My Future Husband

Chapter 90

AUTHORS NOTE: Hey my gorgeous Beaut Army! Just a note to let you all know that there are only two uploads of My Future Husband left 😭❤️

Then... it is officially the end of The Forbidden Lust Series 🥹

I'm genuinely not ready to talk about it yet, (I can't imagine ever leaving Westbrooke!) But I just wanted to give you all some warning 😭

Okay... let's go get our girl Brie some answers 😬❤️

Monroe xo 💋

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Oh fuck... Oh fuck... Oh fuck!

"He's..."

"We don't know for sure, Brie." Hannah cuts her off. "We'd need to confirm this, find him and run DNA."

I know she's trying to give her hope that what she's reading in black and white isn't true, but fuck does it makes so much sense now.

Brie just stares at the words, doesn't say a damn thing, and I can understand why.

I barely believe it myself.

This...

"Why wasn't this found sooner? Nigel's been dead for years!" I scream. "We should've been told this!" It's right here in the fucking file!

"I'm sorry, May. Nigel's death wasn't a mystery, his cellmate was found with blood still on his hands, there wasn't even an investigation. This was added to the file after he died, and it was just a footnote about the days before his death." Hannah knows she's dropped the ball here, but it's not her fault. She couldn't keep tabs on every single person she's put behind bars. "Like I said, we don't know that it's him, or if this file is even accurate! Prisons and prisoners aren't known for their dependency. We can't guarantee-"

"It's him." Brie never lets the world see her pain, but this time she can't fight it. Tears run down her cheeks, her chest pumping trying to keep in her sobs. Of all the places her father could've been, this was the last one she wanted.

He's still in Westbrooke.

"I'm so sorry, Brie." Mama T tries to wipe her own tears. She read this folder before we even got here, she's hardly been able to look at either of us since. She knows it's true.

"Start at the beginning. Tell her everything. How did no one put these pieces together?!" I demand. Brie deserves to know.

"Okay, but we don't have all the details. I've been trying to set up a meeting with his former cellmate, but the guy isn't very cooperative with cops." Yeah, I can understand why. The police haven't always been great with people from the Southside, and most of that prison is filled with boys we grew up with. "It appears when Nigel arrived in prison, he was already in a downward spiral. He'd always had issues with alcohol, but during his time out on bail they'd gotten out of control. He did what a lot of inmates do when they're looking at a long sentence and going through withdrawals; he turned to drugs inside."

"He was an addict?" I don't know why that makes my stomach turn.

I don't give a fuck about Nigel, but I do know the pain of withdrawals. Addiction isn't something anyone chooses, it's something that's in your blood. Jay realised quickly that he wasn't in control of himself when he drank, so he stopped. Milo is the cleanest person I know, but only because he never wanted to risk ending up the same way as his brother. I was only given a taste of something and couldn't let it go.

I guess we all know where that comes from now.

"I think so. The information we've got is spotty, but he wasn't exactly keeping himself out of trouble. He'd started to make enemies, owed people money, that's what the file says got him killed." Except we all know differently. "What he needed was someone to rescue him... again."

"He needed his brother..." Everyone falls quiet. Tick was the person that always saved him, no matter what shit he got into. At that moment, he must have been the only person he could think about.

"I think so... It looks like one night he took a bad batch, was really out of it, started hallucinating and reliving an old memory. He told his cellmate all about it." Hannah looks at Brie. "When I first read this, I thought maybe he was making the whole thing up. Nigel was a poser, people say all sorts of shit in prison to give themselves more street-cred, until..."

Mama T bites down on her fist and looks out the doors at the kids playing in the backyard. She's trying to pull herself together, she has something we need to know, but the more she looks at those innocent children, the harder it gets for her.

"Mama T, you can tell us anything."

"Tara, do you want me to..." She shakes her head, taking Hannah's hand and looking at Brie with more heartbreak than she ever has before.

"Do you remember when I told you about the night Nigel came home and said to me I was never to say the name Tick again?" Brie nods. "I was so ill, having J-Jayce almost killed me. I thought maybe I was hallucinating myself... I saw a light on, struggled out of bed. It was the early hours of the morning, he didn't usually come home that late, but when I walked into the bathroom he was just standing there..."

I've never seen her look so weak. Mama T just stares at Cara and Chase smiling and laughing, cradling her knees.

"He was... He was c-covered in dirt and blood." Fuck.

She whimpers, enough to bring tears to my own eyes. "He told m-me he hit a dog, to go b-back to bed... I didn't... if I'd k-known..."

That was the night. That was the night that my father killed my sister's dad.

It's written right there in the file: One night, while in prison on drugs, Nigel confessed to his cellmate that he had murdered his own brother in cold blood.

"I'm so s-sorry, Brie... I..." It's not her fault. She didn't know.

My heart stops beating. The world grows colder.

Brie's dad didn't come back, not because he didn't want her, but because he couldn't.

Because Nigel took him from her.

"Why didn't the prison report this? Why did they just write it in a file no one was ever going to read?! He's been dead all this time, and Brie thought-" Brie's chair goes flying out from underneath her, hitting the floor hard enough that Jay comes running back in just in time to catch her as she falls. "Brie!"

She screams. She just screams.

"He k-killed him! He's d-dead!" I run, dropping to my knees at her side as she brings even Jay crumbling to the floor with her.

She's been so strong, stronger than any woman should ever have to be, but after secretly imagining her dad could be anywhere in this world waiting for her for her entire life, she's finding out he's not.

He's not some crazy mafia leader, he's not running a drug cartel, he's not got some new family behind a white picket fence... He's not crying out for her like she is for him.

He's just gone.

"Brie..." Hannah and Mama T are with us in a flash, even Hannah's strength fading away under the weight of this. She more than anyone knows exactly how my sister feels. She had someone so important to her ripped away, spent years hoping that person was just in hiding, only to find her body buried by the person she knew in her heart had already killed her. "We don't know what happened, we still don't know for sure that he didn't make it out. I'm going to talk to the prison, okay? I'll beat it out of his cellmate myself if I have to. We're going to find him, one way or another."

Everyone means well, hugging her and holding her, but it doesn't change anything.

My heart just breaks. My sister is a queen, untouchable, but here in my brother's arms, she's just a little girl again.

There's an unexplainable bond that comes between you and your child, this ability to sense when they need you, when they're lying, invisible strings that connect us all. Hers are tugging at her soul, enough that she doesn't need any proof. She knows the truth.

Tick is dead.