Truth (Scandals of Banner-Hill Book 1)

by Cassie James

  “That’s not ominous at all.” Siobhan side-eyes Nick like she’s still not completely convinced he’s not the problem here.

  “Nick.” I nod my head to the door. He shouldn’t be in here for this.

  We already talked about this, so he leaves silently even though he’s not happy about it. He didn’t know who Siobhan was since she’s never done more than a cursory yoga session. Now that I’ve told him she’s Arlo Roma’s daughter, he seems to think she’s the equivalent of a live grenade. Like she might go off at any second.

  He doesn’t know Siobhan the way I do.

  “Everyone thinks they know what happened to Dash, you know? An addict dying from an overdose seems simple enough.” Such a common story it was barely a blip on the radar of anyone who hadn’t loved him.

  The blood drains from Siobhan’s face. I think she has some idea where this is going.

  “My father killed him, Siobhan. He killed him right in front of me and didn’t even feel bad about it.” My voice cracks, but I step away when she tries to reach for me. It would feel gross to have someone comfort me right now. Ever since my flashbacks, I’ve been stuck in a vicious cycle of wondering why I didn’t try to do more. Fight harder. Fight at all.

  I don’t deserve comfort. Not until I’ve made it right—as right as it can be.

  “I can take care of your father,” Siobhan says, her eyes searching mine for… approval, maybe?

  I blink stupidly at her, completely thrown by her offer. I lured her here to ask for her help with the money. Not once did I consider asking her to get involved with any violence. Just a little bit of felonious financial rearrangement.

  “I’m not asking you to do anything like that,” I reassure her, worried she’s getting the wrong idea.

  “I mean, I wouldn’t do it myself.” She’s nodding to herself now like the plan is already starting to formulate in her head. “I could always—” She cuts herself off.

  “Call your own father?” I ask.

  She bites her lip. “You know?”

  “I didn’t.” I shake my head sympathetically. I’d started to suspect, of course, but only now has she confirmed the theory.

  Arlo Romas isn’t dead.

  I admit, “The thought of watching your father tear mine limb from limb is tempting. But I need more than that. I need to see the look in his eyes when he knows I’ve betrayed him. That look he’ll get when he finds out I wasn’t nearly as under his control as he assumed. My father thinks people are things to be owned. I want to make him see me as human.”

  “Alright.” Siobhan’s mouth twists like she doesn’t completely agree with my answer, but she lets it go anyway. “What do you need from me then?”

  I cross to the filing cabinets and fling a drawer open, gesturing for Siobhan to look inside. If I’m expecting this to surprise her, I’m sorely mistaken. She reaches in and pulls out one of the stacks. She studies it with more precision I did, but I can tell she’s coming to the same conclusion.

  “Half a million?” She asks, eyebrows so high they’re in danger of disappearing into her hairline.

  “That would be my best guess,” I confirm. It’s not like I’ve bothered to count it out. All that matters to me is that this is enough money that my father—if caught with it—would be going away for a very long time.

  Which is why I don’t want him getting caught with it. Jail would be far too kind. And I’ve already seen from Murphy how easily manipulated that system is. Hell, I was the one manipulating it for him.

  “I need to move it. Do you know anyone that would do that?” I ask. There’s no use being coy now. If Siobhan can trust me enough to tell me her father is still alive, I can definitely trust her with this. “I don’t really care what happens to the money once it leaves here, but it has to be cleaned thoroughly. It can’t ever come back on Nick.”

  And that’s the tricky part. Making sure no one ever knows that Nick had possession of the fake cash. That’s the biggest gamble we’re making.

  Siobhan steps closer. “Nat, my father would do anything for me. I know he’s not most people’s idea of a go-to guy, but if there’s one thing you can trust, it’s that he’ll do a thorough job.”

  I know what she’s saying, though she’s clearly reluctant to spell it out. The only reason Arlo Romas was ever caught was because he was betrayed by a woman. Not Siobhan’s mother—I honestly don’t remember anything about her from the news, and Siobhan never mentions her. The woman that betrayed him was a lover. Or at least that’s the story she told police.

  The manhunt for Arlo only lasted a few days before multiple witnesses saw him jump off a bridge. A couple weeks later, diving crews found a body too damaged to properly identify.

  Considering there haven’t been any new deaths linked to Siobhan’s father, it made people feel safe enough to assume the serial killer dead.

  I reach out for Siobhan, offering her my hand. She clasps her fingers with mine, and for a moment we stand in silence, using each other for strength. I considered us friends before, but as far as I’m concerned, this makes us something more like family.

  “I’m learning that morals are more ambiguous than I once thought,” I tell her. “And I trust you. If you trust your father, then so do I. No questions asked.”

  One corner of Siobhan’s mouth turns up in a soft smile, but it only lasts a moment before her face falls again. “I’m sorry about your father. My offer stands if you want it taken care of.” Her eyes search mine again. Part of me is tempted, but there’s another part of me that just can’t force the words out to ask for something like that.

  I’m sure years of being trained to be my father’s yes-girl are partially to blame.

  “I do still have one question,” Siobhan says. “How the hell is Nick involved in all of this?”

  I rub my forehead and try to figure out how the hell we got here. Because the truth is, “I’m still not really sure. Someone targeted him to be the gopher keeping the money until the actual pass-off could happen. But I’m not sure who. Do you think maybe Sadie’s friends would help us do a little bit of digging? Someone knew Nick would be a vulnerable target, but I can’t figure out how they would have found him in the first place. They basically recruited him.”

  I’ve been turning it over in my head since he told me his story. I can’t for the life of me figure out why he would have gotten roped into this.

  I have a working theory, but it still doesn’t account for the specifics.

  Whoever printed the money brought Nick in to babysit the bills until the hand-off. My father was supposed to handle the switch but got waylaid by Murphy’s distraction. That means whoever the money is actually meant for is still waiting for it. And I intend to keep them waiting.

  I guess the only real problem left is that if I don’t let Arlo Romas kill my father, I run the risk of someone else getting the pleasure of watching him suffer.

  Something to consider.

  Killian is writing again.

  As much as I hate myself for it, I can name any of his songs from only a few notes. It’s how I know he’s writing. Whatever he’s playing floods out into the hallway, and I don’t recognize it. My footsteps slow so I can listen without giving myself away as I head for my room.

  Other women slow as they pass through, but they seem to lose interest quickly. I assume because Killian’s sexy singing voice isn’t crooning in a way they can pretend is just for them.

  He must be in the early stages of whatever he’s writing because he’s playing his guitar, but he’s not singing anything to the tune. That’s how he works. Chords first. Lyrics after. It’s the way Jamison taught him to write a song.

  Killian tried to pass the lesson on to me once, but I was hopeless. The music never spoke to me the way it does for him. The way it did for his brother.

  I’m still so fucking mad at Killian for what he did to me, so I blame the brief reminiscing for softening me into stupidity. But hell, if guys can think with their dicks, I think I have full
rights to sometimes think with my heart instead of my head.

  I stop in his doorway and stand, silently watching him for a few minutes. He’s sitting on the same spot on the floor he was in when I first arrived here.

  He plays all the way through the song once before he looks up at me, his eyes landing easily on mine, as if to prove he knew I was there the whole time. Whether it’s the smell of my shampoo or just the weight of my stare, there’s no sneaking up on him.

  Killian looks handsome as ever with the thicker facial hair he clearly hasn’t gotten around to trimming. The only way to use razors around here is if a staff member monitors you, so it’s easy to find beards galore at Banner-Hill. It suits Killian. The dark beard shouldn’t work so well with the bleached hair on his head, but somehow the image pulls together perfectly.

  I shift my weight uncomfortably as Killian stares at me with mournful eyes. It’s the thing that makes women want to throw their panties at him when he’s onstage. There’s always a depth in his eyes like he’s seeing a person in a way no one else ever has before.

  He can’t help it. He’s always seen too much.

  “Truth or dare?” Killian asks.

  “Truth,” I answer with a heavy sigh. I’m too tired for mind games, but I can’t bring myself to choose a dare after the last one.

  He keeps strumming the strings, playing the same chord progression over and over again like he’s trying to engrain it in his fingertips. I’m surprised by how much thought he seems to give his question before he asks it.

  “Why didn’t you ever come to any of my shows?” His bottom lip juts out slightly in the kind of pout that would make even the most strong-willed woman swoon.

  I play with the ends of my hair, staring down at the blonde strands as I wind them around my fingers. It’s an easy question, but the answer is more complicated. I spent the whole first year after Dash’s death living in a fog. The decisions I made then weren’t logical. Hell, they’re not logical now either, but at least now I’m actually fighting for something.

  Whether I like it or not, I have to give Killian an answer.

  “I did.”

  “You did?” he echoes. “When?”

  “In New York City, about three years ago. August 11th. You played Nightlights acoustic, and I swear it felt like you were only playing for me. I sat up in the nosebleeds because I was paranoid you would see me, and I figured it was easier if you didn’t.”

  Killian looks dumbfounded. His fingers start to play the chords to Nightlights—a habit he doesn’t even seem to notice while he’s doing it.

  “Every time I play it, it’s just for you.” His voice sounds flat.

  “Killian…” I trail off because this is exactly the conversation I don’t want to have with him. I’m not emotionally equipped for it.

  “Go ahead and spare me whatever speech you’ve got handy to blow me off with,” he says, voice filled with scorn. “I get it. You don’t give a damn about me, you made that really fucking clear by walking away.”

  This is why I can’t find it in myself to be as mad at Killian as I should be for him dragging me into the shower to fuck me as a part of some twisted power play. Because I know four years ago Killian would never have done anything to hurt me. Everything now is just fair game to him, hurting me because I hurt him first.

  Logan was cruel; he deserved to get ditched. Killian’s only sin was caring for me even when I didn’t want anyone to care ever again.

  He kept trying to get ahold of me for months. I was still on the fence about going the day of the show. I bought the tickets under a pseudo-name, just to be sure Killian wouldn’t find out. But when a happy birthday text from him came through only a couple hours before the show, I caved and went, even though I knew how much it would hurt.

  “I can’t believe you came to my show on your birthday, and I didn’t even know it,” Killian muses.

  Yep.

  That was how I spent my eighteenth birthday. Alone. Hiding out so far from the stage to be sure I wouldn’t melt under Killian’s eyes. Listening to that song and wondering like I always did if he wrote it about Dash.

  There’s so much pain and love entwined in that song. Every time I hear it, something new starts to ache within me.

  It’s like this song seeks me out, finding new ways to hurt me every time.

  Killian’s fingers still on the guitar. He must sense something in this moment is different between us because he moves slowly, like he’s afraid of disturbing the air around us. Learning about what my father did and plotting against him has made it so there’s no room left in me for hating Killian.

  Not for what he did to me in the shower. And not for what we shared as kids. I know it was never fair to blame him for any of what happened when we were younger—I’ve just been hanging onto that as an excuse to keep my distance.

  I’ve never forgotten that month before Dash died…

  “I didn’t mean to fuck things up when I kissed you, you know.”

  Apparently, Killian can read my mind. He’s definitely not talking about kissing me in the shower.

  “I would have forgiven the kiss. I did forgive it,” I reassure him as I take a tentative step into the room. He was a confused teenager. We both were. I couldn’t fault him for thinking it was more than it really was. I could only really blame myself for not being more clear.

  Would things have changed? Would my loyalty to Dash have been over after his final night’s confession? Maybe it would have made me easier to steal away.

  I never got a chance to know.

  Killian makes a noise that’s a cross between a sigh and a laugh as he stands. “I didn’t want you to forgive me. I wanted you to want me.” He sets his guitar on the bed and stalks toward me. “I could get any woman in the world except the one I wanted.”

  “But you hated me for leaving,” I remind him, needing that divide to still be clear between us. He stops in front of me, so close the toes of our shoes are touching.

  “I did. I do.” His face is so close the words caress my skin.

  Killian pulls my hand away from my hair to replace it with his own. He wraps some tendrils around his index finger, eyes staring mesmerized by the movement. It’s the most innocent way he can touch me. Completely at odds with the angry way he dragged me by my hair the last time I dared step foot in his room.

  His mouth descends on mine, hot and angry. The hate hasn’t gone anywhere.

  I know I should push him away, but there’s something cathartic about him kissing me. As if we’re closing one era of our lives just to open a new one. Isn’t that what I’ve been searching for? A chance to free myself from the shackles of a life controlled by my father and the past?

  I kiss him back.

  My tongue tangles with his, giving way to his need to control the kiss. It’s rough and messy and perfect. His mouth fuses to mine as if we were sculpted that way. Two figures forever contained in one perfect kiss.

  I get lost in it. It’s my first true reprieve from everything that’s been emotionally weighing on me. As Killian kisses me with everything he has, everything else fades away. Until there’s only me. Him. And the history that we never can escape from anyway.

  “What the fuck?” Logan’s voice roars.

  We’re slow to pull away. Killian’s eyes stay locked on mine for a moment as we stand staring at each other. I’m the first to look away, glancing at Logan and the pure, unfiltered rage on his face. I’m sure he’s thinking about how I refused to kiss him.

  I hope it fucking stings.

  “Get out,” Logan barks at me as if he has any right to kick me out of someone else’s room.

  It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I already know I need to get out of here before I lose my head anymore than I already have. I spare one last glance at Killian as I slide past Logan, careful not to touch him.

  There’s a glint in Killian’s eyes that’s been missing since I got here. I’m afraid I gave him something that wasn’t fair to give.

/>   Hope.

  17

  Something’s wrong.

  I struggle to open my eyes even though the sunlight streaming in makes them burn so badly I feel tears pooling in the corners. My body won’t cooperate no matter how much I internally scream for my limbs to move. I can’t seem to speak at all, words coming out as nothing more than mumbling.

  A hazy figure leans over me. The person is vaguely familiar, but I struggle to see all the details.

  “Where the fuck is the money, Natalie?”

  The words float through my brain, but I have trouble grasping them. I can feel myself dipping in and out of consciousness.

  I slowly blink up at my father. He came, just like I knew he would.

  I’m not sure if it’s real or if I’m imagining it, but I can almost swear I hear music coming from the next room. I wonder why Killian is awake. Maybe he finished his song. My eyes start to close again, lulled by the music.

  A sharp crack rings out, interrupting the music. It takes me another minute to realize my father hit me. His hand leaves behind a slight sting on my face.

  So he’s discovered the missing money. Good.

  A spike of panic tries to fight to the surface until I remember Nick isn’t here this morning. We accounted for this.

  “You have no idea what you’ve done you stupid little fucking brat.” He paces now, his footsteps painfully loud in my ears. My senses are completely fucked.

  He drugged me.

  My father still somehow manages to surprise me.

  Whatever he gave me must be wearing off because I open my mouth again and some actual sounds come out. I’m sure this is what he wants. Get me unstable enough to scare me but lucid enough to start talking again.

  I wonder how long he waited for me to come to again. And I wonder how the hell he got in here to drug me in the first place.

  Something else hits me.

  Someone brought drinks around last night while I was out on the back patio with Siobhan and Sadie. We were talking about the plan until someone interrupted us to offer us virgin pina coladas. I wrack my brain, trying to remember who it was.