Baek stared at him, no expression whatsoever on his face. He merely took another sip of his drink and faced the view. “Go kiss Father’s ass, golden boy. Let me get on with my life.”
Seok stood, shaking his head. He curled his lips as he watched Baek. “Do you really not understand all this? Do you really think you had no fault in it?” He was trying, really, to understand what the hell was going on in Baek’s brain.
“Fuck off, Seok. You’re boring.”
He was so done with his brother. Without another word, he left, slamming the door behind him so hard it shook the glass.
The interaction with Baek set the tone for the rest of the day. Seok was sick of having nothing to do. Father was gone, his studies were finished, and Seok had no outlet for his anger. He stomped around the house, taking food from the kitchen and bringing it upstairs to eat in his room.
By the time the afternoon rolled around, he was crawling out of his skin. He went downstairs for the fortieth time for no reason and found his mother putting on her coat.
“Seok” She greeted him, accepting her purse from one of their staff. “Baek is refusing to answer his phone and his bedroom door is locked. Will you please get him for me? We’re going to be late meeting your father.”
“What are you doing?” he asked, glad for some human interaction, even if it was about Baek.
“Meeting lawyers.” That was it. That was all he was getting. Mother cast a glance toward the staff and Seok understood. They’d already been too emotional and given too much away. Mother was hyper-vigilant about their reputations and must have been worried that someone would share something they weren’t supposed to.
Baek was the last person he wanted to see, but he nodded. Like Mother had said, Baek’s door was locked and he didn’t answer when he pounded on it. “Baek!”
Nothing.
Lucky for his mother, as children, Baek and Seok had made a game of breaking into each other’s rooms to mess with each other. He went into his room, found a wire coat hanger, and stretched the curved hook as much as he could. All he had to do was stick it into the knob and the lock popped out.
“Baek!” He opened the door, hit again with that musty, musky scent. It was even stronger now, overlaid with a tangy alcohol he couldn’t place. Gin maybe.
His brother was on the balcony. No wonder he hadn’t heard. The door was closed and Baek had a blanket over him and a drink next to him.
Rapping on the glass, he waited for Baek to turn around and look at him, but he didn’t. He rapped again, and he sighed.
“You don’t have to ignore me.” He slid the door open and stepped out, only to freeze.
As soon as he saw Baek’s face, he knew. He knew why he hadn’t answered the door. He knew why he didn’t respond to him tapping on the glass.
One arm sat on his lap, the blanket tucked under it. A belt lay across his wrist, looped loosely like it had slipped down Baek’s arm.
The needle was still in his skin, sticking in the crease at his elbow.
Ashy skin. Blue lips. Eyes half closed, unfocused and unseeing.
Baek was dead.
His brother was dead.
Stumbling back, he smacked into the glass before he came to himself. Then he yelled. He wasn’t sure for what or who, he just yelled as loud as he could before he dragged Baek out of the chair and laid him on the ground.
He pressed his lips to his brother’s cold ones, trying to force air into his lungs even though he knew it was pointless.
Someone behind him screamed. The noise filled his ears, but none of it made sense. All Seok could do was push against Baek’s chest, trying to bring him back, but knowing all the time it wouldn’t work. He was too late, and his brother was dead.
As he was pushed aside by emergency personnel, he had the worst thought—one that would occur to him in the future and one that wouldn’t stop horrifying him.
Things should be easier now.
Chapter 19
Nora
The door to Seok’s room was closed. She knocked on it lightly, smiling at Apollo as he walked by on the way to his own room.
“Knock louder,” he suggested, and she did, listening closely for footsteps but there was nothing.
A pale hand reached in front of both of them and slammed against the wood. “De rien,” Matisse said, striding into his room.
Apollo—coward—booked it for his room and closed the door just before Seok forcefully opened his.
Eyes widening when he saw her, he drew back. “Are you okay?”
She fixed a smile on her face, turning back to him. “Yes.” Her face was hot.
He studied her for a moment and then grinned. “Who was it? Apollo? Tisse?”
Because she wasn’t a snitch, she shrugged. “No idea.”
Seok crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Want to come up?”
“That’s why I knocked.” He seemed okay. His limbs were loose and that tightness around his eyes and jaw was gone. And he was joking—that had to mean he was okay.
Following him upstairs, she tried to formulate a sentence that wouldn’t be intrusive but would still get him to spill his guts. She had to walk a fine line between interrogator and concerned girlfriend.
Finally, she settled on, “How did it go?”
Seok sighed, dropping into a leather chair. It had to be one of his rehab projects. The leather looked buttery soft and the wood shone like it had just been polished. He ran his hands along his jeans, shrugging. “Not great. My father is unhappy with my decisions.”
Nora perched on the bed. “So you made a decision.”
His long fingers drummed on his knees, then he pulled them back, then drummed again. A moment later, he began to bounce his knee. Whatever his decision had been, his body language gave away how unsettled he was.
“I did. I told him I’m not coming back. He reminded me I’m his only son and it’s my duty. I let him know I have my own family and a job I love.”
His own family. Was it wrong that it melted her heart to hear that when it so clearly had been a difficult conversation? But he thought of her as family.
“What did he say when you told him that?”
“He wants to meet you and to see what I’m doing.” Seok looked out the window. The sun had disappeared as the day had worn on and now everything was gray.
“He’s visiting?”
Shrugging, he studied the outside. “He’s never been here before. Never bothered. I can’t imagine he’d take time away from the company to see me. There’s an ulterior motive.” Turning to her, he grimaced. “Hopefully, he won’t stuff me in a suitcase and bring me back to Seoul.”
Even though he’d deliberately sat away from her, she wanted to hold him. She pushed off the bed and went to him, sliding into his lap. “He’s going to be proud of all you’ve done. Look at this house. And whenever I drive with one of the guys, they point out some of your buildings.”
“Do they?” He seemed surprised by it.
“Yeah.” They were so proud of Seok. There was a building downtown with cornices and fancy inlaid sculpture that Matisse had shown her. Cai pointed out the furniture he’d built for the youth center, and Ryan had hinted at some massive project on the outskirts of Brownington he’d actually helped with. “I haven’t seen all of it. Like the barns Ryan talks about.”
“Do you want to?” He stroked her back, almost as if he didn’t realize he was doing it, and paused when he asked the question.
“Yes,” she answered immediately. “Now?”
He leaned away just enough to study her. “I have nothing to do and I could use a distraction.”
She bounced, excited. “Yes!”
He patted her legs and she got up, waiting as he grabbed a leather jacket folded on a footrest and his car keys. “There will be traffic.”
“Don’t care.”
Laughing, he held his hand out. “You need boots. And a jacket. It’ll be cold there. The wind whips across the fields toward the bar
ns.”
“Downstairs.” Her jacket and boots were by the door.
They went down to the second floor, but Seok stopped her before she went down to the foyer. “Hold on a second. Ry!”
Ryan’s door opened a moment later. His hair was messy, like he was running his hands through it. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to show Nora the barns. Want to come?”
His grin went from ear to ear. “Of course, I do.” He disappeared inside his room and came out with his peacoat and a scarf. “You’ll need your boots,” he said to Nora.
It might annoy some people to have more than one person tell them the same thing, but they hadn’t grown up the way she had. Repetition wasn’t nagging, it was caring. And it was the best.
Their voices brought Matisse and Apollo out of their rooms, but neither wanted to come along with them. Matisse didn’t feel like being in the car, and Apollo had studying to do and wanted to catch up with Cai when he came home later in the evening.
Both of them let Nora know she’d need boots and a jacket.
By the time she walked out the door, even though the temperature had dropped ten degrees, she was warm inside.
“What are you grinning about?” Ryan asked, opening the back door to Seok’s car. Before he could get in, she slid inside.
“Long legs in front,” she told him. Besides, she liked being able to observe them. Each one of the guys had a unique relationship with one another. The way Seok and Ryan interacted was totally different than the way Matisse and Seok did.
Ryan narrowed his eyes, as if he were about to argue, but she stared him down. Shrugging, he shut her door.
Victory.
“You helped with the barns,” she said once he was inside and buckled.
Seok adjusted his rearview mirror and backed out into the road. “He did.”
“It was community service,” Ryan clarified. “And I pretty much just held the tape measure and moved cars.”
Seok chuckled. “That’s how we met.”
“I thought you met when your frat knocked into his model.” He had gone into great detail about that event. When he’d told her the story, she could see he still carried a measure of guilt about it. He and his frat brothers had gotten drunk at a party meant to celebrate Seok, and one of them had fallen into the model, smashing it to pieces.
From his side of things, Ryan portrayed himself as a giant asshole who went around fucking things up, but Nora had read the hurt behind the black and white retelling.
“You had to help with the barns because you smashed the little one.”
“It actually wasn’t that little,” Seok said. “It was about five feet by seven feet, the whole model anyway. The specific barn his buddy landed on was maybe two feet, but to scale.”
“I can’t believe I’ve never seen them.”
“Yeah, I’m surprised, too,” Ryan answered. “I thought all the schools around here went on field trips.”
“To the big house,” she said. The barns that Seok had renovated were part of an estate built by some big wig around the turn of the century. It was one of Vermont’s few mansions that could rival the ones in Newport, Rhode Island. “The barns were never part of the tour because they were too run down and dangerous.”
“They were.” Seok wove between traffic, heading south and west. The sun was setting over Lake Champlain, and it glared in his eyes. Flipping down the visor, he stopped at a light. “It took heavy machinery to make it safe. The beams alone weighed hundreds of pounds.”
Turning off of the main highway, Seok drove down a street that skirted the lake. The houses here were newer and bigger than the ones in Brownington. Most of them had boat lifts and expensive cars. Nora stared out the window, watching as the lights clicked on as the sun set. She could see inside some of the houses, and it looked as expensive inside as out. “Wow.”
“Would you want a house like that?” Seok asked.
He rolled to a four-way stop, waiting in the line of traffic as each person took their turn.
She studied the house next to them and the lake right across the street. “Is it weird that all I can think about is, what they do if it floods?”
Together, Ryan and Seok burst out laughing. “Such a pragmatist.”
She smiled. “But really? Don’t you think about that? It’s low lying. I wonder if their basements flood. And they have to buy flood insurance. It’s so much money.”
“I think they have plenty.”
A Porsche’s engine revved as it accelerated by them. Yeah. They probably did.
Eventually, the scenery changed. Instead of fancy McMansions, the land was unclaimed. Long-haired cattle roamed in green fields separated by rock walls, picturesque and—not at all what she was used to seeing in Vermont. Black and white cows. Yes.
Shaggy brown ones? Not so much. “What are those?”
“They’re Highland Cattle,” Ryan answered. “The farm has cattle and goats, pigs and chickens. All kinds of farm animals.”
“Are they just for show?” she asked. “I want to come here when it’s not dusk so I can see better. This place looks like a scene from a British period piece.”
“Wait until you see the barns,” Ryan said.
“You don’t like it.” Seok’s tone was bland, but she got the sense he was a little bothered by her words.
“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s beautiful, it’s just… it’s like it’s too beautiful. It’s too picturesque. It’s fancy Vermont. Not real Vermont.”
“I see what you mean,” Ryan replied. “Where are the tractors and manure pits?”
“Exactly.”
Seok said nothing and she bit her lip. “It’s still beautiful.”
They came to a stop sign. Ahead of them was a red stone arch with the black iron scrollwork. It was too dark for her to read it. There was a gatehouse as they drove in, but it was empty and there was nothing blocking them from taking the long drive lined with huge maple trees.
Nora was transported. Sure the place wasn’t very farm-y, but it was amazing. It made her feel like she was driving in a carriage instead of a Volkswagen.
There was only a sliver of sun, shining through the treetops, but it was enough to illuminate the barns. “Holy shit.”
This was not a farm. These could not even rightly be called barns. The structures were giant, with turrets and stone. The roof of each was hammered copper, new enough that it reflected the sunlight like fire.
All around the perimeter were high walls, the same color stone as the gated archway they passed by to get here.
It was the single most beautiful place she’d ever seen. “They have to do weddings here. They have to.” She snapped her mouth shut. What in the world possessed her to talk about weddings? She was twenty-one years old with five boyfriends, not exactly someone looking to plan a picture-perfect event.
But it was so perfect.
Seok stopped the car, and she didn’t even realize it until her door opened. She got out like she was in a dream, gaze bouncing from one incredible detail to another, and the whole time she kept thinking, Seok did this.
Rocky paths led the way between barns and sheds, but the crowing of a rooster and baaing of sheep and goats muffled the sound of their feet.
“They have a chicken parade every day,” Seok told her, leading her toward one of the smaller buildings.
Blinking to adjust her eyes, she could barely make out chickens roosting inside. There was a sudden flurry of feathers as something jumped at her and she squealed, falling back.
Ryan and Seok laughed, not meanly, but as if they’d been startled, too. “What the hell was that?” Ryan asked.
“Demon rooster,” Seok answered. He stood on his tiptoes and it flew at them again.
“I thought chickens couldn’t fly.” Wasn’t that a thing? Like with penguins?
“Vermont girl doesn’t know that chickens can jump?” Seok teased. “And there’s no such thing as long-haired cattle.”
She elbowed
him in the side. “I don’t get up close and personal with chickens. The most experience I have is with the families who keep them in their backyard. Those things are like pets.”
“This guy is too, usually,” Seok replied. “But he’s on guard since it’s dusk. He’s making sure no foxes bother his ladies.”
When he put it like that, the rooster went from demonic to sort of sweet.
Behind them a light clicked on, the buzzing sound a background to the noises of the animals. She could see a little bit better, but she’d had enough of the chickens. “What else is there?’
Seok took her hand, leading her up a steep hill. Every so often there was a shed or lean-to, and inside was a farm animal. There were a couple of turkeys. A momma pig and piglets. One lonely donkey.
Nora stood at the fence, watching them. They stared where they were, eyeing the human strangers warily. Seok and Ryan stood a little ways off, higher up the hill, and she reluctantly left her perch near the standoffish donkey to approach them.
“What are you looking at?” she asked, facing the same direction they were, and caught her breath.
Holy shit.
Where they stood was backed up to the barns, and from here she could make out the entire layout of the farm. It was massive. Three separate buildings connected by stables. On the top of the center barn was a weathervane. Even from this distance, she could tell it was big but, “What is it?”
“A dragon,” Ryan answered. “Seok found it under a pile of shingles and timber in the hayloft. It had fallen through the roof.”
Finding Unity Page 9