She shot back toward that bed. Kissed him. Ignored the wires and beeping and everything else.
“Never l-leave you…” Chance whispered. “Always…my Gwen…”
She kissed him again. She tasted her own tears. And she tasted happiness.
A life together. That was what they’d have. A future.
Love.
***
Five days later…
“You know you shouldn’t be here,” Faith murmured to Chance. “You just got out of the hospital.”
“I’m fine.” Well, actually, he was fucking pissed. He stared through the one-way mirror, his gaze locked on the face of Daniel Duvato. Daniel had gotten out of the hospital the day before, too. The guy was pale and currently handcuffed as he sat at the small table in the interrogation room.
Daniel wasn’t alone. Ethan Barclay stood across from him.
Daniel hadn’t asked for a lawyer. He’d just asked to speak with Ethan.
“They’re brothers,” Faith said.
They didn’t look like brothers. The two men appeared to be nothing alike.
“At least, that’s what we pieced together,” Faith continued as she cocked her head and studied the two men. “Seems Ethan’s father stepped out on Ethan and his mom. The guy got a young waitress named Donna Duvato pregnant. He kept her on the side for years…but he let it be clear to little Daniel that the boy wasn’t part of his real family.”
Right. Because that kind of shit didn’t screw with a person’s mind.
“From all accounts, Hank Barclay was one straight asshole.” Faith’s voice had hardened. Her arm brushed Chance’s as she stepped closer to the glass. “The guy abused Ethan and his mother for years. Daniel had no idea just how twisted the bastard could be.”
Chance wasn’t so sure of that. “Maybe Daniel was just more like dear old dad than Ethan was.”
Faith glanced at him, surprise flashing on her face. “Maybe.” She nodded as she seemed to consider this. “Maybe he was…”
Then Ethan started talking.
***
“You killed Jena Parker,” Ethan said as he stared into Daniel’s eyes. Daniel Duvato. The man had been working for him…for years. Daniel had been his driver, his body guard, the bouncer at his club…Ethan had trusted the guy implicitly, and Daniel had been working to destroy him all along.
Daniel laughed. “Do you remember when she accused you of cheating on her? See…I’m the one who told her you did that. I thought she’d dump your ass for good, but the dumb bitch just took your sorry self right back. She was even still planning to marry you.”
Dumb bitch. Ethan’s hands clenched into fists. His stitches pulled. He had so many stitches now, thanks to this asshole. More than he could count. He turned me into a monster.
“So yeah, I played with her brakes.” Daniel shrugged. “Not my fault she drove too fast, though…that was all on her.”
Sonofabitch.
“And Marjorie?” Ethan forced himself to ask. “You killed her, too?” The detective—Faith Chestang—had told him to get a confession from Daniel. If the bastard wanted to talk, if he wanted to dig his own grave, then Ethan was supposed to let him.
Daniel’s laughter came again. “She never even saw me coming.” He shook his head. “I’d heard you and Sophie talking about her. I knew where she’d went. I just had to bide my time and wait…wait for just the right moment to slip away and go after Marjorie.”
Sophie. The pain was there, knifing through him. This bastard had gone after her, too.
“You had a partner,” Ethan said this with quiet rage. “Someone was helping you all along. There’s no way you did this on your own—”
“Why? You think I’m not smart enough to pull this off? You think you’re the only one with brains?” Hate hardened Daniel’s face. “This was all my plan. Sure, I got my buddy Carl to drive the van for me, paid him a few hundred, but that was just so I would have a ride waiting. Because I was too clever to get caught at Gwen’s place. Everything else…all fucking me.”
And there was the last of his confession. All tied up in a neat bow. Did the guy even realize he’d just sent himself to prison? Did he even care? Or was he really that fucked up in the head?
“Sorry about Sophie,” Daniel said suddenly. He actually sounded like he meant those words. “I liked her, but, after that last car ride, I realized she had to go. You’d always be happy, as long as she was there. Always have a family…with Sophie. So I killed her.”
This time, Ethan shook his head. “Sophie isn’t dead.”
Daniel’s face went slack with surprise.
“She’s not dead. She was in the same hospital you were. She recovered fully.” He crept closer to the table. The rage inside of him was bubbling up. He’d gotten the confession. Now…I want to know why. “You’re my brother.”
A brother he hadn’t known about. Not until he’d gone into Wicked five days ago, and Daniel had attacked him. The bastard had been screaming about how unfair life was…how Ethan needed to see what it was like to have no one, nothing.
“He fucked my mother.” Daniel’s voice shook with his own fury. “Then he treated us like shit for the next fifteen years. We lived in poverty. We had nothing. And he’d come over, he’d screw her, then go back to the perfect life he had with you.”
Ethan stalked closer to his brother. “You’re so damn clueless.”
Daniel glared at him. “I’m not the one who didn’t see me…right there, all those years. You didn’t know, you didn’t—”
“You were the lucky one. He came home to us all right. Only to beat the hell out of my mom. She was his punching bag. So was I. I was the one he hit again and again and—” Ethan glanced toward the glass. “Turn off the recording!” he yelled. “Nothing else is on record! I’m done.”
He waited, knowing Faith would do as he’d asked. After all, he’d stepped into hell to get this confession for her.
He waited…
Then he grabbed his brother’s head and slammed it into the table. He figured he’d have less than a minute before the cops had to come in.
“He hit us again and again,” Ethan whispered into Daniel’s ear. “Until I stopped him. Until I fought back and I killed the bastard. I made him suffer before he died. Just as he’d made me suffer.”