“Is all of this about you not playing guitar?” I ask him with a sob. “Finn, you know I have always supported you and your choices. I have always wanted what was best for you. If you wanted to do it professionally I would have helped you. I would have done everything I could to make it happen for you.”
Billy laughs and Finn growls in anger. “I didn’t want your charity! I wanted your life! It should have been mine. All of it should have been mine!”
I gasp at his words, not understanding how all this time he never said anything. He never once made his feelings or his desires known.
“I would have given it to you! Do you understand that, Finn?” I shout back at him. “I never wanted any of it! I love you and I would have gladly handed it all to you if I knew it was what you wanted.”
Finn’s anger falters at that point, and I can see the war that’s going on his head as he stares at me. He wants to be pissed at me for having everything he’s always wanted, but he knows I’m right. He knows I would have done anything for him. All he had to do was ask.
Billy frantically looks back and forth between Finn and me, tosses me to the side again, and suddenly jumps up, turning around and throwing a fist into Finn’s face. I cry out as I watch a spray of blood fly from Finn’s mouth and splatter on the floor.
Finn rounds on Billy and clenches his fists tightly to his side, his body shaking with the need to hit back.
“Does that make you angry? Huh, Finn? Are you good and pissed off now? TELL HER THE TRUTH!” Billy screams.
“I don’t care about the truth, Finn,” I rush to tell him, trying to get him to focus on me and what we mean to each other instead of what this monster is trying to do to us. “It doesn’t matter. You’re my best friend and we’ve always done everything for each other. Remember when you were twelve and you had pneumonia? I made you Campbell’s chicken soup every day and we played Mad Libs until our sides ached from laughing and you forgot about how sick you were. And remember when I was fourteen and you dared me to jump my bike over the stream behind my house and I crashed and cried like a girl? There was so much blood everywhere and you carried me ten blocks to the hospital, apologizing the whole way and telling me you’d never let me get hurt again?”
The tears blur my vision as I remember back on our years together and how it was always us against the world. Right when I think I’m finally getting to him though, the softness in his eyes from remembering immediately turns to fury.
“Of course I remember carrying you to the hospital. I also remember listening to the doctor tell you that you were bleeding so much because you had this weird, rare blood disorder called hemophilia. Something passed on by your mother,” Finn spits out angrily at me.
Billy stares at Finn and nods his head enthusiastically. “There you go, boy. Finally, the grand finale.”
“Yes, I remember,” I mutter in confusion, ignoring Billy’s excitement. “They couldn’t get the bleeding to stop from the gash in my leg so they ran tests. You made a joke that you’d have to put me in a bubble so I’d never bleed again,” I whisper, wondering why he’s bringing this up now.
“When I was in Afghanistan and bleeding out on the table, they couldn’t understand why my blood wouldn’t clot, so they ran some tests. Do you have any idea how rare it is for someone to have hemophilia, Layla? Do you have any idea how rare it is for two best friends, who live in the same town, have the same eye color, and the same two dimples in our cheeks to have hemophilia?”
My brain hears everything Finn is saying to me right now, but my heart refuses to process the words. It refuses to acknowledge that what he’s saying makes sense.
“I should have had your life. I COULD HAVE had your life. It should have been MINE! I was the first born. Our mother should have made ME the star. She should have put ME on the pedestal. When I came home from the war, armed with the news the doctors had given me and a hunch about who I was, I demanded that she tell me the truth. Instead of being happy about it, she paid me to keep my mouth shut.”
I gasp at his words, running them through my mind over and over as he stares at me with murderous rage in his eyes.
Our mother, our mother, our mother.
“No. It’s not possible,” I mumble, even though I know he speaks the truth.
Our mother, our mother, our mother.
“Look at that! I think she sees the light, Finn!” Billy exclaims from behind him. “Layla, meet your brother, Finn. I’m so glad I get to be a part of this heart felt family reunion.”
“All these years I’ve been wanting to get back at dear old Eve for using me only when she needed something. Imagine my surprise last year when Finn here found my contact information in some of Eve’s things,” Billy explains as he paces back and forth in front of me. “Finn hatched up a genius plan where I would get to stalk the beautiful Layla Carlysle, and he would come in and be the hero, saving the day, and have his face plastered all over magazines and television. The grateful public would want to know everything about him of course, and they would soon learn that, oh my gosh, he can play the guitar?!”
Billy stops pacing and pulls the handcuffs out of his pocket, swinging them around his finger as he continues.
“And of course, once the news broke, people would start digging into Finn’s life and wait, what’s this? His mother is really Eve Carlysle? She had a bastard child right before she married Jack and tossed him into an orphanage? Oh the horror! And wait, there’s more!” Billy says with a sinister laugh. “A grown-up Finn comes home from the war, after fighting for his country and almost losing his life, and he knows the truth! Oh my! But Eve, she pays him off to keep him quiet. Offered him a job close to her so she could keep an eye on him. Oh no. How tragic. Poor Finn.”
I crumble to the ground, unable to hold myself up any longer, crying so hard I’m surprised I have any tears left.
Turning my head against the floor so I can look up, my gaze goes back and forth between the two men staring down at me.
“So Finn would get his fame and fortune and you would get revenge on Eve when everyone found out the truth,” I croak with a raspy voice, my throat aching from all the tears.
“Little Miss Perfect would be blackballed in the music world. It really was a perfect plan,” Billy states. “Until that bitch felt the need to hire a PI who started sticking his nose in things.”
Billy bends over and slaps the cuffs on my good arm, pulling on it roughly until it’s extended out from my body, securing the other end to the support pole. I moan in pain, not even attempting to struggle against him.
“I tried to warn you, Layla. I tried to tell you that guy was bad news, but you didn’t listen,” Finn states softly. “I bugged his place when I dropped off your stuff the other night. He knew about your dad. He knew all about Jack’s death, and he didn’t tell you. He kept it from you because he doesn’t give a shit about you.”
Finn is back to sounding like he cares about me, and my head is spinning from the back and forth he’s doing. One minute he’s pissed and the next he’s on my side. I don’t know which Finn is the real one. I don’t know what is happening to him.
My eyes close and I rest my cheek on my arm handcuffed to the pole, wanting to just give up. I don’t care about anything anymore. There isn’t one person in my life who hasn’t betrayed me. I am alone and I’m going to die in this basement alone. Billy and Finn have divulged all of their secrets. Secrets they won’t want anyone to know about. No matter what confusion is going on in Finn’s head right now, there’s no way he’s going to want the truth of what he’s done to get out.
“Finn here was getting a little nervous about the whole stalking thing,” Billy tells me after making sure the handcuffs are secure. “After a few of our phone calls, I had to wonder if he had the balls to follow through with our plan. He thought I was taking it too far with you. I had to convince him that I knew what I was doing and it would all work out in his favor in the end. I had to promise him that you wouldn’t really be harmed. A little white lie never
hurt anyone.”
Billy grabs onto the neck of my T-shirt and rips it right down the middle until my black lace bra and bare stomach are exposed. He cups my breasts in his hands and squeezes them roughly until I cry out.
“Billy, STOP! What the fuck are you doing?” Finn shouts, grabbing onto his shoulder and trying to pull him away from me.
Billy takes one hand off of me, reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a gun, turning his head and pushing the barrel into Finn’s chest.
“I’m doing what I planned on doing all along. Making Layla mine,” Billy says quietly, cocking the gun and holding it steady right at Finn as he backs away with his hands in the air.
His other hand that still kneads my breast distractedly slides down the front of my body until it reaches the snap of my jeans. He yanks them open roughly, and regardless of the pain, I start to struggle against his hands.
Billy stands up and holds onto the gun with both hands.
“Be a pal and take her pants off for me,” Billy tells Finn as he nods in my direction.
Finn looks at me with terror in his eyes but doesn’t move.
A loud blast of the gun explodes through the room and Finn screams, dropping to the ground and clutching his thigh. Blood pours between his fingers as he tries to hold his hand over the wound in his leg.
“I said, take her pants off,” Billy states calmly as he stares down at Finn and cocks the gun again, loading another bullet into the chamber before pressing the nose of the barrel into the top of Finn’s head.
Finn uses one hand to pull himself over to me and refuses to look me in the eye as he does what Billy says.
“Finn, no. No, no, no, please, don’t do this,” I sob hysterically as he quickly removes my jeans with one hand, and I fight him as best I can, the pain in my leg from being kicked and the jostling as I try to struggle bringing so much agony to my arm that I start to see spots.
“I’m sorry, Lay. I’m so sorry,” Finn whispers as tears fall down his face. He stares at my feet and doesn’t meet my eyes.
Billy lifts his arm above Finn’s head and brings it down fast, the butt of the gun cracking his skull. Finn slumps to the side, unconscious and even though he was shot and going back and forth between hating me and feeling sorry for what he’d done, at least a part of me feels like he might still be on my side. He might still be able to stop all of this from going any further.
“That’s better. His voice was grating on my nerves,” Billy says, sliding the gun into the back of his pants and shoving Finn further away with the heel of his boot.
He advances on me with desire burning in his eyes as he stares up and down my body and licks his lips.
“Just kill me!” I shout at him through my tears. “Just fucking kill me!”
I’d rather die than have his hands on me again. I’d rather close my eyes and never open them again than have him on top of me, taking something that isn’t his. This will ruin me. This will be much worse than dying or having my best friend betray me or my mother take away the one person in my life who ever loved me. This will be something I’ll never be able to stop seeing, stop feeling, or stop experiencing from now until the day I really do die. No amount of happiness will be able to erase from my mind what’s about to happen.
“Oh, you don’t really mean that,” Billy says with a laugh as he stands next to me and continues to look up and down my half-naked body. “You know, I usually like it when they struggle, but you’re kind of useless in that department,” Billy says as he takes his boot and presses it down hard on my injured thigh.
I close my eyes tight and clench my lips together, refusing to scream or let him know how much it hurts.
“Fuck you!” I spit out angrily, finally opening my eyes and staring at him with hatred.
He sighs and shakes his head at me.
“We really need to do something about that mouth of yours. I think this will be better for both of us if you just shut the fuck up,” he tells me before bringing his fist down against the side of my head.
“I should have known better than to tell you to stay put,” Adam tells me with a small laugh.
Austin had made it to my place in record time. I jumped in his car, turned on my portable police scanner, and quickly discovered the address the police department was searching.
Looking around the small mobile home, I curl my lip in disgust when I see the dirty dishes piled in the sink, the stains on the walls and carpet, and enough fast food wrappers to feed a small country littering every single surface.
“This is the third address we’ve found for Billy Marsh. The other two were apartments, and they were empty. The landlord for both places told us the guy hasn’t been there in months and if we see him to let him know he’s been evicted,” Adam explains as he turns and tells the fingerprint analyst to start in the back of the trailer and make his way forward. “There wasn’t anything in the other two places linking this guy to Layla, Finn, or Eve, so we’re hoping we’ll find something in here. Otherwise, we’re back to square one.”
Adam gives me a pat on the back, then walks away to talk to a detective who just came through the door after interviewing neighbors.
After Eve had confessed everything to Gwen and me, I immediately called Adam to fill him in. He knows Eve hired Ray/Billy to kill Jack, and he knows she kept the secret of Finn and Layla being siblings all these years. Adam had sent a patrol car to my house to pick Eve up and take her into the station. Surprisingly, after Eve unburdened herself of all her transgressions, she accepted responsibility for all of the things she’s done wrong and went with them willingly. She knows her life is pretty much over and there's nothing she could do about it but cooperate.
Adam comes back over to me and flips open his note pad.
“We found Finn’s vehicle. It was in a pretty bad hit and run accident just south of downtown on a side street that doesn’t get much traffic. The front end is completely smashed, and it was hit so hard that it was pushed into a telephone pole,” Adam explains as he reads the notes in his hand.
“Oh Jesus. Is Layla okay? Was she in there?” I ask frantically, hoping to God that she wasn’t hurt too bad.
Adam looks up from his pad and shakes his head.
“The vehicle was empty, Brady. There was some blood on the driver’s side and passenger side. The lab is running the samples right now just to make sure, but…”
Adam trails off and I’m glad he doesn’t continue. I know what he's about to say, and I don’t need to hear him say it out loud.
Layla was in the car when it crashed, she’s bleeding, and now who knows where the fuck she is. I know from when she was attacked outside the club that her blood doesn't clot very well, so if she’s hurt bad enough and doesn’t receive treatment, her life will be on the line. I should have never let her walk out that door. I should have told her the truth when she stormed over to me with all that passion and conviction in her voice. I should have turned around and told her I loved her instead of pushing her away and making her feel like she didn’t matter.
“Hey, Brady,” Austin calls to me from the hallway. “There’s something back here you need to take a look at.”
Stepping over trash and dirty clothes, I head down the hall behind Austin, following him into a small, cramped bedroom with Adam right on my heels.
“Oh my God,” I mutter as I look around the room.
“Holy fuck,” Adam whispers, echoing my shock.
Every single available surface is covered with pictures and news articles of Layla and Hummingbird Records. There’s a picture of her on stage at practically every venue she’s been to and pictures of her from magazine articles, photo shoots, and entirely too many candid photos taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. Layla having lunch with Finn at an outdoor café; Layla grocery shopping at Puckett’s; Layla sitting on her front porch holding onto the guitar she’d just played for me; a copy of the picture of the two of us in the truck that had been left on my front windshield.
 
; There are articles pinned to the wall about each new recording artist that Hummingbird signed, copies of their financial reports, and print-outs of Eve’s personal brokerage and savings accounts. Her net worth and that of Hummingbird Records is plastered all over one wall and up on part of the ceiling.
“Jesus, this guy is a sick fuck,” Austin says as he bends down and looks at the picture of Layla and me. I want to tear that thing off of the wall and rip it to shreds so no one else can see it, no one else can be a part of that private moment between the two of us, but I know I can’t. It’s evidence and it needs to stay right where it is.
“Eve swore she hadn’t talked to this guy since that night she asked him to do something about Jack, right?” Austin asks. “If she’s telling the truth and she didn’t hire this guy to stalk Layla as some sort of twisted publicity stunt, who the hell did?”
I run my fingers through my hair in frustration and turn around in a circle, my eyes running over every single thing in the room.
“Finn. It has to be Finn. He lied about Billy being in custody to get her out of the house,” I reply.
“Okay, so he was pissed about the fact that they were siblings and she got all the limelight when he got diddly squat, but that doesn’t explain how the hell he even knew who this guy was or why he would do something as stupid as put her in his path,” Austin replies.
“How would you feel if one day you found out you had a rich megastar for a sister, and the mother who did everything she could to make sure your sister rose to stardom completely denied your existence?” I ask him.
“Yeah, that’s pretty messed up, and it would probably make me mad, but mad enough to form a connection with a dangerous, convicted felon who would probably stab you in the back, literally and figuratively, to get what he wants? This Billy guy is ten shades of fucked up from what his rap sheet says. Why the hell would Finn want to tangle with him?”
Glancing over at the wall that holds the only window in the room, my brow furrows as I step closer to a large blueprint that hangs on the wall to the left of it.