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As more time passes, more things seem to get complicated. Any answers just lead to more questions, and my brother is still in prison.
“Can I use your phone?” I ask. “I should call a cab.”
Payne turns to me then, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t go back.”
“You think my brother did something, and I think the Elite hold the answers,” I tell him.
“Exactly.”
“If I leave, that’s it. I’m not sure if I’m going to find anything, but if I leave, I definitely won’t. They won’t let me back in—this opportunity will be lost and—”
“It’s better to lose an opportunity than your life,” Payne snaps. “I have no fucking clue what happened before I found you last night, but it was twenty-eight degrees, and you were so damn cold that I can only assume you’d been out in that for a while, wearing nothing but a kink outfit. That asshole already had your underwear off you, and he was ready to stuff you in the back of a car to join a line of people waiting to rape you.”
“I gave my consent when I signed that contract and walked into the house,” I yell back at him. “The only reason you didn’t want me to go in was because you thought I would find something proving Cole’s guilt and hide it from you, not because you thought I was going to get hurt, so don’t start pretending you’re worried about me now. This is hazing—bullying—revenge, but I will put up with it until I know I’m not going to find anything that frees my brother.”
The only movement from Payne is him curling his hand into a fist, but he doesn’t raise his arm. His nostrils flair, and his bald head gives his veins nothing to hide behind. He looks like he’s ready to explode, but instead, he turns, heads straight for the back door and walks outside, slamming it behind him.
XXIV
Payne
Anger issues run in my family.
My dad beat the shit out of me and my mom on a regular basis. The smallest thing would set him into a blind rage. Mom did her best to protect me, and then, when I was in middle school, he found out my mom was going to take me and leave him, so he shot her, me, and then took his own life.
I don’t remember much about it. I woke up in a hospital then went to live with my grammy. Found out most of the truth years later.
Grammy—my mom’s mom—was terrified I’d turn out like Dad and made me promise to study. To use my words instead of my fists. She resented me, though. The year I turned fourteen, on my mom’s birthday, she told me my mom married my dad because she was pregnant with me. She stayed with him because of me. And she died trying to protect me.
So I read, and I studied, and I learned how to speak in front of people. Captain of the debate team, I got a scholarship to an Ivy League college, earned a Ph.D. and got a PR job on the other side of the country that paid more money than I dreamed…
Everything was a façade.
An act to hide the truth.
That I’m nothing more than my dad’s son. Rage bubbles away in veins like a volcano waiting to erupt.
And it does, regularly.
The only thing I can do—the only thing I succeed in—is making sure that rage is never directed at a person.
The ax blade hits the wood with a dull thwack before it slices through the wood like butter. I chuck the smaller piece in the growing pile, then put the bigger chunk on the cutting block before repeating the process.
I can feel the beads of sweat pouring down the side of my temples, and my back. I’ve already cut enough wood for the week, but I don’t stop. I won’t until I feel the anger ebb back.
The January after I buried my best friend, I found out the bank had put this house up for sale. According to an old classmate, ownership defaulted to Lucy, but she hadn’t made any mortgage payments. That night, I bought the house, outright.
I thought maybe Lucy had spiraled. That needing to get away from everything for a while, she’d gone off the grid. The house would be there for her when she came home.
The rage won’t leave my body because the person I’m angry at is me.
During covid, when everyone was getting closer through Zoom calls, I was working. Trying to make the world a better place. Or, at least, that’s what I keep trying to convince myself.
I should have been reaching out to Lucy, especially after she lost her mom, Rene, to covid. Alec was overseas, and that responsibility fell on me. I called or Facetimed every few weeks, and she would greet me with a brave smile, tell me everything was okay, and that she didn’t need anything.
Not long before Thanksgiving, I called, only partially paying attention as she told me about the guy she’d met who was a student at the prestigious James Keyingham University, but he wasn’t an asshole like the others.
The only thing I’d said to her was not to get too attached to someone whose bank balance had the same number of digits as his phone number.
