Young Revelations (Young Series) (31 page)

Now I’m walking into a small church where his funeral is being held and I’m still trying to come to terms with everything that’s happened. I’ve been looking at the world differently since the night I went after my son. I’m realizing that I can’t trust anybody but myself. Well no, that’s not quite true. The only person who has always been straight with me no matter the circumstances is Samantha. But I blew that right out of the water. I haven’t seen her, haven’t spoken to her, and my very brief conversation with Claire yesterday didn’t yield any answers as to how she is—not that I let the conversation go on long enough to actually ask about her.

I’ve been keeping busy, trying to spend as little time at home as I can get away with. Between dealing with the aftermath of the kidnapping which has involved Leo’s death, Natalie’s injuries, Marcus’s injuries, Frank Marone’s disappearance, and work, I’ve hardly been there. And I have no desire to go home right now. I don’t want to go back and see how empty it is without Samantha and Tyler and Leo. The worst part about this situation is the time I’m left alone with nothing but my thoughts for company. What did I do to Leo that he turned on me? Is it really a simple matter of jealousy? Or that he was sick of living in my shadow? It’s true most people treated him like my sidekick rather than my best friend, but I always made sure he knew how much I appreciated him.

After Samantha and Tyler left the hospital, I went straight to Marcus’s room
where we sat in silence for several hours until his doctor arrived to release him. From the hospital, we headed to the airfield where a plane was waiting to take us to Pennsylvania for the second time in twelve hours. Upon our arrival, we were taken to the jail where Natalie was being held in the hopes that we could get some desperately needed answers.

I spent over an hour questioning her, not that it did much good; most everything she said centered around her gloating about how she’d pulled this off right under my nose. I asked her how long Leo had been involved with her. She said since the day they met. I asked if she’d been fucking him while she was with me. She had been. From what I learned from her, she’d basically brainwashed Leo into believing I didn’t appreciate him and that I used him, and he deserved the limelight for a change. She’d used both of us for her gain, which was all about that fucking microchip she and I developed together. She took advantage of my heartbreak over losing Samantha, and used my vulnerability to get what she wanted. She convinced my best friend to try and kill me. I have to wonder now how much more they had planned together.

When I went home the first time, I headed straight out to search the guest house by the lake where Leo lived. What I found was shocking and heartbreaking. Letters from Natalie detailing plans to get me out of the picture. Surveillance I sure as hell never approved of Samantha and Tyler, which I assume is similar to what Sam found in Frank Marone’s office months ago. Leo had been hacking into the Young Technologies servers for years. On his hard drive, I found videos of me in my office, several of which showed Natalie as well. There are detailed accounts of Sam and Tyler’s activities when they came back to my life. And Leo being Leo, before all of these revelations, this would have only raised slight concern from me—he was head of security and as such, he had to be aware of everything they did. Now I wonder who he’d been giving this information to. What would have happened if I hadn’t come back from the dead when I did?

As I reach the front of the church hall where a large photo of Leo is setup beside a closed casket surrounded by flowers, I forget about my feelings of being betrayed. Instead I remember everything he and I did together throughout our friendship. Leo encouraged me to start my company, even after my father threatened to disown me. Without him, Young Technologies might not be what it is now. Not to mention all the threats he and his team diffused that could have been the end of my life. He was there for me when I caught Lucy cheating, when Samantha and Tyler left. He pushed me to go to Omaha to ensure my family’s safety when this latest threat came to the surface. Leo kept me from drinking myself into oblivion when depression hit. I can’t imagine my life without Leo Hoffman.

There aren’t many people here, but the viewing doesn’t actually start for a couple hours. The funeral director let me in early so I could pay my respects and get back to work. I stand in front of the photo of Leo for a long time, uncertain of what to do next. Finally, with a sigh, I walk over to the casket that is covered with an American flag.

“Whatever happened in the last few years,” I tell Leo quietly, my hand resting against the polished wood of his casket, “it doesn’t matter. Natalie might have gotten in your head, but in the end, you saved my life. That bullet was meant for me and we both knew it, so thank you for giving me another chance. Whether you felt guilty for everything that’s happened and that I found out about it, or you realized what’s been going on is just plain wrong and you made a mistake, I don’t care. We always said we’d go out in style—this probably isn’t what we envisioned, but thank you. If not for you, Tyler might not have made it out unscathed and I would have broken my promise to Samantha.”

I glance behind me to make sure I’m alone and reach into my back pocket, retrieving a photo that’s about twenty years old. It was taken right before my family left San Diego for Tokyo of Leo and me with our arms clung around one another and smiling like we weren’t as miserable about being separated as we actually were. Very carefully, I lift the corner of the flag, then the lid of the casket. Without looking inside, I slide the photo in through the gap and put everything back the way it was. I stand there for several more minutes trying to remember all the good as opposed to the negative, then pat the casket a couple times, turn on my heel, and walk away.

I need to start getting my life back.

––––-o––––-

Despite my intentions otherwise, my time is not spent trying to get Samantha back. After the first several days of maintained stone silence, I came to the conclusion that this was her decision and if this is what she wants, I need to give her that. Once I came to that conclusion, I raided my liquor cabinet and pretty much emptied it in less than a week. I’ve cancelled all business meetings, delegating everything to my colleagues or handing them off to other companies. I’ve stopped caring about work and everything else. What’s the point in any of it if Samantha isn’t here with me? Unlike last time she left me, I don’t have Leo here to stop me from heading down paths that could get me into a lot of trouble. That thought only makes me want to drink myself further into oblivion. And I have been.

Nearly two weeks has passed since the kidnapping. In that time I’ve slept maybe fifteen hours, and most of that has been on the couch in my office at Young Technologies. Now I’m stumbling through my front door, having been driven home via taxi, refusing to look at anything as I make my way to my home office. Since my two minute conversation with Claire, she’s called me two or three times a day and I’ve managed to avoid every call, mostly because every time my phone rings I hope it’s Samantha and when I realize it isn’t, I want to throw my phone across the room.

There are moments of clarity when I think of my son and miss him desperately. Samantha said she wanted me in his life, and hers for that matter, but considering my current condition, I’d probably only scare him. And the rest of my family. I can already imagine the intervention Claire would arrange for me if given the opportunity…

I feel like shit, but I can’t go into my bedroom right now nor can I even sleep in the guestrooms. I head into my home office and stare at my fish tank. When I first got that damn thing, half the fun had been watching Samantha running around the pet store trying to find the perfect specimens. Her eyes lit up every time she found a fish she liked and I nearly bought three more huge aquariums just so I could extend that time with her. She’d insisted on naming every fish in the tank and she’d sat on my lap in a chair, pointing out every single fish and giving them names. I had never seen anything as adorable as her on that night. The pure joy she’d gotten out of something so simple made me fall even deeper in love with her.

Forcing myself to turn around, I don’t pull it off with my normal poise and I think I might be giggling as I cross the office to my bar, where I grab a bottle of brandy my father gave me years ago with the instructions that I should sip this drink as it’s been aged somewhere around a century or some bullshit. Imagining the look of horror on my father’s face if he were here to see me right now, I lift the bottle to my lips, tilt my head back, and let the aged brandy go down my throat in huge gulps rather than tiny sips. Before I know it, the bottle is completely empty and I drop it carelessly to the floor. I’ll call for maid service in the morning…

The rest of the night is a blur with me drinking my way through the house making messes that I couldn’t care less about. I know I spent a lot of time sitting in front of the fireplace staring up at my and Samantha’s wedding portrait. I’d had plans to replace that around Christmastime with a new wedding portrait of us with Tyler. That plan’s gone to shit.

At some point, I stagger up the stairs and collapse in a heap at the top, somehow managing to crawl my way into my bedroom and into bed. Finally I feel myself passing out cold and think I might actually get several consecutive hours of decent rest, though I am not looking forward to the headache I’ll undoubtedly have when I wake up. Part of me wants to grab another bottle of liquor in the hopes that I won’t wake up at all. But that would be too easy an out for me. My luck reminds me I’ll be suffering this slow painful death for a long time to come.

––––-o––––-

The one thing I’m completely aware of right now is that I’ve only just fallen asleep for the first time in nearly a week. The next things I’m aware of are my bedroom door being thrown open, an annoyed sigh, footsteps, and then my window curtains being torn open. I bring my pillow over my face to shield my eyes from the bright sunlight which causes my head to explode in pain, and in the next moment, my pillow is being ripped from my grip. Claire is standing over me looking livid and impatient.

“What the fuck?” I ask her in a raspy voice, trying to block out one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had in my life.

“Sleeping the world away isn’t going to solve your problems,” she tells me sternly.

I push myself up on my elbows, glaring at my sister. “Sleeping the world away?” I repeat. “Claire, I’ve been asleep for two fucking hours! It’s the first I’ve slept in two weeks. What the hell are you even doing here?”

She looks briefly apologetic, until her annoyance returns. “Maybe if you’d returned my phone calls,” she says coldly, crossing her arms.

I fall back onto the bed, sighing and trying to push back the nausea. “Some people might take the hint the fifteenth time their call is rejected that the person they are calling doesn’t want to talk to them,” I grumble. I glance over to see the hurt expression on my sister’s face. Normally that look might make me feel guilty, but there’s a drum line making its way across my skull and guilt is the last thing I’m feeling.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” she murmurs, coming to sit beside me on the bed. “No one can get a hold of you and we were starting to get worried.”

“I’m sorry,” I manage to tell her. I even pull off making it sound somewhat genuine when I reach for her hand and squeeze it. “I could have sent a text message or something, but you don’t have to worry about me, Claire. I’m fine.”

She raises her eyebrow. “Really?” she asks doubtfully. “You look like you haven’t shaved in days. Your house is a mess… This isn’t like you, Matt. You smell like a liquor store threw up on a port-a-potty.” My brow furrows slightly and when I sniff myself, I realize she’s right. “It wasn’t even this bad when Sam left the first time.”

I close my eyes against her words as though that simple movement could protect me against the pain. The headache has spread to my chest. “Yeah, well, the first time I still had my best friend.”

Claire sighs. “You don’t have to close yourself off from us, though.”

I roll away from her and slip out of bed, thankful I’m still wearing boxers. “You’ve got better things to worry about than me,” I remind her, heading towards the bathroom as my stomach continues to do somersaults over itself. “How is she anyway?” I try to keep my tone casual, as though I don’t really care; but I know Claire will see right through it.

“Miserable,” she calls as I close the bathroom door. “Sleeping about as much as you. Only eating when I supervise her… Though she is talking about returning to the bookstore on Monday.”

Leaning against the bathroom counter, I run my hands roughly across my face. I hate that she is suffering and it’s my fault, because I know that’s what Claire isn’t telling me. My only hope is that she’s at least paying enough attention to herself that our baby is healthy.

“Tyler’s been asking about you,” Claire says, her muffled voice moving closer to the closed door. She’s got my attention now. “He wants to know when you’re going to come see him like you promised. The other night he actually asked me whether he did something to make you mad at him.” I fist my hands in my hair, pulling it. “I know you’re having a really rough time of things right now, but you could at least drop by for dinner to see that little boy. You and Sam can work out your issues in your own time—and yes, I still have faith that you’ll work things out—but don’t make Tyler suffer for that. He’s confused and upset and he knows Samantha isn’t at her best, and I don’t know what to tell him.”

Some long lost part of me wakes up at her words that she thinks Samantha and I might be able to work things out. I want to question her on it, but my mind focuses on Tyler for a moment. With a heavy sigh, I push myself off the bathroom counter and exit the room to face Claire, pulling on a t-shirt as I pass. “And what am I supposed to say to him?” I ask wearily. “’Everything’s fine, Tyler. There’s nothing to worry about.’ You want me to lie to my son?”