Chapter Thirty-Two

Ben

Tessa, Eva, and their mother, Carlotta, go home to Carlotta’s house later that day.

I brought them to my place because it was closer to the hospital, and I wanted them secure.

Sherlock drove them home, but I didn’t accompany them.

Tessa needs some space.

She’s as strong a woman as I’ve ever met, but she’s struggling with so much, and all I can do is think about her—think about getting inside of her beautiful body, not only because I want to desperately, but also because it would ease some of my own suffering.

Fucking Dirk Conrad.

But I can’t blame him.

No. I have only myself to blame for getting involved with that stupid gang of lowlifes, anyway.

I knew better, but I did it anyway. I did it to rebel against my life.

My hard fucking life.

Never in a million years did I consider that there was something better out there. That Braden, Dad, and I would someday never want for anything.

That idea wasn’t even on my radar back then. I was thinking about all the beef jerky I could eat and some money to take a girl out the way she deserved for once.

It wasn’t until four years later, when I was twenty-one and Braden was twenty-four and we met the Ames sisters, that we were able to get our business off the ground and market Braden’s invention.

Nothing can be proved.

Even then, I was smart enough to take every precaution we needed to take.

In fact, I was the brains behind the whole thing.

I had to be. The other three were fucking idiots.

But when push came to shove, it was all my idea.

A man lost his life.

Sometimes, when I look down at myself in the shower, I see not drops of water sliding down my body but rivulets of blood.

And I remember…

I remember all the blood…

…

Fifteen years earlier…

“What the fuck did you do that for?” I demand.

“You said this place would be empty, Black. You fucked us all over.”

I thought it would be empty. Just a warehouse where my father bought supplies at rock-bottom prices that had a big stash of cash behind some loose drywall.

I don’t know who it belonged to or where it came from, but I didn’t care. If it had been legally obtained, no one would be hiding it.

So I figured, what the hell? Rather than a grand from a convenience store safe, I had an easy mark worth so much more.

I knew how to get in and out of the warehouse, and no one knew I knew about the cash.

So we went for it. None of us had guns, or any other weapons, for that matter. At least that was our agreement beforehand.

But Dirk—he had a switchblade.

I didn’t know about it. Carlos and Jerry might have known, but I didn’t.

And…someone else was in that warehouse. Why? I don’t know, but he was there.

When the man came at us—big and burly—Dirk went crazy.

Pulled out a switchblade and ran at him, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing…

And the blood.

The spattering blood. From his chest, from his mouth…

All over my face, my arms, my clothes.

All over my fucking shoes.

The blood, the blood, the blood…

But I held steady.

Carlos threw up, and Jerry looked away for a minute.

I gulped it all down.

It isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

No.

When I first saw my mother’s face after she was burned, flesh and skin dripping from her.

What I’m seeing now? Blood spurting out of this big, burly dude?

It doesn’t look nearly as bad.

What the hell were you thinking?

The words hover at the back of my throat, but I can’t bring them forth. I can’t bring anything forth.

I can’t even scream, the way Carlos is shrieking like a little girl.

Damn, damn, damn…

Finally, I pull Dirk away.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” I say.

“You said nobody would be here.” Dirk’s voice is robotic.

“I know what I said. But we have to get out of here now.”

“Who is that guy?”

“I have no idea. He doesn’t work here that I know of. He may have been trying to rob the place, same as us. Fuck, Dirk, he didn’t have a weapon. What the—”

“My God… The money…” Jerry starts picking up bills.

“For Christ’s sake,” I whisper harshly, “leave it.”

“Are you fucking kidding?” Carlos wipes the puke from his mouth and bends down to help Jerry.

The two of them scramble to pull the money together and shove it in the duffel bag I brought.

I don’t help them, but I’m damned sure going to take my share.

Dirk is covered in blood. It doesn’t show on the black hoodie he’s wearing, but it’s all over his jeans.

“Take a look at yourself,” I say to him. “Did any of your blood get mingled in with this guy’s? Did you nick yourself with that knife?”

“Hard to say. There’s blood all over me.”

“There’s blood all over all of us, but did you nick yourself at all?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t feel anything.”

Of course he doesn’t feel anything. None of us do. We’re all fucking numb right now. Our survival instincts are in overdrive.

This went so, so wrong.

“We can’t leave it here,” I say.

“The hell we can’t.”

“No, we can’t. We have to…get rid of it.”

…

Present Day…

It.

I said it.

I called a human being it.

Because he was no longer a human being. He was a corpse.

Just the thought…

Despite looking away at first, Jerry knew exactly what to do. Made me wonder what kind of home he came from.

The victim turned out to be an escaped convict with no family, so no one really mourned his loss.

He disappeared into thin air.

When his photograph showed up on TV, I recognized him.

He wasn’t an it.

He was a man.

A man whose life was cut short.

Largely because of me.