Shea’s mom.
I gripped my head as I tried to process, swarmed with an onslaught of confusion and anger and utter devastation.
Mark, Jennings, Austin, and motherfucking Chloe Lynn.
She was a loose end. A liability. Just like me.
Who was he talking about? Didn’t want to accept the possibility it could be Shea. But I knew…I fucking knew.
I roared and shot to my feet. Another rush of dizziness hit me. My shoulder rammed into the wall, my balance blown, my world shattered. I stumbled over the shit blocking the closet doorway in a frantic bid to get out with one of the pictures fisted in my hand. I charged out of Mark’s room and down the hall. Didn’t even hesitate at his door, just threw it open. It flew back and crashed against the inside of his wall.
Austin jumped from his bed in the same second I stormed in.
Something livid ate up my insides. Propelling me forward.
“Baz,” my baby brother said as his startled expression twisted through confusion and nervous doubt. I didn’t pause, just gathered the collar of his shirt in my hands and pushed him up against the wall. My teeth grated where they clenched, and that surprised expression on his face morphed into fear.
“Tell me you didn’t lie to me when you swore you didn’t know what happened the night Mark died.”
Alarmed eyes flashed with recognition. Going back to the day I’d confronted him right here in this room after the failed mediation with Jennings.
The day he started spouting off about Mark being nothing but pathetic.
I shook him, my voice a desperate seethe. “Tell. Me.”
No. I wouldn’t hurt him. Never. But there was no way I was leaving this room without the truth.
“Baz,” he begged.
Releasing one hand, I shoved the crumpled snapshot in his face. “Tell me why the fuck you and Mark are with Shea’s mom.”
His face went deathly white.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Fear soured my stomach, and the words grated with betrayal. “You lied to me. This is why you’ve been so weird about Shea?”
Tears filled his eyes and overflowed down his cheeks. The kid’s reaction was like a punch to the gut. I knew he was caught somewhere between the tormented child I’d taken responsibility for and the man trying to make his way out.
But that was no excuse.
“Tell me what you’re doing in a picture with Shea’s mom, Austin. Tell me what the fuck Mark was talking about in his journal…all this shit about Donny and Jennings and the trouble he was in. The girl he hurt.” The last turned into a plea.
He swallowed like he was seeking courage. “I don’t fucking know everything, Baz. Promise you.” The words began to fly. “All I know is Mark got in over his head. Owed Jennings a bunch of money. Honest, I don’t know all the details. I just know it was a lot. Enough that he didn’t know how he was going to get out from under it, and it was Donny who’d gotten him involved.”
His attention darted to the opposite wall, contemplating what to say, before he turned back to me. “I’d seen Shea’s mom…Chloe Lynn...around a few times when we’d partied. I had no idea who she was. Not until one night Donny was all coked up.”
Austin’s lip curled in disgust. “He always acted like such a badass. Wanted everyone to think he was. That night, he started bragging about all the shit Martin had him doing for him. All the drug runs he headed, the beat downs when someone got out of line.”
I struggled to find some control as Austin’s eyes pinched closed. “He was laughing when he started talking about how years before he’d been sent to fuck up Delaney Rhoads. Said something about ‘taking care of it.’ Then he’d mocked Chloe Lynn for being the mother of a washed-up country singer.”
I wheezed in a breath, my head spinning with hatred. My hands curled tighter in Austin’s shirt. My legs were trembling as everything inside me began to break apart.