“I can’t believe I asked you to bring me some place peaceful and you brought me here,” I said quietly. “It’s perfect. This is exactly what I needed. Everything around me feels so heavy. I just wanted to disappear.”
“I’m not sure we’re far enough away to do that,” he said, squeezing my hand. “But we can keep driving until we hit the coast if you think that’ll do it.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Lexi, I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do for you.”
I stared back at him through the dim moonlight. What about disassociate with your brother? Would you do that for me? Would you give up your relationship with him for me? I hated all of those thoughts, but I couldn’t imagine all of this working out well. Things would come to a head with his brother. It was bound to happen. Could this secret really stay silent indefinitely? I wasn’t so sure.
“This feels far enough away from my life for now,” I stated.
He paused for a moment, but then broke the silence. “Can we talk about it?”
I hated how loaded that question was.
“I’m not ready,” I whispered, tracing my finger up his forearm. “I just want to sit here with you, under the stars, just like we used to do before everything got so complicated. Can’t we do that? Can’t we believe it’s just the two of us in the universe for a little longer?”
“I wish it were that simple,” he said quietly, “but I can’t keep putting this off. I have to tell you something. It’s important. It’s been eating away at me for so long now, and I can’t keep doing this. If I’m not honest with you, I don’t know how we’ll ever make it. That’s not how I want this to go. I want to be able to tell each other everything. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to get through this.”
The hairs on my arms immediately stood up at the way he changed his tone. He sounded more serious than I expected. Was he going to get me to spill all of Casey’s secrets tonight? Or did he already know them?
“What’s on your mind?” I stared back at him trying to read his eyes, but I couldn’t. He looked lost, like he wasn’t entirely sure what to say, but that didn’t stop him.
“You know, don’t you?”
I straightened my spine, pulling my right hand away from his forearm.
“What?”
“You aren’t saying it, but I know you know.”
“What are you getting at?” I narrowed my eyes at him. Why would he wait until we were in the middle of nowhere to bring this up? All of a sudden I felt nervous. I felt sick. I felt as terrified of his secrets as I felt of his truths.
“The bank robbery, Lexi. You know, right?”
“Do I know what?” I wanted him to be the one to say it, not me.
He paused, unlacing his fingers with mine. I felt even more anxious as I waited for him to continue. I felt like I was going to vomit.
“I think you know by now that it was all my fault.”
Chapter 23
He stared back at me and my nerves were on fire.
“What are you saying?” My voice cracked as I said it, and I was sure he could sense my nervousness.
“I wanted to tell you everything. I swear I did. It was wrong and I felt insanely guilty from the moment it happened, and I would give anything to start over,” he said sincerely. “You have to believe that.”
“What exactly did you do?” I looked back at him through the darkness. This was the make or break it moment for me. Would he be honest and tell me everything? Or would he pass the blame? Or worse, keep lying about it somehow? Would I even be able to tell the difference?
“It wasn’t exactly a coincidence that I walked into your bank after we met at the concert,” he began. “Or maybe it was, I guess. I had no idea you worked there, so I suppose it was a coincidence in that regard. It was just supposed to be one job. It was stupid.”
“One job? Tell me what happened,” I said quietly.
“You know already though, don’t you? Is that why you panicked at my grandpa’s party? Did my brother tell you everything?”
“No,” I answered, certain that wasn’t actually a lie. I felt like there was still so much I didn’t know. Casey couldn’t have told me everything – I was sure there was more to the story.
“Then how did you know? Something changed for you that day, I know it did. I wanted to tell you myself, but I couldn’t. I knew you wouldn’t look at me the same way. Maybe I was a coward by not telling you, but I couldn’t risk losing you. Yet I did anyway.”
“Tell me what happened,” I said quietly. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m listening. Whatever you did, is it so bad that we can’t fix this?”
“I don’t know. I guess that’s all up to you once you know everything. You’re not afraid of me?”
“Should I be? Honestly, Luke, I don’t know what I know. My head has been spinning for days and I can’t get a grip on all of this.”
“You’ve changed, me, Lexi. Please just know that. If you hadn’t entered my life, maybe this story would’ve ended up worse – I don’t know. But please know that everything I did…I never meant to hurt you.”
“Say it.” It was barely a whisper.
“I know your brother, Lexi. I knew him before I met you.”
Whoa. That wasn’t what I was expecting.
“What do you mean?”
“That first time I walked into your bank, after we’d met at the concert – I was sent there on purpose. He’s the one who told me to go there.”
None of this was the omission I expected from him tonight. They knew each other, and neither of them said a word about it? That made no sense to me.
“I’ll start from the beginning, I guess,” he said reluctantly.
Thank heavens. That was the only way I was going to grasp all of this.
“Kyle, my brother - the one in prison - he’s in some trouble. He’s always in some trouble, I should say. He’s locked up for a bank robbery from a couple years back, ironically, and he lost a lot of money on that job. I had nothing to do with any of it. I want to be clear on that, I told you I wasn’t a criminal when we met and I’m not. I never intended to be, and I never wanted part of that life. But the guys he was running with, they had this plan to get back the money Kyle lost when he got locked up. He had all these debts to pay, and it was getting pretty serious. I wanted nothing to do with it, obviously, but they needed to pull off one last job in order to right everything, and then Kyle would be off the hook. They forced me to be involved, because they believed they needed one of Kyle’s allies to make sure the job went through. I only agreed to a very small part - I was supposed to just count cameras, tellers, exits – that kind of thing. That was literally all I was supposed to do. That was my only role, I swear.”
“You came in to case my bank?”
“I obviously had no idea it was your bank. I didn’t know you, other than that brief interaction we had at the concert. One of their guys – Cade, he picked it. He said he was familiar with that particular branch, and he knew some of the ins and outs already, so I was instructed to go to that one. Your bank.”
That asshole. Here I was, trying to protect my brother, and Cade was the one who singled me out in all of this?
“So our paths only crossed again after the concert because you were there planning a robbery?”
“I know, that sounds awful. That’s not the story anyone wants to tell when people ask how you met. You’re the last person I would’ve expected to see there. I was just the scout, Lexi. I wasn’t going to be part of the actual robbery. I didn’t want any part of the entire operation, but they wouldn’t clear Kyle unless one of his brothers was involved, to make sure things stayed on course. I couldn’t let my brother Casey get involved. He already has a record, and has too much to lose. I felt like it was the only way.”
“You literally walked in my bank that day to case it?” I couldn’t get over him saying those words. Would our paths have crossed otherwise? Probably not. I likely would’ve never fallen for Lu
ke Beckett had he not walked in that day.
“I’m not proud of that, trust me. But I justified it to myself that I wasn’t really doing anything wrong. I was merely counting employees and security cameras – any normal person could walk in and do that. I felt like I could still have a clear conscious after that, especially since that would be enough to get me off the hook from having to do anything further for those guys. It was a one-time deal. Cade already sounded like he knew a fair amount about the place, so I was literally just going to walk in and count cameras. That was it. But of course when I walked in, I saw you.”
“And I ruined everything?”
“Yes. And I mean that in the best way, Lex. You literally changed everything. I saw you and it just…it pulled me out of that mess. I realized that guy, walking into your bank with all the wrong intentions, that wasn’t me. I’m not my brothers. I’ve been fighting my whole life to not be them, and there I was, on their path for this split second. But you snapped me out of it. I was tired of fighting their battles for them and always cleaning up their messes. Once I saw you in the bank, there was obviously no way I could let them go through with it. I was so caught off guard and enamored all at once. It was like a sign for me. I knew I wasn’t doing the right thing. I mean I already knew that, but you made me want out of all of it. I called the entire thing off. I told every one of them that I wanted no part, and that I wouldn’t let them do it either. I told them if they even considered touching your bank, I would turn all of them in – including myself.”
“But you came back a second time. That day my brother was in line behind you,” I explained, remembering back to the next time Luke came in. “Were you still involved then?”
“No. That was all me, with good intentions. I had to come back to see you. I felt this pull toward you, knowing you were the reason I’d backed out of the job. I wanted it to matter. I wanted to validate that feeling I had that it was the right thing to do. I wanted to get to know the girl that had such a profound effect on me.” His lips curled slightly as he said it.
“I was already smitten with you then. I wanted you to ask me out.”
“I promise you that’s why I came back. I didn’t even look at the cameras, or the exits – all I could stare at was you.”
“But my brother – he was behind you.”
“Right. I froze as soon as I’d realized it, unsure of what to do. He apparently followed me there, expecting I’d changed my mind, as if I was still there to do my part. The way you looked at him – it really struck me. In my mind, I knew he was a bad guy, and I expected you to feel scared by his presence – the way he stood there all jittery and stuff, but you weren’t shaken. I had no idea you knew him. I just thought you were brave, and I wanted to know you that much more. I panicked, not wanting to be found out, as if I was already guilty of something. I didn’t want to have any association with him, but I knew I had to get out of there. I imagined he was finally going through with the teller counts and all that, despite my insistence that the job was off. I waited in the parking lot until he walked out of the bank and I knew you were okay. I had no idea at that point that he was your brother. Not until I saw him in your apartment that night.”
“Why didn’t you say anything then?”
“What could I say? That I knew him from that one time I was about to assist in a robbery? The whole thing was so far outside of who I am. You never would’ve given me a chance then had you known what had happened. I dropped all of it immediately once you were involved. Then, once you started talking about your brother, and how deeply you cared about him and how you were desperately trying to save him – my focus shifted. I didn’t understand how he could do any of that to you. He knew you worked at that bank. How could he lead them to you? I wanted to kill him when I realized he would do that to you after hearing how much you care about him. That’s who I was talking to on the phone that night at your apartment once I knew. I wanted to make it clear to him.”
“I still don’t understand it though,” I cut in, forever plagued by the one burning question I had all along. “When the robbery happened, at the Sandy Bay branch, why were you there? You walked in at the exact moment it was happening. You had to have known they were still going through with a robbery, but just at a different branch?”
“I was suspicious they were still planning something,” he explained, reaching back for my hand. “I wasn’t entirely certain it was going to happen that morning, but I had been following a couple of the guys, trying to figure out what they were up to.” He touched my skin delicately and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it in this moment. “I had gone to visit Kyle earlier that morning, and he was under the impression the job was still on and that they were still going to try a robbery to get enough money to pay his debts. He understood why I wanted no part of it. I really think he got where I was coming from. But once I realized they were still planning something, I freaked out about it a little. I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t touch you. I had to know it wouldn’t affect you at all. That morning after I saw Kyle, I followed your brother. I knew he was staying in one of the rundown slums off Seventh Avenue, and I just waited outside of the building. He was on a jankety beat-up moped, driving toward Sandy Bay, and I didn’t figure it out until he parked it downtown, just a few blocks from the bank.”
“But my brother wasn’t in the robbery, right? Wasn’t he in a gas station? Wasn’t he cleared of all that?”
“Yeah, that’s just it. I didn’t know the moving parts anymore because everything had changed. I wasn’t exactly in on all of the details in the first place, my role was literally only to scout the place and that was it. I had no idea who was even involved with it anymore.”
“Did you see anyone else around there, or just my brother?”
“Nope, I didn’t recognize anyone else, but then again, I don’t exactly know all these guys. They aren’t my circle. The people my brother hung around before he was picked up – they aren’t my people. I’ve always distanced myself from them. I was walking around, trying to figure out why Cade was in Sandy Bay. It could’ve just been for a drug deal, I had no idea. I actually thought maybe he was there to scout that branch instead, but he headed the opposite direction of the bank. I decided to pop in there myself, just to see if anything felt amiss. I wanted to make sure there was no one inside that you’d ever mentioned. I didn’t want anyone remotely associated with you to be affected by all of this. Imagine my surprise when I walked in and saw you standing at the counter.”
“You wouldn’t have known I would be there that day,” I said quietly.
“Of course not. If I knew there was even the slightest possibility of that, I swear I would’ve warned you. I would’ve stopped the whole thing. But when I saw you, I just froze. I wondered if your brother knew you were there. I wondered if anything was going to happen that day, and I knew I needed to tell you right away. But then all of a sudden, they just barged in there…”
“No need to relive that moment for me,” I said uncomfortably, feeling sick all over again after hashing out these details one more time.
“It was nothing like I’d expected. There were three guys instead of one. They were never supposed to have weapons. It was never supposed to be like that.”
“Do you know who did it? Do you know the guys in the masks?”
“No,” he said softly. “I told you, I really don’t know the guys involved. And I’m glad I don’t, because I swear, I want nothing to do with them. I never did. The whole thing with your brother, like I said, I had only met him once before walking in your bank the first time, and it was informal at best. After I’d called off the job, I expected I’d never even see him again, so imagine my surprise when I found out you were related to him? I was pissed. The other guys were all associates of my brother Kyle. All the wrong people he knew, which no doubt is why he’s in prison in the first place. I wanted to help him. I really did. Remember talking about saving people who don’t deserve it? That’s Kyle. Both of my brothers, reall
y. They’re always finding their way into deep holes, and somehow I perpetually want to pull them out. You’d think I would’ve learned by now.”
“I get it, trust me. Look at my brother. Look at everything I’ve done for him, and he responds by trying to rob my bank?”
“And your apartment,” he added, turning to face me.
So he still had no clue that it was actually Casey who’d robbed my apartment.
“Thank you for that by the way,” I chimed in. “I saw you’d cleaned it and fixed the lock. You didn’t have to do all of that.”
“Didn’t I? I feel like there is so much more to repair, figuratively and literally, after bringing this on you. I swear, if I could have taken all of it back, I would have. I felt like I let you down before you even had time to give me a chance.”
“You didn’t let me down, Luke.” I squeezed his hand. “If it weren’t for you, they would’ve robbed my branch from the beginning, right? It all would’ve been the same for me, but I wouldn’t have known my brother was in on it.”
“He needs help, Lex. He’s in a bad way. He’s in a lot of trouble.”
“I know,” I replied softly. “And sadly I think there’s only one way to fix it.”
“What does that mean? What are you thinking?”
“Can I ask you a serious question?” I had to know his response to something that I couldn’t get out of my head.
“Of course. Anything,” he answered.
“If you really cared about someone, what length would you go to in order to save them?”
“I don’t know that there’s one simple answer for that,” he said honestly. “But if it were you? I would do anything in my power to save you from harm.”
“What if that person isn’t asking for your help?”
“Is this about Cade?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “I need to do something, but I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way I see it, I have no other choice,” I explained, wondering if he would agree with me, and wondering if it was the best option. “I think I figured out a way to save Cade, even though it’s clear he doesn’t deserve it.”
The Weight of Perfection: Grand Harbor - Book Three Page 19
