What the fuck is Blake and our idiotic PR team going to do when Don sells his story to the highest bidder? Even if none of it were true at all, a story like that could be twisted into something that follows us for the rest of our lives. How are they going to be able to protect Ari?
They’re not.
Because I’m going to make damn sure Don doesn’t get the chance.
Me: I’m headed back to Raleigh. Let’s meet and discuss your terms.
As soon as we touch down in Raleigh, Jesse makes himself scarce. The only way we even know he’s still alive is through his mom. She let us know that Cory and Tad brought him home, and that they’ve stationed themselves outside her condo since their location was leaked and there were news vans camped outside the property line.
Ari decided to go over and see if he’d have any luck today, so I’m taking my chance to sneak away while I can. Zane drives me—I’m not that stupid—but he promises to stay in the car unless I specifically call for him. I can take a hit if it comes to that, but I don’t think it will. Don is an idiot, but the one thing he has going for him is his instinct for self-preservation.
When we pull up across the street from the house Ari and I grew up in, the first thing I notice is how much smaller it seems than I remember. Maybe that’s a side effect from years of living in condos and hotel suites with more square footage than this little house, or maybe it’s that I no longer feel as small as I did when I lived here.
I stood up to Don when I needed to, and I shielded Ari, but I was just a kid then, too. I lived constantly on edge, constantly ready for anything to happen. Whether it be a drunken tantrum from Don, a nightmare from Ari, or someone to come and take me away again to move me somewhere nobody wanted me. It took more of a toll on me than I ever realized. It made me feel small, even if I was pretending to be big and tough. Like an animal that puffs out its feathers or fur to look bigger than it really is.
Crossing the road, I slowly look over the property. It wasn’t great when we were growing up here, but it’s basically dilapidated now. The siding is warped and peeling, the porch sags so much it looks like it could collapse at any moment, and there’s something growing along the bottom edge of the railing.The yard is mostly dirt now, with patches of dead grass clinging to the edges.
The front door creaks, and for a moment, I’m transported back in time. For a moment, I’m eight again, expecting to hear Ari crying, or find him hiding in the overgrown bushes on the other side of the carport.
Don steps out like he’s been waiting for this his entire life, smiling smugly in an old, stained hoodie from his high school football team, the logo cracked and half worn off. It’s stretched tight across his beer gut, which has grown since I saw him last, several inches of pallid skin on display over his equally dirty-looking sweatpants. His bare feet are shoved into a pair of unlaced sneakers that are more grey than white. I can smell him from here, sour breath and stale cigarettes.
“Well, well, well,” he drawls. “You finally come to your senses, didja boy?” He leans against the porch railing like he owns the world, and I spend a few long, satisfying minutes imagining him falling through the warped wood or falling face first into the gravel sidewalk when the railing fails. “Come to beg, boy?”
That gets my attention, but I don’t rise to his bait.
“No, I’m not here to beg. I’m here to reason with you.”
He snorts. “Don’t know what you mean by that. But you better be finally ready to pay me what you owe me.”
“I’ve given you enough. We don’t owe you shit, and you don’t have proof of anything either, so stop with your threats,” I say evenly. “You have no proof and no credibility. No one with half a brain would believe you.”
Don’s grin stretches, slow and ugly.
“Proof?” He laughs, his husky rasp sounding more like a cough. “You think something so little as proof matters.” He steps down from the porch. “D’you know people think you boys are all Satan worshippers who bathe in the blood of newborns to stay rich and pretty? That Zach Lawson guy says he believes it after meeting that druggie you call a frontman. And there’s a whole lot of people on the internet who think it’s your name redacted on those files about the sex trafficking ring, that you’re all pedophiles.” He shrugs. “Ain’t no proof of that, either, but they all believe it. You really think it’d be hard to convince them that you and your brother got something going on?”
My jaw tightens.
“Hell,” he continues, his voice lilting almost playfully. “At this point I could tell them you’re actually blood-related and they’d believe it. Wouldn’t take much to photoshop some birth certificates. Tie you both to that crazy bitch mom of Ari’s and watch you squirm.”
He laughs and steps closer, his breath wafting at me as he gets bolder. His eyes keep shifting towards the car, and I know he’s only giving me any space at all because he knows I’m not alone.
“And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. With all this shit happening right now, I don’t need truth or proof. People will eat this shit up because you boys are everything they’re sick of—loud, annoying snowflakes trying to push your perverted lib agenda. This country’s done pretending that kind of shit is brave, and that means I got plenty of people willing to shell out big bucks just to see the likes of you burn.”
He taps his temple like he thinks he’s clever. “You shoulda paid me when I asked the first time, now shouldn’t ya? Because nowit’s going to cost you double. Maybe triple, seeing as you’re both millionaires or some shit.”
“And how do I know you’re not going to take my money and run to the nearest tabloid?”
Don shrugs and gives me a smarmy smile that tells me that’s exactly what he plans to do. Not that I plan on giving him another dime.
I shake my head, letting the silence sit between us for a minute. Then I reach into my jacket pocket.
“You know, Don, you always have been a piece of shit.”
“You think you’d learn some respect.”
“You think you’d learn not to keep fucking with me and Ari. You don’t get to use him to get to me anymore.”
Don’s eyes flick down at the phone in my hand. I unlock it without breaking eye contact, press stop on the recorder, rewind it some, and then hit play. His voice fills the space between us.
