Page 74 of Threaded Lies

“Guilt upon guilt upon guilt.”

“Hmm.” He looks back out toward a woman who is tending to a gravesite. She’s placing flowers and pulling some weeds. But my focus is on him. I have so many questions. How did his brother die? Why did it change his course in life? Why does he punish himself and wish it had been him?

So many questions … but none of which I think a private man such as himself would answer.

“I dream about my gran sometimes.” I chuckle nervously. “I don’t know why I told you that, but I do. It’s like she visits me in dreams to tell me things but it only serves to make me feel crazy.” I run my hands up and down my thighs and feel like an idiot for the confession. “I don’t dream about Cassie though. Maybe because it was forever ago. Do you dream of your brother?”

The muscle in his jaw pulses as he reins in the emotion swimming in his eyes. “No.” The word sounds as tight as the tendons in his neck look.

“Tell me about him. I mean, if you want to.”

His sigh stutters in response and the flicker of a smile at the corners of his mouth is more bittersweet than anything. “Ma—” He clears his throat and shock flashes over his features that I don’t know how to read. “He was in middle school. It was just him, my mom, and me. A neighborhood much like Fairmont. He was a good kid, typical in that he hated homework but loved looking up to me. The life of our family. God.” He chokes on the word and the broken sound of it guts me.

“You don’t have to say any more,” I murmur and place my other hand on top of our already joined ones.

“There’s not much more to say, really. The rule was he couldn’t go outside unless I was watching him—bad neighborhood and all that. I was doing homework and he talked me into letting him just out front. I let him. What could possibly go wrong?”

“Oh, Holden.”

“Yep.” He nods and purses his lips. “I heard the screech of the tires. I couldn’t get there in time or do anything or save him. Classic hit-and-run. He died at the hospital.”

“Jesus. I’m so sorry.”

“Isn’t everyone when your sibling dies?” he says callously but I let the comment slide as he’s clearly hurting. “Sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“But true. Did they ever catch the person who hit him?” I ask.

His whole body tenses as he struggles with some intangible but utterly visceral emotion. He clears his throat and when he looks at me there is a darkness to his eyes. A blackness to their depths that has shivers running down my spine. “Yes, but no charges were pressed because he knew someone who knew someone. It was ruled as an unfortunate accident.”

Bitterness coats my tongue at the thought. “There’s nothing I can say that can make anything right about that statement at all.” I’m dumbfounded.

Cassie’s death was devastating in all aspects but it was her fault. Her cell phone records showed she was texting when she hit the telephone pole at seventy miles per hour. No one else was hurt. No one else was to blame.

Holden, on the other hand. Jesus.

But there is something else about this moment that hits me—Holden opened up to me. He trusted me with knowing who his brother was. It’s not much in the scheme of things, but Holden is a man who doesn’t share often and he did just that.

He let me in when I’ve worked so hard to try to shut him out. My chest swells with the thought.

“What was his name?” I ask softly.

“Put him on, will you?” Holden asks, thoroughly confusing me as he starts the engine and puts the car in gear.

“Him?”

“Clayton. Put him on.” He points to the stereo. “You said he helped you. Who knows, it’s looking like today I need all the help I can get.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Holden

I almost told her.

I almost told her the entire truth about you, Mason, and why I’m here in Westmore. About my reasons and the one single act that has motivated me my entire life since you were taken from me.

I almost told her, and that’s why I know I’m too fucking close.

The goddamn woman has me bending rules in ways I never intended to. A co-CEO position? Giving 1 percent away? Bringing her to where Mason’s buried—to where I can stare at his gravesite?