Shallow River

Heaving out another sigh, I look in the direction of the staircase. “I’m going up there.”

She takes a step toward me, her eyes bulging. “You can’t let him go, Mako,” she says hurriedly, her eyes turned feral with desperation.

“I’m not. I promise. But I need to see what you got us into,” I explain soothingly, resting my hand on her elbow to help calm her. Her brow dips and she shoots me a nasty look.

“I didn’t get you into anything, Mako.”

I give her a sardonic smile. “We’re in this together, baby.”

“WELL YOU LOOK LIKE a large pile of dogshit,” I comment, my clinical tone matching my face as I examine Ryan’s body.

“Fuck you,” he spits darkly. For the first time in my life, Ryan was happy to see me when I walked in. That quickly went to shit when I smiled at him, teeth and all.

He’s a goddamn bloodied mess. The only thing on his cut up and bruised body is a pair of soiled boxer briefs. Fuck, he smells like shit, too. Wrinkling my nose, I circle around him, noting all his wounds.

Looks like she used something fine and sharp to cut him, like a box cutter. The cuts aren’t too deep, some of them needing stitches, especially the large slash across his chest. His entire torso is mottled with bruises—most still a dark purple. He hasn’t been up here long enough for any of them to turn yellow and green.

His foot looks like it’s set in an unnatural angle, though I don’t see bone poking through. Two of his fingers on his left hand are definitely broken, completely bent at odd angles with bone sticking out. I smile when I realize it’s the same two fingers River had broken—one of them Ryan’s doing. Pinky and pointer finger.

That’s my girl.

I glance at her hand, noting her casted pointer finger and then drag my eyes up to the rest of her. It looks like she’s just stepped out of a boxing ring. She has fresh bruises on her arms and around her neck, a cut on her brow and a fat lip. All at the hands of someone who claimed to love her. Her ribs and concussion are healed by now, but the lingering effects in her mind will never disappear.

This woman has gone through more shit than most can even handle in their lifetime. And she’s gone through it her entire life. I don’t think I’ve met someone so resilient. So strong. What she’s doing to Ryan… it’s fucking insane. Certifiably insane. But considering what she’s been through, fuck, I can’t blame her. I can’t fault her for finally snapping.

“Please, Mako. You’re a cop. You’re a good cop. Don’t let this bitch get away with this shit. Please, let me go,” he pleads, his voice cracking at the end.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen Ryan scared. Vulnerable. He’s always played this tough guy act, even when he was ten and I was thirteen, newly adopted into the family. It was like he felt he had to prove himself when I came in the picture. Mommy and daddy decided to have another son, so he thought he wasn’t good enough for them. The guy was a fucking selfish narcissist since birth. There’s no changing him. No saving him.

“Why should I help you? You’ve done nothing but go out of your way to make my life miserable since I came into the picture,” I say, posting up behind him where he can’t see me. He attempts to turn his head to look at me, but his binds won’t allow him much leeway.

“You never belonged, Mako.”

River steps forward, her brow pinched with anger. “All this time, I thought you hated him because he did something to you. Why would you make me—anyone—believe that?”

Ryan laughs humorlessly. “Does it fucking matter? He’s my brother,” he spits the word with disdain.

“Am I?” I question with mirth, chuckling when he tries to swing his heated glare to me. Doesn’t work very well. Such an angry soul, and for what? To end up tied up and tortured because he can’t help being a shitty human? And then to have the brother he bullied mercilessly refuse to help because of his actions.

Ryan is getting well acquainted with Karma, and goddamn, is she a bitch.

I come around to face him once more and crouch down, the smile never leaving my face as I say, “Never treated me like one. I was excited to get a brother when our parents adopted me. But you always took it as an insult.”

“Because it was!” he shouts, shaking in his binds. “They were never going to have another kid. They said I was enough for them. We were perfectly fucking happy without you, but then Dad handled your father’s murder case and he just had to grow a soft spot for you. He just couldn’t let you stay in the system like every other fucking kid in this country. What’s so special about you, huh? You’re a mediocre detective that can’t even figure out who the Ghost Killer is. You’re not good enough for us.”

His words bounce off me like rubber on wood. I can’t be hurt by someone that I never truly cared about. I tried at one point. I tried so hard to build a relationship with him, create an unbreakable bond between brothers.

But he just wanted to hate me. It didn’t take long before I stopped caring enough to stop him. He tortured me, hurt me and made my childhood miserable.

He didn?

??t want me as brother before, he’s certainly not going to fucking get one now.

“I HAVE A CONFESSION,” River blurts. I stare at her, filled with trepidation and unease. I can’t take anymore confessions from her. I’ve had enough to last several fucking lifetimes—that’s if I’m not burning in hell for what we’re doing. We’re in the living room, sitting on the same couch that River was stuck on not so long ago, humiliated with tears streaking down her face. When this is all over, I’m going to burn this fucking couch.

“Matt raped Ryan,” she forges on, before I can voice any protests.

My world stops on its axis, causing everything to come to a crashing halt. There’s no fucking way I heard that right. There’s just no way she said… No. No, no, no. No way.