“Why?” she asked, laughing bitterly. “Alexander, your father has how many attorneys and judges in his pocket? You could have at minimum gotten his sentence reduced. And Daniel, your father could have intervened at any time. I saw the police reports. There was no way Garrison was responsible for gunning down those men. He wasn’t like any of you. And Brogan, you were closest to my brother. He used to tell me everything about you and what the two of you did, at least the good stories. He’d tried to make me a part of his life and everyone else tore him away from me.”
Tried.
The word held another defining statement altogether. Her mother hadn’t wanted Cassie to spend any time with her brother. The reason was clear. He was a bad seed because of Alexander’s… No, because of our influence. Jesus.
“I’m sorry, Cassie. Garrison was supposed to be protected inside that wretched prison. Somehow someone got to him,” Alexander said in an entirely different tone of voice than I’d heard before. Conciliatory. Haunted. “You’re right. I should have pushed my father. Sadly, Garrison admitted to the crime before I could stop him. I never asked him to take the blame.”
“That means he didn’t kill those men,” she insisted.
Alexander looked from me to Brogan, finally shaking his head. “No, he was there, but his gun wasn’t fired. The truth is we got into a physical altercation with four of my family’s enemies.Things got out of hand. Two gunshots went off during the scuffle, one of them from my gun.”
“And one was from mine. After that, Garrison insisted he was responsible,” Brogan said, the agony and guilt in his voice pulling at every ounce of decency in me. We’d remained quiet, allowing Garrison to take the blame, believing we could get him released.
“Two different guns. That’s crazy. What about justice? Didn’t anyone give a damn about the evidence?” she asked, rightly so.
I looked away briefly. “We traveled from St. Louis to New York to handle the task. Organized crime was rampant in the city, the police unable to control the bloodshed. Alexander’s father was brutal, creating battle after battle in the streets in his continued desire to rule the world. The authorities didn’t care who killed those men, Cassie. They had someone who admitted to the crime and that’s all they gave a damn about. It was an election year for several people. They all turned their backs, accepting a glory that wasn’t justified.”
“So you knew he was railroaded and you did nothing about it.” Her accusatory tone cut through me like a knife.
“That was the code of honor he lived by, Cassie. That we all lived by and still do to this day. I realize it’s not something you can understand. But that was and is our life. Loyalty is important, betrayal meaning certain death. It’s what I grew up learning.” Alexander’s admittance did nothing but anger her even more.
“No, I don’t understand. From what I knew about Garrison, he wasn’t like any of you.” She walked away from us, heading toward the open door, staring out at the ocean.
“You need to know the truth, even if you don’t like what you hear. He wanted to join the group, Cassie,” Brogan offered. “All three of us discouraged him.”
“That’s true,” I added, as if that meant anything to her.
She sighed, staring up at the stars.
All I wanted to do was hold her in my arms.
“This university. Your parents wanted all of you to become just like them, ruthless and brutal.” She wasn’t asking a question, just stating something that she’d finally come to accept.
I glared at Alexander, daring him to answer her honestly. When he did, I was floored.
“You obviously know more about the three of us than we realize,” he started. “My father is considered the most notorious mafia leader in the country. He doesn’t accept weakness, including from his only son. He considered me incapable of taking over his empire. The university was his way of tossing me into the lion’s den. As a Durante, the expectations were high. I knew I had to prove my worth to a man who acted as if he’d wished I was never born. So that’s what I did. The Wild Boys were a way of shoving my independence in his face, handling aspects of business that he considered beneath him. Over four years, I secured several contracts, adding millions of dollars to the bottom line. And I handled our enemies.”
“You mean you killed them,” she threw at him.
He huffed. “Up until the day Garrison was arrested, the blood spilled was from fists flying and merciless methods of business. I’m not a killer, Cassie, but I do have requirements as established by my family as do the other two men in this room.We came from different worlds, but by banding together, we were a force to be reckoned with. And they were my only friends, people I could trust. In my world, that’s more valuable than gold. I realize you can’t understand the lifestyle, but I hope you believe me when I say that we didn’t force Garrison to join.”
There was more pride in his statement than I’d ever heard before.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter. He’s dead. He was my brother and he’s dead because of the three of you. And… his choices.” Her body language changed, her shoulders squared as she took slow and even breaths. “You’re right. I was fooling myself that Garrison was a hero. Even then I knew some of what he’d chosen in his life was wrong. I was old enough to know better. He cared about all three of you. Sometimes I thought more than he did his own sister. Maybe I was jealous, but he was my everything. My mother sheltered me. I only realized when I was much older that she was trying to do so to keep me from truly understanding the kind of man my father was. But that meant she kept me from Garrison as well.”
“I’m so sorry,” Brogan whispered.
I was surprised her voice was clear, devoid of the anger and sadness she’d expressed only minutes before.
“Before he was arrested, he warned me that something bad might happen. He asked that I not think badly of him. I didn’t, but I never understood why he chose such a life. Maybe I do now. You were family, the four of you.”
“Yes, we were family. We relied on each other.” I hated the hollow sound in my voice, but I felt empty inside. “But we did some very bad things.”
“I know. Garrison told me. He confided in me, even though he made the stories sound wondrous, as if every adventure was magical. That’s how I knew about the university. I went to the campus once, although I didn’t learn as much as I’d hoped.”
Alexander narrowed his eyes. “Garrison told you the address?”
“Not exactly, but I grew up in Illinois, remember? My mother did have family in St. Louis. I took a trip and found it myself.”
