“I like to think of her as your own personal Lady Macbeth, but with a much lower IQ. Una was jealous of the time you’d spent with my mother. In fact, she despised my mother for taking your attentions away from her. She wanted her out of the picture, so she convinced you that setting fire to our house would be a good idea. That the fire department would arrive in time to save our lives, but that once the house was destroyed, my parents would sell the land to you in a heartbeat. So, like men who let their cocks lead them the world over, you did as Una suggested. Only the fire department didn’t get there in time, did it, Brian?”
Jay stands now and takes a step toward him, his passion growing by the second.
“You orchestrated all of this because that fire killed your family?” Brian responds, and takes a step back, the wind gone out of his sails.
“Yes, but wait, there’s more,” says Jay. “You got our house, but there was another one you needed to buy up in order for your building project to go ahead. The family who lived in this neighbouring house were just as adamant not to sell, because they loved their home too much to move somewhere else. You were no stranger to threatening people to get what you wanted, so you had your men break into the house one night with the intention of putting the frighteners on them. One of your men took things a little too far, though, and shot the wife. Do you know whose wife that was, Brian?”
“This was all a long time ago,” Brian mutters, sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“I didn’t think you’d remember, which only proves you deserve everything I’ve done to you. I know we’re not the only ones who’ve suffered because of the things you’ve done. You’ve fucked up so many lives that you can’t even keep count anymore. It made you rich, I’ll give you that. But you know what they say, Brian, behind every great wealth is a great crime, and your crimes are insurmountable. Still no idea whose wife it was?”
Brian lifts the gun higher. “Fuck you. I don’t care. I don’t bloody care. You’ve completely fucked me.”
Jay stubs out his smoke and gets up from his seat. What he says next makes me feel like fainting. “It was Hugh Brandon’s wife. The same man who represented me in court. The one who brought down your entire newspaper, everything you’ve built by being a selfish, evil degenerate. It’s all quite poetic, isn’t it?”
I turn around and sink to the floor as the puzzle pieces fit themselves together in my head. When I was little, my neighbours’ house burned down, and Jay was that boy, the one I used to play with and take care of. Una Harris and Brian Scott were the reason that house burned down. They were the reason my family was torn apart by my mother’s death.
The reason why Jay did this.
He did this for us. For my family and for his. Tears fill my eyes, grief and gratitude melding into one.
Brian’s voice is calmer now, but not in a good way. I try to pull myself together enough to pay attention to what’s happening. Slowly, I stand back up, scanning Jay’s apartment for anything that resembles a weapon. I still have the pepper spray clutched in my hand, but I’m not sure if it will help. What if Brian pulls the trigger as a reflex when I spray him?
Unfortunately, if what he says next is anything to go by, he’s going to pull it anyway.
“Thanks for clearing that up for me, Jason. Now I can do what I came here to do,” says Brian in a dead, monotone voice.
“You gonna shoot me? Go ahead,” says Jay, and that’s when his eyes move to mine. He knew I was here all along! He makes some sort of subtle nodding gesture to the spray I’m holding, but I don’t know what it means. Does he want me to use it? Not use it?
I only have seconds to decide, and right before Brian pulls the trigger, I dive out onto the balcony, aiming right for his eyes. Brian wails when the spray hits him, and the gun goes off. Jay jumps right over the edge of the balcony, and I gasp in shock. I think the bullet still hit him. Brian lets the gun drop as he clutches his face, and I grab it.
Sweat is pouring out of me and my heart is racing, my chest heaving. I have never held a gun before in my life, but I point it at Brian just as several uniformed men burst into the apartment. They take the gun from me, and I let them, shock kicking in. They handcuff me, but I don’t have words to explain to them what happened. I’m staring at the railing Jay just jumped over, but then I notice a pair of hands holding onto the edge.
Relief floods me as he pulls himself back up onto balcony.
He didn’t jump. He’d been holding onto the bar. There’s blood on his shirt from where the bullet grazed him. I focus on that as he talks angrily to the officers, instructing them to take the handcuffs off me right away. He goes on to tell them that the gun belonged to Brian and I was only defending myself. Once I’m uncuffed, Jay walks me over to his couch and sits me down, rubbing soothingly at my shoulders and staring at me with soulful, expectant eyes. I hear him telling the officers that there’s a security camera out on the terrace, and they’ll be able to see everything that happened in the footage.