The Family Cross

by Gabrielle Ash

  “I’m the bitch?” I shouldn’t taunt him, but the words left my mouth anyway. “I shot you. You’re crying on a bookcase. I think you’re the bitch.”

  Hudson lunged forward, moving quicker than he had since the bullet tore through his hamstring. Given his moaning and desperate cling to the shelves before, I didn’t expect him to react so quickly. I ran toward the gun, but Hudson shoved me into the glass table as the barrel grazed my fingertips. The edge of the table hit right beneath my rib cage, knocking hot air from my lungs.

  “I hate you!” Hudson screamed, voice slipping up an octave at the end. He wrapped his arm around my neck, tucking my throat in the crook of his elbow, and squeezed.

  I threw my elbow back like Samson told me to. A sharp gasp loosened his grip, and I pushed all my rage and fear through my feet, ramming my head right into him.

  Hudson’s chin was a lot harder than I anticipated.

  Sharp pain zipped from my scalp down my spine. He completely let go of me, and I pushed away from him, trying to orient myself. Blurred vision. Not something I accounted for.

  Gun. Where was the gun? Hudson’s footsteps were close behind me as my vision focused. Forget the gun. Just get away!

  “You always acted better than me. You and Gerard both. I hope he dies in that hospital,” Hudson spat.

  I stumbled toward our father’s desk. Nameplate. Pens? Could I stab Hudson with a pen? Was that possible?

  My gaze focused on what I thought was a pencil. The Dartmouth letter opener.

  “I act better than you because I am better than you. You’ve done nothing to deserve anything you have, and when you don’t get what you want, you have your siblings murdered.” I snatched the letter opener and brandished it like a knife as we circled Milton’s desk. “Do you understand how insane that is?”

  “You know what’s insane? Our family. My entire life I listened to Dad complain. ‘Why can’t you be smarter like Gerard? Why can’t you work harder like Matilda?’” Hudson threw up his hands, face red and eyes wide. “‘Being good at golf doesn’t matter, Hudson! Getting an athletic scholarship is nothing to be proud of, Hudson!’”

  His words stilled my feet. The hand clamped around the letter opener dipped.

  My father treated Hudson terribly too?

  “When I got kicked out of Dartmouth, I wanted to apply to Yale. Try again.” Tears leaked down his face, and even as his hands shook with desire to tear my heart out, it trembled in sympathy. “He wouldn’t let me. He said it didn’t matter. The company mattered, and I needed to take care of it because it would be mine.”

  Rolf’s monstrous screech echoed in the lobby. Samson better make it out of there!

  “When Blair told me he was giving the company to you”—my heart stopped—“I thought, what the hell? I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Why not do something about it?”

  I’d been so caught up in Hudson’s pain I didn’t see it coming.

  Hudson picked up my father’s nameplate and hurled it at me.

  I jumped to the left, the nameplate missing my face by mere inches, and stumbled. The letter opener slipped from my fingers, and I slammed on the carpet. Footsteps shook the floor.

  I tried to push myself to my feet, but Hudson tackled me back down. Visions from the night Farrell attacked me came back full force when Hudson climbed on top of me, straddled my body, and wrapped his hands around my throat. He squeezed.

  “Father hates me. Gerard hates me. You hate me.” One of his tears slid off his chin and fell on my forehead. “Marie hates me. My own daughter hates me.”

  My throat burned as air tried to escape his grip. Fire tore through my body and pressure built beneath my rib cage. The air had nowhere to go. I clawed at Hudson’s hands, but he didn’t budge.

  A memory came to me unbidden. Samson. Training. The living room.

  Realization dawned, and I shoved the instant disgust deep down.

  I jammed my thumbs in the corners of his eyes.

  Hot blood leaked out of his eyes, poured along my thumbs, and trickled onto my chest. Hudson jerked back, removing his hands from my neck to press against his eyes instead. A sharp, painful burst of air shot out of my mouth.

  To my right, the letter opener. I threw out my hand. It grazed cold metal.

  “You bitch!” Hudson moved to strike, blood running down his cheeks.

  As darkness crept into my vision and guilt swallowed me whole, I picked up the letter opener and slammed it into Hudson’s neck.

  There had been several scenarios I’d imagined on the way to the Ashby Building. Stabbing my brother with my father’s letter opener hadn’t been one of them. I scrambled out from beneath him, but not before blood sloshed onto my stomach and thighs. The floor moved under my hands and knees, and my vision clouded.

  I stabbed him.

  I stabbed my brother.

  Another gasp for air echoed in the room, but it wasn’t mine. Hudson took his last breath behind me, and I couldn’t force myself to watch.

  Forty-One

  The forty-sixth floor had gone from chaos to silence. Either Samson or Rolf remained alive in the next room, but my hands and knees were rooted to the ground. If Rolf had escaped Samson’s blades, in moments I’d join my telepathic friend in Hell, and I couldn’t say I didn’t deserve it.

  I’d killed my brother.

  A wail tore out of my throat. My arms shook as they held me up, somehow both tired and determined. If I moved, I’d have to look at Hudson’s dead body. If I moved, I’d have to see what I had done.

  I didn’t have many happy memories of my brother. He’d been placed on a pedestal the moment he greeted the world, a pedestal that sat so much higher than where I stood, I never got much more than a glimpse of him. Had he been lower to the ground, maybe I would’ve seen his pain like I’d seen Gerard’s. Maybe if my father had loved his children equally, or loved them at all, things would be different.

  But imagining a different life didn’t change the one I had.

  “Tilly?”

  A voice I feared I’d never hear again sliced through my being like a thousand knives. I turned my head a little, just enough to catch a glimpse of him. If I weren’t careful, I’d see Hudson.

  Samson, drenched in Rolf’s blood, stood in the doorway. Black oil covered his face, dripped from his ears, and ran down his nose. His dress shirt had been sliced to ribbons, revealing skin coated in both black and red. A gun hung limp in his hand. I would’ve been concerned it was Rolf in disguise, but only Samson called me Tilly. No one else.

  I stared at him, a sob escaping my throat when I saw his gaze flash behind me. Where Hudson’s corpse lay still.

  He tucked the gun into his holster and came to my side.

  Warmth encircled me, his arms drawing me close in a fluid scoop as he knelt to the floor. Samson pulled my back to his chest, his face positioned beside my ear. Loud, ardent sobs racked my body as I sank into him, comfortable yet ashamed.

  I killed him. I killed him. I killed him.

  “You did what you had to do.” Samson pulled me in his lap. We were both filthy and covered in blood, but I don’t think either of us felt it. Not really. “You did what you had to do, Tilly. There’s no shame in it. If you hadn’t killed your brother, he would’ve kept hurting people. I think you know that.”

  “I know.” The words left my mouth in a dry rasp. “So why does it hurt?”

  Samson squeezed me tighter and slowly rocked back and forth. “Because you cut out some of your soul. Remember what I said? With every person you kill, you leave a part of your humanity behind with them. Trust me…I remember the first time I left a part of me behind. I was ten. It sucked.”

  My ribs curled and crushed my heart.

  “But you did it to stop a monster.” Samson smiled against my face. I could feel his lips turn. Proud. “You sacrificed a piece of your soul to stop a monster. A real one. That’s more than most can say. That’s more than most are willing to give.”

  I squee
zed his forearm tighter.

  “That’s not so bad, right?” he asked.

  And maybe it wasn’t. Maybe tomorrow I’d wake up and feel better about it. Maybe one day I’d look back and see good in what I’d done. But right then, I couldn’t find it in myself to be happy. I couldn’t be proud of taking a life, especially when that life had been closely intertwined with mine.

  The only thing that didn’t seem so bad right then was the warmth. Samson was warm. I’m not sure why that surprised me. I’d always assumed he’d be cold, inhuman, a husk around a dead heart. A hit man wasn’t supposed to be warm. But he was.

  “You’re safe now,” Samson said, still holding me tight. I didn’t want him to let go. Not yet. Not ever. If he did, the rest of my soul might shatter. “Hudson is dead. Frank isn’t going to send people to kill you if no one is going to pay him.”

  My tears lessened simply because there weren’t many left. “What about you? Will he stop hunting you?”

  Samson stilled before taking a deep breath. “No. He’ll never stop, especially if I’m killing his investors.”

  The thought gave me pause, pulling me from the temporary comfort I’d found. Samson noticed, and his embrace loosened so I could look at him. “Hudson said Blair told him my father’s plans were originally to give the company to me. But that would’ve had to have been months ago.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “At the hospital, my father told me he changed his mind when he asked me to date Richard and I did. He said I didn’t have a backbone, so he gave it to Gerard instead.” The whole situation left a bitter taste in my mouth, especially since I sat covered in Hudson’s blood. “That was over three months ago.”

  Samson’s lips thinned. Hopefully, he didn’t get Rolf’s blood in his mouth. “So why wait so long? Is that what you’re getting at?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Why wait three months? If I was inconvenient to an investor, wouldn’t it make more sense to kill me quicker? Why drag it out and risk a transfer of shares in the meantime?”

  We sat in silence. I turned a little, nestling my head against his chest underneath his chin. The stink of Rolf drifted into my nose, but I curled up closer. “Can we go home?”

  “How do you plan on explaining our state to anyone at your condo?”

  “I don’t care.” My brother lay dead a few feet away because I stabbed him in the jugular. I couldn’t possibly care any less what the parking garage attendant thought right then. “Take me home.”

  He chuckled, chest vibrating beneath my cheek. “What Fancy Pants wants, Fancy Pants gets, I guess. Cat is probably wondering where we are anyway.”

  “What are we going to do about Hudson though? My prints are all over that letter opener.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I don’t want to go to prison.”

  “I’ll replace it real quick. I’m sure there’s another one somewhere in this shithole—”

  Music drifted through the air, piercing the calm after our storm with such finality my heart flew into my mouth.

  A ringtone.

  Samson pulled away a little. “That’s your brother’s phone, I think. It’s coming off him.”

  I couldn’t look at Hudson, so the phone could keep ringing for all I cared.

  “Maybe it’s Frank.” Samson completely separated himself from me. My body grew cold, ice where his warmth had been. “I’d like a chance to gloat. Fucking asshole.”

  Frank could be calling? The thought of hearing the elusive demon’s voice prompted me to turn around.

  Samson knelt by the collapsed body of my brother, a pool of blood collecting around his boots. I tried my best to avoid looking at Hudson’s face, but the letter opener stuck straight in the air, protruding out of his neck like a candle on a cake. It took everything I had not to vomit.

  “Damn.” Samson scowled at the phone screen. It had stopped ringing, but that hadn’t been why he cursed. “It was your boyfriend. Not Frank.”

  Hudson’s phone sounded again, and Samson’s eyes widened.

  “What?” I asked, voice so quiet I questioned if I spoke at all.

  Samson’s lips thinned, and he slid the phone along the carpet toward me. It hit my bloodied fingernails, and it pinged again. Three messages, all from RICHARD JONES, in quick succession:

  We had a deal.

  You’ve fucked me over for the last time.

  I’m coming up.

  Forty-Two

  My mouth fell open as everything in the last month flashed through my mind in an amalgam of colors and voices. Three months. Three months. The only thing out of the ordinary that had happened to me, barring meeting Samson, was dating Richard Jones. The gap between my father’s choice and my contract started to make a lot more sense.

  “I can’t believe this.” I stared at the phone. That idiot. That asshole!

  Samson stood and walked over to me. “Well, it’s in writing. Can’t get much more black and white.”

  He offered me a hand and pulled me up, guiding me around the blood on the floor. Blood had seeped between my toes at some point, staining them a rusty brown. My mind went back to Richard as Samson and I walked out into the hall. Richard and I started dating three months ago. During that time, what other significant things happened?

  To me? Aside from meeting Samson and falling into a supernatural hellscape, nothing had happened. My work life had been the same. My lack of relationships with anyone, aside from my friendship with Eliza of course, remained the same.

  For Richard? A lot had changed. He went from sitting in a corner cubicle to getting a director’s position. Forget being a supervisor or a manager—straight to director. He apparently even received access to government accounts that even I couldn’t see, and I had control over an entire region.

  Realization hit me like a sack of bricks.

  Samson didn’t wait for me to say anything because he didn’t need to. Edgar Jones’s office sat across the hallway from my father’s, and my companion didn’t bother to be polite in opening it either. After jiggling the door handle, Samson stepped back and kicked the door in, sending the handle into the drywall.

  We both went straight for the desk. I’d been inside Edgar’s office several times. My position put me directly under the supervision of the CFO, and large expenditures or deficits had to be reported to him directly.

  Edgar’s desk was much larger than my father’s, but his desk size actually served a practical purpose. Large surfaces were useful for laying out several invoices or spreadsheets. Aside from a fake Ficus in the corner and two leather chairs in front of his desk, the only other things in the room sat along the right wall: a row of filing cabinets.

  “Goddamn.” Samson grimaced when he flipped the light switch. “That’s a lot of paper. Aren’t you supposed to use computers now?”

  “Most people do. Edgar likes having a hard copy too.” I strode past him to Edgar’s desk. Edgar was organized. I’d give him that.

  “Why’re you looking there and not in those?”

  “Because there was a file Richard had the other day he shouldn’t have been carrying around. If it’s what I think it is, then I don’t think Edgar would put it away so soon. His son is incompetent, and Edgar is nothing if not meticulous.” My stomach turned as it graced a picture on Edgar’s desk. He sat beside his wife wearing a khaki suit and a teal tie. Was he dead? Had Rolf eaten him, or was he in on this whole thing too?

  I jerked open his top desk drawer. Pens. Paper clips. Letter opener. Don’t think I could ever use one of those again. I slammed the drawer shut and moved to the next one.

  Reports for the west coast.

  Reports for the central states.

  A stack of ten legal pads.

  “Where are they?” I growled and threw open another drawer. Why were there so many?

  “Richard said he was coming up. It’s about to not matter.” Samson already had his gun back in his hand.

  “It does matter.” I opened one of the bottom drawers. A plastic tray w
ith several paper clipped stacks sat inside. Bingo. “Found it.”

  There were a variety of accounts Edgar apparently had his eye on, but I only sought after one. Blood from my fingertips smeared along the white paper as I flipped. Where was it?

  Gas company. Car dealership. School district.

  Government contractor.

  I tossed the other accounts aside and scanned the cover sheet. This was it. The account Richard had in the elevator.

  “Sam.” I flipped over the cover sheet. “Does the name Baltasar Brandt mean anything to you?”

  “No.” He grabbed the packet of paper from my hands and pointed to the company logo, showcasing a nail bed discolored from fae blood. “That does though.”

  The longer I stared at it, the more it made sense. A target with seven rings. Circle Seven.

  I bit my lip. What did Edgar have to do with my hit, if anything? I’d expected everything to neatly piece together, and it hadn’t happened.

  Edgar Jones was the person who had Circle Seven’s account in the first place. Looking at the account information alone wouldn’t tell you who they were or what they did. There was no way Richard figured it out by fingering through the packet. Which meant Richard would’ve had to know who they were prior to getting ahold of this information.

  My head had its own heartbeat now. Richard was coming up. No sense in obsessing when we could make him talk. “Well, we have proof, but given the situation we’re in, it doesn’t do us much good. It’s not like I can take him to court.”

  “A bullet’s cheap and doesn’t discriminate.” Samson pushed himself up on the desk and sat on it, gun trained on the open door. “Best sort of law I know.”

  I wanted to protest. I wanted to feel gut-wrenching remorse swelling inside my chest as my heart parsed right from wrong. More than anything, I wanted to feel guilt and shame that I could even find it within me to consider Samson’s proposal.

  But I felt absolutely nothing, even as the familiar voice of Richard Jones echoed in the lobby.