to check for a pulse, but it’s impossible. Until I take hold of his perfectly intact ankle and verify that there’s nothing left of the bookish man I met earlier.

Glancing at the camera in the corner, I want to rage, to yell, to do something to show how fucked-up this all is. But I don’t. Instead, I knock on the door to be let out.

I barely hear Smith’s reaction, which sounds like something between impressed and annoyed, but the retching of the guard I don’t know is loud and clear in the bushes beside the porch.

Following the well-worn trail to the side of the house, I strip off my clothes, then hose myself off, stuffing everything into a garbage bag Falk hands me. In exchange, I get some too small sweats, sandals, and a t-shirt, the tension of it all squeezing me, keeping my sanity questionable.

My nerves are on fire. My mind wants to flee. And now I’ll spend the next hour as a stuffed sausage.

Smith comes around, an old-school VHS in his hand. “Got it from the lockbox. Ready?”

Falk watches me, trying to gauge where I’m at.

Then time gets fuzzy for a bit until the gate to the mansion opens, the winding drive ominous at four in the morning.

I’m almost back to Clara, so I focus on my breathing again, on the stench of Smith’s shampoo in front of me, on the smooth leather of the seat beneath me, on the gagging coughs of the other guard whose name I don’t want to know.

A buzz has Falk pulling out his phone, and by the time we’re out front, he shoves it into his pocket. “Guess you did well enough for a bed and some comfort tonight,” he says, his voice heavy on sarcasm when he says ‘comfort.’

Which means he saw the video of Clara and me yesterday. Or two days ago now. I should be glad he bought our act.

I should feel something about anything.

But enough haze remains—I’m not strong enough to push it away. I’d rather drop out of it and crumble than force myself to feel much of anything right now.

Only then I’m standing in the blue room, the door locking behind me and a small lump in the middle of a huge bed huddled in front of me.

I just killed a man.

And they locked me in a room with a woman they think doesn’t want me.

I stand there, trying to grab onto the pieces of myself I need to not be a monster, to not be a wreck, to not be a goddamn Westerhouse, until the black of night fades.

And in that gray light, I see dark eyes staring back at me.

Awake. Waiting. Uncertain.

Sad.

For me.

Before it gets light enough for the camera to see much more than our shapes, she dips her chin, giving me permission.

But I already took a life tonight.

I can’t take anything else. Not from her. Not from me.

What would I give to go curl up in her arms, to feel what just happened? To mourn that man and my own damned soul? To have her hold me close and comfort me?

Instead, I lock myself in the bathroom, telling myself that I don’t know how long I’ll have here, that I should take advantage of getting cleaner than I could with a garden hose at three in the morning.

The hot water burns, and I let it. The shampoo smells fancy and feminine. I don’t care.

Working on the blood in my nail beds, I hear the snick of the door behind me, and I worry that Clara just gave herself away by letting herself in. But she came in. She followed me. She doesn’t know what I just did.

Hopping up on the counter, her legs crossed, she doesn’t join me. And I don’t know if it’s to keep our cover, or if she’s scared of me.

She should be. I am.

“How was tonight?” she asks, her voice scratchy from talking about nonsense for the last two days with people more politely toxic than carbon monoxide.

“Bloody.”

“Meaning?”

“Terminal.”

The long sigh she makes could be interpreted in any number of ways. Which is probably why she chose that reaction.

I turn away from her, standing with my face in the stream, wishing I could drown myself in the shower.

Damn fucking impossible, but it would be a neat solution.

A flash out of the corner of my eye has me flicking off the water, staring at Clara through the shower wall, her back directly under the camera, a thin pink slip and a panel of clear glass the only things between us.

I’m sorry, she mouths, grief so heavy that I’m not sure I can bear it.

I step to the door of the shower, pushing it open and blindly reaching for a towel, wishing I felt something, anything, as her eyes drop for a moment, taking me in.

We’ve been here before, only reversed. She beat me in a test, and I saw her in all her naked glory. I rubbed one out to the memory for almost a year.

Only this time, I’m the one who’s naked.

I just killed a man, and instead of her righteous anger, I get her big, sad eyes and silence, followed by her subtly checking me out.

The absurdity of the situation has a chuckle escaping from me.

It’s followed by a gallows laugh, Clara’s eyes growing large as I lose it, naked and dripping on the bathroom floor.

This shit’s fucked. So fucking fucked. And it’s either laugh or throw myself out the window. I guess I’m laughing.