“You were only sixteen,” Nick says, his voice low and tight. “Don’t ever blame yourself for this. You were just a kid, for crissake.”
I nod, some part of me acknowledging that he’s right—I was a child, not yet equipped to deal with the very adult, very real problem of my stepfather.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t learn how to deal with him until after the assault had occurred.
“I was just out of the shower and getting dressed for school when he came into my bedroom. My door was locked, but he somehow picked it. All I had on was my bra and underwear. He stood there, leering at me. He accused me of trying to turn him on. He said he was tired of me teasing him then running away.” I close my eyes, struggling to push the rest of the story out. “He said . . . he said he wanted me to suck his dick or he was going to give my mom a black eye when she got home. I knew he meant it. He’d hit her more than a few times by then. But she always made excuses for him. She didn’t want to leave him. She didn’t want us to be alone again.”
“Baby, I’m sorry.” Nick frowns as he reaches up to wipe a tear from my chin. A dark kind of rage smolders in his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me any more. You don’t have to relive that bastard’s abuse just to make me understand it.”
“Yes, I do.” I draw in a fortifying breath. As much as his compassion touches me, I do have to tell him everything. “You need to understand, Nick. And I need to let this go, even if you never look at me the same way ever again.”
His face stills, then he gives me the faintest nod. “All right.”
“He lunged for me. He overpowered me so easily. I thought I was strong, but I couldn’t break out of his hold. I couldn’t move his heavy weight when he knocked me to the floor on my stomach. I don’t know how he managed to get his pants down so quickly. He ripped my panties off from behind me. And then he pushed inside me. It hurt. God, how it hurt.” My voice is threadbare now. “I was a virgin. He stole that from me. He shoved inside me and he pumped and grunted and groaned until he came, splattering my back with his foulness.”
Nick’s face is a study in animal fury now. His lips are peeled back in a grimace, his nostrils flaring as he listens in barely restrained silence.
“I don’t know how long I lay there. He had gone back to the TV. I could hear it in the background as I got up and cleaned myself off with a tissue. I don’t remember getting dressed, but I walked out of my room sometime later in my clothes for school. But I didn’t leave for school. I went downstairs to the basement, to the gun cabinet he never bothered to lock. Then I came back up and put a bullet in his chest.”
Nick doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t so much as blink.
“I shot him,” I confess—at last, finally. “I shot him and then I sat across from him and watched him bleed. I don’t know why I didn’t shoot him again. Shock, I guess. I remember looking at him as he slumped out of his chair and onto the floor, wheezing and sputtering, trying to drag himself toward me. I moved across the room and I just . . . watched him. I waited for him to die, but he didn’t.”
“What happened with your mom?”
“She came home a while later. Martin was still alive, but barely.” I exhale, picturing the whole incident as if I were looking in from outside myself. “She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She didn’t ask me what happened. She knew. Just by looking at me . . . she knew what he’d done.”
Nick draws me against him, holding me close.
“She walked right past him on the blood-soaked floor to carefully take the gun out of my hands and set it aside. Then she wrapped me in her arms and told me to go take a shower. She told me she would clean up the mess and that I should go to my grandparents’ house down the street. She told me that she would take of everything.”
“The second gunshot wound,” Nick says. “The police reports and court evidence stated that it wasn’t the first bullet that killed him. It was the second one, fired sometime between one to two hours afterward.”
He’s obviously been reading up on the case, since these are details I haven’t yet shared with him. No doubt, he and his lawyer, Andrew Beckham, have been poring over all of the documents in my mother’s case in preparation of securing that new legal team Nick has mentioned.
“According to the file, you weren’t home that morning,” he points out. “Your mother told police that you were at your grandparents’ house all day, that you stayed home sick from school. Your grandmother corroborated the story.”
I nod, finding it strange to hear Nick recite the old lie that Mom and Gran had drilled into me for weeks after the killing. I feel lighter now that it’s out in the open.
But he isn’t the only one who knows the truth now.
“My mother lied to protect me. She told the police she and Martin argued and she shot him twice. She told the story as if she had been the one to watch him suffer during the time between the first shot and the fatal one. She killed for me, Nick. And for the past nine years, she’s been living in a cell in order to keep me out of one.”
Nick takes a step back from me now, scrubbing his hand over his jaw. “It was self-defense, Avery. For fuck’s sake, what you did—it was justified. Any reasonable judge would’ve agreed with that. Any competent lawyer would’ve made sure you never served a day behind bars.”
I can’t say his logic is weak, or that I haven’t thought the same things myself these past nine years. But at sixteen, I was just a terrified, traumatized girl. And it wasn’t as if my mother gave me the choice in any of this.
“She didn’t want to take that chance, Nick. She didn’t want me going to trial, even as a minor. She said she blamed herself for letting Martin get anywhere near me, and refused to let me speak up for her.” My heart aches to think of all my mother endured for me. And what she continues to endure. “If I could change places with her now, I would.”
“No.” His reply is adamant. “I won’t stand for that. Don’t even think it, Avery.” He studies me, frowning. “Is your mother the reason you needed that money?”
I shake my head. “No. Not the way you’re thinking.”
“Then what?”
“Someone knows what really happened, Nick. Martin Coyle’s son. My stepbrother, Rodney. He saw my car outside the house that day.”
I tell him about the phone calls and texts, about Rodney’s threat to expose my lie to Nick, and, eventually, to the press and anyone else he might be able to profit from.
I tell Nick how Rodney tracked me down from our photo that went viral on the Internet a few months ago, how he somehow arranged for my mother’s accident as a means of getting my attention and ensuring my cooperation with him. I tell him how Rodney’s harassment had recently escalated to an in-person confrontation here in the city.
“That son of a bitch is in Manhattan?” he growls. “When did you see him? Where was I, and how did he manage to get close to you?”
“It happened last week, at that Italian restaurant in East Harlem.”
Nick’s expression hardens. “We were together there.”
“Not when I went to ladies’ room.”
He considers for a moment, then a sharp curse explodes off his tongue. “The smug asshole who strutted past our table as we were leaving. He got near you, alone, and you didn’t tell me?”
“I couldn’t. Please understand, Nick. I was so scared. I still am.”
“Of your stepbrother? Give me five minutes with the fucker and there’ll be nothing left of him to be afraid of.”
Although he’s vibrating with rage, I brave a touch anyway. Reaching out to cradle his hard jaw in my hand, I hold his simmering gaze. “I’m more afraid of losing you than anything Rodney thinks he can do to me.”
“Nothing you’ve told me changes how I feel about you.” Even still, he gently takes my hand away from his face and brings it down to my side. “Where is your stepbrother now?”
“I’m not sure. The last time I saw him was yesterday morning, across the street from this building. You remember that wr
ong number call that came in on your cell when we were in the limo? I’m certain it was him sending me a message that he’s serious about this.” At Nick’s virulent curse, I add, “Rodney told me I have to be in touch with him by today to pay him ten thousand dollars for his silence.”
“That won’t be enough.” Nick gives me a hard look. “Scum like that smell blood in the water and they’ll keep coming back for more. I won’t have it. Your stepbrother needs to go away permanently.”
I’m not sure I want to know what he means. Without offering me an explanation, he presses a kiss to my forehead then walks into his home office and closes the door.
Chapter 21
Central Park is unusually quiet, thanks most likely to a recent drizzle that’s kept all but the most determined visitors indoors this afternoon. Only a handful of joggers and a few straggling tourists have passed me in the fifteen minutes I’ve been waiting. Not far from the bench I am sitting on, cheerful calliope music drifts out of the beige and red brick octagon that houses the park’s carousel, which is apparently closed for maintenance today.
It is here that Rodney instructed me to meet him when I called to tell him I had the money.
I try not to look anxious as I check the time on my phone and see that he is nearly ten minutes late. I just want this done. I want him gone from my life.
I feel that wish intensify when I spot him sauntering up the sidewalk, heading my way. As he approaches the bench, he flicks his spent cigarette butt into the wet grass, exhaled smoke streaming out of his mouth and nostrils like dragon’s breath.
I stand up, my skin crawling at the smug, satisfied look he gives me as he nears me. He’s wearing baggy jeans with a denim jacket over an “I Love New York” T-shirt today. He smooths his palms over the big red heart as he glances at me. “Never thought I’d be the city type, but I gotta say, baby girl, New York is growin’ on me. How do you like my souvenir?”
“She doesn’t.” Nick’s deep voice sounds from behind Rodney.
My stepbrother swivels his head, watching Nick stroll up to where we stand. To keep Rodney from panicking or canceling the meeting, I didn’t tell him that I wouldn’t be alone today. As far as Nick was concerned, my coming here without him wasn’t even an option.
He’d been adamant about that, even though he had said little else to me about his feelings in the time since my secrets all came spilling out today and this unwanted, unwelcome rendezvous with Martin Coyle’s son.
Rodney is unable to hide his surprised expression, even if his gravelly voice is low with disrespect. “Well, well. The famous Dominic Baine in the flesh. Avery didn’t mention I’d have the honor of meetin’ you today.”
“She didn’t mention you either until very recently.” Nick’s reply is low, level. More lethal than Rodney realizes. “From what I understand, she’s not happy to see you. Neither am I, for that matter.”
“Now, ain’t that an unfriendly way to greet me,” he replies, his lips thinning in a sneer. “Didn’t my sister tell you that you oughta be real nice to me?”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap, unable to stomach anything about him. “You and your father are nothing to me.”
Rodney chuckles now, but his predator’s gaze stays rooted on Nick. “Sharp tongue on this bitch, eh? ‘Course, maybe that’s how you like ‘em. Maybe you rich fucks like your pussy with teeth and claws, that it?”
Nick’s big body vibrates with menace beside me, but he stands utterly still. “Did you come here to get your ass kicked, or do you want to tell me what it’s going to take to make you go away?”
“Get my ass kicked?” Rodney scoffs. “You’re not gonna touch me, Baine. If you do, it’s only gonna cost you more. See, I’m a businessman like you.”
Nick doesn’t even blink. “Is that what you call this? Stalking Avery. Threatening her. Putting her mother in the prison hospital.”
Rodney gives him a thin smile. “I’ll never admit to any of that.”
“Then why am I standing here with ten grand in my pocket?”
Rodney pauses. He glances at me only briefly, then his tongue snakes out to lick his lips. “Let me see it.”
“Not until we get some things straight,” Nick says. “This stops right here. The second I put the cash in your hands, you stop, Rodney. You go away, and you don’t come back.”
His chin lifts. His eyes narrow on Nick as a sneer twists his mouth. “You think I’m stupid? You think I’m some dumb jackass who don’t know my worth?”
I swallow anxiously as Rodney’s voice rises. This is exactly what Nick predicted would happen—my stepbrother’s arrogance and greed being fed by the promise of easy money.
“I don’t know your worth,” Nick says, his tone clipped but calm. “You say you’re a businessman. All right. Convince me. What do you think you’re worth?”
“More than ten measly grand,” he bites off sharply. “Ten grand is only a down payment. What I know about her is worth a helluva lot more than that. Think about it, Baine. I go to the press with what I know? They’ll feed off the headlines for weeks. Dominic Baine’s girlfriend, a white trash slut who got away with murder.”
I close my eyes at the grating, ugly words—all of them close enough to the truth that it won’t matter what Nick or I say to try to lessen their power. The damaging publicity for Nick will be inescapable. Unbearable.
He seethes beside me, his body radiating a palpable and growing violence. “If Avery had been the one to kill your child rapist of a father, he’d have had it coming.”
Rodney grins now. “Struck a nerve, did I, Baine? The old man always did have an eye for prime tail. And with her tits and ass, ‘specially back then, who could blame him for wanting a piece of that?”
“Fucking bastard.” Nick takes a menacing step forward.
“No. Nick, don’t!”
He stops abruptly, though not because of my sharp cry.
It’s the gun in Rodney’s hand that freezes Nick in place. He’s pulled it from the back of his waistband, and now brandishes it in front of Nick’s face.
“Oh, my God!” My voice reduces to a strangled whisper, terror arrowing through me to my marrow. “Rodney . . . please. Don’t do this.”
I don’t miss how Nick gradually moves me behind him, inserting himself directly between my body and the barrel of the loaded weapon. I want to shout for help, but the park is so empty, I’m not sure anyone would hear me. And there is no way I’ll risk Nick’s life by pissing Rodney off any more than he already is.
“You smug asshole,” he snarls. “You think you own the fucking world, don’t ya? You got all the money, but I got this.”
“Easy now, Rodney.” Nick slowly raises his hands, palms open in cautious surrender. “You’re right. This is your show now. You’re the one holding all of the cards here.”
“Damn straight.”
“So, tell me what you want. You know I can make it happen.”
Raw fear grips my heart as the seconds tick by in agonizing slowness. I don’t know how Nick can sound so calm and collected when I am trembling from head to toe, terrified of what my stepbrother will do.
That I am the cause of this whole, awful situation makes me want to retch.
It makes me want to scream.
But Nick’s strength grounds me. Right now, it’s the only thing I have to cling to as Rodney continues to hold the pistol on him.
“This isn’t the way you want to resolve this, Rodney. You’re here to do business, so let’s get it done. What’s it going to take to satisfy you?”
“Helluva lot more than ten thousand dollars.”
“Okay. So, what number do you have in mind?” Nick asks, his tone so rational anyone would think he was sitting in a boardroom, not standing at the killing end of a deadly weapon. “But let’s be clear. I’m talking about no more contact. No more stalking or threats against Avery. No more so-called accidents at the prison. What’s it going to take for you to leave Avery and her mother alone, Rodney?”
&n
bsp; “A hundred grand.”
Nick nods slowly. “A hundred thousand dollars. If I pay you that much, it’ll keep you away from us for good?”
“Maybe,” Rodney replies after a moment. “Maybe not.”
Nick slowly lowers his hands. “I’m willing to bet it will be.”
“Yeah?” he scoffs. “And how can you be so fucking sure?”
“Take a look behind you.”
Rodney swivels a glance over his shoulder, to where a group of no less than six armed police officers emerge from behind the carousel building and the surrounding trees.
I gape, just as much in shock as he is.
Well, maybe not quite as much.
One of the officers orders him to drop his weapon and get down on the ground as the rest of the cops move in en masse with weapons trained on him, ready to fire. I watch in astonishment and relief as they take him down and handcuff him.
Only Nick seems less than surprised to see the police reinforcements.
“You knew,” I say as he wraps me in his arms and holds me close. “You arranged this?”
“I had a little help.” He nods toward the walkway, where Andrew Beckham is striding toward us.
The tall, darkly handsome lawyer offers me a nod as he approaches us. “Everybody okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Nick replies. “Thanks for the assist on short notice.”
“What are friends for?” Beck shrugs, but his expression is full of relief. “This whole thing almost went sideways when Coyle pulled out that gun.”
Nick grunts. “It was a surprise to me too. But now he’s got a weapons charge on top of all the rest of them.” He reaches into the front pocket of his pants and withdraws his phone. He hands it to Beck. “I trust the recording will give you everything you and the police need.”