~Chase~
“I woke up in a safe house two days after the accident, disoriented with broken ribs and unable to stand,” I continued. Derek kept staring at the wall as though he wanted to burn a hole in it.
“I asked you…..” he murmured through gritted teeth. “I asked you what happened. You told me none of this. Why?”
Sipping my beer, I reminisced about the day Derek came at me. I couldn’t come to Letty’s funeral. Even if I didn’t have two broken ribs and couldn’t stand straight for five days, I was too ashamed to even be there in the presence of everyone who cared for Letty. I was a witness to her death. I knew what everybody didn’t, and it changed my life for good.
“She had a contingency plan….” I swallowed down the pain that resurfaced when I learned everything she did for me. I thought I was protecting her. It turns out she was the one who was keeping me safe. “Contingency plan for me if things go south.”
Derek laughed menacingly. “Contingency? For you?”
“Yes.” I gripped the neck bottle tight enough to break it. Letty was a smart one. I still remember reading the letter she left for me, scribbled in her neat handwriting. The pain, annoyance, and anger I had toward her. I don’t have anyone to yell at, blame, and release my anger to. She was dead, and all I could do was accept whatever fucked up reason she had. She knew she could die, and based on the date on the letter, she wrote it when I learned about Loco. That’s how prepared she was. It was a suicide mission from the very start.
“She knew Loco will find out about her eventually. And she made Eros promise to save me first, whatever it takes.”
“You were that important to her, huh? Her life for yours?” His jealousy was valid, but that’s not the entire reason.
“I had family,” I kept my voice down. “She didn’t. It’s the same reason she didn’t want you to know what she had been up to, Derek. You probably heard a thing or two about Loco. Letty knew death won’t stop him from taking revenge.”
Derek pushed himself from the couch and started pacing the room. Heavy and angry footsteps echoed in the room as I watched him digest the truth. Restlessness and confusion settled over him. His jaw fluttered, hands clenching and unclenching as he took a long drag of his cigarette. Smoke followed him as go back and forth.
“Is this why you willingly agreed when I told you to disappear from Boston? You didn’t even put up a fight,” he narrated, recalling the day he ended our friendship. “You didn’t deny a fucking thing!”
He lifted his eyes on me, but his frustration was now curving towards himself. “I couldn’t believe it…” he shook his head, trying to erase something from his head. “I hated you for years. I loathed Letty, but I couldn’t push myself to believe she would cheat on me with my best friend. Do you know what that did to my head? Two of the most important people in my life?”
I understand more than I could put into words. Thinking I was doing him a favor by giving him someone to hate was a mistake.
“She loved you, Derek. You must know that. It wasn’t easy to keep everything to myself, but I had to. She wrote me a letter instructing me not to say a word to you.”
He huffed. “And you followed through even if you know how fucked up her instructions were?” He growled. “If I were in your shoes, I would want me to know my girl didn’t cheat on me. I wouldn’t let my best friend hate me for years because of something he didn’t do. You could’ve saved us years of detesting each other.”
“You don’t think I’ve considered that?” I gritted my teeth. He made it sound like I wanted to lose a brother and leave my entire life behind.
He paused at my tone. “I had to honor Letty’s request not because she wanted it but because I saw her reason for leaving me that letter. If you knew about Loco, you wouldn’t rest until you get your revenge on him.”
“Damn right! I would’ve killed him myself!”. He paused and stared at me, his mind gears working over time. “Five years ago… Loco took his own life, don’t tell me….”
I pressed my lips shut. “It wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I had my hand in his death, but it wasn’t me who killed him.”
“You had your hands…” he parroted. “What the hell happened?”
Since I was confessing my sins, I better come clean. Sofia was right. For Derek and I to properly grieve Letty, we need to face reality.
Derek needs to know what happened, and it’s time to free myself of this guilt and grudge against myself. “Letty was afraid you’d take justice by your own hands, but she never considered that I would do the same for her… She was my friend, Derek. I wouldn’t have been there in that car if she meant nothing to me.” Shaking my head, I emptied the content of my beer in one long pull. “I took my time and studied what she knew about Loco. When I was ready, I reached out to Eros and told him I wanted to continue what Letty couldn’t finish. It was a coincidence that Eros resided here in Rio. Two years after Letty’s death, I put my plan into play. Eros helped me stage his death.”
“I would’ve killed him with my own hands.” Derek groaned, plonking back on the couch.
“Trust me, that’s what I wanted to do,” I huffed. “But Letty promised Eros the honor of putting Loco six feet under.”
“Who is this Eros?”
“I can introduce you to him, but I suggest you don’t get tangled with that man,” I grumbled: “Letty promised him information. Loco had a stronghold in Boston. But outside that city, he was weak. Eros needed a local to be his eyes and ears. They used to do business together. Deal went bad. Eros doesn’t deal well with cheaters. He holds a grudge, much like Loco, and he had been after Loco for years.”
“You mean you had been in and out of Boston to spy on Loco?”
Nodding, my lips pressed to a hard line. “I had to do what I had to do, Derek. One thing kept me going, and it’s revenge.”
He heaved, running a hand down his face. “This is fucked up, Chase.”
“Tell me about it. Once I finished what I needed to do, I stuck with Eros. It was the only thing I knew. Got into a lot of trouble, and mom… she suffered the most. She saw me walk through the dark. Bailed me out of jail and paid tons of medical bills until she couldn’t take it anymore. That’s the time she reached out to my father for help.”
Derek chuckled. “Turned you into a billionaire, eh?” He mocked.
I groaned. “Don’t need a reminder.”
He sighed and asked me for another bottle of beer. I unscrewed the cap and handed one to him. The tension in the air was slowly waning.
“This was a lot to take in, Chase,” he said, thinking deeply as he sipped his beer. “I don’t know how not to hate you, man… but I believe you.” He pondered on his following statement. Some sentences are incomplete if you are not reading this novel on Jobnib.com. Visit Jobnib.com to read the complete chapters for free.“You were at the receiving end of my anger for years. I don’t know how you fucking carried that. You and Eros took revenge for Letty in my stead.”
I released a breath. The tension weighing on my shoulder loosened a bit. “At least I know you’re not aiming to chop off my head anymore, man.”
He chuckled. “I’m good at rearranging your face, though.”
Our laughter filled the room. Everything was going my way. Derek was handling things pretty well until I opened my mouth and jumped into my second objective of coming here. “About Sofia…”
Derek growled, jaw ticking. His smile morphed into a scowl.