Keaton sat up, pushing his legs over the side of the bed as he listened. Somehow he knew Kade wasn’t a bad guy. There were men who went to prison for reasons that were valiant. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe there were no bad men in the world. But not all who got locked up were evil.
Kade sat on the bed next to Keaton, cupping his hands in his lap. “Me and a buddy of mine were visiting the city to celebrate finishing high school. On our way back we saw some guy stranded on the side of the road. His car had broken down. I didn’t want to give him a ride but my friend insisted, telling me I was overreacting.” Kade twined his fingers together and rested his elbows on his thighs.
Keaton was riveted to the spot, taking in every word Kade spoke.
“The guy pulled a gun on us and forced my friend…” Kade cleared his throat and Keaton wasn’t sure he wanted Kade to go on. He could see the stress lines around the man’s eyes and mouth. “He forced my friend to do some things he normally wouldn’t have done. Long story short, I wrestled with the stranger to get the gun away. It went off. The guy was dead and my friend was freaking out. He called the cops and told them that I had killed the guy.”
Keaton sat there stunned. He had thought he knew where this story was going, but Kade had just thrown him for a loop. He had not seen the ending coming. “Why would he do something like that? He saw you two wrestling and knew it was an accident.”
Kade chewed on the side of his mouth as he gave a slow shake of his head. He could see the pain in Kade’s teal eyes and Keaton wanted to hug the man, but kept his distance, allowing Kade to finish telling him what happened so long ago. “I think he was more fucked up in the head because I saw what the stranger had made him do and didn’t stop it. I think he blamed me and wanted to make me pay. The gun was stolen, and the cops linked it to a rape and murder of a teenage boy. There was no way to prove that it wasn’t mine. My friend kept yelling that I had stolen it. He was merciless and hell-bent on having me go to prison. I think he was so embarrassed about what happened to him that he wanted anyone who knew about the rape to disappear…including me.”
“They convicted you?” Keaton asked incredulously. “How could they do that?”
“Innocent men go to prison all the time. My friend had told the cops that the stranger had been my boyfriend and we were both trying to rape him. I tossed out the logical question of why would I shoot the man if we were in on it together, but the cops wouldn’t listen. Not after ballistics came back and tied the gun to another crime.
“We weren’t in Brac Village jurisdiction because I knew for a fact that Maverick would not have let that go down. But the city cops had answered the call.”
Kade nearly strangled his own fingers as he glanced over at Keaton. “The justice system is sometimes fucked up, my friend. They don’t always get it right. I was young, stupid, and hadn’t fought as hard as I should have because I thought there was no way they could convict me of a crime that I committed in self-defense. I also thought I wouldn’t be convicted of the crime the gun was linked to.”
Keaton moved closer, placing his hand over Kade’s, wishing he could go back fifteen years and beat the shit out of Kade’s friend.
He knew that good guys didn’t always win and that life wasn’t black and white. There was a lot of grey area. What Kade had gone through and how he had defended himself and his friend was a big grey area. Keaton couldn’t begin to understand what Kade’s friend had gone through, but that gave him no right to blame an innocent man just because he was ashamed.
Kade wrapped his hands around Keaton’s, his fingers skimming over the back of his hand. “The reason my errand took longer than expected was because I was meeting with Kota. He’s the mayor’s right-hand man. He told me the guy was coming to Brac Village where both his sons resided. That if I hadn’t killed him, there was no telling what would have happened.”
Keaton was shocked. “Did his sons know what kind of monster he was?”
Turning his head, Kade gazed into Keaton’s eyes. “They knew. He had molested the oldest one his entire life. Kota can only surmise that he was coming here to try and kidnap them. He never told Blair and Oliver what happened that fateful night. The two don’t know that their father is dead.”
“Oliver Weston? My employee?” Keaton asked, once again stunned by what Kade was telling him. He thought about the Goth man and his stomach twisted thinking anyone could ever hurt such a nice guy. He had met Blair as well. The guy was a bit goofy, but enjoyable to be around.
“He doesn’t want me telling them,” Kade said. “They’ve moved on with their lives and he fears what would happen to Blair and Oliver’s mental state if they knew what their father had done that night and what he had been planning to do.”
“I don’t think that’s his call,” Keaton said. “Wait, if you’ve been locked up for that long, and just out of high school…” He rubbed his hand over his hair and then smiled at Kade. “You are so much older than me.” Keaton was trying his best to alleviate the tension that was thick in the room. He didn’t want
