Chapter Fifty

Ben

Tessa is admitted to the hospital for observation after being treated for her broken nose and bruised jaw.

“This is ridiculous,” she says. “I’m fine.”

“You do what the doctor says,” I tell her. “You’ve been through so much, Tessa. Just when you were healing, you got the added trauma of your father’s death, and now those two—” I crush my hands into fists. “Neither of them will ever see the outside of a prison cell, if I have anything to say about it.”

“Ben, please…”

“I know. Assault and attempted rape doesn’t carry a lifetime sentence. How do you know David Conrad, anyway?”

“He was the bartender in Jamaica.”

“I know. I didn’t know who he was at the time. Only that you had a bad reaction to him, and that he made some comments about you that I didn’t appreciate. So I got rid of him.”

“He’s…” She clears her throat. “He was an altar boy at my first communion fifteen years ago. He…”

My insides churn as anger pulsates through me. “He what?” I grit out.

“I didn’t remember for a long time, but it was after my first communion that I started to pull away from the church. Now I know why. He… He touched me that day. Took my panties.”

I draw in a breath. Tessa doesn’t need me going all rogue on her. Not right now, anyway.

Besides…she and I can’t continue. I realized the truth of that when I was talking to Braden earlier. But I can’t tell her that. Not yet.

I want to know the details, yet I don’t. I don’t want to hear about such a heinous act, but I need to know exactly what he did to her because I’ll make sure the same damned thing happens to him in prison.

“Please…” she says.

“Please what?”

“Let it go, Ben. Whatever it is that has you so wound up. Please. Let it go. For me.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. It’s not easy. I know that.” She reaches her arm out and touches my face. “But you helped me. You helped me see how much good there still was in my life. Please.”

I don’t reply.

“Ben, I—”

I place my fingers over her lips. “Don’t. Please.”

“I love—”

“Please, Tessa.”

“Damn it, Ben. Why don’t you want me to say it? Didn’t you mean it when you said it to me?”

“With all my heart, Tessa.”

“Then why?”

I lean down and kiss her lips. “You need to rest. We’ll talk later. I’ll tell the cops you can’t make a statement until tomorrow.”

“I’m fine to make a statement.” Then a giant yawn splits her face. “Ow! That hurts.”

“Get some sleep, Tessa. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

…

I spend the rest of the day talking to the Suffolk County DA, Marjorie Akins. With Braden at my side, I tell my story.

“It’s up to you,” I say to her. “Charge me if you can. I’ll gladly pay the price. I can’t go on keeping this secret any longer.”

“Mr. Black,” she says.

“Ben, please.”

“All right. Ben, this is a fifteen-year-old crime.”

“With no statute of limitations.”

“On the murder part, yes. On the theft, my hands are tied. But the theft doesn’t concern me. It sounds like that warehouse was dealing in black market goods. I can’t be sure, of course, but around that time we had a rash of that stuff going on in South Boston. As for the murder, you didn’t do it, Ben.”

“No. But I was there. I transported the body.”

“And no body was found then, so it won’t be found now.” She clears her throat. “I’m not condoning what you did all those years ago, Ben, but you weren’t even eighteen yet. You were a stupid kid.”

“I won’t disagree with you there,” I say.

Braden says nothing.

“I can’t charge you for anything. I can’t charge the others at this point, either, but I’ll remand your case against Dirk Conrad to federal court for prosecution under the federal extortion laws.”

I nod.

“Can we keep this out of the media?” Braden asks.

“They won’t hear it from me,” she says, “but the Conrad brothers will probably sell their story to the sleazy rag that offers them the most money.”

“What if I offer them the most money?” Braden asks.

“No,” I say. “If that were the answer, I’d have paid Dirk off in the first place. Don’t you see? He knows our pockets are bottomless. He’ll keep coming back.”

“Your brother’s right, Mr. Black,” Marjorie says.

“So the only answer is to drop all charges against both Conrads and Garrett Ramirez,” Braden says.

“That’s not our call on David Conrad and Garrett Ramirez,” I say. “It’s Tessa’s.”

“She’d probably do it for you,” Braden says.

“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t want her to do it for me. She needs to see justice served.”

He narrows his gaze at me. “Ben…”

“No, Braden. Absolutely not.”

“I agree with you,” my brother says. “Tessa is more important than any stain on our reputations.”

“If that’s all, gentlemen”—Marjorie nods—“I’ll thank you for bringing this to my attention, but frankly I have no choice but to consider the matter closed.”

I rub my temples. “I feel like I should be punished.”

Braden turns to me and raises his eyebrow. “Why? You heard Marjorie. You’re free to go. This is all going to blow over.”

I get to my feet, my heartbeat rising. “I don’t want it to blow over. Because if it does…”

“Then what?” Braden grabs my arm and yanks me back into my seat. “You won’t be good enough for Tessa anyway?”

I blink. That’s exactly why.

I bury my face in my hands. “She deserves someone so much better.”

Braden lays his hand on my shoulder. “She deserves someone who loves her. And it’s clear that she’s found that in you, brother.”

I shake my head. “She’ll change her tune when the news breaks about all of this. You can bet your ass that Ramirez and Conrad are going to sell this story to the first shitty tabloid that comes calling.”

“You don’t know that,” Braden says. “Tessa has been through a lot, and you’ve been the one who got her through it. And I’m not just talking about all the shit that went down at her apartment. I mean her father’s death, getting through her initial trauma with that asshole…”

I don’t respond.

Marjorie clears her throat. “If I may,” she says, “there might not be any legal recourse for you to deal with, Ben, but perhaps there is something you can do to alleviate these feelings of guilt.”

I nearly pounce onto the desk. “What is it?”

She shuffles through some paperwork. “It would seem that Mr. McKee, the victim in question, had a daughter.”

I raise an eyebrow. “He did? I thought he had no family, that’s why we got away—”

She raises her hand to quiet me. “I would advise you not to say anything you wouldn’t want held against you in a court of law.”

I clamp my mouth shut.

“Since he was a detainee of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we have every scrap of information about him at our disposal. It would seem that shortly before he went to prison, a former girlfriend of his claimed he was the father of her daughter.” She pushes a document to my side of the desk.

I pick it up. On it is a picture of a young girl, no more than four or five years old. “Tascha McKee?” I read.

Marjorie nods. “The mother insisted that the child have his last name, even though she never proved that they were actually related.”

“She didn’t insist on a DNA test?” Braden asks.

“He wouldn’t consent to one,” Marjorie says. “She could have filed a motion to get a court to force him to take one, but by the time that would have gone through, he was already in prison. He wouldn’t have been able to pay child support anyway.”

I swallow. “What happened to the daughter?”

“Look at her date of birth.”

I scan the document. “She’s about to turn eighteen.”

Marjorie nods. “I bet she would be beside herself if a certain billionaire covered her college tuition.”

I widen my eyes. “Is she going to college?”

Marjorie shrugs. “How should I know that? But she’s the age. You could reach out to the family, perhaps under the guise of trying to serve underprivileged kids. You could start a whole foundation in your name, and she could be your first beneficiary.”

I stare at the picture. Tascha is—or was, at least—a cute kid. Chubby cheeks, dark curly hair, and eyes that look just like—

Christ.

They look just like her father’s. You never forget the eyes of a man you watched die.

I put the picture down. “Is the mother still around?”

“As far as I know.” Marjorie slides another document my way. “Her contact information is on here.”

I grab it. “Thanks, Marjorie.”

She looks me dead in the eye. “Don’t thank me for anything. You did not get that information from me, you understand? The paper fell off my desk, and you snagged the information while I wasn’t looking.”

I nod. “Got it.”

Marjorie rises. “I can’t say it’s been a pleasure, but I know you’ll do right by this, Ben.”

We rise as well.

I hold out my hand to her, but she declines to shake it. Can’t say as I blame her.

“Thank you,” I say.

Once Braden and I are outside the building, he turns to me. “Are you going to help out that girl?”

I pause for a moment and then nod. “Yeah. She’s half an orphan because of me.”

“Ben, the father wasn’t even in the picture. Her life isn’t any different for her father being dead.”

I shake my head. “You don’t know that. Maybe he was after that fifty grand to give her a better life.”

Braden rolls his eyes. “Yeah. I’m sure it was that and not to get his hands on a shit-ton of heroin.”

I hold my hand up. “There’s no way of knowing either way. And hell, if I can put a little good out into the universe to counteract the errors of my past, I’m going to do it.”

Braden wrinkles his forehead at me but then smiles. “You’re a good man, Benji.”

“Thanks, Brady.” I give him a quick hug. “You too.”

He breaks the embrace, and his smile fades. “I guess we wait for the rags to report on this.”

“I guess so.”

“You sure you don’t want me to pay off Conrad?”

“It won’t do any good. Ramirez and David Conrad are already going down, and they’ll sing like canaries just to get the focus off them.”

He nods.

“So I’m prepared to make an official statement,” I say, “along with my resignation from the company.”

“No. We’re not going down that road. You’re as big a part of Black Inc. as I am. I couldn’t do this without you. We’ll just conveniently announce your new foundation for underprivileged youth before any story breaks. That’ll soften the blow. And God knows I’ve done some stupid shit in my life. You know about most of it.”

“Most?” I ask.

“Brother, some things I’m taking to my grave.” He slaps me on the shoulder.

I silently thank God for my brother.

And then I ask for the strength I need.

The strength to reach out to the daughter of a man who’s dead because of me.

And the strength to let Tessa go.