Chasing His Brother's Bride
Chasing His Brother’s Bride – Chapter 50

When she got back to the office, she dropped her things off at her desk and then walked Macey’s coffee down to her. She knocked on the door of the closed office and waited for her to answer before walking in.

“Here’s your coffee.” She set it down for her. “Have a good afternoon.”

“Jolie,” Macey called out to her. “Can we talk for a minute?”

“Uh, sure,” she turned back to face her. “I have to go upstairs to see Brix though. He messaged me while I was walking to lunch to ask me to come see him the minute I got back.”

Macey rounded her desk and closed the door as if wanting to make sure nobody heard what she was going to say. Jolie wondered what was going on with her as the woman studied her carefully for several uncomfortable seconds.

“Are you okay?” Macey asked suddenly.

The question surprised her. “What to do you mean?”

“Look, I know I’m not the best HR manager in the world and I know I gave you a hard time, a lot of it because of Elaine. She really didn’t like you and I realize now it was because you weren’t wealthy. She’s a snob and I put up with her because she’s family but I let rub off. The last month, I’ve really been working hard on being better at my job. The thing is, I’m worried about you.”

“Me?” Jolie put her hand to her chest in confusion. “Why?”

“Are you being held against your will?” Macey appeared really concerned for her.

“What?”

“Look. You initially said you didn’t know Brix and I get why you would lie, knowing who he is but the minute he knew you were in the building, he put the cameras up and the audio recorders up. He has people assigned to you all the time. He brings you to and from work every day and his IT s***h security guy Malik is as far up your a*s as he is. You can’t go to the bathroom without one of them checking on you. You went for lunch and he texted you to make sure you report to him as soon as you got back. I know I’m the last one you would ever confide in, but if you’re in danger, Jolie there might be ways to help you.”

Jolie blinked incredulously at the woman. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. I heard they even cleared your house when you weren’t there.”

She shook her head and sighed, “Macey, seriously, I am not in any danger from Brix or Malik. They keep me safe and they are simply very overprotective. You’ve seen my daughter, Pia. She is his double. Brix is a billionaire and he has a lot of people who want a piece of the pie. Last week Malik intercepted two different conversations on kidnapping both of us to be held as ransom to get money from Brix. The security is high because it has to be. If they had their way, I would be home with Pia surrounded by a team to make sure nobody took us against our will. I wanted to keep working so this was the compromise. We are loved and safe.”

“I don’t doubt she is his, I mean she looks identical to him but I guess I was more concerned for you.” Macey leaned against the door sadly. “Just because you have a rich guy’s kid doesn’t mean you should be forced to be married to him.”

“I wasn’t forced,” she smiled softly trying to relieve Macey’s concerns. “I love him.” She froze at the words and the frowned before giggling softly. She loved him. She knew she was in l**t with the pair but loving them? It hadn’t dawned on her until right now. She loved them both. She gave Macey a big smile, “are we done? I need to go replace out what was so urgent he needed me to report in.” At Macey’s furrowed eyebrows she shrugged, “I promise I’m fine and Pia is fine. Brix Beckwith is a good man who only wants what is best for me. For the record, I rarely hear from him when I’m working. The text at lunch is an oddity which is why I am anxious to go see what he wants.”

“Really? He doesn’t hound you all the time?”

“No. Gosh no. Last night Opal and I went to dinner and drank too much wine. I got in at nine and he put me to bed laughing and calling me a light weight. He didn’t come with us and he didn’t once message me while I was gone.”

“Oh,” Macey appeared genuinely confused. “He’s not rough or abusive with you?”

“God no.” She blinked in horror. “Why would you think such a thing?”

“I knew a woman once who had a very jealous, overprotective boyfriend and everyone else thought it was sweet how attentive he was until she ended up in the hospital from his attentiveness.” Macey moved to sit in her seat, her face red as she appeared embarrassed to have made the suggestion now. “All the over-the-top security and needing to know where you are every second of every day made me think maybe you might be in the same situation.”

“Not even close but I do appreciate the concern Macey. Now I need to get my butt upstairs. Maybe he wants a make out session.” She tried to lighten the mood.

Macey’s eyes widened, “have you done it in his office?”

“No but have you seen him?” Jolie chuckled, “it’s not for lack of trying. It’s why he makes me stay downstairs most of the time. Can’t keep my hands off him.” She wasn’t lying about her last statement. When they were home, she was almost constantly under his or Malik’s arm or on their lap. She gave a wave and then made her way to the elevator trying to not laugh at the conversation she had shared with a woman who had made her life hell for nearly three years. Perhaps there was a bit of good in Macey after all.

She reached the executive floor, got out of the elevator, and grinned at Keely who was scowling and spinning in her chair. “Surely you are not so bored you are simply playing teacups in your chair?”

“No,” Keely looked up. “I came back from lunch and Brix told me to cancel all his appointments this afternoon but to stick close. I am his PA. I usually know everything he is doing and he’s hiding shit.”

“When is your birthday?”

“Christmas Day.” Keely grimaced. “It’s bad enough I have to share it with a twin but I also have to share it with the birth of Christ. I’ve been ripped off presents my entire life.”

“Then I don’t know. I’ll see what I can figure out.”

“Please. It’s bugging me they are hiding s**t from me.”

“Both of them?” Now Jolie was understanding. Malik had a big mouth around Keely. If he was hiding stuff, then it was clearly not information they wanted her to know. She looked up as Malik opened Brix’s office door. “Hi.”

“You’re late.” He waved her into the room.

She laughed as she stepped into the room and he closed the door behind them. She was about to ask what was going on when Malik pressed her against the door and kissed her on the mouth. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back. His eyes were dark and hungry when he pulled away.

She heard Brix clearing his throat and she let Malik lift her up, his e******n poking into her middle when she wrapped her legs around his middle. “You need to put that away big boy.”

“I want to put it inside you.”

“Later,” she promised and kissed him again. She looked over his shoulder at Brix who was openly watching and noted the same hunger in his gaze. “Why do I feel like I’m about to be lunch?”

“We wish,” Brix sighed and motioned for them to sit on the sofa. “We need your help with a very delicate conversation.”

“Oh,” she sat on Malik’s knee when Brix sat beside her, lifting her legs up onto his lap. She leaned forward to accept his k**s and pouted when he pulled away.

He tapped her nose, “at home, sweetheart.”

“Fine. I did just tell Macey the reason you keep me out of your office is because I can’t keep my hands to myself.”

“For f**k’s sake she is not after you again, is she?”

She giggled at Malik’s angry words, “no. She actually approached me out of concern.” She relayed the conversation and summed it up. “It seems she knew a woman who had an overprotective boyfriend who behind closed doors, was abusive. She wanted to tell me if I needed help, she would replace a way to help me.”

“Weird.” Brix said as he scrunched his nose. “She doesn’t give off the vibe of someone who has friends.”

She slapped at him and shook her head. “What am I doing up here?”

“One of the guys was going through Val’s video stash. It was three years before he took you.”

“He had cameras going back three years?”

“Further. It’s simply we are only at year three since we’re working backwards. We have to go through every single frame of every day to replace out how much he was f*****g over our own family and who of our alliances and enemies were involved. However, there is a problem with a specific video. We have to talk to the person in it, but we want you there because nobody understands the s**t this man and his pathetic excuse of a mother did better than you.”

She felt her heart sink. “He hurt someone else?”

“There are multiple women, love. Multiple. Most he brought back to his place, did what he wanted and threw them out or had his guys remove them. There are a couple he even shot in the head after he finished with them.”

She was going to throw up. Bile rose in her throat and she felt Malik rubbing her back.

“We haven’t seen anyone we know or recognize until this particular situation.”

“What did he do?” she whispered.

“Val brought her in, beat her bad and raped her. He kept her locked in his place for two days before Chiara convinced him to let her go after Chiara had a go at her too. Chiara threatened her to keep her mouth shut and she has.”

“Wait, both of them raped this poor woman?”

“Yeah. I watched ten seconds of it and made the guys burn it. I don’t want anyone else to see it. It’s awful.” Malik said quietly. “I won’t let Brix see it and I don’t want you or anyone else to see it. I got a synopsis from the individual who discovered it as they had to watch it through. He asked to be removed from watching any further videos.”

“Is this worth it?” Jolie asked. “Is it worth it for these men to see all of this depravity only to get a bit of information?”

“Jolie, we were able to confirm Val and Chiara were working with another family. The goal was to eventually kill Dad and I off and have this other family take us over. Val and Chiara had been secretly going along with the plan with the intention of killing their spy and instead of letting him rule, they were going to take both families. Oddly enough, about a month before Val took you, he told Chiara he was no longer interested in going through with the plan and he shot the other family’s double-agent in the head. They had a huge blowout fight about it all captured on camera. We were able to provide enough evidence to the head of the other family to let him know he had a team of deserters in his midst. He has cleaned house and we have an alliance now.” Brix explained gently. “There is good coming from this but there is a lot of bad.”

She reached the executive floor, got out of the elevator, and grinned at Keely who was scowling and spinning in her chair. “Surely you are not so bored you are simply playing teacups in your chair?”

“I feel bad for the guys having to watch this s**t,” she whispered. “I know what he was capable of. Rape, sodomy, beatings were only the tip of the iceberg. He liked b***d and the more spilled the more excited he got.”

“I know,” Malik said quietly.

She looked to them both. “Have either of you seen the videos he took of me?”

“No. Dad saw the wedding one. He also was notified of one where there were at least a dozen men in the room and the guys all stopped watching within seconds of them realizing what it was. You know I ordered them all destroyed. Anything where you were in the room was destroyed. We have not watched it and I assure you nobody else on the team saw anything more than was necessary to confirm it was a video to be destroyed.” Malik rubbed her shoulders, “we wouldn’t permit such things to be viewed.”

“Thank you.” She pursed her lips. “What about this other person he took for two days?”

“We don’t know how to handle this. We need to ask your opinion.”

“On?”

“If nobody knew what happened to you. If nobody ever was going to replace out and you kept your mouth shut like you were ordered to. If you were able to pick up the pieces, move on with your life and have a relatively normal, happy life, would you want to know this video had existed and someone else knew your secret?” Brix was blunt.

“This person never told anyone. Are you sure?”

“Sweetheart, I could tell you now, if she had told anyone then Val and Chiara would have been dead within minutes of her report and not even Dad could or would have stopped it. This person also knows both of them are dead so it’s not like she has to fear them again. She could simply keep moving forward.”

“Nobody knows Chiara is dead except for specific members of our family,” she protested.

Brix smiled, “I like how you said our family.”

She smiled back, “It is our family. My driver’s license officially says Beckwith-Cacciola on it.” Her smile disappeared as she had a thought and her stomach fell with such velocity, she could have sworn it was in her feet. “No, no, no.” Her eyes watered as she got off Malik’s knees and paced the offices. “No. Brix. No.”

She had put together in her head very quickly the number of people who knew of Chiara’s death. Everyone knew Val died but for the purposes of keeping the police out of their affairs, only a very select number of people in the family knew she’d been killed and not simply given a divorce and a home in Italy to live out her days.

Tears streamed down her face as she looked to the door and thought of the annoyed woman spinning in her chair because her bosses were keeping things from her. She hiccupped a sob and the urge to wrap her arms around Keely overwhelmed her. She looked to see both men had tears of their own. They loved their PA with all their hearts.

Her mind immediately went to Fabrizio and Kendall and knew what they meant when they said even Elio wouldn’t have stopped the retaliation.

She exhaled, “we have to tell her.”

“Are you sure, sweetheart? If she has moved on?”

“But we don’t know she has. We don’t know she has healed or she hasn’t healed. We don’t know whether she cries herself to sleep every night even now. Your team saw a video of her being violated by both Val and Chiara. She has a right to know her privacy was breached in such a way. She can do with the information what she wants but you need to let her know you know.” She looked to the door and wiped tears off her cheeks with shaky fingers. “She already thinks you’re hiding s**t from her. She knows you both better than you do.”

“There’s more.” Brix said quietly. “If she ever confided in her father, ever, he knows our security systems. He could have easily gone in, shut it all down and put Val out and then carried on like it was not a big deal. Staged the rescue of you. He’s trained.”

“No,” she shook her head. “I know Fabrizio like I know myself. He protects his girls the way I do Pia. He wouldn’t have done a simple bullet to his head, Brix. You’re off base here. I know in my heart he didn’t do it because if it were me and he did such things to my daughter and I had the skills I know Fabrizio has, there is no way I would have given him the easy out of a bullet.”

Malik’s eyebrow lifted, “you think you would have been violent?”

“For Pia?” She looked to Brix, “you and I had a conversation not long ago about what I would do to guarantee her safety. I promise there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to someone who caused the damaged to me if they did it to her. They would pay and it wouldn’t be quick. Fabrizio would have torn him to pieces.”

“Well, we’re back to square one then on who killed Val but we still have to let her know. Do you want to do it on your own?” Brix asked quietly.

“No. I’ll be here to support her but you need to let her know. You are the head of this family Brix. You. You need to offer the apology from the Cacciola family. Not me. Not Malik. You. You are the Don.”

He nodded and got off the couch and moved to the door. “Then let’s do this now.”

Jolie nodded and prepared herself for the worst.