Page 83 of Bleeding Hearts Duet

Brayden shot me a glare that would have withered me any other day. But I had nothing left to give anymore. Every tear had already been purged from my body, and every ounce of emotion completely dried up. All that remained was the harshness of reality.

“And what would have happened if I wasn’t there that day?” he laughed hollowly. “Your precious fucking Ryland would be dead, Brighton. But you know what, now that you mention it, I wish I wasn’t there. Because then he’d be rotting in hell where he belongs.”

“You don’t even know him,” I snarled. “And you’re full of shit. You can’t possibly think what happened was justified. Frankie murdered that entire family, Brayden! And for what, some money?”

“I didn’t know,” he snapped. “And I didn’t fucking care. I was only thinking of Frankie. Of how I wanted my old man to be proud of me.”

The callousness in his words gutted me. Because when I looked into his eyes, I didn’t see my brother anymore. I saw a stranger. He believed what he said, even though I didn’t.

“You mean you wanted to be like him,” I accused. “A low life fucking criminal?”

“Why not, Brighton?” He threw out his hands and shot me a scathing look. “What the fuck else am I gonna’ do? Live in this shit hole for the rest of my life? Frankie said he lived like a king, and yeah, I’ll admit it, I wanted a piece of that too. I wanted something better than this life.”

“And what about now?” I asked. “What are you going to do now?”

“The only thing I can do,” he replied. “Sit here and twiddle my fucking thumbs until I can get a job flipping hamburgers for the rest of my life.”

His words made me realize something. Something that hadn’t occurred to me before.

“Why didn’t they come for you?” I demanded. “If they killed Frankie, why didn’t they come for you too?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I guess Frankie never told them what happened. Maybe it was the only honorable thing he ever did.”

It sounded too easy, but it was a lie Brayden and I both readily accepted. I needed to believe for my own sanity it was true.

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