Too Much : Hayes Brothers Book 1

EACH ONE OF MY BREATHS IS FUCKING PAINFUL as if someone’s tightening a chain around my chest, pulling harder every time I inhale.

My hands shake on the steering wheel, even though I squeeze it so hard my knuckles whiten.

I’m a mess.

Anarchy in my head.

Hollow emptiness in my heart.

A mild sense of panic clutching my chest.

My fist hacks the wheel as I stop at a red light. With an entire thesaurus of opposing emotions coursing through me, I can’t sit still, shifting in my seat, tapping my foot on the pedal, and swearing at the driver in front of me for not flooring it when the light changes.

My husband echoes in my brain like an aftershock of an earthquake, destroying any attempt to rein in my thoughts. I wish it was a joke. The girl I’m in love with was married to another man.

Is this payback for my sins? For not wanting more than casual sex from women all these years?

What an irony—the one girl I want more from than just sex, the one girl I want to build my future with, is the one girl who already found the perfect man. The man she must’ve wanted to spend her life with.

And I’m not him.

I need to talk to someone, vent, scream, or I may do something really fucking stupid, like pick a fight with a random asshole at a random bar to let out some steam.

And I sure need a few drinks to soothe my jagged nerves.

Thalia and I were supposed to meet my brothers and Jack at Nico’s restaurant in less than half an hour, but the plan just fucking changed. I dial Nico’s number, holding onto the wheel, trying to decide whether to rip it out of the steering column.

“What’s up?” he answers.

“Change of plans.” I cringe at the sound of my voice. Even to my ears, I sound distraught. “I need you all at your place.”

“You don’t sound good. What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“Two minutes away from your house. Just get everyone to come over, alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll call them and open a bottle. Let yourself in.”

Cutting the call, I turn left into the gated community and press my foot down, speeding down the road lined with oversized McMansions. I turn again, right this time, onto Nico’s driveway at too-many miles an hour. Tires screech when I slam on the brake pedal, stopping mere inches from the garage door.

It’s warm outside, still in the high seventy degrees range. Sun is setting over the ocean in the distance, the pinks and purples painting the cloudless sky above. The smell of grass wafts in the air, and the delicate rustling of leaves is all the sound that can be heard. No kids are running around the mansions in the vicinity, no dogs are barking, no cars are driving by… it’s a peaceful evening. And it feels as if the whole world is out to mock my misery. It should be pouring rain right about now.

Or, better yet, there should be a vicious storm brewing overhead with bolts of lightning ripping the sky wide open, bleaching Nico’s posh house with stark whiteness.

Or even better: a hurricane to match my foul mood, but no.

Not even a fucking drizzle.

“You look like shit,” Nico says when I barge inside, stomping across the marble-lined hallway into the ostentatious living room. “You and Thalia alright?”

I pace back and forth between the glass wall and the grand piano, which takes eighteen goddamn steps one way. I’m trying to gather my thoughts and plan a coherent, sensible sentence. Not that it’s working.

The inside of my head resembles the chaos on the main floor of the Bellagio. My thoughts fight for attention, a cacophony of incoherent noise. I down half the whiskey Nico shoved in my hand when I passed the couch for the third time, and I dig my fingers into the back of my stiff neck.

I should wait until Shawn, Jack, and Logan arrive, but I might have a fucking stroke if I don’t start talking right away.

“Remember Thalia’s truth from the party?”

Nico sits on the armrest of his stupid couch, elbows on his knees, eyes following me around the room. “Yeah, she spent a month in jail.”

I gulp the rest of the stupid whiskey and slam the stupid glass on the stupid fucking coffee table.

I think I need a few deep breaths…

“She was charged with murder.”

A few long silent seconds pass with no reaction from Nico. I think he’s waiting for me to burst out laughing.

Won’t happen, bro.

“She’s not in jail, so…” he starts out slowly, his tone reserved as if he knows it’ll take one wrong word for me to snap.

“Ask me who she allegedly killed.”

There’s a subtle change in his expression, as if he’s starting to make sense of my shaking hands and clipped tone, but before he opens his mouth, were interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Great timing.

“Come in!” Nico yells.

Logan enters first, closely followed by Shawn and Jack, each with a bottle of whiskey. Nico must’ve given them a heads up about the situation over the phone because they pat my shoulder without a word.

“I’ll bring you up to speed.” Nico crosses the room to get three crystal glasses from the liquor cabinet. “Thalia told Theo why she spent time in jail. She was accused of murder.”

“Murder?” Logan mouths, eyebrows pulled together as he takes his baseball cap off. “Who did she kill?”

“Allegedly,” Nico clips, filling their glasses. “I think we’re about to find out.” They grill me with expectant stares. “Who?”

Muscles in my neck and arms bunch again. The words taste like an old piece of gum. “Her husband.”

That piece of information gets to them faster than the murder accusations. Their expressions match the mayhem inside my head: confused, surprised, shocked. Logan’s face twists with recognition too, as if he suddenly realized why I’m pacing the room, steam whistling out of my ears as if I’m ready to kill someone myself.

“She was married, and she didn’t tell me.” I plop down on the couch, my shoulders sagging. I’m a bit lighter now that it’s out in the open. I’d like to say calmer, but that’d be a blatant lie. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“What did she tell you about the murder case?” Shawn asks, the police officer in him taking the reins. “The charges? Why was she a suspect?”

I shake my head, glaring at the ceiling. “Who cares? She’s here, so the charges must’ve been dropped. She was married, Shawn. That matters. She had to love the guy to marry him, right? She must’ve thought he was the one. What the fuck does that make me? Second best choice?”

“You do realize those are questions you should ask Thalia, not us, yeah?” Logan asks, toying with the glass in his hand. “What else did she tell you? How long were they married? She’s only twenty-four, so it couldn’t have been long. What if it was a drunken night in Vegas type of thing? Or what if it was one of those arranged marriages?”

“Arranged marriage in Greece?” I scoff, my temper flaring. “Not likely. What if she really loved him?”

“Loved would be your clue,” Jack says, gunning me down with a pointed stare. Of course, he’s on Thalia’s side. She can’t do no wrong in his eyes. He’s basically her bestie. “Past tense.”

Nico grabs his iPad, places it on the coffee table, and starts tapping the screen.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Asking Google.”

“What I should do?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “I worry about you sometimes, Theo. I’m trying to find any articles about the murder trial. You know the husband’s name?”

“Vasilis. Thalia’s from Thessaloniki, and her last name is Dimopoulos.” I squeeze the glass tighter, seeing red all over again. Fuck this shit. It’s probably his surname, not hers.

“We sure could use Thalia’s help with translating,” he says, but a beat later, he opens another tab in the web browser and lets Google Translate work its magic. “I’ve got something,” Nico says after a bit of back and forth between translating from Greek to English.

He pushes the iPad my way, taking my empty glass to refill it while I read a translated version of the article aloud, so we don’t waste time waiting for everyone to catch up.

A murder investigation has been launched after Vasilis Dimopoulos, aged 34, the Mayor of Thessaloniki, philanthropist, and presidential candidate, was found dead at his property late last night (Tuesday).

Police responding to a concern for welfare call-out shortly before 10p.m. discovered the body. The victim’s wife, aged 22, has been detained for questioning.

Detective Nikolaos Balaskas said: “We cannot speculate at this stage about what took place. We are working very hard to establish the circumstances of Mr. Dimopoulos’s death. We cannot rule out any possibility at this stage.”

Detectives investigating the murder are urging people to come forward to help them piece together the circumstances.

“Anyone who witnessed or heard anything suspicious in the area should contact us immediately. Cordons have been erected around the address, and there will be a heavy police presence in the area as we continue our investigation.”

“He was running for president?!” I snap, my blood boiling again. That sure doesn’t help the fucked-up situation. “Mayor and philanthropist versus plain old me.”

“You’re dumb,” Shawn clips, rolling his eyes. “I get that you’re riled up, but you don’t have to act so fucking stupid. She loves you, Theo.”

She does. I don’t doubt that for a second, but it doesn’t change the facts. I’m not sure what hurts more—that she was married or that she didn’t tell me. Both hurt, I guess, but the fact she didn’t trust me enough to share that piece of information sooner cuts deeper.

I hand Nico the iPad. He glances over the article again before he copies and pastes different paragraphs into the translator to find more information that may shed further light on the murder mystery.

The next one he finds confirms what we already know—Thalia was charged with murder. I know the scene initially looked like suicide, but articles relating to that little detail are vague, and there’s no description of what the scene actually looked like other than the guy was found in a bathtub.

Nico then stumbles upon an interview with Thalia’s parents and friends. “Listen to this. This is what Thalia’s father told the press. We no longer have a daughter. There are no words to describe how ashamed and outraged we are. We truly believe that justice will be served swiftly, and we expect the strongest possible punishment for this heinous crime.”

What kind of parent would spew such venom about their daughter? No matter what shit I’d get up to, my parents would never turn their backs on me.

“There’s more.”

He reads the statements of a few of Thalia’s friends, who unanimously repeat the same lines: ashamed to have known her, willing her to rot in prison. At the top of the page, there’s a picture gallery with images of Thalia’s parents standing in front of a vandalized house—broken windows, trash littering the front lawn, and graffiti marking the walls.

Nico flips through the gallery, showing us pictures of thousands of flowers laid outside Vasilis’s house, pictures of crowds standing outside the courthouse, holding nasty banners. And the one that makes my stomach somersault—a picture of my girl in handcuffs inside the courtroom, standing next to a lawyer whose arms are crossed. He’s nonchalantly looking away from his client as if representing her is a nightmare.

This isn’t how I imagined the trial. I’ve not had much time to imagine it, but I wouldn’t have pictured this regardless of how long I’d have to think.

Thalia was deemed public enemy number one. Everyone hated her, including those whose love and protection should’ve been unconditional—her parents.

I fight the impulse to vomit, bitter bile climbing up my throat. This must be why she never talked about her parents, friends, or anyone she left behind in Greece. This is why she dodged the topic at every turn.

No names, no stories, no pictures.

The murder accusations must be the reason why she came to America. To escape the hatred back home.

“That’s odd,” Nico says. “Two days before the end of the trial, all charges were dropped.” Deep creases line his forehead when he reads the article in silence. “No explanation. Vasilis’s death was ruled a suicide, and Thalia walked away without a mark on her record.”

He gives me the iPad, so I can read the concise and straight-to-the-point article. “That makes no sense.”

My mind splits in half. An unruly, prickly itch whizzes through me at the mere thought of the hell Thalia’s life must’ve been during the trial, but I can’t shake the main issue.

“She was married,” I remind them, my words coming a bit slurred now that I’m onto my fourth drink. “She wanted to spend her life with that guy.”

“They were married for eleven days, Theo.” Jack counters, throwing the little detail we learned from one of the articles back in my face. “That’s hardly a lifetime. We all have a past. I get why you’re upset, but you can’t hold her accountable for what she did before she met you. You did some crazy shit over the years, and I bet you didn’t tell her any of it.”

“Sure, we all have a past, but I was never married, and if I were, I would’ve told her about it before we got so fucking serious. I wasn’t even engaged. Fuck! I was never in love before I met her.” I massage my temples with the tips of my fingers. “I’m so confused.”

“Did she say why she didn’t tell you sooner?”

“I didn’t let her get a word in,” I admit, shame ringing in my voice. “I stormed out…”

Logan’s jaw tics, but the tone of his voice is measured and neutral as if not to rile me up further. “You won’t get to the bottom of this if you don’t talk to her. You read the articles. It sounds like she went through hell. I’m sure talking about it isn’t easy. She’s trying to forget it ever happened.”

“That doesn’t absolve her. She should’ve told me sooner. This isn’t trivial, Logan. I’ve been thinking about a future with her. Ring, wedding, kids… and now I find out there already was a fucking husband!”

“You’ve got some odd priorities, bro. She was accused of murder,” Nico clips, drilling a hole in me with his vicious, black stare. “That should concern you more.”

“The charges were dropped. She didn’t kill him.”

He doesn’t respond, staring straight ahead, jaw working in tight circles as he tries his hardest not to speak.

“You think she killed him?” I boom, my temper all over the place. “You have got to be kidding. You’ve seen her! You think she could overpower a guy?”

Nico seems to struggle not to let my attitude flip the rage switch in his head as he downs the rest of his drink. It doesn’t take him long to lose his cool. Sometimes it takes as little as a single misplaced word to earn a split lip or a black eye.

“I don’t know what happened, and neither do you. And you won’t unless you talk to her.”

That’s the problem. I’m so disconnected from reality I don’t think I can hold a conversation with Thalia without letting the emotions take the reins. Not filtering my words and spewing the tangled web of my thoughts is not the best idea. I’m sure I’d end up screaming things I don’t mean and regret them in the future. I need to sleep this off; rest, recharge, and arrange the sudden influx of unexpected and unwanted information.

We’ll have to talk at some point, but when the time comes, I need to trust myself to let her speak because all I want to do now is scream at the top of my lungs. She put a dent in my trust today, and that shit is hard to rebuild.