That irritates me. In fact, this whole conversation irritates me. I don’t have to explain myself to my brother. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.
“Keep me posted,” I say sharply. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Tasty little jail-bait piece of ass calling?”
“Don’t be a dick, Reese. She’s not jail bait and she’s not a piece of ass.”
“So you’re not sleeping with her? You’re not sleeping with the enemy?”
“She’s not the enemy.”
“She’s the sister of the enemy. Close enough.”
“We don’t know for sure about her brother yet.”
“No, you don’t know for sure about the brother. But you were damn sure when you told me you found him, weren’t you?”
“Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Especially you, right Hemi?”
“Fuc—”
The click of the phone interrupts what I wanted most to say to Reese.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - Sloane
As I put mascara on my eyelashes, a million questions run through my mind. And, following them, a million rationalizations. And a million excuses that I’m making for Hemi. Anything to keep me from drawing the most obvious conclusion.
For the last fifteen minutes, I’ve been telling myself that I only heard part of the conversation. Hemi could’ve been talking about anyone or anything. It doesn’t necessarily have to be as bad as it sounded.
But it sounded pretty damn bad.
My stomach is turned in on itself, balled up into a tight knot of apprehension. Although I still believe everyone is entitled to their secrets, this isn’t something I can let go. I’ll have to ask some questions. I have to know—beyond the shadow of a doubt—if I heard what I’m afraid I heard. I have to know if Hemi had something to do with the attack on my brother, on my house, on my family.
A fist of fear and dread squeezes my already-quivering guts. Some part of me refuses to believe that it could be true. But another part, a more suspicious part, looks at all the strange things, all the inconsistencies, and it wonders…
And I can’t live with that kind of wonder. And doubt. It would eat away at me until there’s nothing left. No, Hemi is going to have to answer some questions or I’ll be forced to take measures.
I close my eyes against my reflection, unwilling to even consider what “measures” might be.
********
I’m trying to act as natural as possible. I have no idea if I’m a convincing actress or not, and Hemi’s expression gives nothing away.
“Thank you again for letting me stay with you,” I begin, being as nonchalant as I can be.
Hemi glances over at me and grins. “Oh trust me, it’s been my pleasure.”
I feel my face flush as I react to him. It seems my body doesn’t care what the hell he may or may not be involved in.
I laugh nervously.
“Your house is beautiful. You must make really good money as a manager.”
Hemi shrugs noncommittally.
That got me nowhere, so I decide to try another tack.
“Do you have family around here?”
“None that lives close. They’re kinda all over the place.”
“Really? Like where?”
Hemi slides me a glance. I can’t decide if it’s suspicious or if it’s just my imagination.
“All over.”
“Are you from around here originally?”
“No.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Chicago.”
“Oh, that’s interesting. Tell me about it. Tell me about your family.”
His look is openly wary now. “What’s this about, Sloane?”
“They’re just questions, Hemi. Innocent questions about your family. About your life. Can’t I get to know you better?”
He deflects, calling upon his ever-present charm and sexual charisma to do it. “I think you know me very well.”
I turn in my seat, suddenly feeling frustrated. “Why are you so secretive? These are just simple, innocent questions.”
“Are they?” he tosses back.
“Of course,” I proclaim, shifting my eyes away from his, unable to tell the little white lie with him staring at me. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
“Who do you think you’re fooling, Sloane?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. And you’re a terrible liar.”
He’s right, of course, which leaves me with only one choice—to be direct.
“I heard you on the phone, Hemi.”
A dead silence fills the interior of the car. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, I hear Hemi hiss an explicative under his breath. My heart sinks. It seems like he didn’t want me to hear that conversation. And if he didn’t, that means he had something to hide in it. From me, specifically.
My pulse picks up as I consider the very real possibility that Hemi is the enemy. Sharp talons sink their lethal tips into my chest and tear.
“Please tell me I misunderstood, Hemi. Please,” I whisper, my throat closing around a ball of emotion lodged there.
“Sloane, you have to understand that I never did any of this to hurt you.”
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
I lean forward in the seat, laying my chest on my thighs and my forehead against my knees. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the part that can think beyond the pain I’m feeling right now, I say to myself that this is over. Over in the worst possible way.
“What did you do, Hemi?” I say, squeezing my eyes shut and rocking forward. “What did you do?”
I’m barely aware of the sound of gravel as Hemi pulls off the main road. I’m barely aware of the feel of the car slowing around me. I’m barely aware of the taste of tears as they slide down my cheeks and over my lips.
“I have three brothers. Harrison is thirty. We call him Reese. I’m the next oldest. Haliefax is twenty-five. We call him Leif. And Hollander. Ollie. He’d be twenty-four if he were still here.” Hemi pauses, his voice breaking on some unimaginable pain. “But he’s not. He died. Just over two years ago.”
I want to empathize with him. And, to some degree, I do. But right now, I’m so devastated over what I feel is coming down the pipe, I am almost numb. Numb to Hemi’s pain. So I let him talk, uninterrupted.
“My last name is Spencer. Hemsworth Spencer. My father is Henslow Spencer.”
Instantly, it clicks together in my head. “Henslow Spencer? As in the oil magnate Henslow Spencer?”
Hemi’s laugh is not pleased or proud. It’s bitter. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
At first, I’m stunned. Hemi is the Henslow Spencer’s son? How can he hide so effectively?
But that question is drowned by my second thought. It’s with an agonizing pain that my heart breaks for my brother. And my family. Whatever is happening here, whatever is going on, my blue-collar family won’t stand a chance against it. Justice works one way for people like Henslow Spencer. Theirs.
Still, I say nothing. At this point, I don’t even know what to say.
Hemi continues. “I spent the first twenty-five years and some odd months of my life being a spoiled, selfish rich kid who had nothing more important to do with his days than jet set around the globe and spend my family’s money. Women, drugs, alcohol, gambling, racing, anything and everything you can think of that had even the smallest chance of making me feel good—or feel at all—I did it. As much as I wanted, any time I wanted, with no one to tell me no. No one to tell me to stop. No one to tell me to do something with my life, or to call me a pathetic prick. The world was my oyster. Just like it was my brother’s. Ollie learned it all from watching me.
“Reese is driven. Always has been. Ollie would’ve learned to take over the world if he’d been close to Reese. And Leif, he’s a damn extreme sports junkie. Ollie would’ve at least been killed in some…better way if he’d been close to Leif. But he wasn’t. He was closest to me. Maybe because we were more alike. I don’t know. But he learned from the best. Or the worst, rather. And it got him killed.”
As lost in my own devastating disappointment as I am, I can’t help but be drawn into Hemi’s story, into his past, into his pain. I sit up, wiping my face as I lean back against the front seat and watch him from the corner of my eye. He’s stiff behind the steering wheel, his fingers curled around it so tightly his knuckles are white. Like he’s trying to strangle it, trying to punish it for the things he’s seen.
“I was out of the country and Ollie was looking to score some coke. He was in Atlanta and one of his friends knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy. Said he could get ‘em some shit the police had confiscated from Bolivia. Ollie didn’t ask questions. He knew two things: He was a Spencer and money talks. He learned that from me, too. But neither one could save him from whatever that coke was cut with. It killed him within seconds.”
The mosaic of my mind, filled with so many disconnected, wildly-colored pieces, begins to shift, slowly taking shape, taking the shape of a picture that might possibly be even more devastating than the confusing individual pieces.
The words come out in an incredulous whisper. “And you think my brother had something to do with it?”
For the first time since I lifted my head, Hemi turns toward me. I imagine the look on his face to be a shadowy reflection of what I feel in my soul—agony. Pure, unadulterated agony.
“God, Sloane, I didn’t know what else to think! All the pieces fit. After over a year of searching and investigating and paying people off, the only information we could find about the supplier was that he had a connection to cops in this area and that he was known by two names: Locke and Tumblin. At first, yes, I thought I’d found the guy. But now…knowing you…I just…I just don’t know how it could be him. I mean, seeing the way he protects you, how much he cares. How could that guy do something that would put you in so much danger? And why? Why would he risk it?”
“He wouldn’t!” I declare vehemently. “Steven would never do something like that!”
I feel desperate to make him see, make him understand how wrong he is. I have to make him believe that Steven isn’t the man he’s looking for. I have to make him call off whatever things have been set in motion before my brother gets killed.
“I realized there’s a chance I could be wrong. That’s why I’ve been talking to my brother about finding out more. As much as we can before it gets out of hand.”
“Hemi, you have to make this stop. Oh, God! I can’t lose my brother. You have to make this right, Hemi. Please. I know Steven. He could never do something like that. Never.”
I feel hysteria crowding in on me, clouding rational thought. My breathing is coming too fast, my head getting too light. I’m shaking by the time Hemi’s fingers wrap around my upper arms.
“Sloane, I’m trying. I’m doing everything I can to—”
“Like what?” I shout, tearing my arms out of his grasp. “Like making secret calls to your brother than won’t do a damn thing for mine? Is that what you mean?” Hemi reaches for me again. I cringe away from him, shrinking back against the car door. “Don’t touch me! I can’t believe I ever let you touch me! You knew all this, you knew what you were doing to me, to my family and I let you…let you…” I can’t even finish the sentence. “You said you’d give me the truth, but all I got were your pretty lies, you bastard!”
Scrambling to get my purse from the back seat, I leap out of the car, frantic to get as far away from Hemi as I can. Blinded by tears, tears of heartache and shame and betrayal, I start to walk in the direction of town. Like he’s calling to me from a tunnel, I hear Hemi’s voice. It’s drawing closer and closer, so I walk faster and faster until I’m running. Running through the gravel and dust, running through the helplessness and hopelessness.
“Sloane, stop! Please, let me finish!” I feel Hemi’s hands again, this time dragging me to a stop. “I never meant to hurt you. I swear to God, I didn’t.”
I whirl on him, fire in my vision, spitting from my eyes like drops of blood. “You’re going to stand here and tell me that you had no idea you were putting his life in danger? With an accusation like this? If only one dirty cop mentioned it to the right person, you didn’t think it might end in him getting hurt?”
“Sloane, I didn’t know…I mean, I knew there was a chance, but I never really thought anyone would come after him. And that was a long time ago. In the very beginning. When I was just getting to know you.”
It’s as the last syllable is drifting off into the wind that I realize why Hemi is even here with me right now. All this time, he’s been using me to keep an eye on my brother, to get information, to get as close to him as he can without ever raising suspicion. He’s used me to put my own family in danger. And I’ve gone along with it.
Like my life is on rewind, I picture Hemi’s hands on my body, his lips on my skin. I picture him laughing with me, caring for me, pretending with me. I picture him sharing small bits of his pain with me, all those precious seconds I thought he was getting close to opening up to me.
I cherished them.
I cherished him.
I cherished lies.
The tattoo on my hip burns me—a betrayal that is permanently embedded in my body, beneath my skin. The butterflies of my freedom are now the broken bodies of trampled trust and crushed hope. They flew too close to the sun and now they’re being burned up, incinerated. They’re dying the only death that a butterfly can—one that comes too soon.