All of Me: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel

by Jackson, A. L.

  “Make the wrong move, and it will be your last.”

  He grabbed me by the back of the collar, gun still rammed tight against the base of my skull, and forced me over to the alarm pad. He punched in the code and the alarm cut off. He reached over and grabbed the receiver from the phone on his desk and dialed a number.

  “Yes, this is Lawrence Bennet. I came into the office in the middle of the night because I woke up realizing I forgot to do something important.”

  He emphasized the word. Just for me.

  “Apparently, I was a little too sleepy and tripped the alarm. I apologize for any inconvenience . . . All is good . . . No need to send anyone . . . Thank you for your help.”

  He tossed the phone back onto the receiver.

  “Sounds good to me,” I gritted out, facing the wall he had my face pinned against, going right back to the threat he had made. “Won’t be able to look myself in the mirror after seeing all this shit anyway.”

  He scoffed. “Don’t act like you didn’t know full well what was going down. You did it of your own free will. Didn’t take a whole lot of twisting your arm.”

  “I was a kid.”

  “You were growing into the man you were always supposed to be.”

  Anger boiled, and I tried to bite it back, biding my time, praying Mack at least got here before Bennet had the chance to take a shot and disappeared with the evidence.

  With the gun still aimed at me, he stepped back, releasing his hold.

  I slowly turned, hating the man I saw standing four feet away.

  “No wonder I ended up with you,” I gritted, bile on my tongue.

  He shook his head. Haughty and contemptuous. “Is it?”

  I gulped around the fury that flamed at my insides. “Is it true?”

  His eyes narrowed, and mine were frantically searching his face for clues, for the resemblance I’d been too much of a fool to look for all along.

  “What? That you have always belonged to me?”

  Revulsion shook my head. “I’ve never belonged to you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve been mine since the day you were born. Your bitch of a mother might have tried to get away with you. Steal you from your legacy.”

  He took a step forward. “From your destiny.”

  My spirit thrashed. “What are you saying?”

  “Your mother belonged to me. She was mine. The first one. The only one I cared to love. Big mistake.”

  Sorrow pinched my eyes. I tried to fight it. Not to show any weakness in front of this disgusting man.

  “I found her, homeless, living like gutter trash with a baby pressed to her tit. Wasn’t all that hard to get her under my roof and into my bed. Only mistake I made was not treating her like the rest. Treating her like she was special. But that’s what happens when you let someone get under your skin.”

  Everything drew tight, the air thin, the world spinning. “How?”

  Brilliant.

  But I couldn’t get anything else out.

  Everything crashing. I was struck with the realization that I’d known nothing, and it’d been right there under my nose all along.

  Bitterness twisted up his face. “She took off with you and your whiny brother when you were just two weeks old. I’d hunt her down, drag her home, and then she’d do it all over again. Refusing the life I offered, instead thinking she was giving you a better one. What bullshit. She was a junkie, just like the rest. A whore. She never changed.”

  Rage coiled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “After your brother got arrested, she came crawling back. It’d been twelve fucking years since I’d seen her, and there she was, begging at my door, willing to do anything to put a roof over your head. I put her back to work, not because I gave a fuck about her any longer, but because my son was finally home.”

  Grief creaked through my bones.

  Forever and ever.

  “You were responsible from the get go? Got her hooked on drugs?” My face pinched. “Fucking pimped her out?”

  My mind was adding up the fucked puzzle faster than my spirit could tolerate it.

  Could feel it, splitting me in two.

  Gutting.

  Gutting.

  I struggled to breathe.

  “A woman’s a lot easier to control when you’re the one holding that control. Don’t you get that? Which is why that bitch you’ve taken up with has got to go. I won’t let her destroy what I’ve built. What I’ve built for you.”

  Disgust boiled in the pit of my stomach. “I want nothing to do with you.”

  A scoff bled from him. “Don’t be dramatic, Ian. I’ve been shaping you into who you were supposed to be for years. You weren’t ready to hear it. Not until now. Now it’s time to take your place. Reed and his ex-wife have become an issue. Now you’re going to fix it—end it—sweep it under a rug and make sure it disappears, and then you’re going to take your place at my side.”

  “You’re delusional.”

  Bile swam on my tongue, and I sucked the bitter taste down. “My mother—”

  “Was in my way.”

  Wrong. Not delusional. He was just a monster.

  “She came to me, begging for help like the pathetic piece of garbage she’d always been, and then turned around and actually thought she was in control. Making demands of me. Ordering me to stay away from you.”

  Ruthlessness oozed from his pores.

  He lifted his chin and uttered the words like a slogan, “Bitches who don’t obey need to bleed.”

  Agony sheared through my chest. Splitting me in two. Taking up the empty space was a horror and a rage unlike anything I’d ever known.

  “What did you just say?”

  His laughter was hatred. “Your mother would have done anything for you. Including fight me. That was her first mistake.”

  My head shook. “You’re a liar.”

  “And you’ve always been a fool.”

  My mama’s voice flooded my mind. “Ian, you stay away from that man, do you hear me? He’s not good.”

  Anguish.

  It constricted and mashed.

  Tightening around my ribs.

  No air found.

  Suffocating.

  “You killed her.”

  He shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Well, I ordered it. Reed did the job. The first I gave him. I needed to make sure he understood he worked for me. That I would ruin him and his family. He had a thing for my women, you see, and I had a need for him. It was a win-win.”

  The pictures on the computer.

  That’s all it’d been.

  Years of twisted blackmail.

  My knees weakened, and I stumbled, the voice coming off my tongue a pained groan. “Mama.”

  Oh god.

  My mother.

  Forever and ever.

  Savage words impaled my ears. “She was stupid enough to threaten me, saying she was going to go to the police with what was happening at the apartments if I didn’t stay away from you. Problem was, you’d always belonged to me, Ian. I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands.”

  His head slowly shook. “It’s time you stop pretending that you’re different than me. That you’re better. Stop pretending you have morals when we both know your hands are just as dirty as mine.”

  He took another step closer, his voice dropping. “You’re just like me. My blood runs through your veins. My heart is yours. I gave it to you. I shaped you. Now it’s time to accept who you are.”

  Rage.

  They say it’s blinding.

  They were wrong.

  Because I saw everything.

  All of it coated in red. His blood on my hands. Restitution for my mother’s that was on his.

  It was my fault. It was my fault. It’d always been my fault.

  I lurched for the gun.

  Bennet smashed me across the face with it.

  I didn’t stop.

  Didn’t slow.

/>   I dove for him.

  My chest seized with the gunshot that rang through the air.

  Forty-Two

  Grace

  Gaping through the shock, I stared at the messages that Ian had sent me.

  It was the first I’d heard from him in a week. It’d been seven days that I’d spent lost to the worst sort of torment.

  Floating through relentless waves of grief and worry and sorrow.

  Unending.

  Boundless.

  Fathomless.

  Fear had become the focus of it, Reed’s constant texts shifting into callous warnings. Words about me running out of time. To make the right decision.

  They didn’t feel close to being a plea.

  They felt sinister.

  My gramma had promised me going back to him wasn’t an option. But I didn’t know how to keep hanging onto that when it felt as if everything I adored was slipping away.

  How long could I remain at my grandmother’s house alone, while Reed continued to dangle my children over my head like bait? While I didn’t know if they were safe or cared for? While I couldn’t kiss them and tuck them in at night?

  But this? I squeezed my phone tighter. This felt like the first glimpse of hope I’d seen all week. The sun promising to break over the horizon.

  A glimmer of light.

  That gift my grandmother had been talking about.

  All the while, his goodbye obliterated the remains of my heart.

  What was he saying?

  What did he mean?

  Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to question it. Even after everything, I still trusted him.

  Wholly and completely.

  The man he’d shown me was real, even if for his own survival he couldn’t acknowledge it.

  I pushed out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans, and slipped my feet into tennis shoes. The night was all around me, pressing into the bedroom, and my heart began hammering out of control.

  I swore I sensed something approaching in the howl of the wind and the whip of the branches raking on the eaves.

  Something ominous.

  Wicked and cruel.

  Taking my phone with me, I slipped through my bedroom doorway and eased down the hall and into the foyer. I stopped there, my breaths turning shallow as I waited.

  Listening.

  Praying that the police officer would show up and tell me everything was okay. That my babies were safe. That I was safe. That Ian was safe.

  I jumped about ten feet in the air when someone pounded on my door.

  Then I blew out a breath, relief bounding through my system when I realized that the officer had to be there.

  It was short-lived.

  Terror rippled through my bloodstream when I peered through the peephole and saw Reed standing there.

  “Open the fucking door, Grace. I know you’re there.”

  “Go away,” I shouted. It was nothing but a plea from my soul. “Just . . . go away and give me my children.”

  “You know that’s not going to happen.”

  A light flicked on from the other side of the house, and I could hear my grandmother shuffling through the night.

  “That squirrely bastard,” she hissed. “I have half a mind to go after that boy with a frying pan and teach him a lesson. Lord knows his mama must not have done it.”

  If only it were that simple.

  But it wasn’t.

  I could feel the magnitude of this all the way to my soul. After tonight, nothing would be the same.

  I could feel myself at the edge of a cliff.

  Oblivion or paradise.

  I had no idea which was waiting beneath.

  I pressed my finger to my lips, begging my gramma not to say anything.

  I turned back toward the door. “Go away, Reed. There isn’t anything you can say that will make me go back to you. This is a losing battle.”

  A fist battered at the wood again, jolting me back. But it was his voice that shocked through me like a thunderbolt. “Fuck, Grace, listen to me. Please. You are in danger. And it’s my fucking fault. I accept that. But if you don’t leave with me right now, there isn’t a way for me to protect you. I need you to come outside.”

  Dread whipped through my spirit. “Where are the kids? Oh my God, Reed.”

  “They’re safe. But you have to hurry.”

  I reached for the lock.

  “Don’t you dare leave with that man.” Gramma was right there behind me, trying to drag me back.

  I turned to her, complete and utter desperation flooding from my pores, as heavy as the tears that immediately clouded my sight. “My safety isn’t the concern anymore, Gramma. It’s my children’s. And I will do whatever I have to in order to make sure of that. I can’t risk it.”

  “Oh, sweet girl.” I thought it was her own surrender. The moment she realized I didn’t have another choice.

  Grief locking everything up, I wrapped her in the tightest hug. “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this.”

  “You couldn’t have kept me out of it,” she murmured.

  Without another word, I threw open the door and rushed outside. Instantly, Reed grabbed me by the arm. His concern from a second ago completely wiped away. He leaned in toward my ear, hatred in his voice. “This will be the last time you disobey me.”

  I didn’t even think it was shock that had the air bursting from my lungs or the fight lining my body like rods of steel.

  Part of me had known he was playing me.

  He’d been playing me all along.

  But this wasn’t me being naïve or a fool.

  Like I’d told my gramma, I could risk it. Couldn’t lay down bets on their safety.

  I’d do anything for my babies.

  And I knew right then going with him was doing them no favors.

  I ripped my arm away, as hard as I could, summoning all the strength I could find. “Fuck you.”

  This was going to end.

  Right then.

  “You don’t own me. You don’t control me. I will never belong to you. I will fight you to the end.”

  “If that’s what it has to come to,” he sneered before he launched himself at me.

  Fear raced, and I scrambled to get away, flailing my arms as I tried to make it back to the door.

  I’d barely made it one step when he tackled me to the ground.

  It knocked the air from my lungs. I wheezed in pain. Reed got to his feet, pinning my arms behind me and dragging me to standing. “You’re going to pay for this, Grace. You really think you could leave me? A Dearborne? Make me look like a fool? I’d think again.”

  Reed jerked me toward the walkway, then we both became disoriented when we were blinded by the bright lights in our eyes.

  “Freeze,” an officer yelled as my entire body went weak with relief. “Let her go, and get on the ground with your hands behind your back.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Reed sneered, jerking me back harder.

  “Let her go.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Another trample of feet surprised us from the side, and our bodies were being propelled forward by the officer who tackled Reed from behind.

  His arms released me, and I was crawling away, sobbing in relief as I heard the tussle behind me, the words riding into the night air like a shout of mercy.

  “Reed Dearborne . . . you’re under arrest . . . “

  Keep writing your story. Hold them close. Love them hard.

  I thought I could actually hear Ian whispering it in my ear, his hand on my face. And I knew with every fiber of my being that the only reason we were going to be able to do it was because of him.

  I didn’t know what he’d done.

  But I knew he’d given me this.

  My shattered saint.

  Forty-Three

  Ian

  “Drop the gun. Get down on your knees.” Mack’s voice powered through the room, the shot he’d fired still ringing in my ear. Boots pounded into the room, and a group of
officers surrounded us, lining up on either side of Mack where my best friend had his gun pointed at Lawrence Bennet.

  My father.

  The man who’d had my mother killed.

  I was still on the ground, trying to fucking breathe through the bomb Lawrence had dropped onto my world.

  Imploding.

  Desolating.

  Nothing left.

  I’d always known her death was my fault. I’d just never understood the magnitude of the circumstances.

  She had died for me. Been killed over me.

  Because she’d loved me.

  Forever and ever.

  And I’d played right into Bennet’s hand, signed my life away to the man who’d spent the last twenty years shaping me into a monster exactly like him.

  I choked over the realization.

  The gutting, ravaging devastation.

  Bennet laughed, taunting, “Do you have any clue who I am?”

  “Scum?” Mack tossed out with a shrug. Then he turned his attention on me. “You okay, man?”

  No.

  Not even close.

  But I managed to push to my feet, hand going to my face that was dripping with blood from a cut on my lip.

  Wished it was his.

  Wished it was a pool of it.

  Overflowing the room.

  I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry.

  Forever and Ever.

  Kisses are for who you love most.

  I was seized by grief. Every inch. Every cell.

  One of the officers moved around Mack and knelt over Bennet, reading him his rights as he put him in cuffs.

  I didn’t even hesitate, didn’t slow. I went to the printer and gathered the pictures and the documents.

  Lawrence started roaring like a beast from where he was pinned facedown to the ground.

  He needed to be six feet under it.

  “Don’t do it, Ian. I’m your father. Your family. You owe me. I made you. Don’t you fucking dare.”

  My face twisted in disdain. “You aren’t my family. Not ever. You are every single thing I’m ashamed to be. And be clear, I owe only one person anything. Actually, make that four.”

  Four perfect, perfect faces that deserved to live.

  To be free.

  Their lives joy.

  Filled with grace.