Cops & Robbers

Chapter Twenty Four

Dedicated to diebitch for all the amazing covers she's made me! Have you all seen the cover to my other story Forever 21? I'm still in awe. Sometimes I log on, just to ogle it. LOL. 

Enjoy the chapter that it took way too long to post. See end for a random personal snipet!

For a minute or two… or three, I just stood there, mouth ajar, completely speechless. Ben? My brother? I sifted through everything useful my mother had ever told me in an attempt to make sense of it all. Since she had hardly ever said anything worth remembering, it took me no time at all. Even then, I couldn’t seem to make heads or tails of it. My mother had never really cared to talk about either of our fathers, least of all the man who had more or less told her to abort my sister.

The only thing she’d been quite adamant about was that my sister and I didn’t have the same father. She’d always talk about how much nicer my father was and how he would’ve taken care of us if he’d still been alive.

Was Roy lying? Ben and I couldn’t be blood relatives. If he was my half-brother, he couldn’t be Alaina’s. I remembered something then, something I hadn’t considered when I hastily jumped to conclusions last night at Ben’s house. When Ben had told me of his real father, Lorenzo Moretti, he had mentioned how his father had died when he was really little. If that were true, he couldn’t be Alaina’s father.

Roy’s claims were starting to look really plausible. It would explain a lot about his tendency to drop everything for me when I needed him. But more than anything it alarmed me. I had practically made out with him the night of the jewelry store heist. That he didn’t stop me was, in a word, disturbing.

“How long has he known?”

Roy inspected my face carefully and I briefly wondered if he could see the look of horror on my face.

“Ah!” He laughed again, this time less maniacal and with more head shaking. “You’re worried that he might’ve known about you when you kissed him at the station.”

“Wouldn’t you?” I lied. The kiss at the station was bad, but the kiss I’d given him the night of the heist was much worse. Not to mention the fact that he’d kissed me back. Quite enthusiastically, I might add.

“Well you can ask him when you convince him to leave town… Right, niece?” He gave me a look that dared me to pursue the subject. I didn’t. “I wish things could be different, I really do, but you robbed the District Attorney’s brother. He’s been gunning for you and your friends since, but Ben keeps getting in the way. That’s another reason I need you both gone. You’re ruining my relationship with the only person standing between me and humiliation. In the twenty years I’ve been a cop, you’re the only person that’s almost accidentally ruined me. If you weren’t my niece, I might’ve killed you myself.”

The threat was received loud and clear, for sure, but my mind felt like it was missing something – something important. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. It was like a name on the tip of my tongue, the answer to a lifelong question just out of reach, the itch I couldn’t scratch.

“Here.”

I jumped a little when he moved toward me, only to realize he was handing me his cell phone.

“Call him. I want to hear you tell him myself. And don’t you dare tell him I put you up to it!”

Taking his cellphone in hand, I saw that Ben’s number was already dialed. All I had to do was touch that little green icon. I thought about my little sister and all the bad things that would come if I didn’t make Ben agree to leave with me. I took those thoughts and pressed ‘Send.’