I See...Love (A Different Road Book 1) (28 page)

I felt Joss’s sadness and disappointment in the room the second I walked in. I had been so wrapped up in work and Kate and what the PI had said, I totally forgot that I promised her I’d be home for dinner. I was instantly transported back to my mother and the look on her face when my father did the same to her. I had to feel her face. When she denied me, I knew what it looked like. She’s never denied me to see her face with my hands. When she denied me a second time, it reminded me of exactly who and what I am. Then she picked up my hand and put it on her face. Her cheeks were wet, she had been crying. Her brows were knit together with sorrow and her chin quivered as more tears silently fell down her cheeks and ran over my hand.

I knew what I had to do.

I needed to set her free. I knew I was selfish the first day I met her, and I had kept being selfish up until this point. As long as she had a smile on her face I was fine, but the day her tears matched my mother’s, I knew.

So, I let her go.

But, she was never too far from my mind or my thoughts. When Josh would come home from being with Nina, I’d make him tell me everything Joss had been doing. I even tried to get Kate to spy on her for me by asking her for a cooking lesson.

I didn’t know what was going to happen with the PI and Sebastien, or how long it would take, but it was starting to take a dangerous turn when the PI said he was going to dig a bit deeper. As it turned out, his digging meant breaking into Sebastien’s home and stealing the original copy from his safe.

The PI delivered the original copy to Josh and when he read me the will, I saw explosions of color in my mind. Colors so vivid, so bright they hurt. Every word cut so fucking deep. I’ve never felt such anger in my life. Even as hard as my childhood was growing up, nothing compared to the utter rage I felt. Sebastien was not named the executor of the will. He was not left in charge to raise me and my brother and sister as he saw fit. He was not told to groom me to take over the family business.

We have an aunt. My mother has a sister that I never knew existed, but conveniently, she ended up dead under suspicious circumstances the day after my parent’s died. Our aunt was supposed to raise us in the event of our parent’s deaths.

I think about the stories that Joss told me about her summers with her family and Nina’s. Tire swings over a lake and catching fireflies in jars. Fireworks exploding over your head while eating popsicles with your feet dangling from the dock. Building forts and telling ghost stories with a flashlight shining in your face. Giggling until your stomachs hurt until one in the morning, or until your parents finally got out of bed and threatened you within an inch of your lives if you didn’t go to sleep. Their dad’s teaching them how to fish and their mother’s teaching them how to bake. These are things I never knew existed. These are not the things I grew up doing. Would I have experienced any of these things if our aunt raised up?

Josh had finally found something to get Autumn fired. She had been stealing from the petty cash box for years. Kate had stepped up and said that she’d like to take an interest in the company. She said she didn’t deserve the chance and she knew she had to work her way up from the bottom, so she volunteered to be the receptionist. I would never have started her there. I would have given her an office and found a more prestigious position for her, but she insisted. I admired that in her. It came at the perfect time since we needed a new receptionist anyway.

Kate came to the office Sunday with Josh and me to get a lay of her desk and the phone system. I made a phone call to Sebastien and told him I had an emergency and that I needed him to fix something for me. I told him to meet me in my office immediately. He wasn’t happy because I was pulling him away from a family barbecue. We never had a barbeque at my house growing up. It was time he got what was coming to him. When he showed up in my office, he wasn’t the least bit surprised that I had figured it all out. He didn’t even deny having my aunt murdered.

I zeroed in on his raspy smokers breath and flew across my desk at him, prepared to take his life with my bare hands. Josh came in and broke us apart. The three of us fought and struggled in my office until Kate came in screaming and crying.

Sebastien broke free and ran. Josh ran after him and I made Kate take me to where they were. I froze when she took me to the stairs. I have my own private elevator, but it doesn’t go to the roof. Kate laced her fingers through mine and guided me up the stairs and out to the roof. I could hear their feet crunching under the gravel material on the roof. Punches were being thrown, they were grunting, and then it all stopped.

“Put the gun away, Sebastien,” Josh said.

“Kate, get back inside, now!” I yell.

I hear her feet crunch on the gravel back toward the building, then the door opens and closes. I take small steps forward until I hear that I’m standing just behind Josh. All the years of rage and anger explode and I lunge for Sebastien’s labored breathing. We take several steps backwards until he suddenly stops. I wrap my fingers around his throat and pour every ounce of hatred I have toward him into my fingertips and I crush his larynx. His free hand comes to my hands and he desperately tries to pry them from his throat.

“Step aside, River, I’ve got him,” Josh says, behind me.

I hear the distinct sound of Josh’s gun cock behind me, but a shot to the head is too good for the fucker, he’s mine. I want him to have a slow death. I want his life to flash through his eyes.

“NO! Stand down! He’s mine,” I yell to Josh.

I see Sebastien’s face in my mind as a ten-year-old boy, and I’m sure he looks nothing like what I remember. Over the years, his face in my mind has morphed into the devil himself. He gurgles and chokes as the life drains from his body.

“How could you do this to me and my brother and sister, all of these years?” I question.

“River!” Joss screams.

Her one word slices through my anger and I let up slightly on Sebastien’s throat.

“River, please, don’t do this,” Kate’s tearful voice calls.

Words from the two most important women in my life.

I let my grip go from around Sebastien’s throat. I can’t be the same monster that he is. If I do this, there is no turning back. The little love that I have in my life will be swallowed whole. There’s a time in your life when you need to decide which road to take. Do you become what you were taught, or do you turn around and chose a completely different path? If I choose to become what I have been taught, then Sebastien wins. If I choose to turn around, Joss, Kate, and Josh will be there waiting for me.

I take a step backwards. I hear Sebastien’s shoes crunch on the ground, then his footstep sounds like he’s taken a step up onto the ledge.

“NO!” Joss yells.

I hold my arms out straight. If Sebastien want’s to kill me, he can. I know that the next shot will come from Josh, and then Sebastien will be dead. Sebastien can have what’s left of me. But he will never get me to become what he is. He’s a liar, he’s a thief, he stole our childhood, and he’s a murderer. I’m nothing like him.

“NO!” Joss screams again.

“I’ll never go to jail for what I’ve done. This only ends because I say it ends. It ends on my terms,” Sebastien says.

Then I hear his shoes scrape on the ledge.

“NO!” I yell.

Sebastien places his foot on the ledge, then steps both feet up and turns around to face us. It seems like time stands still. Sebastien glares at River, and then River holds his arms out and tips his head back. River is giving up. He can’t give up. Sebastien lifts his arm, and then points his gun at River’s head.

“NO!” I scream, again.

I’ve never screamed with so much fear. I didn’t even know my voice could be so loud. My one word vibrates out of my soul and in that split second, I pray that this is not how I lose River. I can’t survive watching him get shot right in front my eyes.

“I’ll never go to jail for what I’ve done. This only ends because I say it ends. It ends on my terms,” Sebastien says.

He slowly bends his elbow and moves his gun from River to himself. He brings it to his temple and closes his eyes as a single tear rolls down his cheek. I swear to God the one tear feels like it takes an eternity. I want to close my eyes and look away so desperately, but I can’t. I don’t want to live the rest of my life with these visions in my head. I just can’t bring myself to close them. It will only take a fraction of a second for Sebastien to point the gun at River again and shoot him.  My heart stops beating as he removes the gun from the side of his head, and then he holds his arms out to his side just like River. Nina’s hand squeezes in mine as Sebastien smiles, then leans backwards.

It’s dead silent.

Sebastien’s shoes leave the edge and his body slowly disappears out of sight. There is no big bang of gunfire, only the sound of a feather floating through the air as his body plummets to the ground. Josh rushes to the edge while I run to River and throw my arms around him.

“What do you see?” he asks, grabbing onto me.

It’s a question River likes to ask me. One I’ve always gladly answered. I love to see the smile on his face when I explain what I see. This…I could never willingly look at and tell him what I see. I turn him around in my arms, put my ear to his chest and listen.

“I see…freedom,” I whisper.

It takes several hours of answering questions to a million different police officers and detectives. River shields Kate from most the questions, then he calls Stephen and instructs him to come pick up Kate and tells him to wait with her at his house until he gets home.

Josh drives River, Nina, and me back to our house. Like magic from memory, River leads me through the house and into the backyard. He doesn’t say a word as he gets into a chair and pulls me into his lap. He wraps his arms around me, and then buries his face in my neck.

I hold him tight for several minutes before I feel his tears running down my neck. Each tear that streaks down my neck feels like a weight being lifted off his shoulders. His body doesn’t move and his tears are silent. A huge lump builds in my throat and my own tears fall into his hair.

“This…is my faiblesse,” he whispers.

I lift my cheek off his head and look at his face. I take his head in my hands and kiss the tears on his cheeks.

“No, babe, this…this is human,” I tell him.

“Move in with me?” he says.

“What? But…” I whisper.

“Right…Yes, I know all about your little pact with Nina. Come on,” he says, and stands up with me still in his lap.

He sets me on my feet and pulls me back into the house. Josh and Nina are sitting on the couch in almost the exact same position that River and I were outside. Nina lifts her head and looks at us as we walk into the house.

“Nina, will you move in with me and Joss and Josh?” he asks.

“What?” Nina asks.

“Really!” I say surprised, looking at him.

It’s like every childhood dream Nina and I have ever had, all rolled up with a pretty pink bow. We both realistically knew it was impossible that we’d end up living together forever as adults unless we married twins, and we both knew that was most likely never going to happen. Nina and I both look at each other and start squealing.