All the Lies We Tell

by M. Skye

  “How are you so evil? What made you this way?”

  “Your family. Your father and that bastard father-in-law of yours took everything from me. My dignity, my pride, and my wife. My beautiful Angie killed herself because they took it all. They took her company, and she killed herself because of it.”

  It was all starting to make sense to Mia, but the one question that floated in her mind was how Whitney and Chloe fit into all this. “Why hurt the girls? Why not just come after me, after Rick and Tyree? Why them?”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t act like you care about anyone other than your ass of a husband. I don’t even think you spend as much time caring about your son as you do bending over for him. Before I pulled you into that alley and showed you what a real man was like, I watched you. I watched your whole family, and I figured out what I could do to ruin it. All I had to do was ruin you.”

  “Why me? What made me so important?”

  “You see, killing your mother didn’t work. She was already too strung out, and she had been away so long you didn’t miss her long. Buddying up to your gullible niece didn’t have the effect I thought it would, so I knew I needed to go harder. It felt good, fucking her, it felt damn good, but I needed more, so I got her to tell me everything she knew about all of you. Janelle, she hit home for you for a while, and then you and Rick were back at the job like nothing happened. You know, Whitney was the one who led me to Janelle that day, and she was the one who brought me back here to find Chloe. She hated you, you know.”

  “That’s a lie. All of it is a lie. I loved Whitney. I loved Mom and Janelle. I miss them every day.”

  “You might, but they didn’t cause the ache in your heart that losing your precious Tyree did. When I took your son and gave him to Renae, you lost it, but nothing compared to when he left. You were roaming the streets like a lost puppy. I was going to kill you and take you away from Rick, but when I saw how you hit rock bottom, I actually felt something. I let you and your little ‘pity me’ attitude suck me in. I fell in love with you. I sat next to you, holding your hand, while you killed my baby!” He smacked her in the face with his palm, and she whimpered. “And you still left me like the selfish bitch you are.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Maybe I am, but you have to admit it was brilliant. Killing your mother, running your sister off the road, and pinning it all on your father was genius. You gotta admit, Mia, sending in Renae, I mean, Delilah, to fuck up your marriage was smart until she fucked us over. We had the perfect plan until that bitch grew a conscience. She let your husband and father-in-law weaken her. I had to shoot her. Killing John was just for fun. He was as dumb as they come and never suspected she was working for us. She wasn’t my idea, though. Vincent always had a soft spot for that ho, just like he did for her little sister. It made him weak. He saw what my feelings for you did to me, and he still got this bitch pregnant.”

  “Vincent? The father of her baby is named Will.”

  “William Vincent Tussant. My brother-in-law and those kids were the last link to my Angie. I gave her the chance to save them, and like you, she chose to be a shitty mother. She chose her own stupid whims over those kids. They’re better off dead than with her.”

  “Why tell me all this? Why admit to all the things you did?”

  “I thought there should be nothing but honesty between us before we died, and I wanted to see the look on your face when you heard that your sister is still alive.”

  “Don’t do this to me. Don’t tell me lies now.”

  “I have no reason to lie to you. I only just figured it out, but yes, she’s alive. I saw them tonight, at this party. I thought when they didn’t find her body it just washed away, but I should have known. The only thing that makes me happy about the whole situation is knowing you will never see her or your niece.”

  “Wait, the girl in the picture, she’s my niece? Little Jenna is my niece?” Mia thought about the picture she had found years ago at her sister’s grave. She once thought it was a child her dad fathered and was enraged.

  “Yes,” he answered in a singsong voice. “And you’re never going to meet her.”

  Mia was bawling, and all she could hear was his laughter. She had been through so much in her life that she had no fight left. She closed her eyes when she heard the gun cock and shivered when she felt the metal on her face. If this was going to be the end, she had to say one last thing.

  “I never loved anyone the way I love my son and his father. This may be the end for me, but I was lucky. I had a great life with a great family, and I experienced that once-in-a-lifetime love. I feel sorry for you because you’re going to die here today never knowing what that feels like.”

  “Shut up. That’s what you think, but I’ve seen you with him. I’ve watched how he fucks you. It’s that slow, gentle shit and it’s not what you like. The one time he came home and fucked you like a real man, you loved it. I saw your face. You enjoyed every second of it, just like you did in that alley.”

  “How do you know any of that? Were you in my house?”

  “Whitney gave me an all-access pass to your house. Cameras everywhere. Every moan, every scream, every orgasm I heard, but nothing compared to that night he came home drunk and smacked you around. Face it, you like it rough, kitten.”

  She hated the way he used Tyree’s name for her. It almost made her never want to hear it again, but then she thought about how good it sounded rolling off Tyree’s tongue while he was inside her. She thought of the passion in his eyes as he ran his hand over her face and whispered it in her ear. It gave her the strength to strike back. “I didn’t enjoy anything you did. You hurt me. You almost ruined my life.”

  “Kid yourself all you want, Dimples. You loved it. It took you so long to give yourself to me again, and when you did, I memorized all the moans. The pants of my name were proof of that.”

  “Oh, so that’s what you stake your beliefs on?”

  “I know your body.”

  “Well, did you know I hadn’t had an orgasm in over two years before I saw Tyree again? All you did was make me miss him. I tried to pretend like it was the same, but no one compares to him. You may think you know my body, but he owns it. The spots you think you touched, he discovered. The pants and moans were there to make you feel like you were doing something. I may have moaned for you, but I scream for him. He has taken my body places I never thought it could go, and just when I think he’s done, he makes it explode with nothing but sheer ecstasy. You never accomplished that and you never will. Now, die with that on your mind.”

  He aimed the gun at her head. His hand was shaky, and he tried steadying it but failed. She could see the hesitation, and the gun slowly lowered, but when the front door opened and Tyree’s voice called out to her, she felt the gun back at her head. His hand was no longer shaking at this point, and with teary eyes, she looked up just in time to see Tyree. When she didn’t respond, he ran around the corner and froze, witnessing the scene.

  Mia saw the sick look on Jake’s face and found her voice just in time for Jake to aim at Tyree. “Shoot me! Leave him out of this. Just shoot me.” With a sadistic laugh, Jake fired off a shot, and Tyree crumpled to the floor. Mia saw his eyes shut and she let out a gut-wrenching scream. “No, Tyree!”

  Her eyes were swimming in tears, and it took her a second to notice the arm around Tyree’s leg. He had been pulled to the floor. She kept looking at him to see any sign of blood and didn’t. That was when she and Jake both realized that Richmond had pulled him out of harm’s way. Realizing he was about to be carted out, Jake raised the gun to his own head. Before he could pull the trigger, Richmond fired off a shot that went straight through the shoulder. Within a few seconds, he was on top of Jake, pummeling him with his fists. With all this going on, Mia jumped to the floor, touching Chloe’s bleeding body.

  When Chloe moved, Mia cried out happily and grabbed her hand, stroking it soothingly. “You’re going to be okay. We’re going to get help.” They cal
led the ambulance, and within minutes they were there, loading Chloe inside. Just as Jake had stated, it was too late for Whitney. When the coroner showed up, Cassandra and Rick broke down in the driveway.

  To everyone’s dismay, Jake was still alive, bleeding heavily, but alive. Once they pulled Richmond off him, he was loaded into an ambulance, shackled to the bed. They were assured that after leaving the hospital he would be detained, but for Mia, it wasn’t enough. She wanted him dead.

  Through all the confusion, Mia had scanned the yard. She had to know. She had to see her for it to all be real, and when Janelle stepped in front of her, she broke from Tyree’s embrace and threw her arms around her sister. Both girls shared tears and clung to each other while Janelle rubbed her hair.

  “I’m here, Mia. I’m never leaving again. I’m finally home.”

  “I don’t know what to think. I can’t believe this is real.”

  Stepping back and gripping her hands around Mia’s face, Janelle displayed a shaky smile. “It’s real, big sis, so real.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “I need to know,” Tyree sighed. “How did this happen? What the hell is going on around here?” They all rushed to the hospital from the house, and Mia was in with Cassandra, Rick, and Janelle, so he had the opportunity to talk to Richmond and Rock. They had all been there for over two hours, and he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the night’s events.

  Rock took a seat next to him, and Richmond just stood against the wall. “When I was first assigned to the case, something felt strange about Richmond’s involvement. I knew he was a part of the shady business deals, but the murders seemed off. They weren’t his style. He’s the kind of man who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, and when the evidence started turning up, I knew I was on the right track. I couldn’t tell any of you. I needed you to all suspect him if I was going to flush out who was really behind everything. I always suspected it was someone close to home. After John was killed, we knew it needed to look like Richmond was behind it, and it had to look like we knew, so we staged his arrest and escape. Everything needed to look real.”

  “How long?” Tyree said quietly.

  “What?”

  “How long did you know and not tell us? Mia has been terrified of him. She was afraid every day that he was going to hurt her.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. I had to let you think he was at fault. If you had known, it would have tipped Anderson off.”

  “So he was really the one behind it all?” Tyree laughed sarcastically. “I knew he was full of shit and I shouldn’t have trusted him around my wife. She thought she owed him so much, that he was so good.”

  “He fooled all of us. It took a minute to discover what he had done. He was very meticulous and efficient in his actions and never slipped up until Jude.”

  “Jude?”

  “Jude figured him out. He had been following Whitney and saw them together. That’s why he died. He came to Jude and Whitney’s house that night, and in the midst of the fight, Jude got plenty of Anderson’s DNA on his body. It was good because we were able to identify him that way, but we had no way of knowing Jake was this Anderson person until we started following him around. Something about him always rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was just me being protective of you.”

  “I never liked him, but Mia wanted to be a friend in his time of need. Things were going so well for us, and I didn’t want to upset her. I can’t believe he was the one who did this to Jude. Hell, who did all of this.”

  “Jude put up a good fight, but Anderson wasn’t fighting fair. The last blow to the head came from something blunt and did the trick.” Rock swallowed hard and looked back at Richmond. “Whitney was there. She may have even helped.”

  Tyree shook his head in disbelief. “No, she wouldn’t. Not the little girl I watched grow up. She wasn’t like that.” Rock reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope, placing it in Tyree’s hands. He opened it slowly, pulling out the contents, and let out a loud sigh. “What the hell is this?” He held up a picture and Rock shrugged.

  “I received that the day Jude died. He had it sent over with a few other things.”

  The picture was taken the day Whitney and Tyree had gone to lunch. It was snapped right when Whitney was sharing her food with him. “Nothing happened,” he supplied quickly. “Mia and I had a fight that day, and we went to lunch. I could tell something strange was going on with her, and I tried to get her to talk to me. Terence said that she had feelings for me, but I blew it off. I never thought she could do anything like this.” He looked further and saw more pictures. There were several pictures of Whitney with Jake, and he threw them from his lap. “I let her in my house, around my son. Dammit!”

  “You could have never known what she was involved in. None of this is what I expected when the case first began.”

  Tyree was overwhelmed, and through all his grief, he still had questions only one person could answer: the man standing quietly across the room. “I know he says you didn’t kill them, that you were innocent in that sense, but what did you do to make him hate you so much? What made him come after my wife?”

  Richmond had remained silent through the whole conversation, but when Tyree asked the question, he took a seat. “Look, I made mistakes, so many mistakes, but I never once meant to put my kids in danger. I tried to keep them away from this life.”

  “You tried to keep Mia from me. You made it damn near impossible for us to be together.”

  “It wasn’t about you. It was about who you would become. I knew John wanted you to take the crown and run Johnston, and I needed Mia far away from that. I went about it the wrong way, but I just wanted you to take her and leave here.”

  “You have to be kidding me,” Tyree laughed. “You may not have done all this, but it is your fault. You threatened me, told me you would ruin everything if I didn’t walk away from her. How the hell is that encouraging me to take her away?”

  “I knew you. I practically raised you with them, and I knew if I pushed, it would only make you fight harder for her. I saw you, the way you looked at her, the way you always stepped in whenever she needed you. You thought you were keeping a secret, but I saw it. Even before you did, I saw how you felt about her, and I knew you would be there for her. I knew you would be there for her better than I ever could. It’s why I set you up with that trust fund.”

  “You did what?”

  “John cut you off. You had nothing. I needed my daughter to be okay, and I knew you wouldn’t take the money straight up. I set it up with my lawyer for all three of you to get trust funds so it wouldn’t look suspicious to John. He always thought it was a gift from his dead father.”

  Tyree couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Everything he thought he knew had been lies. He wasn’t sure how to feel about Richmond, but he did know one thing for sure. “You are the reason she needed to be protected. She was afraid of you. She saw what you did to Helen, and she was scared. You may not have killed Helen, but make no mistake about it, you were the villain in her story.”

  Richmond let out a few tears and Tyree was surprised. He had never seen this much emotion in this cold man and had to take a step back. Gathering his anger, he tried to understand what Richmond was saying to him. “You’re right, I messed up her life. I drove her to drugs, and I damaged that wonderful woman. That’s all on me, and never think for a second that I didn’t love her. She was everything to me, and I hate I didn’t see it before it was too late.”

  “You were in the house that night she died, why?”

  “I had been getting these warning messages that if I didn’t pay what was owed, someone I loved would pay the price. My first thought was of her, and so I went to warn her. She brushed me off, telling me I was crazy, so I left. A few hours later, she was gone. After that, I knew the kids were in danger, and I watched them. When Janelle’s accident happened, I had been following her, and I found h
er unconscious on the road. I took her and kept her safe until I could figure out who was behind this. I just hate I was too late to help Helen and that I couldn’t protect Mia. I need my daughter to know how sorry I am, all my kids. Janelle knows how much I love her, but it may be too late for Mia and Rick.”

  “Even with all the things she thought you did, she never once said she didn’t love you. She was afraid, but she still loved you. She just wanted her dad.”

  “I’ve missed so much of their lives, and it’s my own fault, but you have to know that Jake, Anderson, or whoever the hell he is was way off base. His hatred for our family is unwarranted. Once he hears what really happened with his wife, he is going to feel like an ass. He did all this, and things are not as they seem.”

  “What happened?”

  “You know, I could have killed him back at the house. I hit his shoulder on purpose because this is a conversation we all need to have together. I want to look him in the eye and give him the truth about his wife. She wasn’t who he thought she was.”

  “Well, let’s go down there.” Tyree stood. “I want to stare that bastard down.” Tyree was the first to charge out of the room, and the two guys followed closely behind him. They took the elevator up to Jake’s room, and once they reached the door, Tyree paused, and Rock touched his shoulder.

  “What is it, son?”

  “I can’t go in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t touch him. The officers will never let me get close enough, and I want to kill him. He touched my wife, he forced himself on her, and I want him dead.”

  “He is going to get what’s coming to him,” Richmond hissed. “You just go in there and control your anger for now.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  “You have to. Mia needs you.” Rock walked into the room, leaving Richmond and Tyree in the hall.

  Tyree turned to Richmond and sighed. “How are you handling this? He killed your wife, raped your daughter, and corrupted your granddaughter. You should be more pissed than anyone.”