All Chapters of Withstanding the Odds: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

It's been three days since our amazing holiday. Three days of pure and relinquished bliss. Three days of holding onto a potentially dangerous secret. Bronson still does not know about Anabe, he doesn't know about my role in coming here in the very beginning and I fear that once he finds out, we will be over.I know I have no choice. He needs to know, and I have to get him to understand the severity in the situation, but I have no idea where to start. I'm being a coward, I know that, and given that Bronson is the thing I lose when this all blows up in my face, is the reason for my cowardly motives.My decision today of telling Rand before Bronson is exactly that. Cowardly.Bronson left for work over an hour ago, and although I still have until Monday before work begins for me, everything could go wrong between then and now. This is the moment I must take advantage of.Only I have no idea how to do that.I call Rand praying it does not go to voicemail and breath out a breath of reli

Rushing past the doorman, I take the elevator up to the penthouse, my body anxious to get to Bronson.After Rand and I spotted him drunkenly incoherent at the breakfast bar, Rand had called him, only to have it go straight to voicemail. We couldn't hear Bronson, but we made out a few words like, backstabbing and traitor. Not understanding what must have clearly went down, there was only one thing I could do. Got to him.I told Rand to stay there, while I spoke with Bronson alone. It was clear he had sent Nadia home, and I didn't know if Anabe or Brody and Mick were following me. The last thing we needed was to throw them off by showing me with Rand. He was my ace in the hole and I needed him hidden for now.My foot bounces anxiously as the elevator takes me up and I ponder in my head for the hundredth time, what could have possibly happened. Rand went back into the video and saw that it was Bronson that destroyed the penthouse. It was hard watching as he destroyed everything around

I don't notice where I am walking until I look up and spot the Serendin Atlas in front of me. How ironic that Bronson kicked me out and this is the first place I turn, the place that is currently trying to destroy him, destroying me along the way. I didn't know where to go, I could have stayed on the streets or even strapped myself inside a rundown hotel until the morning where I would undoubtedly go over and try speaking with Bronson again.The words he spewed at me come returning to the forefront of my mind and I cringe at his last statement about my parents. The pain registers from back when my aunt came out of her house in tears to explain to me and Brody that our parents were gone and never coming back. Since that moment, I have always wanted to make them proud. I wanted them to know that I was taking care of Brody and keeping us safe, but Bronson was right. I failed them. I haven't kept us safe, neither of us have our high school diplomas, Brody is constantly high and I'm a f*ck

Matt stares me down but eventually nods his head and steps back. I know they don't trust me and based on the way Brody looked when I saw him outside of my work, he is a big part of that. Brody has no doubt been running his mouth about the scheme and with the other's stuck inside these walls since Rand's friend is having them all watched, they're on edge. I do not blame them for being upset, but I do need my own questions answered."Now, someone needs to tell me what happened.""Mick and Charles told us how you went the other way. Planned on turning us all in and staying with that tool bag Fortworth." Amy states as she tends to the moaning Alfonso. "I suppose I can say that isn't true since you're here right now looking like a deer caught in headlights?"I shake my head; anger pours through me at the lies and deceit Mick threw around about me. But that only answers one of my questions. "What about my brother? Where is Brody and what the hell would this all have to do with Alfonso?"

My head pounds as though a mallet steadies a knocking rhythm against my skull. I peer open my eyes only to shut them immediately when I feel the sun pouring in from my bedroom window. Sitting up, I cover my face and scrub my hands down my face, feeling the need to immediately lose my dinner from last night.Dinner. Something I never even had. I stayed up most of the night drowning my insecure thoughts into three different bottles of scotch. I started the moment I left work early after speaking with Anabe and never stopped. Even Landen, when he picked me up from the bar, I had taken a cab to, did not recognize me.Thoughts of yesterday come swarming at me as I look around hopelessly looking for a sign that Nikki never left, that she stayed by my side last night. Why do I want her here? Not when she lied about everything from the beginning.What I fool I was to trust her.Even so, I grab my phone cursing when I see it's dead and place it on the charger. I don't know the whole truth