Read Truth and Humility Online
Authors: J. A. Dennam
Truth and Humility (12 page)
“She isn’t a part of our problem. I don’t know how the hell you can justify holding a woman against her will in order to carry out your sick revenge!”
“Your sister came to me [er ming, Bennett. She owes me a fairly large sum of money and until she pays her debt, she’s mine.”
Trying to keep up, Derek’s brain tried to sort through the mess. Somehow, Danny had involved herself with the Cahills in her quest to pay for her college degree. The little nut was so damned determined when she left. He just never thought she’d take it that far. “I’ll pay whatever she owes.”
“I’m not taking a cent of your money, she has to earn it herself. It’s in the contract.”
Shit!
How could she be so stupid! “She signed a
contract?
”
“Yep.”
Derek laughed again, the sound completely devoid of amusement. “I don’t know how you did it, but I smell foul play on your part.”
“That’s an interesting concept, isn’t it?”
“Dammit, Austin!” Derek exploded, running a hand through his hair as he paced the grounds at the edge of the woods by the main house. “If you want me, you got me. Alright? But in exchange I want my sister back.”
“The only thing I want from you is a written description of how you pushed Rena into the river.”
Sheer panic sliced through Derek, spurring him to make a drastic decision. “Sure. I’ll admit I was with her that night. I’m the mysterious man in black. I made the moves on her and I killed her, just like you thought. It was my chance to exact my revenge on you for fucking my high school sweetheart. I sincerely apologize.”
Austin smirked at Danny as if he were looking into her brother’s face. “I knew you’d finally muster some truth and humility once I had your balls to the wall.”
“As long as Danny comes home
now
, I’ll tell you anything you want.”
When Austin realized Derek was only placating him for the moment, a fresh surge of rage engulfed him. His captive recognized the danger and tensed even more beneath his restraining hand.
“She’s mine, Bennett. Until she pays, she’s mine.”
“You mean until
I
pay! You can’t just take an innocent woman and force her into our issues!”
“I’ll take what I want, when I want it.” Danny went flaccid and gaped at him. He continued, baring his teeth with menace. “Just taking a page out of your book,
brother
.”
“Derek, he’s bluffing!” Danny yelled, attempting to pry his hand from her chest. That hold was beginning to crush her lungs. “He won’t touch me, you know he won’t!”
“Why don’t we let your brother decide that? Do you think I’m bluffing, Derek?”
“Derek knows I can take care of myself, Cahill,” she shouted so her brother was sure to hear.
“That’s not quite how things played out last night, is it, Danny?”
When she failed to find the words, Austin laughed suggestively and disconnected the line.
“You bastard,” she breathed, finally able to do so now that his hand was gone, but she stood paralyzed against the wall as he threw her phone on the dresser. “How could you do that? Make him think…”
“What makes
you
think I’m bluffing, Danny?” He was out of control, he knew it, but Austin couldn’t come down from the rage fast enough. He took her wrists, slammed them against the wall next to her head and leaned in real close until his sneering mouth hovered over hers. “Eye-for-an-eye. That’s how this feud has worked for so many years, isn’t that right?”
“You’re saying you would kill me?” she panted, too scared to move.
“You’re admitting he did it?”
“No!” She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away, fat tears spilling down her cheeks.
The look of her that way, panicked, crying and scared… scared of
him,
brought reality crashing down. He saw what he was doing and pushed off with a curse. To keep from touching her again, he laced his fingers behind his neck and roared.
The tortured sound left a ringing in Danny’s ears that had her quivering inside. She opened her eyes, but refused to look toward him.
A few seconds later he spoke again with complete calm. “I won’t hurt you,” he said, unable to look at her as he moved to exit her room. “But make no mistake, I am going to get what I want whether you suffer for it or not.”
She drank in his words like they were poison. Speaking to Derek had strengthened Austin’s quest for revenge and any notion of a peaceable existence between them went up in smoke. When she turned her head to look, he was gone.
Later that morning, dressed in denim and ready to earn
something
on the quiet Saturday, Danny stepped into the kitchen to begin work on the pizza oven. Immediately in her peripheral vision, she noticed something was off. She stopped, slack-jawed, and turned.& [ anace="Tinbsp; All that was left was the long stainless vent hood as it hovered over empty space.
“That son-of-a-bitch!” she breathed, taking the hint for what it was. There was no money to be earned that day.
“Careful, Bennett,” she heard behind her from the hallway. “I may not fire you but I can make your life a living nightmare.”
Danny whirled around and gaped at Austin. “You got rid of it!”
Austin didn’t deny it, just leaned against the wall and watched her with arms crossed over a casual black T-shirt.
“Was it really worth it?” she asked. His eyes told her “every penny”
and her opinion of him plummeted to the earth. “You’ll sacrifice anything as long as it puts you ahead.”
“Depends on the reason.”
She bit her bottom lip, picked up her tool belt. “You know, I was always told the Cahills were too cold, too pretentious to know the meaning of value. And for one scant moment I thought you might be different.” She skimmed past him, her shoulder brushing his bicep. “Apparently I was wrong.”
The only positive thing from such a quiet day was that Danny was able to catch up on a handful of her assignments. And it felt good to lounge around in a pair of cut-off shorts and her favorite athletic top, pull her hair up off her neck into a ponytail and walk around barefoot. She avoided leaving her room for fear of running into Austin, but hunger forced her into the commons room to scrape for snacks and a bottle of water. Her phone vibrated at her waist and she dropped a package of oatmeal in her hurried attempt to grab for it. Paranoia was getting the best of her, even though she knew Derek wasn’t coming over. She’d made him swear it, reassured him that she was fine and in complete control and that he would only be falling into a trap if he did.
“I’ve known you to do some stupid things, Danny,” he’d admonished when she called him back. “But messing with the Cahills when you
know
how much that asshole wants a piece of me!”
“I wasn’t expecting to actually run into a Cahill on the job, Derek! They aren’t exactly known for their fondness of hard labor and y’all have kept us women so sheltered from this feud. I didn’t think anyone would know me from Adam.”
“But Austin
did
know you! And now that I know he has you, I’m going out of my fucking mind! I have a responsibility for you, Danny, ever since you first ^ anac dr started following me around in diapers. Our folks expect me to bring you home before you do something stupid. Well, ha!
Ha-ha!
Rimshot please!”
His exaggerated laughter put a reluctant smile to her lips. Lord, she missed him, his humor. Things had gotten way too serious, too turbulent.
“I won’t do anything stupid. At least, aside from applying for a job.”
“So, you don’t consider jumping his bones in a public parking lot stupid?”
Oh...hell!
Her brain went numb. So, it was true. And not only had Melanie witnessed it, she tattled. Derek sounded hurt. A pained groan escaped before she could stop it.
“No, I don’t believe it,” Derek said, fishing for something sane. “Not you. You wouldn’t do that to me. It must have been him, he knew Melanie was watching and he took advantage of your drunken state. Am I right?”
A long, painful silence. “I...I think it was all me. I’m not sure, I don’t remember anything.”
“I didn’t hear you, what? What was that?”
“I said, I don’t know! I was drugged, Derek! Roofied! If I did...
happen
...to come on to Austin, it was because of that. Not because I wanted to.” The last came out weak and pathetic.
Very slowly with a calculating chill. “I. Will.
Kill
. Him.”
Danny pinched the bridge of her nose. Headache was back. “Austin didn’t drug me, it was that jackass Melanie set me up with. Didn’t she tell you?”
“Melanie didn’t mention anything about drugs, or about setting you up with anyone.”
What!
Her voice lowered to a slow simmer. “Then I guess she didn’t tell you that if it wasn’t for Austin, I would have been violated by that pig.” His unwillingness to answer proved as much, as well as emphasized his personal struggle with the facts she’d just given him. “Look...let’s just forget about it.”
“About you being drugged? No way. But I don’t think Melanie knew anything about it. If she did she would have told me.”
“Yeah,” Danny answered with a sigh. Melanie wouldn’t have tolerated it. “Probably. Just do me a favor and make sure she’s aware so she doesn’t get herself in trouble.”
He would personally deal with Melanie later. “And you.&nb And yre fine now?”
“Right as rain. I’m in full control again, I promise. No more stupid mistakes.”
“You won’t be in control until you’re back home. You know that, right?”
Acids were working upward to mess with her throat. “I signed a contract and I’m not leaving until I’ve honored it. That’s the bottom line.”
A tense moment of silence followed. “You’ll call me every day to check in? Especially when you’ve had enough of this shit and want me to bring you home?”
“I’ll call every day. But I won’t need you to bring me home, you just stay the hell away.”
Danny had been hesitant to ask him about what Austin said. If Derek answered Rena’s phone the night she was pushed into the river, that would mean he really may have been the person she was with. The eyewitness on the bridge had heard her panicked cries, saw the two dark figures struggling by the river’s edge...and fall in. And if Derek was in close enough proximity to Rena’s phone in that time frame… Well, Danny knew her brother. She knew there was an explanation, but the fact he had kept such an important detail from her was disturbing.
Danny put the oatmeal packet in her mouth, tilted her phone up and looked down at the name. It was Melanie again. She’d been extremely pissed off that Melanie’s adventurous nature had sucked her into a bad situation. She still didn’t feel like talking to the overzealous pain-in-the-ass, but Derek had brought to light something she should have already known. So, this time she put her stash down on one of the long tables and answered.
“Yeah.”
“Hey! How are you?”
“Not so good since last night.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You’re joking, right?”
A pregnant pause. “Okay, just so you know, Brett and Randy did NOT drug you. And, frankly, I’m worried that you would believe a Cahill over me.”
“That Cahill took me to the hospital, Melanie. And, though you never hid your wildly active sex life from me, I don’t appreciate being tangled up in it.”