Bedroom Bully by Harper West

26

Joseph

“Fucking Christ!”I roared.

I picked up my office chair and threw it into my bookcase. Lamps came crashing down and crunched against the floor. Books flew in every direction and scattered around my office. Pictures with the stock photos still in them crashed to the ground, shattering the glass into a million pieces.

And when my secretary whipped open my office door, her jaw hit the floor. “Mr. Ryker! Is everything--?”

I ripped my peacoat off the back of my chair. “I’m out for the rest of the day. Close everything down and shift my schedule.”

“But, sir, you have a phone conference that--.”

“I said everything, Lexie! For fuck’s sake!”

She quickly backed out of my office as I gathered my things. If Rebecca wanted answers, then she’d get her fucking answers. She wouldn’t like any of them, though. Not a single one.

But, if I had already lost her, then what the hell was the point of keeping the secrets I kept?

I sped all the way to her apartment. I stormed up the stairs since the elevator was apparently not working. Again. I banged my fist against her door so loudly that her neighbors poked their heads out to see what the fuck was going on.

However, all she did was open the door and walk away.

“I was wondering if you’d show up,” she said.

I charged into her apartment and slammed the door behind me. “You want to know what the hell happened?”

She made herself a cup of coffee, seemingly unbothered. “Sure, I guess, if it’s still important to you.”

I strode toward her and wrapped my hand around her arm. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Her lazy eyes looked down at our connection. “Release me, or I call the police.”

And I knew she wasn’t kidding with how flat her voice had become. So, I released her and raked my hands through my hair.

“The night of the accident and the chain of events that came after that destroyed my life, Becca.”

She tilted her head. “You’re going to have to use specifics in order to justify this business.”

“You really don’t know anything about what your sister got into when she was a teenager, do you?”

“I know about her juvie record.”

I scoffed. “That stupid little record is a drop in the bucket to what she had done. Your sister has skeletons in her closet that will haunt her the rest of her life, and because of that accident I got roped into it because I let her borrow my parent’s fucking car that night.”

“To do what?”

It’s now or never. “Dispose of the body.”

Her brow furrowed. “Come again?”

I gripped her upper arms. “Your sister was peddling drugs, Becca. All through high school. She did it to help your parents pay their bills. Did you ever wonder how the hell you guys could afford where you lived while your mother stayed at home and your father worked as a fucking teacher?”

She swallowed hard. “Hard… work?”

I shook her a little bit. “Wake up, Rebecca!”

She slapped my hands away. “What the fuck are you talking about? Drugs? A body!? My sister isn’t a murderer!”

“Except she is, Rebecca. The night she asked to borrow my car, she had been beaten. Badly. I don’t know if she started using the product she was supposed to be selling, or she couldn’t sell it off, or whatever the hell happened. But she showed up at my house in the middle of the night panicking, covered in blood, bruised from head to toe, and searching for a car with a trunk.”

“How do you know this? How do you know any of this?”

He hovered over me. “Because I was one of her customers. I was one of the kids she sold nuggets to.”

She wrinkled her nose. “All of this over some pot?”

I growled at her. “Crack, Rebecca. Your sister slung crack.”

She slowly backed herself into a corner. “No.”

“Yes.”

“There’s no fucking way.”

“It’s true, whether you want to believe it or not. That juvie record of hers? It’s for assault. She assaulted a dealer that came after her. A guy above her head that was chosen to collect money from her and distribute new product whenever it came in. He came onto her one night when she didn’t have all of the money she needed to turn over, and she fought back.”

“He tried to rape her!?”

I clapped my hand so tightly over her mouth that her eyes bulged. “Yes, he tried. She got away, but he reported the assault to the police, and instead of coming clean she did her time, so to speak. The only reason I know this is because I was the only person in the world she was talking to about it. I dragged it out of her while we were dating and ever since that moment, I became the only person she could talk to about it.”

Her eyes searched mine, but she didn’t try to fight back, so I removed my hand from her mouth.

“But her fighting back didn’t stop that man from coming onto her. The second time she was short money, he came onto her again. Only that time, he didn’t stop. He beat her to a bloody pulp, that’s why she looks so beaten in the picture you found on that blog while I don’t.”

She blinked. “You found the blog post.”

“Of course, I fucking found the blog post, Rebecca. I found it the same day you admitted to finding it. And that night? She’d come to me after the attack sobbing, breaking down, asking to use a car my parents wouldn’t miss because she needed to dispose of something, and quickly.”

Silent tears streaked her face. “You tried to help her dispose of someone she killed.”

“A disgusting, useless, perverted human being, yes. And the thing that really grinds my gears is that all the signs were there. You and your family were so blind to what was happening with Maggie under your roof that no one suspected what was going on. But, by siding with your sister, you put a target on your back.”

Her eyes widened. “I only sided with my sister because I was fed lies, Joseph!”

“It doesn’t matter!” I roared.

I brought my voice back down to a normal level when I saw Rebecca actively flinch away from me. I didn’t want her to be scared, but she had to know.

Because if she kept digging, I wouldn’t be the only person harassing her to stop.

“Listen to me when I tell you--.”

She put her finger in my face. “No, you listen to me. The only reason why I ever sided with my sister was because I knew none of this. The night we went to the hospital, there was no mention of a body, no mention of drugs, no mention of any of this. Just an accident, some sort of hit and run--.”

“That was supposed to kill her, Rebecca.”

She swallowed hard. “What?”

“That night, when we were disposing of the body, a car came out of nowhere and t-boned us on her side of the car. The only reason why I didn’t get hurt was because I was the one dragging the fucking body into the ditch. One night, I’m stealing one of my parent’s cars they hadn’t used in months and I’m hauling a dead fucking body in it, and the next second I’m dragging the fucking thing down to a sewer drain in the woods before I hear this disgusting crunch. And even though Maggie lied her way out of it like she always did, while my family tried to bury me in a private school across town, I knew in the pit of my gut that the cartel she worked for had sent someone to kill her. To tie up loose ends.”

“This is ridiculous,” she said breathlessly.

“Look in my eyes and tell me I’m lying to you. You seem to be so good at that.”

She stared me down, and the more she did the more her tears fell.

“You did nothing to expose your sister’s lies, and because of that you put a target on your own back,” I hissed.

She shook her head mindlessly. “I never sided with her. I never meant to cover for something so horrendous. I just wanted my big sister to be okay.”

“You lied, just like she did.”

“Because I’d been lied to as well, Joseph!”

I crouched down and gazed into her watery orbs. “It doesn’t matter. Not to them. Not to anyone involved in this. All that matters is that when push came to shove, you refused to see what was going on and assumed I was in the middle of it all because I wore a leather jacket and hated my parents while Maggie kept herself prim, proper, and close to her family. You stereotyped us. You pigeonholed me. You knew what was going on--.”

“I didn’t know anything!” she shrieked.

I grabbed her arm and yanked her up before I shoved her into a wall. “Do you know what it’s like to live as a constant disappointment? To give every dime I ever made back to my father as an apology for something I didn’t do? My father is the reason why that body was never found. He’s the reason why it never came to light what happened that night. He paid over seven million dollars to make all of it go away for everyone, and I’ve been indebted to him ever since. I’ve been doing his dirty fucking work ever since, while becoming a stain on my family’s name when I wasn’t even the one in charge of that night. Do you know what that’s like? To stare into the face of your betrayer’s sister and know damn good and well she’s not getting what she deserves because some rich fuck like my father assumed I was at the middle of everything, too, and made me pay? But not her?”

Her eyes widened. “That’s why you treat me the way you do, isn’t it? You’ve been punishing me the way you want to punish her.”

I backed away from her. “Fuck you and your sister.”

And as I made my way out of her apartment, I rushed to the first hallway trashcan I could find.

Before I ripped the lid off and vomited.