My brother got a faraway look in his eyes. “Yeah. I get it.”
I bet you do.
“I had been about to leave Ryan, though. And then he opened his goddamn mouth.”
In the memory, I had my back to Ryan, so it took a moment for his words to penetrate my psyche, but I’d never forget them as long as I lived.
“How’d you feel about letting me tie you up later?” he asked, his voice in a low tone I was sure he thought was seductive. “I have a bit of a…kink. I like it more when they fight me.”
Even then, after landing in this mess of his own making, after being forced to hide out in a remote mountain cabin because he’d put his hands on something that didn’t belong to him and taken what hadn’t freely been given, he still hadn’t learned his goddamn lesson.
I decided I had to be the one to teach it to him.
With a calm I hadn’t felt, I’d turned around, my temper barely leashed.
After that, everything happened quickly. I told him he could tie me up, but I wanted to take a walk first, wanted totalk. He happily agreed, lacing up his boots and putting on a coat, hat, and gloves. I rushed out into the March chill after him, and we walked a path along a ridge, high above a tree-filled valley, following his exact path, stepping exactly where he stepped.
“And when we got to the top…I pushed him.”
I’d felt zero remorse as I watched his body fall. In fact, my overwhelming emotion at the time had beenrelief, knowing he’d never be able to hurt another person.
“Fucking hell, man,” Trey said, slotting his fingers into his hair and tugging at the roots. “And you just…got away with it.”
“By the time they managed to find him, a few weeks had passed. Between scavengers and general decomp, there hadn’t been much left except his bones. My guess is the investigators hadn’t seen any reason to question the scene they’d stumbledupon. They’d chalked his death up to accidental and moved on. Guess all my training with the department came in handy.”
Trey barked out a laugh that startled me. “God, this county elected a sheriff who killed a guy. That’s…something, little bro.”
The irony of it was not lost on me, of course. But I didn’t regret it. Not for a single second had I wished I could go back to those woods and not have pushed him off that cliff. I slept better at night knowing one less predator stalked the streets, hiding in plain sight as a rich pretty boy frat asshat.
That night, when I’d been driving back to Boise, I’d made a vow to myself to do everything by the book from that moment forward. Sure, people called me uptight. My siblings ribbed me endlessly for the rigidity with which I managed my department and my life.
But I’d seen my darkest side, had allowed that beast free, and only my carefully constructed control and refusal to operate outside the law in any way kept it at bay now.
“Do you hate me?” I asked quietly, staring intently into my glass of bourbon like it could solve all of my problems.
“Of course not,” Trey said, and I flicked my gaze up to his to make sure he was telling the truth. I saw nothing but honesty on his face. “But what exactly do you need from me?”
“I need you to make sure this stays buried.”
My brother regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, then surprised me by heading for his kitchen to pull out ingredients for dinner.
“Hungry?” he asked me.
“Not really,” I said. It’d been a few hours since lunch, and I was known for a seemingly interminable appetite, but right now, the thought of food made me queasy.
Ignoring the ticking time bomb I’d dropped on his counter, my older brother worked methodically around the kitchen, chopping vegetables, then scraping the peppers, onions, andmushrooms into a pan sizzling with oil. In another, chicken fried, and his rice cooker steamed nearby.
We didn’t speak, but I had to admit, it smelled amazing, even if my stomach was all tied up in knots.
Seemingly hours later, Trey plated his stir fry and took the seat next to me at the island.
“You gonna tell me what that’s about?” he asked, jerking his chin at the envelope. “Or are you just here to enjoy my company?”
“I’ve never enjoyed your company a day in my life,” I quipped, but reached out and brought the envelope toward me.
Wordlessly, I pulled out the contents and arranged them chronologically in front of him, allowing him to peruse while he ate. When he finished, he slid his bowl to the side and brought an article closer, the one that first announced the sexual assault.
“He looks like a douche.”
