Beautifully Cruel (Beautifully Cruel #1)(75)

She takes a seat at the kitchen island. I set a bowl of cereal in front of her. I watch her eat until she sighs and sets down the spoon.

“For god’s sake, Liam, stop staring at me like that. My head’s about to explode.”

“Patience isn’t one of my virtues.”

She says drily, “Believe me, I know.”

We gaze at each other. It takes considerable self-control not to walk around the island, grab her, and pull her into an embrace. I stopped counting how many things we had in common a while ago, because they kept adding up too quickly. But this…

This feels less like a shared experience and more like a sign.

I say, “I’m listening.”

Her eyes darken. She chews the inside of her lip for a moment, then glances down at the cereal bowl.

“If we’re never going to see each other after another three days are up, why does it matter?”

Impatience claws at me, but I keep my expression neutral and my voice steady. “It’s important for me to know more about you.”

She looks up at me, green eyes flashing, then says tartly, “Oh, really? That must be an uncomfortable feeling.”

Holding her angry gaze, I say, “Okay. I deserved that. Please tell me anyway.”

I can see she’s startled by the “please,” and curse myself for being such a bulldozer. I make a mental note to mind my manners better in the future, then try to wait with as much forbearance as possible as she decides if she’s going to do what I asked.

It’s extraordinarily fucking difficult.

Finally, she drags a hand through her long, dark hair, and takes a breath. She sits up straighter, squares her shoulders, and meets my gaze head-on.

“My family is poor. I told you that. I grew up on eighty acres in a farmhouse built by my grandfather that was pretty decrepit by the time I came along, because my dad has the opposite of handyman skills. If he tries to hang a picture, he’ll smash the hammer onto his thumb. If he climbs a ladder to change a light bulb, he’ll fall off. He’s terminally clumsy, so the house was crumbling around our ears, but he’s actually good at raising crops and animals, so we had enough to feed a family of ten.”

“All the kids had their chores, but my brother Michael took after my dad in the clumsy department. He was more a menace than a help. After he drove the tractor through the side of the barn the third time, my mother finally banned him from farm work for good.”

She makes an impatient gesture with her hand. “Long story short, without his farm chores, and having just graduated from high school with no plans for college and no job, he had too much time on his hands. He started hanging out at a dive bar, fell in with the wrong crowd, and selling drugs to make money. Small-time stuff, pot and pills, but pot has never been legal in Texas. And getting caught smoking it was different than getting caught selling it…but getting caught selling it in partnership with the son of a local judge was the worst thing of all.”

She stops speaking and looks down at her hands. Her voice drops. “Especially when that particular judge had been in love with your mother in high school, but had his heart broken when she married another man.”

She’s quiet for a moment. I see her working through her memories, pain etched on her face, and have to fight myself again not to embrace her.

“The judge’s son had a good attorney, of course. The family was rich. Connected. The attorney argued that my brother had been the mastermind of a drug ring—as if Michael could ever be a mastermind of anything—and that he’d coerced and manipulated the judge’s son. Which was a complete load of bullshit. That kid was as bad as they come. If anything, the scenario was turned 180 degrees around. But our family didn’t have the money for a good attorney, so we were assigned a public defender.

Her voice hardens. “It was a bloodbath. The judge’s son got off scot-free. Not a day spent in jail, not even community service. My brother, however, was given the harshest sentence allowed under the law, even though he didn’t have a record.”

“What was the sentence?”

She hesitates before saying quietly, “Five million dollars in fines. Plus forty years in federal prison.”

Serial rapists get lighter sentences than that.

Grinding my jaw in anger, I say nothing.

“Anyway, he might have gotten time off for good behavior. The public defender was in process of making an appeal, but never got to file it because after a month in prison, Michael was beaten to death in the shower.”

I want to shoot someone. Instead I say, “I’m so sorry.”

Her sigh is heavy. “Yeah. Me, too.”

“Did they find out who killed him?”

She raises her head and looks at me. Her eyes are fierce with unshed tears.

“One of the men who was in on it confessed. He was a lifer without the possibility of parole, so it didn’t matter to him if he had more time added to his sentence. What did matter, however, is that he didn’t get paid what he’d been promised to do the job.”

When she doesn’t continue, my anger flares hotter. “The judge.”

Swallowing hard, she nods. “But of course, the judge had all kinds of buddies in law enforcement and politics. The accusation went nowhere. A few weeks later, that prisoner was found dead in his cell. The cause of death was listed as natural.”