He manipulated Taryn, broke into my confidential files, took my work, and while everyone expected him to take all the credit, Mike gave it all to me instead. Because he knew exactly the damage he was inflicting, and what I’d do to try and stop it.
Mike didn’t need to personally ruin my career. I did it all for him. And handed Ben over on an exposed, silver platter as a nice bonus.
Mike knows about Ben.
I forego the wine and dump the champagne in the trash—then fish it out and make a mental note to give it to Locke and Carter. They’re always celebrating a new milestone of Lily’s every other week.
Instead of guzzling away reality, I grab a glass of ice water, open my laptop, and do what I do best.
Stop feeling sorry for myself and figure shit out.
One side benefit of basically having Locke’s calendar in my phone—I can constantly see what his bozo friends are up to. And I say that with love.
I find Ben on the Lower East Side, at what used to be his and Locke’s favorite happy hour joint, before my brother became sober.
Being the punctual, highly trained and routine guy that he is, Ben is there early, as I suspected. I’m hoping to catch him for a few minutes—all I need is a fraction of that—before the rest troop in and inadvertently ruin any sewing up of this mess I can manage.
I step through the single, glass-paneled door decorated with LED beer signs, still clad in my suit from … when was it? This morning? Last night? I’ve lost track.
My heel catches in the single panel of perpetually damp carpeting as it sinks in. In the span of less than twenty-four hours, I couldn’t care less what I look like, or the state of my hair.
Ben’s elbows are propped on the bar, and the rest of the stools are peppered with people unwilling to invade the other’s personal space, so it’s easy for me to slip in beside him and take a seat before he notices.
Ben’s gaze slides toward me, and any argument or plea I’d rehearsed on the way over here flees to the back of my head and stays there.
“Ben?”
I peer closer at him, horrified at the bloodshot eyes, the sallow cheeks, the colorless palette his features have to deal with.
“What are you doing here?” Ben rasps. His lips barely form the words.
Asking him if he’s okay seems dumb. Putting my hand on him is a lethal mistake. His eyes sober and clear the longer he keeps his attention on me.
“I can fix this,” I blurt. “I can help.”
His chin jerks back, the rest of him barely following suit. I’m afraid he’ll fall off the stool. “What the hell are you hoping to fix? Soon, the world’s gonna know who I am. The mafia is gonna come and shoot me. Right here.” He pats his chest for emphasis. “If they don’t dismember me first.”
I rub my lips together, wishing I hadn’t kicked the habit of chewing them off in law school. “Maybe…”
No. This can’t be done another time. There is no more time. Even if Ben’s drunk.
“The firm isn’t going to leak any information,” I say instead. “At least with Yang, your identity’s safe. He’s not going to tell the defendants … or their families … either.”
“Oh, the firm, you say? Not your firm?” He leans forward, and his elbow nearly falls off the bar. “Did you lose your pretty pink job up there in your dark, evil tower?”
Ben’s slurring, he’s going through some deep shit, and he’s possibly seeing two of me.
Fuck him, anyway.
“To the contrary,” I say. “I can save my job if I get you to testify.”
Ben blinks. Then bursts into a high, uncharacteristic guffaw. I watch him, closed-lipped.
He gets enough breath back to say, “Knew there was a reason you’d be here for your own benefit, Astor.”
“I’m here to tell you not to do it.”
He pauses in picking up his half-empty beer. “Come again?”
“You may think you have me all figured out, that I aim high and fight low. I constantly have to prove myself in rooms full of testosterone and boys’ clubs and brotherhoods, and I’m proud of every step and move I’ve made. I’ve worked hard to get where I am at such a young age. I’ve sacrificed plenty, though it’s easy to think I bite off children’s heads and feed them to vultures at night as some sort of ritualistic, bitchy sacrifice, because what does a woman like me deserve success for? Right?”
Ben has trouble focusing on the bar. “Jesus, Astor. I didn’t ask for a speech—”
“You didn’t. That’s right. You’re sitting here getting drunk, letting men like Yang railroad you—”
“Hold up just a minute—”
“I’m on your side, Ben!”
I shout it loud enough that heads turn. I’ve certainly gained Ben’s full attention.
“You may have convinced yourself that I work only for me, and when that’s not in my favor, I impress my boss enough that it benefits my career, but you have me so wrong. The minute this firm wanted to hunt down a child’s trauma for the good of known mafia consorts, it went too far. I gathered the information because I was on auto-pilot. I’d become so numb to everything, every emotion, and it didn’t seem to matter, then, if I imploded someone else’s life. But even before knowing it was you, well into tracing the inheritance funds, I knew it was wrong. I felt it. And I didn’t want it anymore.”
Ben asks quietly, “Want what?”
“This life.” My voice cracks. “I love what I do. I’m an excellent lawyer. But I’m terrible at being human.”
“That’s not true,” Ben says. He looks to his beer, swishing it around in the glass. “In all the craziness of trying to make sense of my situation, the fear, the anger, I’ve related to you most of all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re the first person I want to come to when my life’s in shambles.” Ben nails me with bleary, pale blue eyes. “The woman I want to confide in. The one whose opinion is most important. I told you who I really was and … and you didn’t see me as Ryan. You still looked at me as Ben. That, more than anything, tells me you’re a person who cares.”
“I care about you,” I say, my throat thick with emotion.
“Then what are you here for?”
“To try to make some sense of this.” I sniff hard, then sift through my tote. “Here are all the documents pertaining to your old identity. I’ve deleted all traces from the firm’s database. I’m going to give them to you, so you can destroy them, or keep them, basically do whatever you want with them. It’s your choice.”
“You’ll get fired for this.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you’re not scared? Disappointed?”
“I’m terrified.” I laugh dully. “And incredibly disappointed in myself for letting it get this far, for allowing Mike to get his hands on it, for the information even getting to Altin Yang … there are a lot of things I regret. But this, being in this dank-ass bar with you, throwing these folders in front of your face and telling you to fuck ‘em, this is the proudest I’ve ever been.”
Ever so slowly, Ben smiles.
I mirror a tentative one back.
He clears his throat, breaking the moment, then lays a hand on the folders on my lap. “What does this mean for me?”
“I can’t do anything about Yang’s knowledge. But he’s built on integrity, and the only thing he wants is for you to be questioned in a closed-door deposition. As for Mike, I’m working on a plan for him, but he’s nothing if not an opportunistic asshole, so if this information doesn’t gain him anything, he likely won’t use it.”
“Astor, sorry to be so blunt, but I fucked his fiancée. Dude wants to have me murdered.”
“Ex-fiancée, and he’s not the type to whisper your name to known, violent drug gangs. Especially since in our line of work, we know it’s often the messenger that’s decapitated and made an ‘unavailable’ witness.”
Ben taps a finger on the files, and I feel the beats against my thigh.
&nb
sp; “And you?” he asks. “What would you advise me to do?”
“As a human being, or as your lawyer?”
“Both.”
I take a deep breath. “I would say, you have two choices. You can nip this in the bud and take it to the press yourself. Tell them who you really are and that you remember nothing. Make it so public that the mafia—or anyone else—would be very stupid to come after you.”
“People have orchestrated car accidents for less.”
I concede his point, but say, “In this case, the benefits might outweigh the risks. You were a four-year-old boy who witnessed a crime a little over twenty years ago. If I had you on the stand, I could easily discredit you.”
Ben furrows his brow as if insulted, but more likely he’s attempting to keep the Earth on its axis as he wobbles.
“The fact that you’re recalling something decades old,” I continue, “and that you were a toddler with an unreliable memory to begin with, makes you a weak witness on both sides. You’ve lived peacefully and privately ever since, giving no indication that you’ve remembered anything to do with your parents’ murders.”
“You’ve missed one key fact.”
I arch a brow.
“I remember.”
Someone smacks a pool cue against the balls, sending a crack both inside and outside my head. “What?”
“I’m…” Ben massages his temples. “I’m starting to remember. I think it’s all this talk about it. It’s forcing me to look back. But I remember a name that was said that night. Lopez.”
I lay a hand on his denim-clad thigh. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you sure it’s not your mind playing tricks on you? That name has been thrown around a lot in the news—”
“I’m not watching the news.”
“—and it’s extremely common.”
“Astor, listen to me.” He grips my wrist on his thigh with a firm, urgent tightness. “I’m remembering. I know what they did to my parents. I—I know…”
“Okay,” I say, coming closer, moving a hand to his neck. “Okay, I believe you.”
He lays his forehead on mine. “I’ve made my decision.”
My eyelashes brush against his nose. “You don’t have to tell me anything. After what happened this morning…”
“You’re here now. You’ve given me the files. You’ve compromised your career. I think you’ve gained my trust.”
“You’re also drunk,” I say in a low voice. “I don’t know if now’s the time to come to conclusions on something so big.”
“I make my best decisions while drunk.”
A surprising bubble of laughter reaches my throat.
“It’s how I signed with the Giants and became the highest-grossing rookie receiver in the league.”
“Well, with that kind of rep—”
Ben sobers. Lifts away so he can search my eyes. “Ever since the news broke of the arrest, of the suspects, I’ve known what the right move is. But I’ve been a coward. Confused. I had no idea I’d have to face my past like this. I’ve lived so long as another man, that it—it laid me out.”
I squeeze his bicep, remaining silent.
“There is one thing that rings true. And it’s justice for my parents. The ones who only got to love me for four years. Who had their lives cut short because they were trying to do the right thing. For taking away my chance to grow up with them. To love them as much as they loved me.”
Slowly, I nod.
Ben’s mouth goes grim. “I want the fuckers to pay for what they did to my life. Their lives.”
I’m bracing for his next words, and I repeat them in my head at the same time he says them.
“I want to testify.”
29
Ben
When I put on a suit the next day and stand in front of my mirror, adjusting my basic, navy tie, I stare at the boy I would’ve been.
If I’d grown up as Ryan Delaney in a working-class home, with parents grinding their fingers to the bone to provide for me, I wonder if I would’ve been the same.
Tim and Rose Delaney loved me. They cared in the way that doting parents do—I remember being fed and given clean clothes, provided a room with toys, Mom kissing me at bedtime, bath time, and whenever the urge struck her. Dad throwing his arm around my shoulders while we were on the couch, screaming at the TV during Sunday Night Football.
The Donahues are middle-class. Mom quit her job to raise me. I had apple slices and cookies ready every time I came home from school, making my buddies extremely jealous. I never requested apple juice. I’m wondering if I finally have the answer as to why I don’t like the stuff.
Both sets of parents started off with one thing: love for a little boy. One set was given the gift, the other had it cruelly ripped away.
As I blink at my reflection, locking my jaw from displaying any further emotion, I hope the Delaneys would be proud of me, and proud of the Donahues for raising me the way they did.
I blow out a breath as it hits me that I’m going to have to talk to Mom and Pops at some point about all this. And I really don’t know where to start.
“How about, I love you. Start there,” I murmur to myself.
My legs get jittery. I do a shuffle, exactly like I do in the locker room before a big game, shaking out my arms, my legs, dispelling the tense energy in my neck.
This is the biggest play of my life.
Astor said she’d meet me downtown, so I take a car there and once I arrive, I’m ushered through security. It’s 6 AM, and the building is sparse, exactly what’s intended.
The arrangements occurred shortly after Astor’s and my meeting yesterday. I had to cut happy hour short with Ash and East, but they didn’t seem to mind. Carter and Sophie had joined us at that point. They seemed a group ready to swig shots when I left, making it easy to duck out without raising suspicion.
Astor texted me long into the night, and kept me on the phone for a while, detailing what the next morning would bring. She also had to contact Aiden and present a formal request to interview. These people didn’t want to waste any time—at least, that’s what Astor says. And she’s my expert right now. She’s my fucking knight in shining armor.
I want to be hers.
Grunting the thought out of my consciousness, I find her waiting for me at the reception desk, in front of an intimidating glass wall.
A few people are striding back and forth on the carpeted hallway on the other side, carrying folders and mugs and shit like that.
I should be pumped and about to explode. I’m staring straight at the competitor’s playbook, and Astor’s prepped me enough to know each and every move the other side’s gonna make.
“You ready?” she asks as I approach.
“Glass is transparent. I see everything going on back there. Suits scurrying around. Why’s it so intimidating when I see what’s coming?”
“You’re nervous.”
“Fucking right I am.”
She cups both sides of my face and holds me steady within her bright, bold blue eyes. “I’ve explained everything that will happen in there. There will be no surprises.”
“My whole life is a surprise.”
“Then it’s finally within your control,” she replies.
I nod. “I’m ready.”
“Good. Follow me.”
I swamp the beanpole men that scamper out of our way as Astor leads me to where this deposition is going to happen. I assume it’s the spot where the Assistant District Attorney, Spencer Rolfe, is standing, arms folded behind him like he’s a butler or an assassin. I can’t tell which.
“Mr. Donahue,” he says, holding out his hand. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am you’ve agreed to this.”
“It’s my only choice,” I say.
Rolfe nods. He’s as tall as me, with much blonder hair and features most chicks would call “chiseled” instead of muscular. I don’t know if I like him.
“And Astor.” Rolfe directs his attention on her. “You’re
putting a lot on the line, giving me the lead on this instead of Yang.”
Astor looks at me when she says, “I have no regrets.”
“Okay, then,” Rolfe says. He pushes open the door to an old-fashioned, lots of wood, conference room with bulky, black leather chairs. Aiden sits in the center, appearing grumpy, tired, annoyed, and resigned. A mirror image of myself, in fact.
“Let’s get started,” Rolfe says.
One foot in, and I’m prepared to face the fiery Armageddon of my past.
Four hours later, and my mom and dad’s last night, my real-life nightmare, is documented in a computer, ready to be printed out and handed to the other side, potentially to be used at trial.
“Your name will never be on the pages,” Astor says as she puts her blazer back on.
The small amount of people in the conference room—Rolfe, the court reporter, and Aiden, have left.
I forgot to tell Astor how beautiful she looks. As soon as I saw her this morning, in her tailored black skirt and a pale pink blouse, I thought, She’s waiting for me.
And Astor stayed with me, all throughout this grueling process.
“I don’t fucking deserve you,” I say to her now.
Astor freezes with one arm through her blazer. A surge of conflict flows through her expression before she says, “It’s the least I could do, Ben, after I nearly ruined everything.”
“No. Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You are. You’re going all professional on me.”
She gestures around us. “That’s exactly the kind of environment we’re in.”
“Last time we were in an official environment, I fucked you from behind.”
Astor’s eyes go wide, and she shushes me as if we have eavesdroppers, when we’ve just been put in the most secure place possible, other than maybe a bank’s underground vault. And thank God, I laugh. Chuckle hard. Get out all the pain and emotion from the memories I was forced to bring forth in a few single, loud guffaws.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asks.
Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection) Page 53
