Branded (Fall of Angels #1)(66)

But it isn’t. Far from it.

Because I know for a fact my brothers didn’t do this … and that they were murdered for nothing.

“So you killed my brothers … for killing your dad?” I mutter, choking on my own words.

“An eye for an eye,” he says through gritted teeth.

“And you think I gave them the Zippo that led them to your dad?”

“Finally, you admit it.”

I shake my head, closing my eyes so he doesn’t see me cry.

No wonder we got so fucked up in the head.

No wonder he’s so pissed off.

But it’s directed at the wrong person.

“You’re wrong,” I say, lying still on the harsh ground, wondering what it all means. Why things happened the way they did. It must be one sick, cruel joke. And for some reason, it makes me laugh. Out loud. Hard. Pathetic.

“What’s so fucking funny about my papa’s murder?” he snarls.

“Nothing, but you have the wrong person,” I say.

He grabs my shirt again, pulling me closer to his face so he can yell a little louder. “You brought them to his doorstep, Dixie!”

“I didn’t,” I say. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“What?” he snarls.

“My brothers were at the farm with me and my parents the entire time,” I explain, looking him directly in the eyes. “We were cleaning up the mess from the fire you started. They didn’t leave the property until the day they died.”

The look in his eyes changes drastically, and his lips part, his face darkening.

“What?” he mumbles.

“Yeah, they have an alibi,” I say. “Me and my parents.”

He shakes his head vigorously. “No.”

“It. Wasn’t. Them.”

“There was a fucking note!” he stammers, clearly not wanting the whole image he painted of us to break apart into tiny little pieces. But I have bad news for him … everything he thought about me and my family was wrong.

“My brothers didn’t kill your dad, Brandon,” I say with the most serious tone I can muster right now.

“Then who fucking did?” he growls, clasping the Zippo as if it’s his last lifeline to the truth.

“I don’t fucking know,” I say, “but it wasn’t them.”

Suddenly, he pulls out his gun again and points it right at my head. “You’re lying, right? Tell me you’re fucking lying,” he says, hiding fury behind those vicious eyes. But his hands tremor with fear. Fear of the unknown truth about to be exposed.

And with his gun pointed right at me and death looming right around the corner, I still find the courage to shake my head, and say, “No. It’s the God’s honest truth.”

With eyes that predict thunder, he gets up off me and shakes his head profusely, refusing to face the truth. Both our bodies shake from the revelation. From the realization that this is why we’ve been hunting each other … why we’ve been haunting each other’s minds for decades.

This.

His father’s murder.

My brothers’ murder.

This is why he did the unforgivable.

And it was all for nothing.

“You murdered my brothers when they didn’t do anything,” I hiss.

“No,” he says, pacing around with the gun still in his hands. “They killed my papa.”

“Stop lying to yourself, Brandon. You have no fucking clue who did it, admit it!” I get up from the ground too, pushing myself up to my knees.

“They left a fucking note, Dixie!”

“That could’ve been anyone,” I reply. “Anyone can fake a note.”

“Who?” Again, he points that gun at me as if it’ll make me change my mind about what’s the truth and what isn’t. “Who the fuck would do that?”

“Why are you asking me?” I spit back. “Last I checked, I was trying to salvage whatever the fuck was left of our farmhouse, along with my brothers and dad, who still happened to be fucking alive when you decided to burn down the place with them still inside.”

“It was an accident!” he yells back.

“Bull-fucking-shit!”

“You don’t fucking know,” he yells. “You don’t fucking know because you weren’t fucking there!”

“I saw you leave. That’s all I need. Just like I saw you leave the house after you murdered my brothers in cold blood.”

“That wasn’t me who did that,” he says. “And you know it.”

It’s hard to discuss on an equal level when there’s a gun pointed at your head, but I’ll bite.

“I saw you in that room with three other men, brutally murdering my brothers. It doesn’t matter who sliced them up. You were there, and you knew what you were doing.”

“We were supposed to punish them for killing my papa. Hurt them for hurting us,” he says, his gun practically shaking in his unstable hands. “They weren’t supposed to die.”

“Yet they did,” I say, pursing my lips. “And who’s gonna take the blame for that, huh? Who’s gonna repent? You?”

He paces around again, tapping the gun against his forehead as if it’ll help solve this shit. It won’t. Everything he did, he did for nothing. And he ruined us both because of it.