Drowning to Breathe (34 page)

I STOOD IN THE
hallway outside Mark’s door. My chest heaved as I sucked down a steeling breath, hand shaking on the knob. Searching for courage just to open the fucking door.

Quiet echoed down the hall of the huge house. All the guys were gone and Austin was tucked away in his room down the opposite hall.

We’d been back in L.A. for two days and my girls would be here tomorrow. This needed to get done and soon.

We were pressing on with our original plans, refusing to back down to Jennings’s threats. Besides, we figured it was safer for them to be here. With me.

God knew I’d sleep better.

Had Kenny, another attorney, and some of their guys here in L.A. digging their heels in deep, trenching through any shit they could find on the pompous bastard. Shit that had nothin’ to do with
Sunder
or Shea or any of us. Safe shit that would still send him straight to hell, because we knew where his greedy hands had been.

What Shea didn’t know was I had a reserve. A backup plan. That I’d gladly incriminate myself to finally make Jennings go away.

For good.

One way or another, we were going to make sure he had no say about anything in Kallie’s future.

Now I just needed to make it through this door. Just didn’t know it was going to be so damned hard.

Cold raced up my arm as my hand clutched the metal knob, and I squeezed my eyes, forcing myself to turn it. The door swung open, hinges squeaky from disuse.

The smell clinging to the abandoned room hit me like two tons of bricks.

I squeezed my eyes tighter as I fought it, before I finally released the breath I’d been holding and shuddered through a deep inhale.

It was musty and stifled, but in it was him, like the leather of that old jacket he’d always worn and a hint of the herbal cigarettes he’d always smoked.

Grief that’d been locked up tight battled for escape. Gathering like a thunderstorm in my chest. Slowly building. Enclosing on my throat.

The loss of Mark had been so sudden and traumatic, part of it still didn’t feel real. Sometimes I imagined I’d look up and find him rounding the corner—that shy, insecure smile he always wore spreading into something genuine and honest when he looked at me.

God, he’d been a lost soul.

So fucking lost.

But that didn’t mean the bond between the five of us wasn’t solid. Distorted, warped pieces that somehow perfectly aligned and fit. My fucked-up family. But I thought maybe the bond between Mark and I had been even greater because I’d been so fucking lost, too.

Dazed, I drifted out into the middle of the room as I felt the weight of my friend’s loss. Rays of light streaked in from the gap in the blinds, cutting into the gloom. The king bed was unmade, a rumple of sheets and blankets that spoke of a thrashing spirit, sheets of paper strewn about the floor, the words so often silent on his tongue lashed out across the pages.

I wandered over to his desk. My fingertips trailed over the picture displayed in a frame. It was all the guys with our arms slung over each other’s shoulders, beers in our free hands, Zee and Austin there, too. It brought on a wistful smile, and I shook my head, wondering how the hell I was ever going to get through this.

But I had to.

Had a little girl who was ready to shine her light on this desolate room.

I tore the linens from the bed and shoved them into a black garbage bag, then grabbed one of the empty boxes I’d left out in the hall and began to clear out his desk. This stuff? I’d just roll tape across the seam of the box. Seal it up. Save it. Knew one day Zee would want to go rummaging through when his broken heart was ready to take that step.

The drawers were filled with a ton of old cassette tapes and CDs, his own words scrawled across them, music we had made. All the scratches and scribbles of paper when we’d jammed, the guy always quick to jot stuff down when we were capturing a moment in a song.

My chest tightened with unspent sorrow.

God. It fucking hurt.

My eyes blurred as I filled one box then another, forcing myself to just forge through.

When I cleared out his desk, I moved on to his walk-in closet, flipped on the light switch. Light flickered before it came to life, and I blinked to adjust to the harshness. It was just a long, narrow path, clothes hung up on either side, old, tattered shoes shoved in the cubbies, and clutter clogging the shelves.

A soft chuckle of affection slipped into the room. Guy couldn’t get rid of anything.

I shoved sections of shirts together, pressing them between my hands to lift the hangers free, and threw them out into the middle of the bedroom floor. I continued on till one side was clear, then the other, until there was a fucking mountain of clothes in the middle of the bedroom floor.

Some hipster thrift shop was going to have a field day.

I started pulling out boxes, the anguish oppressive as I struggled to make it through what felt like ridding the last of Mark’s presence from our lives.

Knew that’s why I’d stalled for so long.

Wanted one last thing to hang onto, even when I hadn’t had the strength to step through the door.

Getting down on my knees, I pulled out a few storage boxes Mark had shoved under the shelves at the far back corner. I lifted a lid and peeked inside.

Pictures.

I sat back and pulled out a stack. Nostalgia, darts of regret and pain, and a forever kind of connection I knew could never be severed hit me. Image after image of us as teenagers, hanging out in Ash’s garage, back in the days when we were gonna take the world by the balls and there was nothing that could have stopped us from making it big.

Back before we’d let the lifestyle wear us thin and the endless parties take us down all kinds of roads we never should have gone.

My gut clenched at some of the faces, some of the guys we’d called friends who were nothing less than dealers feeding the blood-thirsty frenzy. The need to feel something that in the end just didn’t exist.

Only thing there was emptiness.

Pissed me off more because some of these guys were directly tied to Jennings.

I cringed when I saw a picture of Donny. One of Jennings’s right-hand guys. Blitzed-out blue eyes stared back, face tweaked with that seedy fucking grin.

Seemed the second Mark started hanging out with that creep, he’d been sucked into a downward spiral he couldn’t stop. Tripped right into the cesspool that would be his demise. He’d gone and gotten in deep. Started hiding shit. Even from me. At that time, Donny had always been lurking, hanging out at every show, acting like it was his place and all part of the gig. I knew better. He’d been plying Mark with his supply.

I dug a little deeper in the box, moving more photos out of the way. I had the sudden urge to understand Mark better in that period of time. Wishing I’d paid closer attention. Done more before it’d been too late.

A thick leather-bound journal was tucked to the side. I pulled it out, feeling like a sick fuck for invading his privacy. But hell, he’d been my best friend. And I
missed
him. Missed him so fuckin’ bad it physically hurt, my chest feeling like it just might cave with the pressure in my heart, and I wanted to hang on to a little more.

I unlaced the leather strap and flipped to the first page. Immediately, I recognized his handwriting. The date jotted at the side was close to seven years ago.

The road’s tough. Especially nights like these when everyone is passed out around me. I can never sleep. Who would have known the loneliest time in the world is the moment before the sun comes up? Night after night, I meet that moment intimately. I know it like a lover even when there’s no comfort in its touch. It’s worth it. The band is worth it. But I get the sense I’ll never know what it’s like to be home.

I rubbed my hand over my face and tried to break up the overwhelming urge to weep. Killed me he’d felt this way. I rifled through more pages. Most of the entries echoed the same, sometimes skipping months. Getting just a little more desperate with each passing year.

I tried. I fucking tried. Baz got out of jail and got clean. I tried. I tried.

Why hadn’t I done something? Intervened?

I wavered, part of me wanting to slam the damned journal closed. Close it up and forget. But the other felt compelled. I skimmed through more pages where Mark had recorded just how lost he’d felt.

When I turned another page, my sight narrowed in on the handwriting that had turned messy and frantic, slanting crooked down the page.

I fucked up. Fucked up bad. Donny told me Martin said it’d only be once. Once. That was all it was supposed to be.

What the fuck?

He was talking about Jennings.

My heart rate sped and I sat up higher on my knees, fingers gripping the journal as I scanned for more.

Fucking Donny and his fucking mouth. Always with his fucking mouth. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want any part of it. I knew Martin was sick. Both of them were sick. But not that sick. I told Martin so. I told him to go to hell when he demanded the money I owe him. Told him I’d take everything I know to the cops. I was going to anyway, money be damned. I knew what he’d had Donny do to that girl. I knew what he planned to have him do. She was a loose end. A liability. Just like me. Call me a snitch. I didn’t care. Let the asshole burn.

A thread of awareness dangled in my periphery, something ominous and dark. Felt like I couldn’t grab a breath when I desperately flipped the page. A small stack of snapshots fell out from between the pages, fluttering to the floor. What my attention immediately latched on to was what Mark had written on the page.

Donny’s gone. Dead in the water. I’m going to be next. I know it. Feel it coming. Am I scared? Yeah. Terrified, really. I led Martin on. Made him believe I’d leaked info. Ratted him and Lester out. He thinks I’m blackmailing, but I don’t have anything but Donny’s word. And Donny’s word is about as valuable as a ten-dollar whore. My only intention had been to thwart the plans he had to hurt that girl again. Only this time, make it final. Sick. Fucking sick. Couldn’t live with myself if it happened, so I’d rather die stopping it. I guess I finally did something in my life worth a shit.

It was dated two days before he’d overdosed.

Cold dread seized my heart, everything going heavy, like it was attempting to pump ice through my veins.

He killed him.

Oh God. My head spun.
He killed him.

With trembling fingers, I reached down and picked up one of the pictures that’d fallen face down on the floor, hesitant to discover what was there, but knowing I couldn’t look away.

It was a snapshot of Mark and Donny and my baby brother. The party happening around them was clear. All three of them were obviously lost to a bombed-out wasteland.

But it was the woman Donny had draped across his lap that shook me to the core. A face so fucking familiar, that the breath punched from my lungs and left me on a shocked wheeze.

I’d seen that face hanging on Shea’s upstairs wall more times than I cared to count. Showcased in old frames, appearing years younger there than in this image. The woman who’d pushed her and pushed her and pushed her, Shea’s childhood memories a horror story of manipulation and greed.

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.”