Give in to Me

by K. M. Scott

  I took the paper from her hand and recognized it as the same kind as in her father’s notebook. He’d told my mother the truth. He hadn’t revealed everything he’d found about our family, just as he’d promised her. He’d intended on it never seeing the light of day. That’s why he’d sent her the information with that last letter he’d written.

  Looking down at the sheet of paper in my hand, I read what Nina had learned about me. “Your father had decided not to disclose this information. Why did you think you had to do that now?”

  “My father was a sentimental man who didn’t always think clearly. He was likely impressed with your mother, probably because of her money, and didn’t realize that the person he was friends with wasn’t that girl he knew in college but just the matriarch of a family of murderers.”

  Never before in my life had I wanted to hurt someone like I wanted to hurt Kim at that moment. How anyone so petty and nasty could be related to Nina and her father baffled me, but I didn’t have time to ponder what had happened to make her so vicious and jealous. I stuffed Joseph Edwards’ notes into my pocket and left Kim to her misery, unsure of where I’d find Nina but sure that I wasn’t going to get any help there. I just had to hope I found her before Karl did.

  On the way to my car, I felt my phone vibrate and quickly yanked it from my coat, hoping to see Nina’s name. It was only Daryl, though. Sliding my finger across the screen, I answered it and prayed he had some good news. “Tell me you found something,” I said as I opened the driver’s side door.

  “Nothing yet,” Daryl said in a somber voice. “Do you have any idea why she left? Varo said you went to see her sister.”

  I started the car and breathed a sigh of disgust, not only at Kim but at myself too. “Yeah. She found out about Melissa. Kim told her.”

  Daryl said nothing for a long time, and then in his indomitable way, summarized my current problem succinctly. “Well, that was pretty stupid of you not to tell her, especially since you did nothing wrong.”

  “Thanks. Just what I need. I know it was stupid, Daryl, but since I still think I was to blame, I just never found a way to tell her.”

  “Water under the bridge now. We need to find your lady ASAP. So where would she go?”

  Places raced through my mind, but none stuck out as the place I thought she’d go when she was upset. “I have no idea.”

  Daryl made that clucking noise with his tongue he made when he was thinking and then said, “I’d suggest getting the word out to your hotels. She might go to one of them. I already checked the penthouse and no one has seen her there tonight.”

  I headed out of Kim’s development toward home, wondering how much time I had. “What do we know about Karl?”

  “What do you mean? I thought the Washington guys had him.”

  “I have no idea if he’ll be held. If he’s not, how do I know he won’t find Nina before we do? And do you have any idea where the hell West is? Varo didn’t know where he was, and I’m worried he has something to do with Nina’s disappearance.”

  “Whoa! I don’t think she’s disappeared, and what the fuck would West have to do with that?”

  Putting my foot to the floor, I gassed it and began weaving through traffic. “I have no idea, Daryl. It just seems suspicious that Nina’s gone and West is nowhere to be found. I don’t care where he is if he isn’t with Nina, but if he is, he better fucking hope I don’t find him when I finally get to her, or I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “Alright, alright. Let’s not get crazy here. I’m heading out to the house now. Maybe Varo found something there or Jensen remembered something about the ride home that can help us. I’ll see you there in a little while, right?”

  “Yeah. If you find out anything before I get there, call me. Do you understand?”

  “I get it. Don’t worry. We’ll find her safe and sound.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Tristan

  I drove like a demon over the roads and highways that led to the house I shared with Nina, my mind drifting back to the events that now made her run from me. Even though they’d occurred seven years before, the memory of them still ached like a fresh wound.

  A haze of smoke hung heavy over the spacious room, a telltale sign of how long we’d been ignoring the outside world. Melissa giggled as she lay sprawled out across the bed while Sam smacked her on the bare ass. I guessed I should have been jealous since I was sleeping with her, but it wasn’t anything exclusive between us and I didn’t care if she liked to fuck him too.

  Sex wasn’t what kept us together. Coke was.

  Well, coke was what kept me there. Melissa didn’t like what coke did to her, preferring the more mellow high of pot or pills. But she was always good for what I wanted, knowing I liked it and eager to please me, no matter the cost.

  I had no idea what the fuck Sam saw in any of this. True, he liked to smoke every so often, but nothing like how often Melissa did. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever seen her straight. Not that I cared.

  “Tristan, come over here. I’m all alone and Sam won’t talk to me,” she whined in a voice that I found cute at times other than this. She knew it and used it anytime she wanted something from me.

  Sam stood from the bed and pushed her away. “I won’t talk to her because she doesn’t make any fucking sense. Maybe if you’d get your head out of the clouds one in a while, Lissa, I’d be able to understand what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  This was their usual routine when Sam felt like a third wheel. To everyone but Melissa, it was obvious he was in love with her. I had a feeling he hated me and wished I’d just disappear so he could walk off into the sunset with her, happy and high as a fucking kite. I would have been okay with that, as long as it didn’t interfere with what she and I had.

  What that was exactly was hard to say, however.

  I liked her well enough. I liked her even better when she spread lines out in front of me in an effort to make me happy. I didn’t love her, though, and she knew it.

  That fact never stopped her from wishing it wasn’t true.

  “Melissa, I don’t feel like talking. I leave that up to Sam,” I said with my usual curtness.

  Lying there naked, she looked up at me with a stare that was supposed to make me want to fuck her. “Tristan, why are you so mean?” she cooed. “You’re always so mean to me.”

  “You don’t want to see mean,” I said, hoping to put an end to her attempts to seduce me. Turning to look at Sam, I nodded my head toward her. “Talk to her. That’s all she wants.”

  “I don’t want your fucking scraps, Stone,” Sam snapped before storming out to Melissa’s living room to sulk as he always did.

  I let my gaze travel to the bed where Melissa lay pouting. I understood why Sam would want her. Perfect body, at least as perfect as money and a plastic surgeon could buy, lots of laughs, and not a lot of frustration. For many, she’d be the perfect girlfriend.

  “Tristan, he’s gone. You don’t have to sit over there all by yourself anymore. Come over here on the bed with me.”

  Leaning forward, I snorted the last line on the tray and shook my head trying to handle the sensation of the coke teasing the inside of my nose. “You should be nicer to Sam, Melissa. When I go, he’ll still be here.”

  “Don’t say that! You’re not going anywhere,” she cried as she rolled off the bed onto her feet to come toward me. “I won’t let you.”

  She knelt between my legs and gazed up at me with bloodshot blue eyes. I knew what she wanted, and if I hadn’t been so fucked up, I might have wanted it too. “Get up off your knees,” I ordered only to have her respond by shaking her head.

  “Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you. Whatever you want, Tristan. Tell me.” As she spoke, her hands slid up my thighs to the crease of my legs. “I could make you happy if you’d let me.”

  I pushed her hands away, and she careened back into the table. “I have everything I need to make me happy.”

  She looked
up at me and frowned. “Then why aren’t you happy, baby?”

  Reaching toward her, I smoothed her platinum blond hair from her eyes. “Don’t try to use what you learned in Psych class last semester on me, Melissa. It’s not going to work.”

  “When I become a psychologist, you’ll see. I can be your therapist and solve all your problems.”

  “That’ll be the day you’re a therapist,” I said casually without care for her feelings.

  Her face fell as her eyes filled with tears. Why I was such an asshole to her I didn’t know. Even if I believed what I said, I didn’t have to say it. She’d never been anything other than completely devoted to me and I couldn’t even muster up enough feelings to be kind to her.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to shut out the truth of how much a fuck I really was.

  “This isn’t happy, Tristan,” she whispered as she lay her head against my knee. “This isn’t happy.”

  “Well, it’s all we have. If you want happy, I’m not the person to be with. Stick with Sam.”

  “Someday, Sam and I will be together. I know it. He’ll be in love with me still and I won’t be in love with you anymore, so we’ll finally be together. But then you’ll be all alone, my Tristan without a soul in this world.”

  “Jesus, Melissa. Stop being so fucking maudlin. I have women all the time. I’m not alone.”

  Standing, she sat on my lap and straddled me. She cradled my face in her hands and shook her head. “You’re more alone than anyone I’ve ever met, baby. I could change that. I want to change that for you.”

  My hands slid over her perfect ass and pulled her into me. “I like the way we are. You like the way we are, don’t you?”

  She didn’t dare say she didn’t and risk my rejection, and I took advantage of that fear. I saw it in her eyes, though. She loved me, or felt what she thought was love. Fuck, I didn’t know what she felt at that moment.

  Her hand pressed against my heart, a gentle touch that should have meant something to me. “Your heart is beating so fast.”

  “That’s because I don’t spend my time smoking that shit. You wouldn’t be such a downer if you gave up the smoke and tried coke.”

  My vision blurred as that moment of my past came crashing full on into my present. Over and over, I had to tell myself I wasn’t the murderer Kim thought I was. If only I could convince myself.

  “I’d do that if I thought it would make you happy,” she whispered next to the corner of my mouth. “Would it make you happy?”

  I turned my head away from her. “You’re too fixated on happiness, Melissa.”

  “Would it make sex better?” she asked before snaking her tongue over the shell of my ear.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I answered without any thought as to whether my answer was true and not caring.

  “Then maybe I should do it,” she said with a smile as she scooted up my lap, exciting me.

  I stilled her movement before she got me too hot. “Then you’re going to have to get more. I finished all of it.”

  Melissa leapt off my lap and skipped over to the nightstand next to her bed. Pulling out a vial, she showed it off and threw it to me. “You underestimate me, Tristan.”

  She dropped down next to the table in front of me and spread four lines out. Before I could even have one, she’d snorted two and was moving for a third. I pulled her back by the hair and pushed her hard onto the floor. “Don’t be so greedy.”

  I saw in her eyes as they filled with tears that her feelings were hurt. She’d done exactly what she believed would make me happy and still I didn’t come across with anything but nastiness. As she began to cry, something inside me softened toward her, and I pulled her up onto my lap, still unsure I wanted anything physical from her that night but hoping I could stop her tears.

  Covering my mouth with hers, she teased the inside with her tongue, exciting me. Pressed against me, she moved her hips back and forth, giving me a preview of what she wanted. Her wet pussy slid over the front of my jeans, drenching them, and for a moment, I wanted her.

  But she came with far too much baggage for me at that moment, and Sam was bound to return at any time. The scene he’d create alone was enough to make my cock go soft. I pushed her away and shook my head. “Maybe later, Melissa.”

  Stung by my rejection, she slid off me, smacking me across the face as she left. “Fuck you, Tristan!”

  She kicked the tray of coke as she stormed out, sending the powder into a white cloud that slowly fell in puffs to the floor. I watched in disgust as the rest of my night was ruined in mere seconds, content to ignore both Melissa and Sam in favor of sitting alone until I figured out where I’d be able to find more coke and hopefully salvage the night.

  I had no idea how long I’d sat there consumed by my own thoughts when I heard the first siren. It seemed to come out of nowhere and suddenly be so loud it drowned out everything in my head. Another and then another followed, and my instincts kicked in. Quickly, I dialed Rogers to get me the hell out of there. I didn’t need another arrest for possession.

  I’d barely gotten to my feet when the cops stormed through the door. There was no escaping. My guilt was obvious by the coke all around me. Pushing my hands through my hair, I tried to make myself look less fucked up, but it was no use. What was the term—caught red-handed? That was me. Again.

  As they led me out, I saw the paramedics working on Melissa as she lay motionless on the floor next to the living room sofa. Sam paced back and forth, wringing his hands and praying aloud for her to be okay while a cop tried to get him to answer his questions about what she’d taken and when. For a moment, his answers, no matter how disjointed they were, scared the hell out of me, but I’d get out of it. Melissa would be okay too, assuming they pumped her stomach to get rid of any pills she’d taken.

  Everything would be okay. My father’s money would see to that.

  I pulled off the side of the road and leaned back to close my eyes as the memory of what happened next flooded into my brain. Melissa never made it out of that apartment that night. The mixture of prescription drugs and cocaine sent her into cardiac arrest, and she died there on that floor surrounded by strangers as they took Sam and me away.

  Arrested and charged with murder for giving her the drugs, I spent the night in jail before my father’s attorney got me released. I didn’t find out she’d died until two days after she was gone when I was finally home safe and sound in my parents’ house.

  I sat silently listening to my father explain in detail what would happen to me as he paced from one side of the room to the other, stopping only to glare at me and shake his head.

  “What is wrong with you? You’ve had everything a boy could want. A good education. The best of tutors. Yet still you act like some street kid who doesn’t know better. That girl died. Did you know that? You’re charged with her murder.”

  The news of Melissa’s death hit me like a brick to the face. Whatever he expected me to say, I couldn’t speak. It was like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs.

  “Did you hear me?” he bellowed, leaning his face down in front of mine, so close I saw the gold flecks in his brown eyes as they flashed his anger at me.

  “Victor, don’t do this to him. His friend is dead. He needs time to mourn her. You can talk about the rest of it later.”

  I looked at my mother as she spoke to defend me, knowing I didn’t deserve her kindness. My father stormed out, leaving her alone with me. I didn’t deserve that either.

  Cradling my face in her hands, she smiled that gentle smile she always gave when she thought I needed saving. “Tristan, I don’t know how to reach you. What is it that makes you like this?”

  What she meant by ‘like this’ was a mystery to me. Like what? Any normal American twenty-two year old male? Every other person my age I knew? But I understood my role in this drama and acted accordingly. “I don’t know.”

  “Honey, if you have a problem, we can get you help. There are places where you can get he
lp.”

  I couldn’t give her the answer I knew she needed to hear. She needed me to say I’d accept her help and stop living my life. I couldn’t tell her that, so I just nodded, letting her think she’d saved me, at least for now. My father was right, but I didn’t care. Someday, my mother would realize that too.

  I shook my head to push away the memory of that Tristan. That me had been selfish and careless, thinking I was the only one whose wants and needs mattered. God, I couldn’t help but cringe at who I’d been all those years ago.

  Now all those terrible acts had finally caught up with me, as I always knew they would. The problem was that now when the most important part of my life was torn from me because of what I did, all I could do was hope that when I caught up with Nina that she’d see that Tristan didn’t exist anymore.

  I checked my phone for any message or text from Nina. Nothing. Where was she? Was she alone? Images of West or worse, Karl, holding her marched through my mind. No! I couldn’t believe that. She was safe. She had to be.

  My fingers tapped out a message I prayed to God she saw. I know what Kim told you, but I swear she’s wrong. Tell me where you are and I’ll come to you. Don’t do this. Don’t let everything we have mean nothing.

  After ten minutes, I knew she wouldn’t be answering my text. I didn’t expect a few words to fix everything. The damage my past had inflicted on us would require far more than that. I didn’t expect anything, in fact. Nina had accepted all my demons, even if she’d done so unknowingly at times, but I’d made the biggest mistake of my life by not coming clean just days before as she and I lay in bed that morning for the first time in months. She’d practically begged me to tell her everything, and I hadn’t. I didn’t know why. Maybe I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to tell the woman I loved that I was a thoughtless, callous dick to someone who only wanted love from me, and my carelessness with her had led to her death.

  Before I put the car in gear, I tried one more time, hoping at the very least she was receiving my messages and at best she was reading them. I know I promised to tell you everything, but sometimes a man wants to have the woman he loves see him as more than he actually is. I wasn’t trying to hide what happened then. Please believe me.