Bennett Mafia
Chapter 38 - BENNETT MAFIA

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

We drove north, away from the city.

We kept on for five hours before we turned off onto smaller roads, and finally we turned on to a gravel road again. This place felt similar to the New York home, with the driveway that wound back into a forest of pine trees for almost a mile. Finally we pulled up to the cabin, which perched on a cliffside overlooking a lake. It was still large for my standards, but not one of the oversized mansions we'd been using. Water stretched out for what seemed like another mile around us. We were so far up, it was a little scary.

Forest packed us in, with trees that seemed to stretch as far as the water did. Miles and miles. Stepping out and stretching my legs, I took it all in. A shiver went down my spine. I couldn't even see the roads out there, though I knew they were there. We'd just come from one.

Looking for even another house nearby, I saw nothing.

That shiver doubled, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I wrapped my arms more tightly around myself, and Kai approached. He didn't touch me, but he studied me, his eyebrows pulling together.

"You okay?"

Brooke got out of her vehicle, her bag close to her chest. She marched past us, glowering. "Traitor," she hissed under her breath.

Something inside me snapped. "YOU LIED TO ME!"

I wasn't sure who was more shocked by my outburst. I think me.

"You have no idea what you have done, what lives you have uprooted, what futures you have changed," I told her in a fury. "No idea! Your lie had a domino effect. It brought your brother to me. It pulled me out of the life I was living, a life I loved. It brought me away from my roommates, my job, my mission in life-and it's not even just me. Hiders from my Network were affected by your decision. My roommate was affected. You, you since leaving my father, everything has made sense in my world. Everything. I knew right and wrong. I was good at what I did. I loved what I did, and then your brother had me brought to him, and ever since then, everything has been turned upside down. All because of you. All because of your lie!"

I started forward, ready to slap her. But I caught myself.

No one said a word. Brooke gasped and jumped in reflex, but even she didn't speak.

They all would've let me hit her.

I stopped myself. I did. Not them. That clicked with me.

There was no moral compass here. They were mafia. They worked for the mafia. A slap was nothing to them, but that wasn't true for me. Not for the little girl who cowered before her father, or the teenager who ran from him, or the adult who was defying him.

I'd been waiting, hoping to lean on others for cues about what to do or where to go. Blade had helped with that before. Carol too. My job. Even the people we hid. But it wasn't the same here. I was alone.

Breathing hard, my ribs feeling stretched, I lowered my hand.

But I did not apologize. I would not. It was wrong to use violence, but I wasn't wrong to have the emotion behind it. Just like it was wrong to act on jealousy. It was an emotion just like all others. You couldn't deny an emotion. If you did, that sucker burrowed down inside you and would work its way out whether you wanted it or not.

Am I jealous of Brooke? I asked myself.

I was.

I was jealous she had a family who loved her. I was jealous she had a family of brothers, because even though Kai was furious with her, he loved her. So did Tanner and Jonah.

My throat stung. "Words matter." My voice was hollow, but I had to still say it. "Actions matter. To be reckless with words is to be selfish, and combine that with power, and it is dangerous. Be better."

I walked past her. I walked past the guards around her, and I moved past the house.

There was a trail leading around the side, going into the woods.

I started down to it.

"He"

"Leave her," Kai spoke over the guard.

I didn't hear whatever else he said. I had already slipped away into the trees.

A twig snapped, and I looked up.

I had walked for a mile until I came upon a large boulder. It was on the side of the trail, stuck firmly into the ground overlooking a small clearing in the trees. The lake glistened before me.

I didn't move as Kai came to sit next to me. There was just enough room for two of us. Perhaps a third could've climbed on behind, but for now, two was perfect.

"I'll never be a Hider again."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I wondered what that was about."

"You are a murderer. You hurt people. You traffic women across the nation." I caught his look and amended, "If you don't, you allow it. Drugs. Guns. There are so many horrible things you do." He kept quiet, letting me talk.

"I loathed you." My gut rolled over. "I loathe what you do. I don't think that'll ever change."

He nodded, looking at the lake again.

I watched his profile, adding softly, "But I'm beginning to hate myself instead."

He tensed, his eyes closing.

"You are a big part of the 'bad' in life, and I was part of the 'good.' I was doing my part. That's what I told myself. I liked that feeling. In some small way, I was giving my father a middle finger because while he was in Milwaukee hurting someone, I was helping someone twenty hours from him. It meant something to me."

My chest hurt. I took a deep breath.

"Then your sister showed up, and everything was destroyed. It seemed like it took days, weeks, the last month, but in reality, it took only the moment when she decided to come find me. I helped her. I told her how to hide from security cameras. I told her to use a disguise, walk with someone else, literally be someone else. I didn't tell her to pretend to be an elderly woman, but she took my advice. She evaded you because of me. I thought I was doing the right thing." It was a weird emotion, feeling at the precipice of two worlds. I'd been fighting against admitting this, but I couldn't any longer.

"I'm going back to my father," I said.

Kai turned to look at me, a strong emotion shining in his eyes.

I didn't name it. I looked away. I didn't care.

"He can't hurt my cousin. He can't hurt anyone else. He has to pay for what he did to my mother, what he wanted to do to my mother."

"I'll help you-"

"No." I was firm. "I want to do this myself. I have to."

He was quiet before nodding. "Okay. When?"

It was getting dark now. "In the morning I'll go."

He shifted to face me on the boulder.

I stared back.

One night. I'd give him one more night.

As if reading my mind, he nodded again. "Okay."

Then, because it'd been in the back of my mind this whole time, I asked, "Why'd you destroy that house?"

His mouth tightened for a second.

I didn't think he was going to answer, until, in a low voice, he did.

"You think I'm bad, but I'm not. I do bad things. Those people, whoever stayed there, whoever was a floor above my sister, they were bad people." A sadness came to him. He didn't move, or blink, or change his tone, but I saw it. I felt it. He gazed out over the lake again. "There was a room in the back that had pictures of children in sexual-"

I blanched. I didn't want to hear any more.

His jaw clenched. "Brooke was in that house. She was in the vicinity of people who could do that." "Were they there?"

"No."

I had a feeling it didn't matter. I had a feeling he was going to find them anyway.

And I had to sit and think again.

I couldn't slap Brooke; that was wrong. But what I knew he would do? That was murder.

And I didn't feel any qualms about it, so who was the real hypocrite here?