Free Bound by Rapture by Megan D. Martin Page B

“Some things just aren’t meant to be, though.” 
    I glanced over at him. Vic had gone to the bathroom. 
    “Don’t say that.”
    He frowned. “You can’t seriously still want him after finding out he killed someone?”
    “It’s—” I didn’t even know what to say. It was the story of the other dead body that broke my heart. At first Cole had been convicted of two murders, the murder of his brother and the murder of Sandy Maddon, his younger sister. She had been found in the same house Garrett was murdered in, but in the second floor living room, hanging from one of the rafters. It hadn’t been until after the autopsy that the count of murder for Sandy was dropped and concluded as a suicide. 
    My heart ached as I thought about the portrait tattoo on his arm of the woman with dark, sad eyes. The wind blowing her hair around her face. 
    “She killed herself.” 
    Cole’s words from that morning so long ago rang through my head. Words he’d spoken to me only minutes before I stumbled onto his computer and found out he had been stalking me. He’d seemed so sad. So lost. 
    None of the articles gave any answers as to why Cole had done it. He’d pled guilty. And none of them said why Sandy killed herself, either. There was some speculation about money problems or some twisted love triangle, but nothing was concrete because Cole never answered those questions. I read multiple articles that said he refused to speak about the case at all to reporters. And people claimed his mother, Jennifer Maddon, who was typically very interested in the limelight that came with her son’s fortune, hadn’t spoken on the subject at all and neither did Elaine.
    “I just don’t understand how I didn’t know. How it wasn’t in the tabloid magazine that came out after Cole fucked me at Rapture X.” I shook my head, letting it all roll around inside. “The magazine discussed how it was a big deal that a man like him, of such high profile, would do something like that. But it didn’t say anything about him being a murderer. No one ever said anything about him being at the Rapture X shows, which are exclusive.” I let my words trail off as my thoughts caught up. “And he was at every one, as far as I know. Don’t you think that’s something we would have heard about? I don’t get it.”
    Chris shrugged and took a sip of his beer. He had his blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and wore basketball shorts and a t-shirt. “I don’t know, Jewel. People like that, people who have more money than sense tend to turn a blind eye to things.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean this whole murder thing happened years ago, over a decade ago. I’m sure a lot of them knew Cole beforehand, so maybe he did stuff afterward to earn back acceptance. Hell, maybe he bought his way back in, paying people off to forget. I think you forget just how much power there is in money, and wealth.”
    “Yeah, but the wealthy are talked about all the time and there’s nothing they can do about it. It’s part of being successful and in the limelight.”
    Chris took another sip of his beer. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I don’t know. Maybe there was stuff about it and you just didn’t see it? That happens. Big things happen all the time and we just miss them because we’re too focused on our own lives. Things slip right under our noses and we never notice until it’s too late.”
    I nodded. “You’re probably right.” My heart was in my throat, and I was sick from it. Cole hadn’t been fazed at all when he pulled the trigger that snuffed out Jay’s life. It hadn’t seemed weird to me because I had been dealing with my own shit. But now I realized he seemed eerily calm about it. Taking it all in stride as if he hadn’t just blown someone’s brains out. 
    “He didn’t try to have me killed. He didn’t hurt Mandi either,” I blurted, hating the direction my thoughts were going in. 
    “Come on, Jewel. Look what you’re saying. He