Page 111 of Corrupt Game

I leaned back and sighed. What did anybody know about being normal? Normal was an illusion that society tried to cast out amongst the masses.

If I wanted her to submit, I should try gifts, lots of food, and freedom of sorts. Not throwing her into the dark and tormenting her. Even if it was hot. After we found Andrew’s killers, I’d give it a try.

Though I wanted her loyalty to be all to me. It was foolish to be jealous of her devotion to her brother, but a small part of me was.

Andrew’s death emphasized that life was fleeting. I’d take what time I could get.

“Be my partner. Help me avenge your brother and my friend. If you can’t forgive me forever, at least let us be allies until we’ve finished taking down the men responsible for his death.”

She crossed her arms and gave me an appraising look. “Truce. For the moment. I’m ready for a shower and a night in a bed alone. I’m sore. Tomorrow we can make a plan to go to Ireland and catch us a killer.”

Chapter 37 Collette

To say that I was shocked wasn’t even the half of it. I felt betrayed by my brother.

There wasn’t a good reason for not knowing more about his childhood, but Andy hadn’t told me. I guess I couldn’t blame him all that much. It wasn’t like I told him about what had happened at the home before the Bakers. There were some things a person had to keep to themselves when they were in foster care.

As adults we should have grown up more and told each other everything, but we didn’t. It would be a great regret of my life.

Even with someone you trusted, sometimes it was just easier to hide where you came from and not deal with the past. It hadn’t come up and there was no other reason for telling me that he had a best friend from when he was a kid.

That still didn’t explain why Andy hadn’t told me about his girlfriend or that she was expecting a baby. I could forgive the fact that he’d felt a need to make sure that she didn’t alert her father to her presence, but he could have told me. It wasn’t like I was going to go around blabbing it to anyone I met.

Even though Andy had been three years older than me, I couldn’t help feeling that I’d let him down. I could have been a better sister to him and somehow saved him from his fate.

I knew that was the survivor’s guilt talking, but there should have been something I could have done to keep him alive.

Ian had continued to talk, and I should have been listening. Instead, I was trying to process the fact that Ian hadn’t killed Andy.

“Is there a way that we can make Andy’s wishes come true? Can we find his girlfriend and baby?” Anything to redirect the conversation. I needed to process what had just happened, and that meant I needed space and time to myself.

Ian nodded. “I’ve been working on that since I learned that she’d been taken. I’ve had private investigators meeting with people to find her over in Ireland. Her father took her way underground. No one has seen or heard anything since Andrew died.”

He reached over and took my hand. His touch still made me tingle and heat up all over. Even sore from our last encounter, my body wanted more of him.

His answer helped.

I was unsure if where we stood. We needed to work together now. A truce made sense, but I couldn’t go back to just being his assistant.I wasn’t made for being a submissive long term. I couldn’t be his plaything anymore, not when I really want to just be his.

“Will you come back to the condo and stay with me there? No more basements, unless, of course, you misbehave.” He gazed at me solemnly. “ I prefer you in the condo with me than in the basement without me. Will you join me and help me look for Andrew’s killer?”

If we were partners then maybe this time we could actually find out what happened to my brother and his girlfriend.

“Give me a real bed in my own room with a door that doesn’t lock on the outside, and I’ll be good.” Even as those words came out of my mouth, I wanted to put a hand over my mouth at the flicker of hurt on his face.

Ian winced, but I got up and walked out of the room, leaving him to follow if he wanted to.

Rossi opened the doors of the car and went to get in the driver’s seat while Ian ran to catch up to us.

It was the frequent glances in the mirror from Rossi that finally drove me crazy.

“All right, Rossi. Out with it. Ian and I have cleared the air, and you might as well too.”

“If you and Andrew were so tight and shit, then why didn’t you know he had a girlfriend and that he’d reached out to Ian?”

“Well, we normally talked about once a week, but while in college, there would be weeks where neither one of us reached out because we were busy.” I rubbed a hand over my forehead wearily. “It’s something I really regret.”

“Andy was always trying to play the long con or the better con. It didn’t matter what it was, he wanted a chance to get a foot up in the world.” I glanced out the window, watching the scenery pass us by. “I just assumed when I saw Ian with him that he was trying to blackmail him or con him out of something. It never dawned on me that it might have been someone from his past that he was meeting.”