Because of You

I wake up slowly to the sounds of people talking in the living room. Rolling over to reach for Brady, I feel nothing but cold sheets and realize the bed is empty. I push everything I’m feeling as far down as possible and get up out of bed, throwing on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from my bag and running a brush through my short hair. When I leave the bedroom and walk into the living room, I see Finn, Brady, and Gwen standing around in the kitchen. Brady’s eyes quickly leave mine when I look at him questioningly, and I realize with a sinking feeling that the worries I had last night weren’t unfounded.

“Layla, good news!” Finn says excitedly as he rounds the kitchen table and walks up to me, pulling me into his arms. “They caught that Ray guy. They picked him up last night after they got an anonymous tip from the APB they put out. We have to get to the station as soon as possible so you can ID him.”

I try to catch Brady’s eyes over Finn’s shoulder, but he’s got his arms crossed in front of him, staring down at his shoes. I pull out of Finn’s embrace and take a step back, forcing my chin up and putting on a look of bravado that I don’t feel. This is a good thing. They caught the guy who’s been terrorizing me. He’s behind bars and this can finally be over. I can go home and things can go back to normal.

“That’s great. I’ll just go get my things and—”

“There’s no time,” Finn says quickly, cutting me off and grabbing my hand as he pulls me towards the door. “They want to book this guy as soon as possible, and they can’t do that without you. I’ll send someone for your things later.”

I let Finn pull me towards the door without a word, casting one last look behind me at Brady. Is he really going to just let me walk out of here without saying anything?

He finally looks up from the floor, but his eyes don’t meet mine. They’re somewhere over my shoulder.

“If you want, I could follow behind you. You know, if you have any questions about the process or anything…” Brady says quietly, trailing off at the end.

If I want? What about what YOU want? God dammit, say something to me!

“Thanks, but I think we’re okay. I can take care of Layla from here,” Finn tells Brady with a cocky smile.

I stand there for as long as I can, willing him to actually look me in the eyes. Have some f*cking guts to tell me to my face that this is it, that last night really was his way of saying goodbye. Gwen stands off to the side, looking back and forth between us like someone at a tennis match, waiting for one of us to do something.

I turn away from both of them and start heading out the door Finn holds open, but then I stop in my tracks. Maybe I’m making a big deal out of this when he’s probably just acting like a typical guy and doesn’t know how to say what he wants. It’s not like I actually came out and told him how I felt. I showed him instead. I showed him a part of me that only my father ever saw or understood. I trusted him to see me, to know me.

I want to be strong and I want to be independent, so maybe I should start acting like it. Take what I want for once. Letting go of Finn’s hand, I hold up one finger, telling him to wait just a minute, and stalk back over to Brady who is now staring out the window.

“Just because I’m leaving and things are going back to normal, doesn’t mean anything has to change between us. You know that, right?” I say softly to his back as he continues to look outside. I see his shoulders tense, though, the only outward sign that he’s listening.

“I’ve spent too much of my life doing things I don’t want and being unhappy. You make me feel like I can do anything, be anyone. You wormed your way into my life and pissed me off a whole bunch, but now I can’t imagine spending a day without you. I know I started out as a job for you, but it’s more than that now. I know it is.”

His shoulders heave with a deep sigh, and he finally turns around to face me, the confidence and smile wilting on my face when I see his eyes. They’re cold and hard and they don’t meet mine directly.

“Look, sweetheart, we’re from two different worlds. You and I both know that. This thing between us, whatever it was, it was just a thing—a way to pass the time,” he tells me quietly so no one else can hear. “You’re safe now, the bad guy is behind bars, and my work here is finished.”

I press my hand to my stomach in an effort to keep myself together. Right now, it feels like my whole body is being ripped wide open and my heart and soul are spilling onto the floor at his feet.

“You don’t mean that. I know you, Brady. Why are you doing this?” I whisper angrily, my shaking voice giving away the torrent of emotions running through me.

“Sweetheart, you don’t know a damn thing about me. Just like that fiancé of yours, we were both paid by your mother to do a job. My job is done, so I’ll be collecting my paycheck and hittin’ the road. You better get going, your chariot awaits,” he says with a nod in Finn’s direction before turning away from me again, this time pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and punching some buttons like he’s sending a text.

Sending a damn text when he just broke my heart.

“You’re a coward, you know that? A f*cking coward,” I tell him angrily and loudly, no longer caring that Gwen and Finn can hear me. Swiping angrily at the tears falling freely down my face, I turn and walk over to Gwen, pausing for a moment in front of her.

“Gwen, thank you so much for everything,” I tell the woman with a sad smile. She’s the first woman I really thought I could be friends with in long time. She's real and honest, and I had hoped to be able to have her in my life. That won’t be possible now. Not when her brother obviously wants nothing more to do with me now that the “job” is finished. He’s just going to stand there and let me walk out the door and out of his life, and there’s nothing else I can do about it.

Gwen rushes over and wraps her arms around me, squeezing me tight, and I have to struggle to swallow past the lump in my throat and not let myself sob into her shoulder.

“He’s being an ass. He loves you. I know he does. Just give him time,” she whispers in my ear before pulling away and mirroring my sad smile.

I don’t say anything in response to her words, knowing they are just her way of trying to make me feel better. Finn grabs onto my hand again, and we’re out the door without a backward glance.

We get into his SUV and pull out of Brady’s driveway and head towards town, neither one of us saying a word for several miles.

“I’m sorry, Layla. I really didn’t want to be right about him,” Finn says after a few minutes.

I turn my head and look out the window, watching the trees fly by in a blur, not sure if it’s because Finn is driving so fast or because of the tears pooling in my eyes.

“You know, you’re better off without him anyway,” Finn continues, not caring that I don’t want to be part of this discussion. “I have a feeling your mother has finally seen the light and won’t be so hard on you anymore. She mentioned something to me last night about giving you more freedom with your music.”

What should have given me a huge burst of elation suddenly just makes me feel despondent. This is what I’ve always wished for: freedom to sing what I want and be who I want. But what the hell does it even matter if I have no one to share it with?

“Things are going to change. We’re both going to finally get what we want,” Finn says more to himself than to me, and I turn to look at him, wondering what he’s talking about. “People are finally going to know who I am.”

Before I can question him and ask him what the hell he means, the vehicle suddenly jerks to the side with enough force to smack the side of my head against my window. The sound of breaking glass, tires squealing, and metal crunching fills the SUV like a booming explosion, and I squeeze my eyes shut as we spin and spin before finally slamming roughly into something else and coming to a halting stop.

I feel a trickle of something warm running down the side of my face, and it gets into my eyes, blurring my vision. I try to move but the seat belt is locked in place and my hands are shaking too much unbuckle it.

“Finn?” I croak as loudly as I can over the hiss of the busted SUV and look to my left to see him slumped in his seat, the seat belt holding him upright with his head down and his chin resting on his chest.

I struggle against the seat belt and reach my arm out to him, grabbing onto his upper arm and shaking him gently. He groans in pain and a feeling of relief washes through me for a minute, blocking out the pain that screams through my body.

“Finn, wake up,” I tell him, the effort of speaking forcing me to cough and making me wince in agony. It hurts to cough and it hurts to talk, and I’m guessing it’s from how tightly the seat belt is pressed against my chest and how roughly I slammed against it during the collision.

Finn finally raises his head and turns to look at me. His eyes quickly leave mine as he stares in horror behind me out my window.

“Oh God, Layla. Oh God, I did something bad,” he says with a shaky voice.

My door wrenches open and a feeling of relief washes through me when I realize the paramedics must already be here and they made good time since the accident just happened seconds ago. I turn my head slowly to look out the door, and when I see a strange man standing there staring at me with a calculating grin, I open my mouth to scream, recognizing immediately that he isn’t there to help us.

He lifts his fist and slams it into my cheek, cutting off my scream before it could even leave my throat, and the world goes black.





It’s all I can do not to turn and punch a hole in the wall next to me as I watch the door close behind Layla.

I stood here and did nothing, like an idiot. Why the hell didn’t I say anything to her?

“You live two completely different lives.”

“The media would know all about you. They’d know about the mistakes you’ve made, and they’d know about the secrets your sister is hiding.”

Eve’s words come rushing back and guilt overwhelms me.

I should never have even started anything with Layla in the first place. It was a bad idea for so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we live two completely polar opposite lives. But just like always, I hadn't given a shit about consequences. I wanted something and I took it, only thinking about myself and not those around me who could be hurt by my actions. I'm a fool for thinking I could have had any kind of relationship with someone as high profile as Layla Carlysle. And what the hell would she want with someone like me in the long run? A washed up Navy SEAL who couldn’t hack it with the Nashville PD and owns a floundering PI agency and might be able to pay the electric bill this month, but who knows what will happen down the road? I have nothing to offer her, absolutely nothing.

With a sigh of regret, I turn away from the door and face Gwen’s glacier look head on. Her foot is tapping against the floor, her hands are on her hips, and her eyes are shooting daggers at me.

“I know what you’re going to say, so don’t bother. I don’t want to hear it,” I tell her as I roughly yank out one of the kitchen chairs and slump down in it, turning the laptop around to face me and opening up my email.

“Oh, you know what I’m going to say, huh? So you know I’m going to tell you that I know for a fact you’re in love with Layla and that she is without a doubt, one hundred percent in love with you?”

I grind my teeth and feel my face getting hot from shame and embarrassment.

“You couldn’t possibly know that,” I tell her, staring at the screen of the computer so I don’t have to see the disappointment on her face.

“Oh yes I could. Number one, because you didn’t deny it just now. And number two, she told me,” Gwen admits.

My head jerks up quickly to face her, my email momentarily forgotten.

“She what? When?”

Gwen shrugs her shoulders and takes a seat next to me. “Well, not in so many words. But she did one better. You see, we women sometimes like to show a man how much we love him. Sometimes actions are much better than words. Anyone can say the words, Brady. They can toss them around like they mean something while their actions make you feel small and insignificant. But when they actually show you that they love you? When they open up their heart and soul and show you a side of themselves they’ve never shared with anyone else—that’s love.”

My heart starts pounding rapidly in my chest as I think about what Gwen is saying.

“Her music?” I ask her in a whisper.

Gwen smiles at me and nods.

“Did you know the second night she was here and helped me put Emma to bed, she told me about that guitar? You were in the shower and I asked her about it. She hasn’t played one single note on that thing for anyone since the day her father died. Not one. She said she would just hold it in her arms all these years and wait for inspiration to strike or for it to magically help her live again,” Gwen explains as she leans back in her chair and crosses her arms in front of her. “I asked her what made her want to suddenly play on stage at June’s, and do you know what she said? She said, ‘I just realized that I’ve found something else to make me feel alive, and he’s a lot warmer than an old guitar. I don’t need to hide behind it when I have him in front of it.’”

I’m struggling to breathe as I listen to Gwen ramble. Each word she says is like a knife to my heart, making me realize what I’ve done and what I’ve lost.

“She also told me about the book of songs she wrote that you found,” Gwen continues, not paying attention to the damage her words produce and my mounting anxiety. “She wasn’t really mad at you. She was embarrassed. She knows she’s talented and she’s ashamed that she’s done nothing with the songs but let them gather dust in an old notebook. Did you know she’s never even shown that book to Finn? He knows she writes, but he’s never read one of her songs or heard her play them. She’s never played them for anyone.”

Except me.

I hang my head down in front of me when Gwen finishes, not sure if I want to scream to the world that Layla loves me or sit in a corner and cry like a baby because…Layla loves me. She sat on that bed and showed me just how much by doing something she’d never done for another living soul.

“It’s not too late, you know. You can still get her back,” Gwen says softly, resting her hand on top of one of mine on the table.

I jerk my hand out from under hers and stand up so abruptly that the chair topples over.

“No, I can’t get her back. I can’t get her back because I don’t WANT her back. Can you understand that, Gwen? Can you get that through your head? Stop trying to play f*cking match maker here!” I shout.

I want to take the words back as soon as I say them. I shouldn’t be yelling at Gwen. I shouldn’t be taking my frustrations out on her, but I don’t know what else to do. I’m so angry at the f*cking world right now for putting Layla in my life just to snatch her away again. A little tease to get me thinking about white picket fences and happily-ever-afters, then a harsh smack of reality in the face to bring me back to the real world.

The phone on the kitchen wall rings, and Gwen stomps off angrily to answer it, leaving me alone to stew in my misery.

“What? What the f*ck are you talking about?” Gwen screeches into the phone. I step over the toppled chair and quickly walk into the kitchen, more than a little surprised at her outburst. Gwen rarely swears and when she does, it’s never with a doozey like this one.

“That’s impossible, check again. He’s there. He has to be there,” Gwen argues.

I stand there staring at her and when she gasps, puts her hand over her mouth, and looks up at me with wide eyes brimming with tears. I snatch the phone out of her hand.

“Who is this? What the hell is going on?” I ask angrily.

“Brady, hey, it’s Adam. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset your sister. I was calling to tell you guys that we finally found that guy who’s been stalking Layla, and Gwen kind of freaked out.”

Gwen has her back to me now so I can’t gauge by her face if she’s okay or what the hell just happened.

“Yeah, we already know, Adam, thanks for calling though. Is the guy cooperating at least?” I ask with a sigh.

“We don’t have him yet. That’s what I was calling to tell you,” Adam says.

My blood runs cold and Gwen finally turns around to face me, and I’m sure the look of horror on her face mirrors my own.

“What the hell do you mean you don’t have him yet? Finn said you guys caught him and put him in custody, and he just picked up Layla to ID the guy.”

Adam hesitates and that little pause through the phone lines speaks volumes.

“Brady, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been on duty since two in the morning, and I’m telling you he was never brought in. We literally JUST got the DNA results thirty seconds before I called you, man.”

I can barely hold the phone to my ear my hands are shaking so badly. Gwen is full on crying now, and I have to look away from her or I’m going to lose my shit.

“Can you fax me a copy of the DNA results, Adam?” I ask him, trying to keep my composure while I’m on the phone with him. There’s no point letting him know I feel like I’ve lost my f*cking mind. “And also, I need you to put out a BOLO for a 2012 black Chevy Tahoe, license plate number seven, five, four, Delta, Charlie, Victor.”





I maniacally pace back and forth in front of the fax machine, willing it to come to life and spit out the information I need.

“You’re making me nervous, Brady,” Gwen complains as she walks up behind me.

“I can’t f*cking help it. Why the hell isn’t anyone answering their God dammed phones?” I reply angrily as I hit end on my phone and toss it onto the table. I tried calling Layla, Finn, and Eve about a hundred times each, and no one was answering. I want to get in my car and chase after Layla, but Adam told me to stay put for now and they would call me when they found Finn’s vehicle.

Why the hell would he lie to us about Ray being in custody? To get Layla alone? But that makes no sense. She would have easily gone anywhere with him. He didn’t need to lie to her. She trusts him.

The fax machine suddenly starts whirring and spitting out pages. I pull them out before the ink is even dry and scan them. Before Adam hung up the phone, he said there was something weird on the test results they got. He didn’t give me any more of an explanation, just that I’d know what he meant when I saw them.

“The first sample got a hit in CODIS matching a man by the name of Billy Marsh. A.K.A. Eric Dobbs, A.K.A. John Smith, A.K.A. Ray Bergin,” I read out loud to Gwen. “Billy Marsh has been in and out of prison since he was eighteen years old for domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon, sexual harassment, rape, robbery, and drug possession.”

Gwen slumps down in a chair closest to her and folds her hands on the table in front of her.

“Oh my God,” she whispers as I keep going, trying to ignore the voice screaming in my head telling me that Layla should never, ever be within a foot of this guy again.

“It looks like they ran Layla and Finn’s DNA just to make sure the samples they had weren’t confused with what they found at the scene,” I explain as I blindly walk over to the table, the words in front of me swirling together.

“Right, I have a copy of the work order on the computer,” Gwen replies, punching a few keys into the system and pulling up the report. “The lab was supposed to bump them up against the sample taken under Layla’s fingernails and the blood found on the brick that came through her window.”

I continue reading the report in silence, not believing what I’m seeing.

There’s no way. No f*cking possible way…

A harsh knock at the door has me dropping the papers on the floor and racing across the room hoping that what I just read isn’t true and that it’s Layla on the other side of the door, perfectly unharmed, so I can wrap her in my arms and beg her to never leave again. I throw the door open hard enough for it to smack against the opposite wall, my hope sinking when I see Eve standing on my doorstep.

“Where the hell is my daughter? She was supposed to be at the recording studio a half hour ago, and now she isn’t answering my calls,” Eve says angrily. Just like yesterday, she pushes her way right past me and into my house like she owns the place. “I left her ten voice mails from the studio. You did this, didn’t you? You convinced her to go off on her own and ignore me.”

Eve stands in the middle of my living room in her perfectly pressed business suit and not one hair out of place on her head. Her arms are crossed in front of her, and she’s staring at me like I’m the scum of the earth. I almost believe I am until I remember what I just read on that DNA report.

“Layla isn’t here. Finn picked her up an hour ago,” I tell Eve as calmly as I can when all I want to do is fly across the room and choke the life out of this woman for being so conniving and such a liar.

“Nonsense, Finn would have told me if he was planning on picking her up and bringing her to the studio,” she states, pulling her Blackberry out of her handbag and scrolling through the messages.

I take a few deep breaths to try and calm my anger but it’s no use. My blood is boiling and I feel like I’m two seconds away from ripping the doors off of their hinges and punching holes in all the walls. I want to scream and bust every f*cking thing in this place right now.

“Really? Finn would have told you the truth? Just like you’ve been telling the truth all these years?” I question her with my jaw clenched, biting down so hard on my teeth that it feels like I’m going to crack all of them.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Eve asks distractedly, still paying more attention to her phone than what I’m saying. Her cavalier attitude is all it takes for me to crack. I storm across the room, grab the phone from her hand, and heave it so hard into the wall that it shatters into a million pieces and leaves a nice size dent behind in the drywall.

“What the hell is your problem?” Eve demands. “That was a brand new phone!”

I see that Gwen picked up the papers that I tossed to the ground in my haste to make it to the door. Her face is filled with shock and anger, her nostrils flaring as she walks up next to Eve and shoves the pages at her roughly.

Eve grapples with them so that they don’t fall to the floor and flips through the pages.

“DNA results? What are these for?”

I finally walk across the room towards her, making sure to stay out of arm’s reach so I’m not tempted to do something I’ll regret.

“Those were the lab reports that were run after the attack on Layla. They were supposed to just bump them up against Finn and Layla to make sure they didn’t confuse the real perpetrator with the two of them. But someone at the lab screwed up. They ran Layla and Finn against each other.”

I’ve never seen someone’s face pale as quickly as Eve’s. She goes from having her cheeks red with anger to her entire face looking chalky and sweaty within seconds. She looks like she might throw up right in the middle of my living room.

“So I assume you know exactly what they found when they accidentally ran that test, don’t you, Eve?” I ask, standing there waiting for her to find her voice.

Her mouth opens and closes but no sound comes out. Her hand goes up to her throat, and I can see it’s trembling uncontrollably. She starts shaking her head back and forth in denial as she stares at the piece of paper in her hand, reading the results and realizing that her world is going to slowly unravel now.

“All this time, you knew. You knew and you didn’t say a f*cking word. Does anyone know about this?”

Eve continues shaking her head back and forth, and I’m so angry that she’s not giving me an explanation that I find it impossible to control my temper. I grab tightly to her upper arms and shake her so hard I can hear her teeth rattle.

“SAY SOMETHING GOD DAMMIT!”

Eve just stares off into space, not even acknowledging me. I’m so scared and furious that I don’t care if I hurt her. I don’t care if I snap her neck. I continue shaking her and shouting at her until Gwen finally wraps her hand around my arm and squeezes it just hard enough to pull me out of my murderous rage. I drop my arms from Eve and take a few steps back, my breath coming out in gasps.

“He took her, Eve. He took her and he lied to us about where he was going. Does Finn know about this?” Gwen asks softly, turning Eve to face her to try and reach her through sympathy and a little kindness.

It’s more than this woman deserves, but I keep quiet and let Gwen work her magic.

“Eve, please. Does Finn know about this?” Gwen asks again.

Eve finally stops her manic head shaking and looks at Gwen, her lips and chin trembling with panic. “Oh God! He knows. He’s known since he was in Afghanistan and there were complications with his injuries. When he came home, he was so angry. He broke into my house and threatened to go to the tabloids. He demanded that I hire him or else he would tell everyone. Layla was already huge by then. I couldn’t let anything ruin it. I had to do something. I had already done so many bad things by then, what was one more?”

Eve continues to ramble, spilling her guts about everything. She tells us about Finn and Jack and Ray/Billy. She confesses all of her sins right there in the middle of my living room. She admits to things that will break Layla’s heart into a million pieces and makes me fear even more for her safety. I can’t just sit here waiting for the police to get their heads out of their asses and find Layla. I can’t do it. I may not be active, but I’m still a f*cking Navy SEAL, and I’ll be damned if I lose one more person in my life.

I walk away from Gwen as she tries to comfort a woman who doesn’t deserve her kindness while Eve breaks down on my couch, sobbing hysterically and rocking back and forth.

Scrolling through the contacts on my phone, I call the first person I can think of who is always up for a little off-the-books search and rescue mission. The phone is answered mid-ring.

“Hey there, dick bag! Tell me you need me for something. I’m going crazy sitting here on my ass waiting for Uncle Sam to call.”

I’d smile at my friend’s words if I didn’t feel an immense amount of panic suffocating me right now.

“Austin, I need you, man. How soon can you get here?” I ask.

“Already got my go-bag in my hand, and I’m walking out the door. I had a side job two hours from you. I can be there in an hour. F*ck speed limits.”

I thank Austin and hang up the phone, grateful once again that I have friends who will always have my back.

I just hope to God that wherever Layla is, she knows that no matter what, I will come for her.





I blink my eyes into focus and stare up at a ceiling covered in water spots and mold wondering who booked such a shitty hotel room for my tour. Turning my head to the right, a burst of pain shoots across my forehead and behind the back of my eyes with the movement, and I realize that I’m not in a hotel room but what looks like the basement storage room at Hummingbird Records. I’ve only been in here once, and it was years ago when my dad was still alive and he brought me down here to unpack the case for the guitar he’d given me. Twisting to my side on the cold, cement floor, I push myself up so I can try and clear the cobwebs from my head. I lean my back against the concrete walls and glance around at all the old boxes of vinyl records, out-of-date recording equipment, and framed posters of musicians and bands Hummingbird has represented in the last thirty some odd years.

My head feels like it’s going to explode, and I try to think back and remember what the hell happened and why I’m in this basement. I press my palm against my temple, pulling it quickly away when I feel something sticky there and see spots of bright red blood.

Blood, screeching tires, breaking glass, crunching metal…

“Finn, wake up.”

Everything comes rushing back to me all at once: Brady’s brush off, Finn rambling nonsense as we drove, the accident and…oh God, that man, the one who opened my door and stood there with a huge, disturbing smile on his face. It has to be him—the man who wrote all those notes, who attacked me and threw a brick through my window, who watched Brady and me together in his truck. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but he was there at the accident. Did he cause it? Was he the one who ran into us or was he just following Finn and me and by some freak twist of fate happened to be in the right place at the right time? And where the hell is Finn? I don’t remember anything after my door opened and I saw that man standing there.

Using the wall as support, I press one of my hands against it and push myself up so I can stand, every muscle in my body aching from the impact of the accident. I gingerly walk around a few boxes, trying not to jar my throbbing head too much. I have to get out of here and find Finn. As I make my way across the room, I hear the door at the top of the stairs open, and I move faster, wincing as each footstep makes my head feel like someone is taking a hammer to it.

“HEY! Hello? Is someone there? I need help!” I yell as I make it to the bottom of the stairs and look up. “Finn? Oh, thank God! What the hell happened? Why did you leave me down here? Are you okay?” I ramble as he gets to the bottom step and walks right by me.

“Did you see that Ray guy after the accident? That was him, wasn’t it? Did he escape from the police department? Are we hiding here or something?”

Finn still doesn’t answer me or turn around. He just walks over to one of the support poles in the middle of the room, crouches down, and starts securing rope to the bottom of it.

“Finn, what the hell is going on?” I demand, as I stare at his back while his arms work furiously tying knots and wrapping the rope around the pole.

“Yes, Finn. Do tell her what’s going on,” a male voice says as I jump in surprise and turn around when I hear a sinister voice in the room with us.

I watch in shock as the man from the accident strides down the stairs cracking his knuckles, a pair of handcuffs dangling from the front pocket of his pants and clinking together as he descends.

I scramble backward, knocking over boxes of records and tripping over a broken microphone from the sixties and an equalizer from the eighties. I continue falling over all of these things until my back slams into Finn’s chest, and he wraps his hands around my upper arms and squeezes tight, holding me in place.

“Finn, what are you doing?” I question angrily, trying to struggle out of his grip.

“Oh, Finn, I think it’s time to clue the lady in on a few things, don’t you?” the man says as he finally comes to a stop right in front of me, taking the tip of his finger and sliding it up my neck and chin.

I bite down so hard on my lip that I taste blood as the man stands there staring at me with a smile on his face. He’s over six feet tall, and I have to crane my neck to look up at his face. It’s a face that immediately makes me think of nightmares and scary movies. He’s got a scar that runs from right below his eye to his bottom lip, and I can tell that he was most likely on the receiving end of a knife fight. The stubble on his face makes him look dirty, and the dark color of his eyes as he stares down at me reminds me of a black, bottomless pit. The tattoos that run up and down his arms are of flesh-eating monsters, devils with flames shooting out of their heads, and other sinister markings that make my skin crawl. The fingers that he uses to touch me are inked with what look like hand-made prison designs, and I cringe in disgust as he uses a dirty, broken fingernail to scrape the trail of blood off of the side of my face.

“I really don’t like this new look you’re going for with the hair. You look like a whore,” he tells me seriously as he runs his dirty fingers through the short locks.

I jerk my head away from his hand, and he grabs my chin roughly, forcing me to turn my head back and look at him. My fear is quickly being replaced by anger. Anger that this man thinks he has any kind of claim over me. He’s kept me in fear long enough.

I growl at him. “Like I give a shit what you think.”

My boldness is quickly silenced with a backhand across the face. I cry out in pain and my eyes immediately start to water, the hands holding me in place clenching tighter and tighter to my arms as I struggle as hard as I can against them.

“Billy, man, not so rough,” Finn scolds.

My confusion mounts as I listen to Finn talk to this man like he knows him.

“Finn, let me go, please,” I beg him softly. “Why are you doing this?”

He still doesn’t speak to me, and after a few seconds, I stop struggling and immediately let my body relax against him, remembering each and every thing Brady taught me that night in my bedroom.

“You’re so clueless about everything, Layla. All this time, all these years, and you never figured it out. How is that f*cking possible?” Finn finally speaks, the contempt for me dripping from his voice right by my ear. “All of this should have been mine. The fame, the fortune… I should have been the star, not you. I came first, I was the one with the talent, but she threw me away like yesterday’s trash.”

What the hell is he talking about? Nothing he says makes sense. Why is he doing this to me? I have to get out of here. I have to get away from these two men who have obviously lost their minds.

While Finn is distracted telling me all the ways he hates me, my body goes limp and his hands loosen on my arms. I close my eyes and throw my head back, smashing it into Finn’s nose as hard as I can. While he screams in pain, I collapse to my knees on the floor, whirl around, and slam my fist between his legs. He lets out another painful shout and drops to his knees right in front of me, holding his hands over his crotch while blood pours down his face from his broken nose.

I quickly crawl away from him, but in my haste to get out of his grip, I forgot about the other man in the room. His hand quickly grabs a handful of my hair and yanks me up off of the floor while Finn continues to whimper and moan.

“Get up, you weak f*ck,” the man spits at Finn as I flail my arms and try to hit my target. I get a few smacks and punches in before he grabs onto one of my arms and wrenches it behind me so hard and fast that I hear a snap in one of the bones and a white hot, blinding pain shoots up my arm.

A blood curdling scream flies out of my mouth, and he suddenly shoves me away from him. I trip over my feet and throw out my uninjured arm to try and brace my fall as I smack my hip to the hard floor.

The pain in my hip is no match for the excruciating agony radiating through the upper half of my body, and it’s quickly forgotten as I cradle my arm against my chest.

“We haven’t formally met. My real name is Billy, but you probably know me best as Ray,” the man says as he stands above me.

Using my feet, I push against the floor and slide myself away from him, but he follows me until my back hits the pole in the middle of the room and I have to stop. Billy crouches down in front of me while Finn finally regains his composure and stands up behind him, staring at me with hatred burning in his eyes and blood dripping off of his chin.

“I used to f*ck your mother, you know,” Billy says casually with a smile. “Back in the day, before she got all high and mighty. She liked to slum it and come to my trailer late at night, asking me for favors, and in return I got a piece of that sweet ass. She wrote me off after she sank her claws into your father, but I knew she’d be back. And sure enough, she darkened my doorstep one night asking me to do a little mechanical work on your father’s car. A little poke to the brake line so the fluid would slowly leak out and POOF! No more Daddy.”

A sob bursts from my mouth and echoes around the room as I listen to this man admit that he killed my father. And that my mother had him do it.

“No! No, no, no,” I mumble over and over as I shake my head back and forth in denial and cry for the man who would have done anything for me.

“Yes, yes, yes, princess! Isn’t it good to finally hear the truth?” Billy asks with a laugh. “The truth shall set you free! And since we’re on a roll, Finn, how about you clue her in on some more truths that will blow her mind.”

Finn wipes blood off of his mouth with the back of his hand and limps over next to Billy. If I could muster up the strength, I would laugh in his face right now, pleased with myself at how much damage I did to him.

“I’m sorry, Layla! Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want it to go this far, I didn’t. You have to believe me,” Finn pleads, his mood doing a complete one-eighty as he squats down next to me and reaches out to gently touch the bruise that I can feel forming on my cheek from the hit.

Billy scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, you are such a f*cking p-ssy. GET UP!”

Finn looks at me sadly and quickly stands back up next to Billy.

“Tell her how you really feel, Finn. Tell her all the things you’ve told me this last year. Get it all out of your system,” Billy encourages.

I watch as the kindness in Finn’s eyes is once again replaced by anger.

“You were always the golden child. The little princess who got everything handed to her because you had a perfect father, not some nameless, faceless a*shole who knocked your mother up and then fled. I found out the truth when I was in another country, shot to hell and bleeding out in a two-bit operating room in a tent in the middle of the dessert,” Finn says calmly.

I don’t like the monotone timbre his voice has taken on. It’s like someone flipped a switch in his brain and he’s turned into a completely different person. I need to get Finn back. The real Finn. The one who has been by my side all these years, the one I know is still in there somewhere. I don’t know what truth he’s talking about, and I don’t care. I just need to make him remember what we mean to each other.

“Finn, please. I love you, you know that. You’re my best friend and I would do anything for you. It’s not too late, we can fix this. We can fix everything,” I plead with him.

Billy moves in a flash, stopping my appeal to Finn’s good side as the steel toe of his boot connects with the side of my thigh. Once again, my screams of pain fill the room as I fall to the side, gingerly holding my broken arm to my chest and clutching onto my thigh with my good hand. My forehead rests against the cool, hard ground as I sob into the floor and wonder why the hell this is happening to me. It has to be a dream. This can’t be real. I need to wake up.

WAKE UP DAMMIT!

“Shut the hell up!” Billy yells at me, and I flinch at his raised voice. He quickly squats down to my level, and just like a moment ago, he grabs onto my hair again and yanks my face up so he can hold it inches from his own, the stench of alcohol on his breath hitting me in the face and making me gag. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Haven’t you realized why Finn hates you? Because he does, you know. He hates you. Isn’t that right, Finn? Tell her why you hate this bitch!”

It hurts to cry but I can’t stop the tears from falling as I look away from Billy and into the eyes of the man I’ve known almost my whole life. We took care of each other and we did everything for each other. My heart is breaking all over again wondering if he really does hate me, that all these years have been a lie, that his friendship was a farce the whole time.

“No, I don’t hate her! I don’t! I’m just mad. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I just wanted what should have been mine,” Finn cries.

“Is all of this about you not playing guitar?” I ask him with a sob. “Finn, you know I have always supported you and your choices. I have always wanted what was best for you. If you wanted to do it professionally I would have helped you. I would have done everything I could to make it happen for you.”

Billy laughs and Finn growls in anger. “I didn’t want your charity! I wanted your life! It should have been mine. All of it should have been mine!”

I gasp at his words, not understanding how all this time he never said anything. He never once made his feelings or his desires known.

“I would have given it to you! Do you understand that, Finn?” I shout back at him. “I never wanted any of it! I love you and I would have gladly handed it all to you if I knew it was what you wanted.”

Finn’s anger falters at that point, and I can see the war that’s going on his head as he stares at me. He wants to be pissed at me for having everything he’s always wanted, but he knows I’m right. He knows I would have done anything for him. All he had to do was ask.

Billy frantically looks back and forth between Finn and me, tosses me to the side again, and suddenly jumps up, turning around and throwing a fist into Finn’s face. I cry out as I watch a spray of blood fly from Finn’s mouth and splatter on the floor.

Finn rounds on Billy and clenches his fists tightly to his side, his body shaking with the need to hit back.

“Does that make you angry? Huh, Finn? Are you good and pissed off now? TELL HER THE TRUTH!” Billy screams.

“I don’t care about the truth, Finn,” I rush to tell him, trying to get him to focus on me and what we mean to each other instead of what this monster is trying to do to us. “It doesn’t matter. You’re my best friend and we’ve always done everything for each other. Remember when you were twelve and you had pneumonia? I made you Campbell’s chicken soup every day and we played Mad Libs until our sides ached from laughing and you forgot about how sick you were. And remember when I was fourteen and you dared me to jump my bike over the stream behind my house and I crashed and cried like a girl? There was so much blood everywhere and you carried me ten blocks to the hospital, apologizing the whole way and telling me you’d never let me get hurt again?”

The tears blur my vision as I remember back on our years together and how it was always us against the world. Right when I think I’m finally getting to him though, the softness in his eyes from remembering immediately turns to fury.

“Of course I remember carrying you to the hospital. I also remember listening to the doctor tell you that you were bleeding so much because you had this weird, rare blood disorder called hemophilia. Something passed on by your mother,” Finn spits out angrily at me.

Billy stares at Finn and nods his head enthusiastically. “There you go, boy. Finally, the grand finale.”

“Yes, I remember,” I mutter in confusion, ignoring Billy’s excitement. “They couldn’t get the bleeding to stop from the gash in my leg so they ran tests. You made a joke that you’d have to put me in a bubble so I’d never bleed again,” I whisper, wondering why he’s bringing this up now.

“When I was in Afghanistan and bleeding out on the table, they couldn’t understand why my blood wouldn’t clot, so they ran some tests. Do you have any idea how rare it is for someone to have hemophilia, Layla? Do you have any idea how rare it is for two best friends, who live in the same town, have the same eye color, and the same two dimples in our cheeks to have hemophilia?”

My brain hears everything Finn is saying to me right now, but my heart refuses to process the words. It refuses to acknowledge that what he’s saying makes sense.

“I should have had your life. I COULD HAVE had your life. It should have been MINE! I was the first born. Our mother should have made ME the star. She should have put ME on the pedestal. When I came home from the war, armed with the news the doctors had given me and a hunch about who I was, I demanded that she tell me the truth. Instead of being happy about it, she paid me to keep my mouth shut.”

I gasp at his words, running them through my mind over and over as he stares at me with murderous rage in his eyes.

Our mother, our mother, our mother.

“No. It’s not possible,” I mumble, even though I know he speaks the truth.

Our mother, our mother, our mother.

“Look at that! I think she sees the light, Finn!” Billy exclaims from behind him. “Layla, meet your brother, Finn. I’m so glad I get to be a part of this heart felt family reunion.”

“All these years I’ve been wanting to get back at dear old Eve for using me only when she needed something. Imagine my surprise last year when Finn here found my contact information in some of Eve’s things,” Billy explains as he paces back and forth in front of me. “Finn hatched up a genius plan where I would get to stalk the beautiful Layla Carlysle, and he would come in and be the hero, saving the day, and have his face plastered all over magazines and television. The grateful public would want to know everything about him of course, and they would soon learn that, oh my gosh, he can play the guitar?!”

Billy stops pacing and pulls the handcuffs out of his pocket, swinging them around his finger as he continues.

“And of course, once the news broke, people would start digging into Finn’s life and wait, what’s this? His mother is really Eve Carlysle? She had a bastard child right before she married Jack and tossed him into an orphanage? Oh the horror! And wait, there’s more!” Billy says with a sinister laugh. “A grown-up Finn comes home from the war, after fighting for his country and almost losing his life, and he knows the truth! Oh my! But Eve, she pays him off to keep him quiet. Offered him a job close to her so she could keep an eye on him. Oh no. How tragic. Poor Finn.”

I crumble to the ground, unable to hold myself up any longer, crying so hard I’m surprised I have any tears left.

Turning my head against the floor so I can look up, my gaze goes back and forth between the two men staring down at me.

“So Finn would get his fame and fortune and you would get revenge on Eve when everyone found out the truth,” I croak with a raspy voice, my throat aching from all the tears.

“Little Miss Perfect would be blackballed in the music world. It really was a perfect plan,” Billy states. “Until that bitch felt the need to hire a PI who started sticking his nose in things.”

Billy bends over and slaps the cuffs on my good arm, pulling on it roughly until it’s extended out from my body, securing the other end to the support pole. I moan in pain, not even attempting to struggle against him.

“I tried to warn you, Layla. I tried to tell you that guy was bad news, but you didn’t listen,” Finn states softly. “I bugged his place when I dropped off your stuff the other night. He knew about your dad. He knew all about Jack’s death, and he didn’t tell you. He kept it from you because he doesn’t give a shit about you.”

Finn is back to sounding like he cares about me, and my head is spinning from the back and forth he’s doing. One minute he’s pissed and the next he’s on my side. I don’t know which Finn is the real one. I don’t know what is happening to him.

My eyes close and I rest my cheek on my arm handcuffed to the pole, wanting to just give up. I don’t care about anything anymore. There isn’t one person in my life who hasn’t betrayed me. I am alone and I’m going to die in this basement alone. Billy and Finn have divulged all of their secrets. Secrets they won’t want anyone to know about. No matter what confusion is going on in Finn’s head right now, there’s no way he’s going to want the truth of what he’s done to get out.

“Finn here was getting a little nervous about the whole stalking thing,” Billy tells me after making sure the handcuffs are secure. “After a few of our phone calls, I had to wonder if he had the balls to follow through with our plan. He thought I was taking it too far with you. I had to convince him that I knew what I was doing and it would all work out in his favor in the end. I had to promise him that you wouldn’t really be harmed. A little white lie never hurt anyone.”

Billy grabs onto the neck of my T-shirt and rips it right down the middle until my black lace bra and bare stomach are exposed. He cups my breasts in his hands and squeezes them roughly until I cry out.

“Billy, STOP! What the f*ck are you doing?” Finn shouts, grabbing onto his shoulder and trying to pull him away from me.

Billy takes one hand off of me, reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a gun, turning his head and pushing the barrel into Finn’s chest.

“I’m doing what I planned on doing all along. Making Layla mine,” Billy says quietly, cocking the gun and holding it steady right at Finn as he backs away with his hands in the air.

His other hand that still kneads my breast distractedly slides down the front of my body until it reaches the snap of my jeans. He yanks them open roughly, and regardless of the pain, I start to struggle against his hands.

Billy stands up and holds onto the gun with both hands.

“Be a pal and take her pants off for me,” Billy tells Finn as he nods in my direction.

Finn looks at me with terror in his eyes but doesn’t move.

A loud blast of the gun explodes through the room and Finn screams, dropping to the ground and clutching his thigh. Blood pours between his fingers as he tries to hold his hand over the wound in his leg.

“I said, take her pants off,” Billy states calmly as he stares down at Finn and cocks the gun again, loading another bullet into the chamber before pressing the nose of the barrel into the top of Finn’s head.

Finn uses one hand to pull himself over to me and refuses to look me in the eye as he does what Billy says.

“Finn, no. No, no, no, please, don’t do this,” I sob hysterically as he quickly removes my jeans with one hand, and I fight him as best I can, the pain in my leg from being kicked and the jostling as I try to struggle bringing so much agony to my arm that I start to see spots.

“I’m sorry, Lay. I’m so sorry,” Finn whispers as tears fall down his face. He stares at my feet and doesn’t meet my eyes.

Billy lifts his arm above Finn’s head and brings it down fast, the butt of the gun cracking his skull. Finn slumps to the side, unconscious and even though he was shot and going back and forth between hating me and feeling sorry for what he’d done, at least a part of me feels like he might still be on my side. He might still be able to stop all of this from going any further.

“That’s better. His voice was grating on my nerves,” Billy says, sliding the gun into the back of his pants and shoving Finn further away with the heel of his boot.

He advances on me with desire burning in his eyes as he stares up and down my body and licks his lips.

“Just kill me!” I shout at him through my tears. “Just f*cking kill me!”

I’d rather die than have his hands on me again. I’d rather close my eyes and never open them again than have him on top of me, taking something that isn’t his. This will ruin me. This will be much worse than dying or having my best friend betray me or my mother take away the one person in my life who ever loved me. This will be something I’ll never be able to stop seeing, stop feeling, or stop experiencing from now until the day I really do die. No amount of happiness will be able to erase from my mind what’s about to happen.

“Oh, you don’t really mean that,” Billy says with a laugh as he stands next to me and continues to look up and down my half-naked body. “You know, I usually like it when they struggle, but you’re kind of useless in that department,” Billy says as he takes his boot and presses it down hard on my injured thigh.

I close my eyes tight and clench my lips together, refusing to scream or let him know how much it hurts.

“F*ck you!” I spit out angrily, finally opening my eyes and staring at him with hatred.

He sighs and shakes his head at me.

“We really need to do something about that mouth of yours. I think this will be better for both of us if you just shut the f*ck up,” he tells me before bringing his fist down against the side of my head.