No one responded to that sentiment. It was likely because they all knew he was telling the truth. We could pretend that we’d be better people and forgive Brayden regardless, but the truth was, none of us were that great of people, at least not back then. If I’d caught wind of that, I probably would have beaten Brayden black and blue. Everyone else had similar looks on their faces.
“Well, that’s behind us now,” Kyle said. “All that’s left is to look forward.”
“Towards what?” Colette asked. “No offense Brayden, but this hasn’t been very helpful.”
“Maybe not yet,” Nikita said, “but there’s another strand we can maybe tie with this one. Jaxon and I found Brayden. Together, we just might be able to find where Connor was hiding.”
7
Deon
Felicity had been nervously shifting her gaze all over the room, but at me. She was flicking the frayed edges of one of her pillows and her breathing had hastened. I didn’t want to press her to start speaking until she was ready, but I was growing impatient with how much time she was just sitting there saying nothing.
“If we need to talk about this later, we can,” I said.
Felicity shook her head. “No, it’s just, you like me so much and you care about Venom so much. I don’t want to ruin it just yet.”
“You couldn’t,” I said. “Not after everything you’ve done for me.”
“Reserve judgement until the end of my story,” she responded. “It’s like I said, your path crossing with Garrett’s was not serendipitous. He used to work for your father. He was one of the men who Connor frequently charged with taking care of anyone who posed a threat to him or his family. Garrett actually liked Connor quite a bit. He knew he was cutthroat, he knew he was ruthless, but Venom’s got a mean streak as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
I had flashes of images of Venom beating the dog shit out of anyone who messed with me behind bars, threatening guards into doing what he wanted, causing even the warden to fear him. Venom was kind to me, but I knew what happened to people he didn’t like. He was probably pretty similar to Connor in that regard, but there was one difference.
He knew how to tell the difference between those he loved and those he didn’t.
“Yeah. When I first got to the adult prison, a few guys tried to punk me around. One of them never walked again,” I explained.
Felicity smiled. “Yeah. I remember Garrett telling me about that. He didn’t like that those guys hurt you like that. Not after everything you’d already been through.”
I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean? I never even spoke to Venom until after that. How did he know what I’d been through.”
“He didn’t just know,” she said. “He played an active role in what happened to you.”
My heart started to beat a little faster. “An active role? How?”
“Well, like I said, Garrett did a lot of Connor’s dirty work. A lot of it was questionable, but Garrett did a good job of separating himself from Connor’s shit. It was normally all just guys exactly like Connor, and Garrett didn’t mind thinning the 1%, but then one day about four years ago, Connor came to him and said he needed him to kill someone completely innocent with no criminal background at all, and then drop the body at a specific time and place, to be provided after the kill. Garrett didn’t want to do that, obviously. Why kill someone innocent? He refused, even after Connor offered him half a million dollars to get the job done.”
“He turned down half a mil?” I said, shocked. As good of a person as I may have considered myself to be, I didn’t know if I was that strong.
“Garrett’s hard, but he’s not evil. He wouldn’t do it for any amount of money. Unfortunately for us, Connor had an ace up his sleeve that neither of us was aware of until it was too late.” Felicity took a deep breath. “Me.”
Just like that, it hit me—rather, it smashed into me like a speeding semi-truck. I realized why Felicity looked so familiar to me when I first met her.
I’d seen her once before.
“You’ve slept with Connor,” I said. “My mom has a picture of you.”
Felicity’s eyes widened. “What?”
“When Connor tried to fight for custody to take me from my mom, she had one thing that made him back down, and that was evidence of all the affairs he’d had. Pictures that he’d taken or screenshots from videos. She found them while she was cleaning his house and saved them in a box just in case. You looked familiar to me when I first met you; that’s why, because your picture is in that box.”
“Well then your mom did what the rest of us couldn’t do,” Felicity replied. “Yes. I’d had an affair with Connor while Garrett was locked up once. It was still back when Garrett liked him, and he and I have this arrangement that if he’s locked up, he doesn’t expect me to just go without. My heart will always be his, but… I’m only human. Turned out, being human in that situation tanked us. Connor had all sorts of videos and pictures, and he’d made it worse by discussing some of Garrett’s criminal activity with me too. If he released those videos, I wouldn’t just be shamed as a woman, but Garrett would have been locked up for life and I would have been barred. It left us no choice, Garrett had to do what Connor asked.”
“He killed an innocent person?” I asked.
Felicity nodded as she took a few deep breaths. “Garrett tried to make as discretionary a decision as possible and kill someone who was bad and just hadn’t been caught, but it didn’t make him feel much better. Then Connor gave him the order to drop him in Postings Proper park at sundown. He said he’d see two kids there, and he was to make sure the body dropped right in front of them.”
Slowly the realization hit me. Four years ago. Two kids in Postings Proper Park. Sundown. A body dropping from the sky.
“Our first date,” I said, more to myself than anything.
“Apparently, Connor wanted to frame his own son to give his other kid a leg up. Things didn’t go quite according to plan. The kid turned himself in and took all the blame on himself. It never went to trial and stayed pretty hush, despite what he wanted. When Garrett realized what you’d done just to protect Cherri, he was racked with guilt. Not just because he played a role in ruining your life, but because he felt like he should have done that too. Whatever it took to protect the woman he loved.”
“I don’t get it. If he did what Connor told him to, how did he end up in prison?” I asked.
“Garrett was technically on parole. Even though Connor assured us that he’d leave us alone if we did the job, he violated Garrett’s parole to make sure no one who knew the truth was on the outside. Then he gave me the half mil as hush money, telling me that as long as I took the money and kept my mouth shut, there wouldn’t be any other problems. So here we are.”
I looked down at the chair I was sitting in. “Am I sitting in a hush money chair?”
“God no,” Felicity yelped. “All of this is built through my and Garrett’s Connor-free hard work. I immediately turned around and donated the half mil to the NAACP. Made it in Connor’s name too.” A smile crossed her face. “That pissed him off pretty bad, but he didn’t retaliate. It was just money to him regardless.”