Brazen Mistakes (Brazen Boys #3)

Prologue

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T wo days destroying my home. Two days of screaming as glass shattered and fabric tore, stuffing floating like a surrealist’s take on the snow outside the window, bloody footprints trailed across the formerly pristine rug. Two days where my goddamn mother had to stop by and check on me, like a sick toddler, taking my temperature and leaving a casserole, only for it to rot on the counter.

Two days to mourn the man I’d been.

Sitting on the floor between the destroyed cushions of my couch, a beer in hand, I idle, a broken toy.

Unsustainable.

Unjust.

Untenable.

The beer warms in my hand as I watch the light fade from the sky, the dark a welcome relief from the reality surrounding me .

Pushing to my feet, I go to the bathroom, pulling out everything in the medicine cabinet: the six Ibuprofen, the three Tylenol coated in codeine from an injury years ago, the two regular Tylenol. The fucking tub of Tums goes back on the shelf.

It’s not enough, not a guarantee. I wish I didn’t know for sure, but I know that it’s not going to cut it.

I slump to the floor, the beer spilling onto my pants, unchanged for as many days as I’ve been free.

Free.

Fucking bullshit.

I’ll never be free again.

But she’s as free as ever, a crowd of boys protecting her, surrounding her, letting her ruin everything.

Vicious dogs on her leash, the lot of them.

They shouldn’t be free.

She shouldn’t.

She should be the one counting the pills on the vanity.

I was always the strong one, the smart one.

She was just window dressing.

Scratching my head, my hand comes back greasy, and I wince.

Taking an ice-cold shower helps.

Cleaning the apartment, finishing as the sun hints on the horizon, that helps too.

But only one thing is truly going to help.

I can’t get back what was stolen.

My freedom. My future. My secrets.

But I can make sure she gets what she deserves .

When the door locks behind me, the lights in the hallway bright after so many hours in the dark, something like a smile inches across my face, the feeling unfamiliar after so many weeks.

Tit for tat.

I’m coming.