Old Fashioned - Becker Brothers

It was too much — the discovery Jordan had made, the confession I’d told him thinking he would understand, the demand he was making of me, the guilt I felt that I couldn’t give it to him, the island I was stranded on as the only one between us who understood my choices, who knew what it was like to give everything to protect Paige.

I couldn’t make the decision in this state — not now, not tonight.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked, and I pulled my hands from his, covering my mouth as my eyes squeezed shut and released another flood of tears. I was already up and off the bench, flying through the garden and across the lawn to where I’d parked my car, and I didn’t look back to see if Jordan was following me.

Maybe because I knew he wouldn’t.

I’d gone into that evening with the intention to hold his heart in my hands, to promise to keep it safe, to tell him I wanted him — all of him — and I wanted him to take all of me, too.

I was supposed to tell him I loved him.

I was supposed to claim his heart as my own.

Instead, I’d left it shattered on the stony path of a cold, dark garden.

And I’d never hated myself more.JordanThe next evening after Sunday dinner at Mom’s, I sat at the firepit in her backyard surrounded by all my brothers, and I told them what I’d found.

I felt numb going through the story, telling them what I’d already told Sydney the night before and feeling my heart split open a little more with every thought of her. I wished she was there with me, telling her side of the story, but I kept that to myself.

Even if I didn’t understand her choice, I respected it.

I wouldn’t tell anyone what she’d told me.

Still, I knew now, and the fact that she’d overheard Randy on the phone that night talking to someone about homicide only fueled my justice fire.

We were going to take someone down for my father’s death, though I wasn’t sure who yet.

But we had to be smart about it.

We had to have a plan.

“We can’t tell anyone else about this,” I told my brothers after their initial outbursts at the news and the silence that had followed. I waited until each of them were looking at me to continue. “Least of all Mom. She’ll kill him.”

“Are you kidding me? I might fucking kill him,” Noah seethed, fuming like a dragon.

“That would solve nothing,” I reminded him, bluntly but as gently as I could. “The biggest mistake we could make right now is letting our emotions get the best of us. We have to be smart.”

There were quiet nods, though I could tell by the way my brothers wore identical scowls and flat-lined lips that no one was happy about the agreement.

“And I want to tell Mom just as badly as you guys do, but it wouldn’t serve her any good right now. Until we have someone in handcuffs or substantial proof, she doesn’t need to know.”

“I just don’t understand,” Mikey said, shaking his head. “How could Patrick murder someone like that? A father, just like him — and someone who grew up with him in that distillery? Someone his own father loved?”

“Maybe that’s just it,” Logan said. “I mean, you heard what Jordan found in Dad’s last entry. Patrick never really liked Dad. He saw him as a threat.”

“And look at all the illegal shit Patrick Scooter does without blinking an eye. His underground casino has gotten half this town into debt they’ll never see the other side of — Ruby Grace’s dad included. I mean, he found a way to pay it off, but he’s the mayor. What about everyone else?” Noah shook his head. “I think, in his eyes, he owns this town and everyone in it, and he can do whatever he damn well pleases.”

“He had to have known that Will existed,” Mikey chimed in.

“I don’t know,” I volleyed. “If he did, why would he have had Dad working in that office knowing there was a Will hidden somewhere in there? And besides, we don’t know that Patrick is the root of this. All we know is that he asked Dad to be in that office at the end of the day.”

We all fell silent at that.

“Wouldn’t Robert’s lawyer have had the Will, too, though?” Logan asked after a while. “I mean, it has to be notarized. I imagine someone had a copy — a lawyer, a financial advisor, whoever. That one in his old office couldn’t have been the only one.”

“Money speaks, brother,” Noah said quietly. “My gut tells me if Patrick didn’t want that Will being read by anyone, he’d pay just about anything to get agreement from all involved that it never existed.”