Keeping Her

by Alexis Noelle

  The door opens and I hear footsteps running into the room. When they step into the light I gasp. It’s Brian and the guys. “Where is the fucking light?”

  “This is no good, brother.” I think I hear Mason’s voice but I can’t be sure.

  “No shit, but she is here.” I want to scream that I’m right here. I want to yell for him to run, I know the other men are in here. He’s walking into a trap.

  “What are we doing, Brian?” I can’t figure outse voice yells next.

  “I don’t fucking know! We need to find her!” Brian’s voice is panicked as he frantically tries to scan the darkness around him.

  “If only that was all you needed to worry about.” It’s that voice again. The light above me turns on but again it’s only a small circle and everything behind me is still shrouded in darkness. They move to come to me but freeze. Their eyes are trained on something behind me and when I turn around I see the shadows of at least a dozen men. There isn’t much light behind me so I can’t see their faces. The one behind me has a gun pointed directly at my head.

  “Take one fucking step and you’ll be covered in her.”

  Brian looks at me and I want to cry. He looks frantic, and his body is so tight with tension that it seems like his muscles might snap at any moment. The rest of the guys are all standing behind him guns in hand but frozen in the same state.

  “Drop your guns or I’ll drop her.” The voice seethes with hate and violence. I look back needing to see his face. Put an image to the monster standing behind me. I can only see half of it though and it is covered in scars from what I assume is a really bad burn.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I turn my attention back to Brian as his voice fills the room. “She brought you the money that asshole owed you. Let her the fuck go.”

  “See it might have been that simple if you and I didn’t have some unfinished business.” I have so many questions running through my head. How does Brian know him? How did he know about the money Dan owed? How did he find me?

  “Listen, I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about. I have never gotten involved with this organization and I—“

  The figured steps forward so he is next to me and now fully engulfed in the light. Brian stops mid-sentence a look of disbelief and fear on his face. He is looking at the man next to me like he knows him. “What’s wrong? You look like you have seen a ghost, son.”

  Son? Brian said his dad died in a fire. Oh my God. I look up at the man and his partially burned face. This can’t be real. I remember all of the stories Brian used to tell about his dad. The way he beat him. When I look back at Brian, I swear I see a glimpse of a scared child.

  “How the fuck are you alive?” he almost whispers in disbelief.

  “Brian, what the fuck is going on?” Ryan says from behind him.

  “Ah, the cop. You know Brian at least when I told your bitch not to go to the police she fucking listened.” He raises his gun and quickly fires a shot. Ryan falls to the floor and I scream. Mason drops down to Ryan, strips his shirt off and holds it against his body.

  The other guys draw their guns once more and point them at Brian’s dad. He trains his gun on me once more. As I hear multiple clicks behind me. “Go ahead and shoot, pussies, one of us will hit her in the head.”

  “Put the fucking guns down!” Brian yells as he looks at me with a tormented expression on his face.

  “What the fuck is going on!” Jake yells next to him.

  “What’s going on is my son thought I was dead, and that he got away with murder.” Murder?

  “What is he talking about, Brian?” Hunter asks behind him.

  “You thought you won, you little shit, but you will never win against me. I told you that a thousand times. You are nothing compared to me. I have been waiting five years for you to find something that you cared about just so I could rip it the fuck away from you. Unfortunately, the first time you and your little slut were together I didn’t have the connections I do now. When you got involved with her again, it was like fucking Christmas.” He leans down his hand gripping a chunk of my hair and pulling me to my feet. “I’ll be nice and give you a choice. Do you want her or your friends to die first?”

  I can see Brian’s chest rising and falling. His eyes are boring into his father’s. “You need to get your fucking hands off of her.”

  “You may have all these dip shits fooled but I know you’re still the same little bitch you were when you were younger. Now…” His fist tightens in my hair and I scream. “Who. Goes. First?” Tears start to fall from my eyes as I take in the sight of the men before me. They came here to save me from a stupid decision I made, and now I’ve possibly led them to their death.

  “Let her go, fucker.” Brian takes a step forward and the barrel of the gun is pressed into my temple. Pain shoots through my head eliciting another scream.

  “Back the fuck off.” Brian begrudgingly takes a step back. “Now like I said you can choose if you want. If not I’ll pick for you. 5…4…3…2…1…” A laugh sounds before a gunshot rings out and I drop to the floor.

  I curl into the fetal position not wanting to look up to see what happened. I feel arms circle me and I scream and kick. “Jules, it’s me stop.” Brian’s voice pleads with me and I freeze. His hands undo the material holding my wrists together and when I turn toward him he grips the end of the tape. “This is gonna hurt.” He yanks the tape off and I yelp.

  “Get up.” A voice demands.

  Brian stands his hands on my waist helping me up with him. Once I’m on my feet he moves me behind him and backs me toward his guys. I look over Brian’s shoulder to see his father lying on the floor blood pouring from a hole in his head.

  A man comes out from behind the darkness. It’s the guy in the suit, the one from my office yesterday. “Did you bring the money?” I know he is talking to me but I can’t bring myself to answer.

  “She did.” My hands tighten their grip on Brian’s arm.

  “I didn’t ask you, now did I? Move.” The man seems so polished and sophisticated, the expensive suit he is wearing is flawless, and his dark hair is slicked back. He talks like he is educated and elicits an air of power.

  “No.” Brian’s muscles tense under my hands.

  The man raises his gun at Brian’s head. “There are two ways you can move, by using your feet, or by a bullet.”

  I step to the side and Brian grips me keeping me in place. I push harder making my way around him. The man looks me up and down before smiling. “So sorry for my ex-associate. He has been with me for five years and this is the first time he has ever done anything to make me doubt his loyalty. I was unaware of his connection to you both.” Connection is putting it lightly. “Now, did you bring the money?”

  “Yes.” My voice is barely a whisper. I’m scared out of my mind and completely at the disposal of the man standing in front of me.

  “Get it.” I move toward the place I fell when I first came in, but Brian grabs my arm. “Let her go if you know what’s good for you.” Brian’s hand slowly lets my arm go, and I move toward the bag bringing it back to the man. “Is it all here?”

  “Yes.” My voice shakes as I answer him.

  “As long as you are true to your word, Miss Fisher, then we are done here.” He tosses the bag to a man standing behind him. “I didn’t intend for this to get so…” he looks behind me at Ryan on the floor, “messy.”

  Messy? An innocent man is shot and that’s “messy?”

  “You are all free to go. I don’t think I need to warn you about the repercussions of opening your mouths.”

  He walks away and chaos breaks out around me. The guys pick up Ryan and carry him outside.

  “Brian, call 911, tell them that there is an officer down!” Mason shouts his hand still pressing the shirt to what I think is Ryan’s chest.

  I want to help, to do something. Everything is just happening so fast and I feel like I can’t breathe. A hand wraps around me and I jump before realizing i
t’s Brian. He pulls me to him. “Are you okay?” I nod, not finding the words. He takes a deep breath, gives me a kiss on the forehead, and then goes to help the rest of the guys.

  I can hear the siren of the ambulance and within a minute, EMTs are jumping out of the truck and rushing over to Ryan. What the hell are they going to say happened to him? Brian comes up to me, takes my hand, and starts to lead me away toward one of the cars.

  “Where are we going? Aren’t you going with him to the hospital?” I look back as we are walking and see they are strapping Ryan to the gurney.

  “No, the guys and I agreed I needed to get you out of here before the cops show up and start questioning us.”

  He opens my door and I sit down in the car. Once he gets in, he speeds away not saying another word to me. I want to talk to him. To ask him all the questions on my mind. There is an air of uncertainty between us, and I have no idea why.

  When we pull up to Brian’s house, I get out and start to walk across the street.

  “Don’t even fucking think about it, Jules.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  I follow Brian into his house and quietly shut the door.

  “What were you thinking, Jules? Why would you not have come to me? Do you understand what could have happened to you?” His tone is harsh and his hands are clenched at his sides. I can tell that he is angry, and I understand because of how stupid my actions were.

  I start to cry as the gravity of the situation begins to settle over me. The adrenaline fading and the realism coming to light. “I’m sorry. He said he would kill you or Lacey. I didn’t know what to do!”

  “You fucking come to me! You don’t go to meet goddamn criminals to pay them off on your own!” His face is red with anger and the muscles in his neck strain with each word.

  I run my hands through my hair. I know meeting them was stupid. I know I should have asked him for help. That’s when all the questions I had come back. “How did you know about the money that Dan owed them?”

  His face drops. “It’s not important.”

  “The hell it isn’t! How did you know? And what was your father talking about when he said you got away with murder?” His voice still haunts me, the look on his face as he pointed the gun at me.

  Brian sits down on the couch and buries his face in his hands.

  “When I was eight years old, I woke up one night to get a drink of water. I saw the lit cigarette fall out of my mom’s hand and land on the carpet. I saw the few flames that started to rise and I thought about putting them out. Then I thought about what it might be like if they weren’t around anymore. If I didn’t have to live in constant fear and pain from their abuse. My father was passed out in the bedroom exhausted from beating the shit out of me earlier that night. Lying down on the floor by the door, I watched the fire grow. After it started to get bigger, I called 911. By the time they got there, the whole house was engulfed, I was lying on the floor when the fireman came in. He carried me outside but before he could go back in the roof collapsed. I let them die because I felt like if I didn’t they would eventually kill me.”

  I walk over to him, sit down and wrap my arms around him.

  “As far as I knew, my father died in that fire with my mother. I didn’t cry at all that night. Everyone said it was because I was in shock, but I wasn’t. In a way I was relieved. I escaped them.”

  We sit there in silence. I have no idea what to say to him. He has been through more than I could ever imagine. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “I didn’t know what you would think of me, Jules. I killed them.”

  My hand touches his cheek and he looks up at me. “I would have thought that you were a scared kid who didn’t know what to do. Who had no one to stick up for him and chose the path he thought was best.” He kisses me and pulls me closer to him. I lay my head on his chest and run my hand over his stomach. “Thank you for saving me.”

  His hand tips my chin up so that I’m looking at him. “You saved me, babe, not the other way around. You saved me the first day I met you by showing me how amazing life could be if you let the right people in.”

  I kiss him once more before laying my head back down. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “I tracked your phone.”

  I sit up and look over at him. “How did you do that?”

  “Ryan ran a trace on it.”

  I shake my head. “I hope that he is gonna be okay. It’s my fault he got shot. If I didn’t go there alone. If I would have just told someone… how did you know about the money that Dan owed.” When I look over at Brian he won’t make eye contact with me. What is he hiding? “Brian?”

  “You need to drop the subject, Jules.” His voice is cold, and monotone as he responds to me.

  “No, I’m not just going to drop it. Tell me what is going on! Stop hiding shit from me!”

  He stands up and starts to pace the floor in front of me. “You shouldn’t ask questions that you don’t want the answer to.”

  “I do want the answer.” I look him in the eyes letting him know that I am not dropping the subject.

  “When I got back, I started to look into Dan. He was not the man you thought you knew.”

  “Obviously, considering he owed that money to those people! Stop dancing around the damn topic and just tell me what is going on!”

  “I found out that when he got out of college, he borrowed money from the Andre family, which is who you just paid. His parents were not as well-off as they wanted everyone to think and they couldn’t help him. He borrowed all that money to start his company, and to have money so that you didn’t get suspicious. The company struggled from the very first day and it went under about a month before he died. He was pretending to go to work each day while he tried to figure out how to fix the shit storm he created. Desperate times will cause people to do desperate things.” He looks up at me.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Can you stop with the vague bullshit?” I’m really getting tired of the push and pull that he is trying to do with me.

  “It means that the day he was killed, your husband pulled your life insurance policy and your will. He took it to a fucking lawyer to see what he was entitled to. That night I waited for him to get home and went over to warn him that I knew what he was up to and there was no way I would let him fucking hurt you. When I walked in, he was getting his fucking gun. He was going to kill you and stage it as a home invasion!”

  I gasp. No. It’s not possible. Is it? Dan knew about the money my parents had for me, and when we got married I made him the sole beneficiary. “How do you know this?” I whisper in disbelief.

  “Because I confronted the mother fucker that night. He got cocky and started telling me his plan saying how I just made it even better because he would off me and make it look like I killed you.” Brian turns away from me. “He didn’t know that I grabbed my gun and tucked it into the back of my pants when I walked over. When he raised his at me, I shot him before he could follow through.”

  He turns back to me and I’m in shock. Brian shot Dan? How? Why wouldn’t he have just went to Ryan with all this stuff? “There is no way. What about the guy they caught?”

  “I had to throw suspicion at someone else. That guy is a damn pedophile who got off on a technicality. He deserves to be in jail.”

  “Are you kidding me? You killed my husband, and framed some other guy for it? And then you started a relationship with me built entirely on fucking lies? I can’t take this. I need to leave.” I walk away but he grabs my arm, I yank it away from him. “Keep your damn hands off of me.”

  “He was going to kill you, Jules! What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just sit by and—“

  “You could have gone to the cops! God forbid, you could have come and talked to me! That’s a crazy suggestion though right? Why would you tell me about things that are happening in my own life?” I walk away and out of the door.

  “Jules!” I stop in the driveway and turn to him.
“Please don’t go. I love you.”

  I walk closer to him. “Love can’t live when it’s built on lies, Brian. You should have told me this, you should have trusted me enough to let me know. I can’t trust you. No matter how much I love you, it doesn’t mean anything without trust.”

  I walk away and run to my house before the tears start to fall.

  I pick up the phone. “Lacey, I need you to come pick me up.”

  I can’t believe how badly Dan betrayed me and lied to me. He was going to kill me for money I would have given him had I known anything that was going on. Brian decided instead of coming to talk to me he would take the law into his own hands and kill my husband.

  The pain is so bad that it’s like I can feel myself breaking apart. Each lie, each deception, each betrayal shattering a different part of my soul and my heart.

  I survived this once.

  I’m not sure I will this time.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Brian

  I watch the door to her house close as I slam the front door to mine. “Fuck!” I knew that when she found out she would leave. That there would be no way in hell she would stay with me after knowing what I did. Am I proud of my actions? No. But I sure as hell don’t regret them. I would rather have that asshole dead and Jules pissed off at me, than have let him hurt her.

  I thought about going to her when I found out about his debt and his company, but I didn’t think she would believe me. We weren’t on the best terms and I doubt the conversation would have gone any better than the one we just had. The look of betrayal in her eyes got to me. The look of sadness when she walked away broke me.

  This can’t be the end. I won’t let it be. I just got her back, we were in a good place. I hear a car outside and look to see Lacey at Jules’ door. She is holding onto her as they walk out to Lacey’s waiting car. Her face is red and blotchy, and I can see her shoulders shaking from the force of the tears still falling from her eyes. I caused that. I am the one who did that to her, again.