Page 72 of Grift

That what was what was on offer. Just trust Patrick. Believe that it was over– and what? Let go. His words hit me then. Eradicated. Solved. Destroyed.

It feels like I’ve aged a hundred years in seconds. A decade of my life. My career, my relationship to my family, and my freedom to follow the path I’d wanted. The road that had delivered me to this man’s door. All of it was wrapped up in that. Could I just walk away, never knowing, being spared? Or would it just be another denial that would cost me in the end?

My parent’s denial that I am a good person. My denial that I deserved to know and to find someone to love me. Our collective denial that all of this wasn’t wrong. That my father’s reputation, that optics, mattered more than the truth. Enough. That stops tonight.

“Patrick, I need you to tell me,” my voice is ragged. “Please.”

“I hired the best people that I could find to get to the source of the tapes, Jessica. They did,” his voice is hard, his gaze unwavering. “I don’t know how to say this and spare you. It was your brother Jared and his friend Carter, Jess. Jared came up with the idea. Carter drugged you at a party, brought you to his room, and filmed you while he assaulted you.”

Carter? It’s like the world spins off its axis. My hand flies to my stomach, nausea threatening to kick up an empty stomach. I’d known. Deep down, I’d thought that maybe I’d gotten drunk and done something really heinous. But part of me had thought that it was a far simpler explanation. A far eviler and heart-wrenching explanation. But my own brother’s best friend? My mind reels, trying to put it all together.

“Jared and Carter used the tapes periodically to blackmail your father. They got hundreds of thousands over the years. It stopped tonight. They’re both dead,” he says simply.

I recoil then, pulling back in horror.

He sees it, and part of me wants to scream no, it’s not you. It’s just there’s so much darkness in the world. So much, so close, and I didn’t see it coming.

But I see the sadness there, the regret, that he did this. That he had to tell me he did this.

“My parents?” My voice is a little cry.

“Your parents had no idea who was behind it. But your father is aware of what happened last night. You’ll be getting a call shortly, the bodies will be discovered as part of a reported drug deal gone wrong.” He sounds so matter of fact.

“You had him killed?”

“I killed them. Both of them.”

My brother who had always been troubled, always hated life in a political family. We’d never been close. My battered mind searches for a single good memory of him. Playing in the sand as very little kids, but even then, he’d been hungry for our parents’ attention and prone to fits of violence. And after the – the scandal – we’d had no relationship whatsoever. He’d cut me out, ice cold. He’d barely even acknowledge me at family gatherings, though now I knew why. The real reason why.

And Carter? I had seen him once since college, and he’d barely registered in my awareness.

My god. A sob wracks my body then, starting in the pit of my stomach and exploding outward throughout my body with sparks of grief. Someone makes a keening sound, an animal noise of rage and fear and pain. It’s not until Patrick’s arms come around me that I realize it’s me.

“It had to be ended,” Patrick whispers eventually. “No one who did that to you could live. I couldn’t protect you, but I could give you justice. You’re free now.”

Free.

Hot, wet tears are streaming down my face as I pull away. “Free?”

He looks away, his jaw going hard. “I’m a monster, Jessica. You deserve to go and follow your dreams, and to experience what life is like, unencumbered by your past. You deserved better than what your family could give you. And you deserve far better than what you’ll get caught up in with my family.”

A new stream of tears is welling up, uncontrolled. He’d kept his promises to me. Patrick Carney had asked me to trust him, all those weeks ago back in the Trinity’s gallery, and over time, I had. True to his word, he’d found out the truth and no matter how horrible it is, he doesn’t turn away. In the end, no matter what it asked of him, he delivered.

How could I tell him that even with what he’d taken on, with the justice that he’d dealt, I’d forever be shaped by my past?

I don’t even know where to go. It hits me again, the loss of the walls that have protected me and imprisoned me. The loss of my brother and the loss of the idea that my parents, even unwittingly, had failed to protect me.

And most of all, the loss of this man.

He is violent. He is hard. He is a killer. He is the son of the man who threatened to use the worst thing that ever happened to me to control my father, and for what? Political favors? Money?

And he is kind. He is willing to do what is right and what is hard. He is a lover. He is my husband. And if I’m totally honest, he’s the first man I’ve ever loved. Ever felt that really saw me, valued me, and would keep me safe.

“You can have any life you want now,” he’s saying. “You don’t need to be weighed down by this. By me. Knowing that you’re happy somewhere…”

Another cry rips itself from my lips, and I stand, heading down the hallway to the tiny room that’s been my office. My clothes are in the closet, but I still have other clothes at my place in Cambridge. I just need my laptop so that I can work. Everything else can be dealt with later. I’m frantically pulling plugs when gentle hands catch my wrists.

“Jessica,” his voice is soft, rough, the way it had sounded at odd moments in the bedroom. Shit.

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