Chasing His Brother's Bride
Chasing His Brother’s Bride – Chapter 51

Keely sat on the sofa eying the three of them curiously. “What is wrong with you?”

Jolie started, “Keely, remember when I said the guys were going through the video of Val’s place from when he took me?”

“Yes. You said he shut it off the night before he died.”

“Right.” She nodded. “I didn’t clarify for you how long he had the cameras going.”

Keely’s head shot up and she looked around the room. “What?”

“Years. Almost back to the time he first took the condo as his own place.” Malik said as he sat on the edge of the desk.

Brix spoke quietly from the chair where he was sitting near Keely, “we’ve been going backwards in time.”

“You saw,” she exhaled a shaky breath. “I didn’t know he had cameras but you saw, didn’t you. You saw what they did.”

“No,” Malik denied it outright. “One of the guys on the team saw the video. Gave me the version of events. I had him destroy it. Nobody else will ever see it, Keely. Nobody.”

Jolie considered Keely stronger than she could have ever imagined as the woman lifted her chin up and gave a single nod.

“Is this why you two were weird all morning?”

“Yes. We didn’t know whether to tell you or not. We decided to ask Jolie and she felt strongly you had a right to know what we found. Whether this information leaves this room or not is entirely up to you.”

“Leaves this room?” she shot Brix a started glance. “Why the f**k would it leave this room?”

“If you wanted to talk to your dad or your mom.”

“Oh my god, no.” she sneered at him. “Are you insane? My mother would be horrified and Dad would lose his shit.”

“Of course,” Brix nodded her agreement, “but if you need to talk to someone.”

“I did.” She met his startled gaze. “After it happened, I went to a friend who is a psychotherapist. She helped me. I got help. I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Jolie asked as she noted the woman unable to look at her.

“Yeah,” Keely was maintaining eye contact with Brix but not even glancing in her direction. “I had trauma therapy and treatment for PTSD. I was nineteen and Chiara arranged for me to take a job in LA, away from Dad I would guess and I was too scared to refuse her. I spent several months in LA getting help and then I took the job with Brix which allowed me to go all over the world with him. Since Val and Chiara both hated Brix it meant I rarely had to be anywhere near them. It was a win-win for me.”

Brix stared at her, “I’m sorry, Keely. I’m so sorry for what they did. On behalf of our family, you know this should never have happened and we are so ashamed of him, of her. I am so sorry.”

She flapped her hand at him, “come on Brix. It’s not your fault. Chiara created the monster he was because she was an even bigger one. He was insane. I admit, I was always scared of her, even after he died. She was a horrible human being and I hated her and was terrified of her but she’s dead now. She can’t hurt me. I truthfully felt a weight lifted off my shoulders when I heard she’d been put down.”

Malik adjusted himself on the desk, “Keely, can I ask why you never said anything? Even after her death? You never told your sister or your parents anything?”

“God no.” She made wide eyes. “Look. The tower in Vegas everyone lives there. Elio and Chiara have the penthouse on the top floor. Brix has the floor right under him. Val’s place was under his. My parents lived on the same floor as Malik’s condo right under Val’s. All of those places were secure and soundproof and nothing short of nuclear weaponry could get into any of them without a key. But” she sighed, “Chiara had a key to everything and you all know it. She told me it would be nothing to go into my parents’ home and kill my mother and sister if I opened my mouth. I kept my mouth shut because she was crazy enough to do it. Once she came to dinner and I was stuck there with my parents and when Mom’s back was turned, she made a gun with her fingers and pointed it at Mom’s head and winked at me. I knew she was reminding me of the warning she gave me years ago. It’s been almost ten years, guys. I kept my mouth shut because I knew Chiara was not only capable of killing my mom, but she would also have done it and made it look like someone else did it.” She shrugged. “Val’s thugs were loyal to him first, her second, the family third. I wasn’t stupid.”

“Okay,” Brix said quietly. “What do you want us to do?”

“Forget we ever had this conversation. I’m appreciative you let me know you know, but it changes nothing for me. I’m fine.”

Jolie watched her friend casually talk as if nothing had happened tragic had befallen her and wondered if she had really healed with the help of therapy. However, and most importantly, she was still not looking at Jolie at all.

“Is this it? Can we go back to normal?”

“Definitely,” Malik nodded.

She jumped up from her seat and made a comment about meetings she had rescheduled from the afternoon cramming the agenda for the following morning and was almost to the door when Jolie called her name. She paused and didn’t turn around.

“Why can’t you look at me Keely?”

Keely’s hand froze on the handle of the door and she shrugged, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You haven’t looked at me even once. Why? Are you angry with me?”

“No,” Keely turned around her eyes wide but still not looking at Jolie. “Why would I be?”

“I don’t know. But you’re ignoring me and I don’t understand why.”

“I think because I don’t want to lose you.”

“Why would you lose me?”

“Because it’s my fault.” Keely whispered as she kept her gaze to the floor, her breath loud. “It’s my fault. If I had said something they would have known what he was doing and you wouldn’t have been hurt.”

Jolie felt the air whoosh out of her lungs. “Keely no.”

“Yes,” she was straight faced but avoiding the eyes of the people in the room. “You almost died because of me.”

“I almost died because Val was a sick mother fucker who had a sicker mother who encouraged his s**t and covered up for him on every single event. I promise you aren’t the first or the last they will replace on those videos.” Jolie spoke gently as she approached Keely.

Keely shook her head, “but I waited too long and you almost died. I thought you were dead.” Tears now edged the corner of her eyes.

The tone of her words made Jolie pause as she stood in front of Keely. She was aware Brix and Malik were both watching them curiously as if unsure of what to say. Men. She almost snorted. Emotions were not their forte.

“Keely, what to you mean you thought I was dead.”

“I waited too long,” she sniffed and cleared her throat. “I knew for a whole week you were there and I waited too long and I thought he killed you.”

“Keely come sit down,” Jolie took her by the hands and gently lead her to the sofa. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”

“You’ll hate me. I don’t have a lot of friends Jolie and I love you because you accept me even when I put cheese and ketchup on my popcorn and,” she started crying hard.

Jolie wrapped her arms around her and rested her chin on her friends’ head. “It’s okay. I love you too. You’re so important to me and so special to me. I don’t have a lot of friends either, especially ones who I know went through the fuckery of Valentin Cacciola. Please don’t shut me out.”

“But it’s my fault. If I had told the truth and not been such a chickenshit of Chiara you wouldn’t have been taken. My dad would have f*****g killed them both. I mean Elio might have ordered Dad’s death but he would have taken it with a smile for avenging me. The world would still be looking for bits and pieces of either of them.”

Jolie chuckled at her words, “I believe you are correct. It’s how I know your dad wasn’t the one to kill him. But you know this already, don’t you.”

Keely nodded and sniffed.

“You know who killed him?” Jolie asked softly.

She nodded again, “I was f*****g around with the wife of one of Val’s guys. She was gorgeous and I was so in love with her. I begged her almost every time we were together to leave him. Her marriage was arranged and she hated him so we f****d around behind his back whenever I was in town. About a week before Val died, her husband came home early. He had been supposed to be on a job with Val making a delivery and we were in bed. I had to hide under the bed. He said something to the effect Val’s wife was becoming a problem and Val couldn’t keep his head on straight. She had questioned when the hell Val had gotten a wife and he said he’d had her for months. Went on and on about all the s**t Val did to you and how Chiara was in on it. He said Val had made them all stand around once and watch while he did things to you and then went off about how because of you, their plans to make a deal with a different cartel went sideways.”

Jolie noted Brix sitting up at those words.

“What do you mean?” Jolie asked curiously, “what exactly did he say?”

“He said Val was wanting to prove to Elio he could do better than Brix as being the heir and he was working out his own agreement with a different group but the guy made a pass at you so Val had him killed. Tony was pissed because all their hard work was gone all because of a girl. Anyway, she managed to convince him to go shower and get the stink of a warehouse off him, I got out of there and went home.”

Jolie put a tissue from the table in Keely’s hand and tried not to laugh when she blew her nose louder than an old man with sinus problems would. Everything Keely did was over the top. She rubbed her shoulder, “what happened Keely?”

“I should have told Dad but I felt so guilty. In all the time after he took me for those two days, it never once dawned on me he did it to anyone else. Maybe I thought I was the lucky one,” she grimaced, “or I didn’t want to think of him doing it to anyone else but I felt so bad. If I had spoken up you wouldn’t have been hurt and probably other girls too. We were in Vegas at the time because Brix was trying to sort out missing money and product for Elio. I didn’t know what to do.” She took a deep breath, “then one night I was visiting Mom and she had gone out for a bit and when she came back, she was pissed off about how Val had a bunch of his guys in the elevator and they were all drunk. I had access to the security panel from my computer. I’d watched Malik a thousand times over the almost three years I worked with them hide his IP address. I got into the system and hid any trace of me. I kept my eye on the elevators. I saw them all leave. They were pissed off but none of them were saying anything. I waited almost four hours to see if any of them would come back and they didn’t. I remembered from the two days I was in Val’s how he always kept a gun in his sofa table. I cut the power to the surveillance. Took the stairs from Mom’s up to Val’s. He had left the door wide open to his unit. I walked in. Grabbed the gun from the side table and,” she looked to Jolie with tears streaming down her face, “I’m sorry Jolie. I’m so sorry. I checked your pulse and I thought you were dead. I couldn’t replace it. I thought I was too late. I waited a whole f*****g week and it was too late. I was so angry with myself for letting you die. I shot him in the head and I ran. If I’d known you were alive, I would have called my dad and”

“No,” Keely turned around her eyes wide but still not looking at Jolie. “Why would I be?”

“No, no,” she hugged her tight. “No. Keely. You saved my life. You did what even my own father couldn’t do. What if he would have woken up or Chiara would have come in? It wasn’t uncommon for her to be there in the middle of the night. Any of his goons could have come back. Honey, you saved me.” She kissed Keely’s forehead, holding her head to her chest tightly as the woman sobbed her heart out. “Every day since the day I ran from the hospital I wondered who saved me to allow me to live and have my daughter and it was you.”

“But if I’d said something.”

“You can’t know.” She stopped Keely from talking. “You can’t know what would have happened and we are not going to play twenty questions surrounding what-ifs and what-could-have-been.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“I love you, Keely. You’re my savior,” she hugged her tight.

Keely cried a long time in Jolie’s arms and then when the tears finally gave way, Jolie sighed.

“Did you know your dad is the one who found me?”

“I did,” she made a face. “I felt like an i***t. He came in later in the day and I was a mess because I was sure it was my fault you were dead and he must have thought I’d lost my mind because he said you were alive. I was so happy and all he could do was look at me like I was nuts. He even said from what he had seen you might have been better off dead than to wake up with the trauma but I knew,” she shook her head, “I knew if you were able to live through him you were a fighter and you could do like I did and heal and get better.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Jolie laughed. “I’m terrified of men in general save my husbands and a handful of soldiers.”

“You’re kickass,” Keely corrected. “You hid from the Cacciola family for six years. Badass b***h!”

“Agreed,” Brix chuckled interrupting their conversation.

Jolie felt Keely freeze and look at him curiously.

“Are you going to tell Elio I, did it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he will feel compelled to tell your father the why and it is not our story to share with your father. It isn’t because he would be upset with you. He would commend you for doing what you did. But this is your story to tell your family if you ever choose to. If you never want this repeated outside these walls, then this is the way it stays.” Brix assured her. “I am proud of you Keely. You did the right thing. I will let everyone know Val’s murder is no longer under investigation and we will move on.”

She nodded, “thanks Brix.”

Jolie hugged her and then stood up and pulled her upright. “You need to go to the washroom and clean up. You look like hell.”

Keely giggled at the teasing. “Yeah. I might take off early and go home and nap.”

“I have one question,” Malik spoke softly. “You were with Tony’s wife?”

“Yeah. She hated him with a burning passion. I’m surprised she didn’t put a bullet in his head herself. He was rough on her. I ended things with her because I wanted her to leave him. She said she couldn’t. I loved her and couldn’t stick around. She’s why I hate going back. I’m always too tempted to reach out.”

Malik nodded, “when we did her interrogation of her after we took care of him, she asked about you and we didn’t think anything of it but it is making sense now.”

“She asked about me?” Keely was surprised. “She cut me right off when I told her I couldn’t keep doing this.”

“She and Tony had a kid. She’s a year old. When I told her he was dead, she cried happy tears. We set her up with a bank account and she’s taken care of. I think Tony kept her pretty isolated. She could probably use a friend,” Malik commented.

“Yeah, I’ll think about it.” Keely nodded and then gave one last hug to Jolie. “Thank you for not hating me.”

“Thank you for saving me.” Jolie answered hugging her back.

Keely left the room and Jolie leaned against the door with her eyes closed. When she opened them, it was to replace her husbands both standing in front of her with concerned expressions. She knew what they wanted to know.

“I wasn’t bullshitting her to make her feel better. I don’t blame her. Despite all I went through, she saved me and I have Pia. If she hadn’t shot him that night, he would have killed us both eventually. I’m grateful to her.”

“You are amazing,” Brix said softly.

“I know.” She grinned at them and moved into his open arms. “Now,” she looked up naughtily as Malik wrapped his arms around both of them. “Since Keely is leaving, can we lock the door? I need cuddles.”