Page 99 of The Bad Brother

“It started with this,” I tell her, lifting a hand to point at my face.

For a second, she just stares at me, gaze roving over my face like she’s trying to find something wrong with it. It takes her a moment to figure out what I’m pointing at. “Your heterochromia?” She shakes her head like she doesn’t understand. “It’s congenital. Why would?—”

“Actually, it’s a congenitaldefect—at least that’s what the doctor told her.” Dropping my hand on a humorless laugh, I shrug. “If you know Ethan than you know our mother—anything less than perfection is not something she tolerates. Something that’sdefectiveis instantly rejected—even her own son.” Shoving my hands into my pockets, I shake my head. “I supposed the dyslexia and ADHD diagnosis when I was eight didn’t help matters any, but by that time, she had Ethan so, for the most part she just ignored me. My father wasn’t much better. He tried in the beginning—probably because I was his heir and our grandfather was insistent that it remained that way—but he’s never been able to stand up for himself where she’s concerned. For all intentsand purposes, Olga was my mother. She raised me.” Feeling unbearably exposed, I clear my throat. “Ethan and I were close growing up—or at least I thought we were. The older we got the more I started to notice that something was...offabout him.”

Sloane frowns. “Offhow?”

“When he was seven, I caught him throwing rocks at a bird’s nest. He knocked it out of the tree and stomped on the eggs in it before I could stop him. When I asked him what he was doing, he shrugged and saidthey’re just eggs.” Grimacing slightly, I look away. “When he was ten, I found a pile of dead rabbits in the gardening shed. Most of them had their eyes gouged out. A few of them had been cut open.” Looking back at her, I clear my throat again. “When I asked him about it, he acted like he had no idea where they came from but when I went back with Olga to show her what I found, they were gone. I think he started burying them after that.” Even though nothing about anything I’m telling her is even remotely funny, I feel bitter laughter bubbling against the back of my throat like acid. “When he testified against me, he told the judge those stories, only in his version, I was the one throwing the rocks.”

Letting out a long, slow breath, Sloane shakes her head. “Jensen?—”

“After he arrested me, Cal started asking me questions about Lyla. When I met her.HowI met her. When did we start messaging each other. The same questions, over and over, trying to trip me up.” Now that the wound is open, I know better than to stop. I have to press. Bleed it dry because if I don’t, it’ll fester. “Trying to get me to incriminate myself. Admit to something but I didn’t knowwhatbecause whatever it was, I didn’t do it.” Suddenly tired, I take a half turn to snag one of the dining room chairs. Pulling it away from the table, I sit down, facing her. “He showed me a friend request I made to Lyla, nearly a year before. Messages, from my account to Lyla’s—back and forth—going back months, sent from my laptop. Only it wasn’tmyaccount and it was a laptop I hadn’t used in months.” Clasping my hands together, I hang them between my knees on a sigh. “They established an online relationship—a very cruel, very abusive relationship that I eventually used to manipulate her into committing suicide. But it wasn’t me. Like I said, before Cal said her name during questioning, I’d never even heard of Lyla Strong.”

“What are you saying?” I can hear it in her tone. She wants to believe me. Maybe even a part of her does but what I’m telling her sounds like a lie. A desperate, far-fetched lie. Even to me. “Ethan stole your laptop and made a fake Facebook account under your name. He targeted this poor girl and talked her into killing herself... for what? Why would he do that? He wasthirteen. What would he have to gain by hurting her?”

“It wasn’t her he was trying to hurt,” I tell her. “It was me. I was sixteen. In high school. Popular, despite my failings.” Giving her a grim smile, I shake my head. “People liked me. I was voted prom king as a sophomore.” I remember the look on Ethan’s face when I told our mother, hoping against hope that she’d finally acknowledge me. Maybe be proud of me. I should’ve known then that he was going to do something horrible but like everyone else, when I looked at Ethan, even with everything I knew and witnessed about him, all I saw was my little brother. I stillloved him. Still thought he loved me. “I even made the mistake of making the varsity football team.”

Slowly coming toward me, Sloane pulls out her own chair and sits across from me with a sigh, “You’re saying that Ethan framed you for murder because he was jealous of you?”

“Little picture—yes.” I sit back on a shrug. “Big picture—Ethan’s life has been much easier without having to live in my shadow. As soon as I was sentenced, my father disowned me. Even my grandfather was forced to write me off, at the time. Without me in the way, Ethan will inherit everything.”

“And you think a thirteen-year-old Ethan was capable of figuring this out, all on his own?” She asks carefully, her tone edged in the same disbelief I heard earlier.

“I think Ethan has been capable of just about anything, from the day he was born,” I tell her truthfully, no longer caring how crazy it makes me sound. “Do you know how Hanna and I broke up?”

“Yes.” Sloane’s eyes narrow slightly while she gives me a nod. “Sera told me that she cheated on you with your brother.”

“He sent me a video of her sucking his dick two weeks before our wedding,” I tell her bluntly. “I figured it was just Ethan being...Ethan, but when I ran into him at the club as few weeks ago, he told me how sorry he was about it and that he knew breaking off the engagement cost me my trust fund. That’s when it clicked. He did what he did with Hanna and sent me that video so I’d break off the engagement and lose access to my trust fund. Hurting me—costing me—has always been the goal.” The laughterthat’s been bubbling against the back of my throat surfaces on a soft scoff. “You should’ve seen his face when I told him that there was no marriage clause attached to my trust fund and that I gained full access when I turned twenty-five. I told him that our grandfather had seen him for who he really is before he died and that my inheritance had been three times the size of his.” The corner of my mouth kicks up in a humorless smirk. “In hindsight, that little reveal is probably what earned me a razor blade across the back.”

Sloane stares at me for a moment before she stands. Rushing over to the island where she left her bag, she rummages through it for a few seconds before finding her phone. Walking toward me while scrolling through it, she stops in front of me, offering me the phone before she sits back down. Taking it from her, I look at the screen to find a video, already playing, the images flickering across it making me sick to my stomach. A woman on her knees in front of my brother while he roughly thrusts into her open mouth. If not for the fact that the woman in the video has dark hair, I’d swear it was the one he sent me of him and Hanna.

“He made that video the night of our engagement party,” Sloane tells me quietly. “The woman was my supposed best friend.”

“Amy Williams.” Unable to stomach anymore, I close the phone and hand it back to her. “She was my prom date the night I was crowned king.”

For a few moments, all we can do is sit here and stare at each other while the puzzle pieces click into place between us.

Finally, Sloane reaches for my hand. “How did you meet Tank?”

“He was Cal’s deputy,” I tell her quietly. “He was the one who read me my rights when I was arrested. He testified against me at my trial. Told the judge that he was the one who found the laptop used to message Lyla under my bed when they searched my room.”

“And?”

“AndI was convicted. The judge sentenced me to two years but I’d already served six months, waiting for my trial date so that meant I had eighteen months left.” I give her a small shrug. “Tank volunteered at the prison, teaching boxing, a few times a month. I started taking classes. I was angry at him for his part in getting me locked up so any chance I had at hitting him, I was going to take.” The memory pushed what feels like a real smile onto my face. “He cleaned my clock pretty good more than once but I kept coming to class until finally, I put him on his ass. Along the way, we got to know each other—like each other. After about a year, he asked me outright if I did it. Told me that if I did it, he needed to know. Explained to me that I’d already been convicted. I was already serving time and they couldn’t punish me twice. I told him the truth. That I had no idea who Lyla Strong was until the day he and Cal dragged me off that football field in handcuffs.”

“He believed you.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement. One that tightens my chest and makes it hard to breathe.

“Yeah.” I nod, flicking her a quick glance before I look away. “He told me that Ethan was the one who told him to look under my bed because that’s where I liked to hide stuff but Tank knew that wasn’t true because he’d already founda stash ofPlayboys and a few letters from a girl I was seeing under a false bottom in one of my dresser drawers. He didn’t think much of it at the time but during the trial, the prosecution showed pictures of the box I supposedly hid the laptop in. It had about an inch of dust on it. If I was getting in and out of that box, every day, for almost a year, to hide the laptop I was using to message Lyla?—”

“There wouldn’t have been any dust on it,” Sloane finishes for me.

Instead of answering her outright, I just nod. “When I was finally released, Tank was there to pick me up and even though just about everyone told him he’d regret it, he brought me here. Gave me his name. Gave me a family.”

“Ethan admitted to me that he’s the one who stabbed Orton Redford.” She practically whispers it. Like she’s afraid he might be listening. “He doesn’t know it but he did.”

“What?” Heart pounding in my chest, the thud of it so heavy it almost hurts, I shake my head. “How? What?—”

“I asked him, outright if he did it,” she tells me in that same quiet tone. “He denied it, of course. Claimed he didn’t even know who Orton was, but then later, he called Orton anold man.I never mentioned his age. How would he know unless he’s actually seen him?”

---