Casey’s eyebrows shot up and he asked sarcastically, “I am?”
“You are,” Gray confirmed.
“I wanna talk about somethin’ else, I can’t. If I can’t talk about what I wanna talk about, why would I talk about what you wanna talk about?” Casey asked.
“You owe it to your sister and you owe it to me,” Gray replied.
Casey inched up even more, his body tensing, his face twisting and he hissed, “I don’t owe you or that bitch shit.”
Then it happened so quickly it was like I didn’t see it. Gray was across the room, Casey out of his chair and Gray tore him out of it with such force, the chair, which was not light, tipped to its back and skidded a couple of feet. The end result was Casey, his back to the wall, and Gray, his body pressing into Casey, his hand wrapped around Casey’s throat, squeezing.
Casey kicked out his feet but Gray positioned his body to Casey’s side so he had no target at the same time the fingers on both Casey’s hands curled around Gray’s forearm to pull it away but Gray had such a fierce hold on him, he had no hope.
“Talk!” Gray barked in his face.
“Let me go!” Casey wheezed, still kicking, still pulling at Gray’s hand and all the men in the room closed in on the two of them.
Gray either was so focused he didn’t feel them or he didn’t care. Instead, using Casey’s neck, he pulled him away from the wall and slammed him into it so his had cracked against the drywall, sounding with a sickening thud.
Then he did it again.
Then he roared, “Talk!”
Clearly, he’d also put more pressure on Casey’s throat because now Casey was gurgling in an attempt to get air in. He’d stopped kicking out with his feet because all his effort needed to be at Gray’s arm which still didn’t budge.
When Casey formed no words, Gray again pulled Casey away from the wall and his head lurched forward like a ragdoll and smashed back against the wall when Gray slammed him there.
“Talk!” he again thundered.
I stood still and frozen and Frank got close to Gray.
He put his hand on Gray’s shoulder and said quietly, “Son, man can’t talk with you squeezin’ the life outta him.”
I deep breathed as I watched Gray’s upper body moving in a way that I knew he was doing the same. He took a moment to consider his uncle’s words then he yanked Casey away from the wall and threw him across the room. Casey flew over the turned chair, ass over head rolling and landed on his stomach on a skid that took him dangerously close to a table with thin, curved legs and an old-fashioned, glass-based lamp I particularly liked.
Once he stopped, Gray stalked to him and stood over him, repeating, “Now, talk.”
Casey rolled to his side, clutching his throat with one hand, coming up to the other forearm, his eyes going to Gray. The belligerence was still there but significantly muted because now there was not a small amount of fear.
Yes, my brother Casey had not changed. Gray had shown him he could best him, it was a long time ago but everything about Gray showed he had matured and remained fit and healthy and everything about Casey showed the exact opposite and, still, Casey had underestimated Gray.
When he sucked in enough breath to function, he reminded Gray, “You got a cop here.”
“I know,” Gray returned immediately. “A breakdown of who’s in this room is not what I want you to talk about. Now, talk.”
This explained why Casey thought he had the upper hand and could be an ass**le. He thought the presence of Lenny would be his shield.
Casey looked to Lenny as did I and seeing him leaning a shoulder nonchalantly against the wall opposite the drama, even someone as stupid as Casey couldn’t miss that Captain Lenny was not here in an official capacity and had no intentions of stepping up for Casey.
When my eyes went back to my brother I saw he was making movements like he was going to get up but Gray stepped closer to him, leaned over and whispered, “Stay down. You say what you gotta say from right there.”
“Man, I gotta get up,” Casey clipped.
“No, man, you gotta learn when you’re beat and stay down. You’re beat. Stay down and…” he bent further at the waist, “talk.”
Casey glared at Gray then he put his hand at his throat to the floor, looked beyond Gray to me and finally got smart.
“That guy, name’s Sharp, the one you beat at pool, he sent a tracker out to find me.”
Gray straightened and took half a step back. Everyone else in the room also partially retreated.
I kept my eyes locked to my brother.
He kept talking.
“Tracker found me, brought me to him. He offered me ten K to get you outta this shithole and keep you out. No one knows, no one sees us leave. When I got you gone, no phone calls, no comin’ back, nothin’. I made it so you ceased to exist for Cody for good and forever.”
I guessed it, deep down I knew it but it still hurt like hell to know it.
Casey continued, “Five K up front, five more after I got you gone. They came up with the story I was gonna feed you and to convince you, him and his three friends took free shots at me.”
My head started shaking at how stupid and greedy and just plain stupid my brother was but I didn’t tear my eyes away from Casey.
“You take the note?” Gray asked and Casey looked up at him.
“No,” he answered, showing he knew exactly what Gray was referring to. “But when I called to confirm we were gone, told him she wrote it. He told me it was seen to.”
“The rest of her stuff, he tell you about that?” Gray kept questioning and Casey shook his head.
“He didn’t tell me shit but I reckon, he had someone go in and nab the note, they took the rest of her shit. Objective, she vanished. I did my part, he did his.”
Everyone was silent.
“Ten thousand dollars,” I whispered into the silence and Casey looked back to me.
That was when it leaked through. The real Casey. The one that faded through the years as he let life beat him down without fighting back.
The Casey who loved me.
And I saw it through the remorse that shown from his eyes.
And I didn’t care.
“Ivey –” he started but I kept talking.
“Even if Gray wasn’t here, in this town with these people, the way it is, I was happy here,” I told him. “I’d found a home.”
“Sis –” he tried to break in but I didn’t let him.
“But Gray was here and so not only did I find a home, I found a family.”