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Definitely a professional hit, and one that’s the mark of the mafia. Which mafia, they don’t know yet. The Italians, the Armenians—either way, I don’t think it matters. He was doing fine with both of them until I stuck my nose in. I’m the one who turned the Italians on him, who made him so desperate for campaign funds that he must have begged them for money even after he was cut off.
I think about the phone call from Sebastian right before they found the body, saying that the Italians in Vegas wanted to know what to do with him now that he was making a nuisance of himself. I was furious and frustrated and I told him that I didn’t care. I meant that I didn’t care if he got back in with the mafia—that I had done everything I could to get him out of it, once and for all. Sure, it was to send him to jail, but I was still getting him out of the latest mess that he’d made.
But that was before this…before I realized just how serious they’d been. If I’d told them to leave him alone, to have nothing to do with him at all, would they have listened? Would Brandon still be alive, about to be indicted for rape and any number of other crimes? Or would he have pushed and pushed and pushed until he eventually ended up dead anyway?
I don’t know. I’ll never know. But these are the thoughts that keep running through my head. The thoughts that are making me crazy. I have a million questions in my head, questions like what exactly got him killed, why am I still so angry at him, why do I care that he’s dead, why don’t I care more that he’s dead? They’re all in there, churning in my brain.
Making it hard to breathe in the stuffy church.
Making it impossible for me hear, to see, to think.
My heart is beating too fast, my brain is working too hard, and my lungs feel like they aren’t working hard enough. The walls start closing in all around me and that’s when I know that I have to get the hell out of here. Forget decorum, forget tradition. Forget not giving the gossips anything else to talk about. If I don’t get some air I’m going to end up losing my shit right in the middle of this too big, too fancy church.
Freaking out but still determined not to show it, I push my way out of the pew. I head down the aisle at a fast clip, but once I’m at the back of the church, I realize I can’t go out that way. Not with all the reporters that are out there—it would be a free-for-all.
I detour at the last minute, end up going out a side door that leads to a small, walled-in courtyard. The door slams behind me and I’m pretty sure the sound echoes through the church, but I’m too busy trying to suck air into my starved lungs to care. Bending over, I brace my hands on my knees and try not to lose it completely.
Behind me, the door to the church opens again. I straighten up, try to get my shit together before I make an even bigger ass of myself in front of whoever the fuck—
“It’s okay, baby. I’m right here.” It’s Chloe’s hand on my shoulder, her concerned face peering up at mine. “I’m right here.”
I grab on to her then, pull her into my arms as I bury my face against her neck. She smells like Chloe—like honey and strawberries and home—and for long seconds I just stand there, breathing her in as sobs wrack my chest.
“I fucked up,” I tell her. “I fucked up.”
“You didn’t.”
“This is my fault.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is. I hated him so much. I hated him and I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to destroy him, to tear him apart so that he could suffer like you did. And now he’s dead and all I can think is the bastard got off too easy. My baby brother is dead and all I want is for him to suffer more. What the fuck does that say about me? What the fuck kind of man am I?”
“You’re the best man I know,” she tells me, her arms wrapping around me as she rocks me back and forth.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I got him killed and I can’t even bring myself to be sorry about it.”
“Oh, sweetheart. How were you supposed to know what would happen to Brandon? He had every advantage in life and he made all the wrong choices. Drugs, gambling, rape, getting involved with the mob. The FBI worked overtime trying to find his killer and they had a hard time doing it because so many people had motives. So many people wanted him dead.
“That’s not your fault, Ethan. That’s his fault. He’s the one who chose the life he led. He’s the one who made the mistakes he made. And he’s the one who, in the end, paid for those mistakes. It’s not your fault.” She pulls me closer, hugs me tighter. Then repeats, “It’s not your fault.”
“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t pushed—”
“If you hadn’t pushed, he would have gone on hurting other people. He would have amassed more and more power and then used that power to hurt others just because he could. That’s the kind of man he was. And that is not on you. That is on him.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit, eyes burning with tears I refuse to shed. “My whole life, I’ve always had a plan. I’ve always known how to handle whatever problems creep up. I’ve always kept my eye on the ball. But this…I don’t know how to handle this. Not the rage, not the guilt, not the—” I cut myself off before I say something that can hurt Chloe.
But my wife knows me better than I know myself. “Not the grief,” she tells me, pressing soft kisses to my hair. “It’s okay to grieve for your brother, Ethan. It’s okay to grieve for the boy he was and the man you wanted him to be.”
“He hurt you.”
“He hurt a lot of people, including you.”
I pull away, stare at the ivy-covered walls because it’s easier than looking at her when I admit, “There’s a part of me that’s glad he’s dead.”
