by Shen, L. J.
The three of us siblings spent the night sleeping by Da’s bedside, huddled together like when we were kids. The blood and urine test results came back the following morning.
It looked like my father had taken an enormous amount of warfarin, a blood thinner and also an active ingredient in many rat poisons. A drug that can easily cause death if taken in a certain quantity.
My father had been poisoned by a pro who knew what they were doing.
Not enough to kill, but definitely enough to deliver a message.
The weird thing was no one at the table had any motive to kill Da.
No one other than Mother.
“It’s not Mother.” I shook my head, standing in Cillian’s home office later that day, looking out the window as more snow fell and covered the rose garden and trimmed bushes, painting everything white. “It’s not.”
“Oh, come on, Ash. At the very least, it’s an option worth considering. They’ve been at each other’s throats for as long as I can remember.” Hunter massaged my shoulders from behind, still in his suit from the previous night.
We’d come here straight from the hospital, as soon as my father’s secretary took over and arrived there.
I whipped around, slapping his hand away. “No, Hunt. She is incapable of hurting a fly.”
That was not completely true. The only person Mother was capable of hurting was herself, and she did it often, but I didn’t want Hunter and Cillian to know about that side of her. They had enough on their plate, running Royal Pipelines and taking care of their families. Their wives were my best friends, and I didn’t want to hog my brothers’ attention by dragging them into the issues we were having at Avebury Court Manor.
“She is also the only person at the table with a hard-on to see Gerald return his equipment to the Almighty,” Cillian pointed out, taking a seat in his plush leather chair and lighting up a cigar, his legs propped up on his desk with his ankles crossed.
Something about my older brother rejected vulnerability, so I learned how to become robotically efficient in front of him from a young age. I didn’t allow myself to show too much emotion. Not for the first time, I found myself envying Persy and Astor. The way he looked at them so adoringly, like he was still hungry for something he already had.
I wondered if I would ever experience what my friends had. The kind of love that changes people from within.
“Let’s make a list!” I proposed, snapping my fingers, remembering how Sam planned to tackle my father’s sex scandal. “Of who was there. Then we can go through it and dig deeper.”
“All right, Sherlock.” Hunter lounged on the settee by the window overlooking Cillian’s garden. “Let’s see, there was Xander, Rooney, and Astor, all of them under three years old …”
“Astor’s been teething. He can be a mean little thing when he is teething,” Cillian pointed out sarcastically, causing Hunter to laugh and me to roll my eyes.
“Rooney has a mean streak, too. But she usually pees on the carpet when she seeks her revenge upon us. Then there was Sailor and me,” Hunter said. “Neither of us have beef with Da. And you, Ash, don’t have a motive either.”
“Persephone and I are out of the question. My wife couldn’t hurt a fly if she tried, and I already have everything I ever needed from Gerald,” Cillian continued. “And then there’s Emmabelle. A distasteful excuse for a human being, sure, but I wouldn’t go as far as calling her a murderer.”
“Whoever did this didn’t try to kill him. They tried to spook him,” I pointed out. “But I agree, Emmabelle has no connection to Da whatsoever. What about Troy? Sparrow?”
“As far as I’m aware, Troy and Sparrow have no business with Athair. No reason to want to threaten him.” Hunter shook his head.
“Devon?” I wondered aloud.
Cillian somehow managed to look down at me, even from his position sitting. “No motive.”
“True, but he is not family.”
“Neither is Sam.” Cillian puffed on his cigar.
“I think we should keep an eye on him, too,” I said honestly, something clawing at my stomach when I thought about getting him in trouble.
Hunter jumped upright. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, keep an eye how …? We were joking, but … he’s my brother-in-law.”
“He is also the most corrupt man to walk this earth.” Cillian blew rings of smoke in the air. “I’ll deal with him. Sniff around. See what he is up to.”
“No…” I turned to face both my brothers “…I’ll do it. He won’t suspect me.”
“I suspect you.” Hunter’s eyes flared in alarm. “No offense, sis, but even Rooney knows Auntie Ash is in lurveeee with Uncle Sam. And I don’t mean you being patriotic toward the US of A.”
“But see, that’s what makes it so perfect,” I said desperately. “He will never see me as a threat or think I could harm him.”
“I don’t want him anywhere near you,” Cillian hissed.
“Well, tough luck, big bro. I’m twenty-seven. You can’t shelter me forever.”
“Wanna bet?” Hunter grinned. I shot him a look. Cillian sighed. We all wanted to wrap this up and go about our days.
“Fine. Ash, you can sniff around Sam. Just remember it is frowned upon to have sex with your target,” Cillian clipped. “I’ll check the Devon angle.”
“And I’ll pray for both your souls.” Hunter did the sign of the cross, rolling his eyes. “Because both of y’all are dumbasses who watch too much CSI. It’s Jane. She wanted to get back at Da for sticking his dick in the wrong hole and things got a little bit out of hand. Not the first time she did something drastic and threw a fit. Remember when he gifted her the butterfly garden after she found out he’d been screwing her own sister? Not that I ever liked this particular auntie, but she threw his Rolex collection into the food processor and set it to high.”
We had a butterfly garden at our house, built by my father to show Jane Fitzpatrick his undying love for her. A love that came with the price of $670,000 worth of luxury vintage watches he parted ways with.
“Thanks for the little trip down memory lane to remind me I am the spawn of two of the most disgusting people to ever grace the planet. Now, if that is all, I’d like to go back to running my company.” Cillian put out his cigar, standing up and walking briskly toward the window where I stood. “May the best man win, Aisling. You think it’s Sam, Hunter thinks it’s Mother, and I think Gerald has been spending too much time at the medicine cabinet and had an oopsie.”
But it wasn’t accidental. I knew.
Because Athair would never make such a mistake. He loved himself too much to overdose. As someone living under the same roof as him, I knew he was careful with his prescription drugs.
This was intentional.
All men at the table were cunning, smart, and capable, but only one of them had murdered someone before, to the extent of my knowledge, and would go to such extreme lengths with such ease.
Sam.
Gerald Fitzpatrick was a goddamn mess.
Everything about him screamed depression. He lost weight, a lot of it—at least forty pounds—had dark circles around his eyes, and looked like he hadn’t slept or showered in days.
He was a dead man walking, and I savored every moment of watching him like this.
“The hostile takeover for FMK Petroleum is well underway.” Cillian paced Gerald’s office, hands behind his back. “We just need to finalize the small print.”
FMK Petroleum had been buying off the oil fields Royal Pipelines had their eyes on for months. The Fitzpatricks were just the type of people to squash any competition before it became a threat. Monopoly was the Fitzpatrick game of choice, no doubt about that.
I knew that there were congressmen who wanted to see Gerald and his sons go down in flames for setting the pace and rules for the oil industry. Especially the Texas folks. Nobody hated the Fitzpatricks more than the Texans.
The Irish, New England outsiders who took over the industry.
“Sam
uel, are you ready to go?” Gerald asked.
I nodded curtly.
“Their CEO won’t say no to the deal. I dug up too much dirt on him. By the time I’m done, he’ll be happy to sell you his shares for a fucking Costco membership.”
“That’s my boy.” Gerald smiled weakly.
Fuck you, old man.
The stab of rage I felt each time he called me “my boy” was enough to make me snap.
“In terms of the paperwork, we’ve done our due diligence,” Devon, who sat next to Hunter, added. “All that’s left is to hope the CEO has pull with the shareholders.”
We talked shop a few more minutes before everyone said their goodbyes, shook hands, and drifted out of the room. All of them except Gerald and me.
I waited until the front door to Gerald’s study was closed and the coast was clear—as clear as it could be. Nix had eavesdropped on me once in this house, and I didn’t trust her not to do it again. Hell, I didn’t trust her with a fucking Espresso machine. She was both an ally and an adversary, depending on the day. I suspected she wasn’t even home. I hadn’t seen her Prius when I parked in front of the house. It was likely she had a shift of whatever the fuck she did for a living—note to self: find out and torment her with it.
The memory of my fingers deep inside of her haunted me. It had been a few days, and I couldn’t even bury myself in another warm hole because every time I went to Badlands to look for one, all the other women in the vicinity came up short in comparison.
At least none of them had stirred anything below the belt.
“Oh, Sam …” Gerald rubbed his face tiredly, flipping through his books.
“That’s the point where I’m supposed to ask how you’re doing, right, Gerry?” I sat across from him, lighting a cigarette.
“It is.” His chin quivered. “And the answer is terrible. I am beside myself. I moved out of my marital bedroom.”
“Ah, the old doghouse,” I said dryly, unable to scrap an ounce of pity for the man.
“The doghouse is better than sharing a bed with a bitch. I don’t want to be anywhere near her. She goddamn nearly killed me, Sam. And the worst part is she is still denying it. Trying to poison me. Damn woman.”
The fact that everyone suspected Jane Fitzpatrick was the person who poisoned Gerald was a new development to me but one I welcomed nonetheless. I wanted to toy with the man, to mess with his psyche.
“Have you made the list yet?” I probed. “The faster we get to the bottom of this, the quicker we can move on from this.”
I was referring to the list of mistresses he’d kept over the years. I’d insisted on him confessing to every single one. For research purposes, of course. “Jealousy and desperation for money are key aspects in trying to mess with someone,” I explained.
“I did.” Gerald puffed his cheeks. “Three nights it took me. Doing this made me realize something, you know, son? It made me see that I’ve been spending most of my time with women but none of it with the woman I was married to. Such a sad state of affairs. Ironically, I won’t be giving Jane more attention now, after what she put me through.”
“Hand me the list.” I ignored his little speech. I wasn’t in the mood for his fucking TED talk. If he needed to sit down and write the names of all the women he’d slept with while married to figure out his marriage was a sham, he had the IQ of the room temperature.
Reluctantly, Gerald opened the drawer in his desk, throwing me cautious looks. He clutched the papers—all fucking three of them—to his chest like a maiden protecting her virtue.
“There’ll be some names you might recognize on the list. I trust everything in this room is confidential.”
“Sure,” I spat out. I was a professional, yes, but this man fucked my mother. Then killed my brother inside her. Then convinced her to leave me.
I was professional but not a dumbass.
He dragged the list across the desk, and I snatched it, my eyes roaming, looking for the name I was waiting to see.
I recognized some of the women. A news anchor, a congresswoman, the former Secretary of State’s wife, and the daughter of a baseball legend.
But I did not see Catalina Greystone’s name.
I skimmed again. And again. And a-motherfucking-gain.
Still. Nothing.
I looked up from the pages, scanning him silently while my blood hummed. Anger was a potent spice. Too much of it dulled your senses. But I couldn’t help but feel irrationally cross. Why didn’t he put her name in there? Ah, but I already knew. He must be privy to the fact she died not too long ago and figured she couldn’t be behind the sex scandal leak and the poisoning since it was a little difficult to haunt a man when you were six feet under.
Truth was, Catalina posed no threat to him now, and I had no reason to call him out on it without outing myself as knowing about him. If I wanted a confession out of him, I needed to up my game.
I folded the pages and stood up, smiling.
“I’ll have a look.”
“Let me know if something pops up.” He rubbed his forehead, looking like a less-alive version of a roadkill. “I just want this nightmare to be over. I put extra cameras around the house to make sure I am protected. I want to believe it is not Jane, but with our history …” He shook his head, heaving a sigh.
Making my way out of his office, I wondered why the fuck I was so invested in making Gerald’s life a living hell. I didn’t care one iota about Cat. Sure, Gerald wronged me on a fundamental level, maybe even killed my half-brother, but did he really do something to throw my life off course in a negative way? If anything, I should thank my lucky stars Cat had left me with the Brennans when she did. Hell knew where I’d be if she stuck around to “parent” me.
For the first time, as I sauntered across the shiny marble floors of Avebury Court Manor on my way out, I wondered if maybe there was another reason why I enjoyed hating Gerald so much. Perhaps the excuse to hate the Fitzpatricks and everything they stood for was just too much temptation. Or maybe I always wanted to fuck Cillian and Hunter over—these two boy-men, who had everything handed to them on a silver platter from the moment they were pushed into this world.
I stopped by the door, shook my head, turned around, and made my way back into the house. I ascended the stairs to Gerald and Jane’s room. Jane was in her bed, sleeping soundly in the middle of the day. And by asleep I mean knocked the fuck out.
I strolled into his walk-in closet, took a safety pin from my pocket, unlocked his jewelry box, and went straight for the jackpot. The thing I knew Gerald valued the most.
The Fitzpatrick cufflinks he’d inherited from his dad. Seventh-generation Fitzpatricks, made of gold and engraved back in Ireland, where the family had nothing to their name other than these cufflinks.
His precious heirlooms. The cufflinks he’d refused to donate to a local museum in Boston, he loved them so much. I pocketed them, smiling.
“I put extra cameras around the house to make sure I am protected.”
Now he was sure to think the traitor was within.
On my way out, I spotted Aisling parking her modest blue Prius by the fountain. Snowflakes gathered over her head like a crown.
I could easily avoid her by getting into my Porsche and driving off, but where would be the fun in that?
She got out of her car wearing scrubs, flipping me the bird in one fluid movement, somehow still managing to look graceful as she stomped her way to her house.
“Nice scrubs. Shame you only put them on so your family buys your hospital story.” I chuckled. She froze for a nanosecond before resuming her walk to the front door.
I might not know every detail of her secret, but I knew enough to be able to make her life very miserable indeed.
Unsurprisingly, I made it a point to not want things that didn’t want me. It was a given, considering my life experience and history. And Aisling may have wanted me, but her family was going to keep us apart at any cost. Not that it was going to help them if I, i
ndeed, wanted Aisling. But as it happened, I rejected things and people who thought they were too good for me.
“Have a nice evening, Miss Fitzpatrick.” I tipped an imaginary hat her way.
“Burn in Hell, Brennan.”
“If there’s a God, that’s definitely His plan for me.” I ducked my head, entering my car.
“Oh, there is a God, and trust me, when He gets His hands on you, I’ll be waiting with popcorn.”
“Uncle Tham! Can I ride you?”
Rooney, Sailor and Hunter’s daughter, not even three, flung the door to Troy and Sparrow’s house open, throwing herself at me like a missile. She wrapped her pudgy arms around my leg then proceeded to crawl her way up to my torso like a mini soldier, until I scooped her, tucking her under one arm and holding her like she was a helmet. I waltzed inside the house where I’d spent my teenage years, kissing Sailor on the cheek then Sparrow.
“I wanna ride you.” Rooney giggled, still tucked under my arm as I exchanged pleasantries with my adoptive mother and sister. “Puh-lease.”
“After dinner, Roon Loon,” I said, messing her mane of tangled red hair. She looked exactly like Sailor, who looked exactly like Sparrow. Three generations of hellion banshees. Troy clapped my shoulder, and Hunter handed me a beer, which I took with my free hand.
“Auntie Emmabelle says all the girls at your club ride you,” Rooney continued from under my bicep, blinking at me in wonder.
“Auntie Emmabelle should have her mouth stitched shut.” I flashed Sailor a menacing look.
“I thought I was the only girl who can ride you.” Rooney wiggled free out of my hold, standing front of me. With one hand free, I reached for the table to grab an appetizer, but halfway through, Sailor tucked baby Xander into my arm so she could try to collect Rooney’s hair into a ponytail. It was impossible to avoid children in the Brennan household these days.
“Samuel, could you please hold either the baby or the beer? It doesn’t look good when you have both in your arms. Put one down and help me serve.” Sparrow wiped her hands with a kitchen towel, padding toward the kitchen to check on the Sunday roast she was working on. A weekly tradition.