by Ivy Fox
Feeling that we are reasonably safe for now, I turn to face Elle head-on, knowing that what I’m about to tell her will change the reality as she knows it. She needs an explanation as to why the brother she adores has been charged with taking her father’s deplorable life—one that I’m responsible for snuffing out.
Elle’s eyes are wide, amber jewels, undoubtedly trying to piece the macabre puzzle together. The snowflakes that fall from the sky kiss the tip of her button nose, making her look pure and far too innocent to hear the earth-shattering revelation that I’m about to spring upon her.
I take her hands in mine—like she did to me not a minute ago to console my broken heart—and pray it’s enough to keep her from falling apart. I’m about to recount the events of that night when I feel a warning hand on my shoulder giving it a little squeeze.
“I still think we shouldn’t be doing this right now,” Ash cautions, worried that the officers roaming the manor might overhear my horrid secret.
I know Ash is right in thinking our timing is off, but if I don’t speak my truth now, I’m not sure if Elle will ever forgive me. I risk that outcome anyway since it’s been months that I’ve lived with this secret already. Months that I let her believe that her father’s condition was a mere accident. But his death is now on my hands, and if I continue to live this lie, continue to keep Elle in the dark, then what kind of person does that make me?
“Let it go, Ash. Snow needs to do this. Go on. Tell her,” Ollie adds, offering me a meek smile, while placing his hands over his sister’s shoulders, offering her the same soothing reassurance he’s always bestowed on me—the beacon of light that guides and comforts us through the storm.
I take a deep breath, summoning up all the courage I have to tell her what happened a few months back in this house, and to explain how her father was a monster amongst men, destroying any small hope of him being anything else.
‘Breathe, Snow. Breathe.’ I hear a faded memory call out to me, and the unwanted tears that I’ve been trying so hard to hold back threaten to return tenfold. But tears won’t repair the damage I’m about to cause. Nothing will.
“Rome didn’t kill your father, Elle. I did,” I repeat plainly.
“You? You killed him? Why?” Elle questions, her brows pulled together in puzzlement.
I don’t miss how her voice has turned just as cold as the weather around us, and although it unnerves me a bit, I muster on. I have to, for both our sakes.
“I’ll tell you everything. But you have to trust me, that I alone did this. Rome had nothing to do with it. You have to believe me.”
“I know Rome didn’t kill my father, no matter what the police say. My brother might not consider himself to be a good man, but I know differently. He’d never take a life, even one as cruel as our father’s.” The way she says it, so matter of fact, makes my chest ache.
Ash coughs into his fist, pretending to clear his throat, but it’s obvious he’s remembering how both he and Rome were opposed to saving the judge’s life that night. If it weren’t for Ollie trying his best to preserve their souls by using Elle’s name as a pretext, her father would have bled out on the floor with all of us watching.
Oh, God! This is going to be harder than I thought.
“What happened?” she prompts in the same flat, scrutinizing tone.
I swallow dryly, my nerves starting to get the best of me.
What if Elle despises me for taking her father away from her? What if she can’t forgive me for taking a life, even if in self-defense? What if she doesn’t believe me and thinks I brought this all on myself? I mean, I did fall in love with all of her brothers, so how could she believe that I would stop there and not have a romantic relationship with her father, too? Addison was willing to sleep with him, willing to betray Rome in the most heartless of ways. Why would Elle believe me incapable of doing the same? Would she believe me, that the only way to stop his advances, to stop him from defiling me, was to defend myself in any manner I could?
All these questions run rampant through my mind while an impatient Elle stares at me, demanding answers.
“Remember Trevor and Lace’s party? The one right before school started?” Ollie commences, picking up on my hesitation.
“You mean the one where all of you were complete assholes? Yeah, I remember it,” she rebukes back, narrowing her eyes judgingly.
My faith in our sisterly bond returns with that little bit of protectiveness she still has for me. It gives me the courage to take over from where Ollie left off.
“Do you remember what happened after the party?” I continue on.
Her brows pull harder in thought, as she begins to recollect that night.
“We came home and talked. You told me how you were Snow and how much my brothers were being total dicks. Not that much has changed,” she scoffs, yet again giving her older brothers the evil eye.
“I just want to interrupt and say that both Ash and I are trying to make amends,” Ollie interjects, offended, wanting to add his two cents. Elle rolls her eyes and raises her hand in her brother’s direction before he says anything else.
“Not the time, Ollie,” she scolds, making Ollie twist his nose in annoyance, but he seals his lips shut regardless.
“Well, after you fell asleep, I remembered seeing a piano in the music room, and I thought maybe if I put words to music about how I was feeling, it might untangle the mess in my head.”
And in my heart. But this part I leave out, not wanting the twins to feel any guiltier about what happened that night than they already do. They, like me, have suffered enough because of one man’s vile decision to seek me out with the sole intention of destroying the person I was, effectively ruining any lasting innocence still held by the tips of my fingers.
“Since I didn’t think anyone would go to that room so late at night, I thought I wouldn’t bother anyone if I went there to sort my mind out,” I add, but I feel the following words begin to lodge themselves in my throat, unwilling to come out. Malcolm took something sacred in all of us that night, but once I tell Elle what happened, her views of the world and her feelings for her own father will be just as tarnished.
“After a while, your father came into the room, and he… Well, he…”
“The fucker tried to rape her,” Ash exclaims without missing a beat.
“What?!” Elle gasps, becoming pale as a ghost, while Ollie punches Ash in the arm for his rude awakening.
“Nice going, asshole!”
“If you want her to know, then there is no use in sugar-coating it,” Ash rebukes unashamed, pulling his sister to him and taking over from us. “Our father tried to rape Snow, Elle. That’s the God’s honest truth. The seventeen-year-old stepdaughter that had barely graced his home—the one any honest man would do his best to protect after all the shit that happened to her throughout her entire life—was just too tempting for the fucker not to put his grimy hands on. They fought, and Snow did what she needed to defend herself. She grabbed whatever she could to get the bastard off of her, and plunged one of his humanitarian awards through his skull. That’s how Rome, Ollie, and I found her—barely functional, shattered, and out of her mind, with the monster still lying beside her. Rome didn’t do this. Snow did. But I promise you, Elle, if any one of us had gotten there earlier, our father was a dead man anyway.”
I gulp at Ash’s honesty, and for the first time since it happened, I realize how grateful I should be that I alone will have to live with this burden. Ash would have killed Malcolm on the spot, and even though Rome and I weren’t together yet, Rome’s scars from the past would have put blood on his hands too. By the stern expression that Ollie has on, even his pacifist ways would have been thrown out the window.
“We have to tell the police,” Elle announces, already turning away from us and heading back inside, ready to explain the whole sordid event again. To my despair, Ollie jumps in her path, halting her next move.
“Sorry, sis.
That’s going to be a no can do.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Oliver?! Of course we have to go to the police!” Her outrage is so loud that Ollie has to cover her mouth with his hands before she draws attention to our whereabouts.
“No one is going to do a goddamn thing. Not until I talk to Rome and figure out what our next move is,” Ash whisper yells, pointing at his sister and then to me, knowing full well I share Elle’s feelings on the matter.
My face is placid stone with his command, but Elle’s isn’t as conformed. “I swear to God, Elle, I’m fucking serious! You are not to open that mouth of yours to anyone. Not the cops. Not to your BFF Chad. No one. Am I making myself clear?”
If looks could kill, then Ash would be six feet deep by now with the way his sister is throwing daggers at him. Elle shrugs Ollie’s grip away and crosses her arms over her chest, her anger as palpable as the ground at our feet.
“Fine. Then what are we going to do?”
“What we Graysons do best—take the world on and make them regret ever coming for one of us.”
Chapter 2
Roman
“Grayson! Look alive! You’ve got a visitor,” the guard shouts out as he uses his black baton on each of the iron bars to get my attention.
I straighten up from my bunk bed, wiping from my eyes the little bit of sleep I was able to grab in this cold, damp jail cell.
The groans and curses coming from my disgruntled cellmate on the top bunk let me know he isn’t pleased with the guard’s early morning call either. Luckily for me, I’ve been put in a two-man jail cell with a guy who is as averse to small talk as I am. Good thing too, since I’m not really in the mood to make friends while I’m here. Honestly, I really thought I’d be home by now, but the last thirty-two hours have shown me to expect the unexpected.
I run my fingers through my dark hair, still pissed I didn’t see this shit coming.
The interrogation done by Detective Gomez felt surreal, and the questions she asked left me dumbfounded. Of course, not once did I give her the satisfaction of showing how her probing questions unsettled me. I let my lawyer deflect each and every one, knocking them out of the park with ease while I just lean back in my chair, giving everyone in the room my best laid-back shark-grin. My cocky, privileged posture only infuriated the hard-nosed detective more. So much so, she ended up spilling more information to us than the other way around.
Still, I wouldn’t call it a win.
She knew things that have never been made public, and for the life of me, I have no idea where she could have gotten her hands on such info.
The police learning my father wasn’t my favorite person didn’t come as a great shock to me. People like to gossip, and I guess the cold shoulder I gave the asshole when we had to attend public functions together was too arctic for people not to take notice. But if all the cops have is idle gossip, then I wouldn’t be in this situation, now would I?
They knew about Addison and how my bastard of a father had an affair with her behind my back when we were dating. Even though Detective Gomez hadn’t said how she learned this nasty little tidbit, it didn’t take a genius to know I was the idiot who burst that lid wide open with my meltdown at the Pembroke High’s fashion show a few weeks back.
But that still wasn’t what got my hackles up. It was the persistent and vague questioning about my inheritance that struck a nerve. Out of the blue, they came at me with questions on how I felt about the judge not being given a slice of my mother’s estate. Did I think it was just and warranted? Was that the start of our hostility toward each other or simply the straw that broke the camel’s back? That line of questioning was far too peculiar not to have something to back it up. They were fishing for something. I just have no idea as to what.
Possibly more concerning—who could have clued the detective in taking a look at my mother’s will in the first place? I know the Graysons’ trust lawyers wouldn’t have said anything, as legally they couldn’t due to attorney-client privilege. I don’t see the twins or Elle talking about the matter to anyone with loose lips either since it’s no one’s business but our own. So, of course, being berated about my inheritance and how my father felt on the matter of his exclusion left a bad taste in my mouth.
Just what is the NYPD up to, and what does any of it have to do with me being charged with his murder? I mean, it doesn’t prove a goddamn thing.
Maybe it’s their sneaky way to prove the animosity between us. The only way they can make it evident to the jury that we were never a happy home. If that’s all they’ve got, then they are grasping at straws. Sure, it took me off guard and it didn’t sit well with me that they knew more than I gave them credit for, but just because they think the asshole slept with my skanky ex as payback from getting shafted out of my mom’s will isn’t just cause for me to seek out revenge years later.
If they only knew what my true motivations to see the monster burn in hell were, then I’m sure I’d be fucked beyond measure. They’d lock me up and throw away the key so fast that my head would spin. I mean, who would ever believe I didn’t kill my father? If word got out that, not only did he hurt my mother time and time again, but he also had tried to do the same thing to the woman I’m in love with, no one would believe in my innocence. Yeah. There would be no way of getting out of that mess. I’d be labeled guilty before I stepped foot in a courtroom.
“Come on, pretty boy. I don’t have all day,” the guard snaps, pounding his little stick on the bars while eyeing me with the same annoyance I feel for being here. I get up and walk over to the bars, extending my arms through the narrow, rectangular breach so he can cuff me before opening my cell door.
“You rich assholes always think everything should be run on your own time,” the guard continues to grumble as he takes out his cuffs. “The world doesn’t revolve around you in here, Grayson. The sooner you realize that, the better it will be for you.”
“Thanks for the warning, but I have no intention of making myself comfortable here,” I snarl back unapologetically, only to have the fucker tighten the cuffs around my wrists, making sure the steel shaves and bites into my skin.
Fucking asshole.
“Prison has nothing to do with comfort. But soon enough you’ll see that with your own eyes. This place right here is a fucking paradise compared to where you’re going, rich boy,” he continues with a vicious laugh.
Yeah, that’s not happening.
If I have to go to jail to save Snow I will, but by the way the detective’s interrogation went, none of them are the wiser about what truly happened that night, which means they have jack shit on me—nothing but circumstantial evidence and idle gossip.
Whatever judge signed the warrant for my arrest—based on piles of hearsay—must have been off his rocker. Most likely, it was Detective Gomez who sweet-talked a judge who wants to make a name for himself. And what better way to do it than going after the great Judge Grayson’s would-be murderer?
But I keep my lips sealed and don’t say another word to the guard either way.
Most of the guards I’ve had the displeasure of meeting in this place are on some kind of power kick and take pleasure in seeing the inmates bow to them in submission. A few of them have a sick satisfaction in taunting men down on their luck, to the point that any lingering fight they still have inside gets them in further hot water. I won’t give these pricks the satisfaction of seeing they got a rise out of me, nor will I give them the excuse they anxiously want to use force.
Like this asshole right here—he hates me just because of my last name. He doesn’t know me, nor does he care to. All he cares is that I’m making more money doing nothing than he’ll ever make busting his ass all his life.
Is that fair? Probably not. But right now, I couldn’t give a fuck. His frustrations have nothing on mine.
Even in death, my father has managed to steal the peace I was finally able to find in my woman’s arms. He must be laughing i
n the fiery pits of hell by his ability to still disrupt my life. Too bad for the fucker, I don’t intend to go down without a fight. I’ve got too much to lose to just bend down and take it. As long as no one knows about Snow’s involvement in this mess, then I have to do everything in my power to get home to her.
She’ll never forgive me if I don’t.
I walk in silence, waiting for each locked door in our path to open and see who came to visit me. The twins and Elle must be frantic by now, but my main concern is on my girl. Until I talk to her, I won’t be at peace. I have to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid like go to the police, or some shit like that. I know her well enough to anticipate what her first instincts will be.
Always my little fighter.
Even though she might want to throw herself at the mercy of the justice system, I know that I have Ash in my corner. He’ll never let her take the fall, no matter how hard she pleas. The minute I was given the right to my phone call, he was the one I contacted. I didn’t even have to go into specifics for Ash to step up and know exactly what needed to be done. I knew he would, the minute he took hold of our girl with a death grip and steered her away from the little men in blue that stormed our home. I saw it in his eyes—the same need to protect her that I have, even if that means protecting her against her truest nature.
Right now, the police have nothing on Snow. But that would change if she decides to open that pretty, little mouth of hers to tell them the truth, making this shitty situation into a full-fledged nightmare.
As pure as Snow’s intentions are, they have already set their case on me, which means they’ll never believe her. They will, however, use her statement to prove I had it in for my father, seeing as she freaked out when the police stormed our house.
