Exposed (Ethan Frost 3)

“This isn’t about fucking courtesy.”

“No, it very well fucking isn’t. It’s about the fact that your brother is dead and you’re torn up by that fact and you have every right to be.”

“I’m not torn up because he’s dead,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she tells me. There’s no judgment in the word, no disbelief, just simple acceptance and understanding. Which is why it makes no sense that that one word makes me want to claw my fucking eyes out.

“Don’t you get it?” I demand. “It’s going to be a fucking shit show and I don’t want you to have any fucking part of it. I need to keep you safe.”

“And I need to keep you safe! When are you going to understand that this is a two-way street we’re on. You protect me, I protect you. Things will only work between us if you learn how to bend, how to let me help you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She looks confused. “What’s what supposed to mean?”

“Are you going to leave me if I don’t let you come to the funeral?”

Now she’s looking at me like I’m insane. Maybe I am. God knows most days it feels like I’ve totally lost my grip on the world around me.

“Are we seriously back to that?” She grabs me by the tie, pulls my mouth down to hers and kisses me thoroughly. “Because the sad fact that you are going to have to get through your thick skull one way or another is that I’m not going to leave you at all. Not now, not ever. We stood in that chapel and promised each other that this is forever. I’m not changing the rules now and you don’t get to, either.”

“Everything is just so fucked up.” It slips out even though I don’t mean it to.

Chloe melts in front of me as the words register. I watch as the fight drains out of her only to be replaced by the compassion that is so much a part of who she is. “I know it is, baby. I know it is.”

She wraps her arms around my neck, pulls my head down to rest against her shoulder. And then she just holds me for long seconds as I try to regain my composure. I reach for the ice, for the frozen, unyielding stoicism that has been so much a part of me this last week.

It doesn’t come. In its place is a weakness I just can’t shake, a frailty of mind and spirit that makes it hard for me to speak, to think, to breathe.

When I can’t take it anymore, I lift my head, pull away. And say the one thing—the only thing—guaranteed to keep her here, where she belongs. Here, where I need her to be. “I don’t want you there, Chloe.”

Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t say anything.

“I mean, yes, partially it’s about protecting you and keeping you safe from the throngs of people who are going to want to make you bleed just because they can. But the truth is, I don’t want you there because it’s going to make things harder. Going to make things more of a mess than they are already. The narrative is already so fucked up. If you come to his funeral, the whole thing is going to end up being about you. And that’s not what I want.

“He was a fucked-up son of a bitch. A bastard, an asshole, a monster. But this is still his funeral and—good or bad—it needs to be about him.”

“Okay.”

“Wait? What did you say?”

“I said okay.” She looks pale, but resolved. “If that’s why you don’t want me to come, then I’ll accept that.”

“You will?”

“Of course I will. I want to make things easier for you, not more difficult. But know that I’m here and will continue to be here for you whenever you need me. If you change your mind, you call me, okay? Do you promise?”

I’ve already changed my mind, already need her. The thought of walking into that funeral all alone makes my skin crawl—hell, who am I kidding? The thought of going to that funeral, alone or with Chloe or with a contingent of my closest friends, makes me crazy. Makes me ill. All I want is for it to be over. And for me to be back here, in Chloe’s arms, like the whole nightmare never happened.

“You should go,” she says, straightening my tie a little, brushing some nonexistent lint off my suit jacket. It’s her way of fussing over me, of giving me the reassurance of her touch without making a big deal of it. So I stand there and allow it, even as I wish that I could take her in my arms. Even as I wish that things could go back to normal when it was so easy to hold her, so easy to love her.

Walking out of that hotel room, walking away from her when all I want to do is stay, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I still think it’s the right thing to do—she doesn’t need to deal with the three-ring circus this is sure to turn into. But just because it’s the right thing, doesn’t mean it’s the easy one.

—

I almost make it to the end of the funeral before I lose my shit completely. I make it through the throng of reporters waiting outside the church, hoping for some juicy tidbit they can use on their evening broadcast. I make it through all the people—friends and business acquaintances of my stepfather and myself—who want to tell me how sorry they are for my loss, even when it’s apparent to anyone with half a brain how fucked-up this whole thing is. I even make it past my mother, who doesn’t say anything but an icy hello to me, but whose eyes tell me everything she won’t say out loud.

She still blames me for what happened. Still swears that I’m the reason her beloved son is dead. And with the FBI report—courtesy of James—weighing heavily in my pocket, it’s not like I can dispute it. The current investigation by the FBI establishes, with pretty good clarity, that Brandon’s murder was a professional hit. Not a robbery gone wrong, not a suicide, not anything but a hired gun walking into his house and shooting him five times at point-blank range.