Echo (Bleeding Hearts #1)(13)

He was the responsible one. The one who never veered off the straight and narrow. He liked to have fun, but his family always came first. His responsibilities. That’s why I’d never been able to truly reconcile with what he’d done. I didn’t believe he could do something so stupid and reckless to cost three people’s lives. It wasn’t the Brayden I knew. But when I told him that, he said it was only what I wanted to believe. The newspapers didn’t have the same problem. They vilified him afterwards, making him out to be a complete monster. It was a bitter pill to swallow, knowing the person you thought was your hero was someone everyone hated.

It had changed him whether he wanted to admit it or not. Over the years, he’d grown harder. His eyes colder. And there was a chasm between us that hadn’t been there before. It grew bigger with every passing year, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I was afraid by the time Brayden got out, I wouldn’t recognize him at all.



My door creaked open and Nicole poked her head in. I hadn’t even heard her come in. She glanced at the photo in my hands as she padded across the carpet and sat down on my bed.

“Is that Brayden?” she asked.

I nodded, a little caught off guard that she knew his name. I didn’t tell people about him because a part of me wanted to protect his identity. And now that I thought about it, I couldn’t recall ever telling her either.

“May I?” she gestured to the photo, and I handed it over reluctantly.

She studied it for a long time before handing it back, and when her eyes met mine they were distant and cloudy. “He doesn’t look like you.”

It was the only thing she said before she got up and walked out of the room.



***



Saturday morning greeted me with a loud knocking on the front door, followed by a disheveled Nicole entering my room.

Her hair was mussed from sleep, and her eyebrows pinched together as she leaned against the doorframe.

“Some guy says he has a package for you,” she grumbled. “And he won’t let me sign for it.”

I crinkled my own brows in confusion as I glanced at the clock beside me. It was only seven am, and I certainly wasn’t expecting any packages. Nobody even knew I was at this address besides Brayden.

I flung myself out of bed and walked to the front door in zombie mode. When I opened it, there was a guy standing there with a manila envelope in his hand. But he sure as hell didn’t look like any kind of delivery man I’d ever seen before. He was wearing all black, including leather gloves, and his eyes were shrewd as they appraised me.

“Brighton Valentine?” he held the envelope towards me tentatively.

“Uh yeah?”

He shoved the envelope into my hand without another word and stomped off. It was definitely not a professional delivery, and when I glanced down at the envelope, my curiosity was piqued.

I shut the door and made it as far as the sofa before I tore it open and pulled out a stack of papers. Nicole was in the kitchen fumbling with the coffee pot, and I was glad for it when I saw what the note said.



I have the evidence that could exonerate Brayden



I flipped through the stack of paperwork in a state of disbelief as I realized I was being blackmailed. Inside this file were more documents from Brayden’s accident than I ever even knew existed. Half of them were blacked out, and the rest were already a matter of public record.

There was a report from a private investigator, along with photos I’d never seen before. They had dates and time-stamps, and even though the faces were blurry, I knew right away that one of the men was Brayden. They were grainy and appeared to be from some kind of CCTV footage. But the date and time stamp were what drew my attention. Because that was the day the accident happened. Brayden wasn’t alone that night, and this evidence proved it.

Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to collect this information, and to make sure I couldn’t use it. As I read through the rest of the paperwork, a sickening clarity washed over me.

There was some sort of informal agreement in the back that stated the sender’s demands. As I read through it, all the blood drained from my face.

Complete control over your body and life for six months…

I read the words over and over again hoping I was somehow misunderstanding them. But by the tenth time, I knew I wasn’t.

“Are you okay?” Nicole asked, hovering over me with a furrowed brow. “You look pale.”

I shoved everything back into the envelope and nodded as she handed me a cup of coffee. Truthfully, I wasn’t okay. I would never be okay again.





Chapter Six



“Will you tell me what’s going on?” Nicole persisted through the speaker of my cell phone.

It was the middle of the week, and I’d called in sick to work this morning, but I couldn’t tell her why. Because what I was about to do was stupid and reckless, and the last thing I needed was someone trying to talk me out of it.

I’d already tried to talk myself out of it plenty of times over the last three days. I’d gone over every possible scenario in my head, making myself sick with worry. I could have taken the envelope to the police, but the chances of me getting any help there was nonexistent. I still remembered how helpful they were when Brayden turned himself in. They’d tasered him on our front lawn when they claimed he was resisting arrest. It was an image that was burnt into my memory, and one I’d never forget.