Chapter 141 Coward - Miguel POV
Everybody looks at me like I'm the damn rapist when I enter the office. It's like I'm guilty by association. This firm is not going to hold for long, so I'm most likely going to have to figure out what I will do to keep me busy after the crash is over.
Sure, I don't need to work because of the wise choices I made when I was younger, but I'm going to be bored out of my mind if I don't do something.
And I'm going to be a father.
I have saved people from dangerous situations. Killed a few too. I've gone on secret missions saving my country that nobody outside of a select few will ever know about.
Yet, I've never been so proud of myself than knowing I got Madison pregnant. It's shit timing, but I don't care.
In fact, I want to shout it from the rooftops. And I don't give a shit what anyone says.
My phone pings, and I open a message from a number I don't know.
Unknown: Good morning, wish I could wake up in your arms this morning. Madison.
Luckily, my office door is closed, otherwise everyone would've wondered why I'm smiling like an idiot in light of everything.
Then a string of messages come through, all sonogram pictures, and I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm looking at. All I know is, is that it's pictures of my baby, and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen apart from Madison.
My phone rings in my hand, and I think it's Madison because I answer with the smile still intact on my face.
"Miguel, you better get home. There's an emergency."
My smile drops when I recognise Samuel's voice.
"What's wrong? Is it Father?" I immediately get up from my chair.
"Your father is fine, just get home, please."
I drive my bike like a lunatic through the streets of the city, numerous cars honking at me, until I reach my childhood home where the press is still camping outside the front door.
I dodge paparazzi and reporters pushing microphones into my face, Samuel thankfully holding the front door open for me so I can just squeeze inside.
"What's going on?" I notice his shaken demeanour when he's always so calm and put together.
That's when I hear the wailing, like an animal that got hurt.
"Your father and the police are on the way." Samuel gulps.
"What happened!"
"It's Ben." Samuel still doesn't meet my eyes. "I think he commited suicide."
I still, my heart skipping multiple beats as shock reverberates through my system at Samuel's words.
I take off for the stairs, taking multiple at a time until I reach the open door of Ben's bedroom.
It's Caroline's cries that I heard from downstairs, and I step inside to see it for myself.
My stepmother is sitting on Ben's bed, clutching his lifeless body. I step closer, I have to make sure.
My brother is dead.
There is no mistaking the blue tinge to his skin, and the stench of vomit filling the room.
He must have taken drugs to do the deed. How fitting.
And disappointing at the same time.
This was my mission.
I wanted to see the life drain out of him, but I also wanted to see him more humiliated in the public eye first.
What a fucking coward.
He knew he had one-way ticket to jail, away from the life of luxury he's been living.
I just stand there and watch as Caroline completely falls apart. She doesn't look like the woman with all the power, the one that made my mother's life a living hell, and who sexually abused me for years.
She looks like someone who just lost the most important person in their life. She looks human almost, but I can't forget who she really is behind the tears for her one and only son.
Father pushes me out of the way when he arrives, and immediately halt when he witnesses his youngest son dead.
"Ben?" He says with a question in his tone like he's going to open his eyes at any moment.
But the coward will never face the hand of justice. His victims that bravely stepped forward will never get any closure.
At the end of the day, Ben was smart by killing himself. He would've been sued multiple times, and most likely his trial would have gone on for at least a year with the amount of evidence against him.
The only thing I regret about him being dead is that I didn't do it myself, but a win is a win.
I'm getting exactly what I wanted. Ben dead, and Caroline broken.
It's as if Father doesn't know what to do, if he should go closer and touch his son, or just stand there like me.
"Excuse me sir, could you please step outside?" I didn't even notice the police officers enter the room.
I go to Father then, grabbing him by his shoulders. "Dad, the police are here, they want to investigate the scene."
"Nooooooooooo!" Caroline screams, looking ready to murder someone if they were to touch Ben's body. "Nobody is touching my boy!"
"He's gone, Caroline." Father whispers, the agony evident in his voice.
"Because of you!" She hurls at him. "This is your fault! You said he's no longer your son!"
I can feel the guilt radiating from Father as his shoulders slouch in my hands. Of course she's not blaming Ben for his own actions, maybe that's why we're here in the first place.
A female officer goes to Caroline's side, whispering something in her ear that only makes her cry louder, but she releases Ben's body and the officer helps her from the bed and escorts her out.
"Can I just....." Father's voice breaks, and I squeeze his shoulders in support. "Can I just touch him, please?"
The officer that first came in nods, and we walk closer to the bed, where my father bends down and kisses the blue forehead of my brother.
"I'm so sorry, son." He whispers before straightening.
He has a lot to be sorry for. Maybe he was too absent, and that resulted in a lot of shit that he doesn't even know about.
But he certainly doesn't have to be sorry for Ben's actions.
My brother was rotten to the core since he was a child, and there was no parenting that could have fixed that.