by Fiona Keane
The bathroom door opened with a gust of cold air that broke through the steaming fog, Liam’s words mumbled through the burning waterfall above me.
“Julian,” he called, but I kept my eyes closed while considering each vein I would rip from Malcolm’s body with my teeth. The door to my shower swung open and, my head still pressed against the wall, I peered in my periphery to see Liam staring at me.
“You’ve been summoned,” he announced, his eyes blazing into mine with the same angst brewing inside me. He stuffed his phone into the pocket of his pants and crossed his arms. “This can play out two ways. You can fuck it up by admitting what you know and risk them killing Aideen, or you can give them what they want to keep her alive.”
“You’re insane,” I scolded as I turned off the water and reached for a towel.
“Julian, I know what they’ve done to her. I have seen her. Jesus! I did what I did to keep her alive. You think running in there and declaring your undying love for your sweet babby is going to gain sympathy? No! They’re going to kill her, Julian! God! Get your balls out of her mind and back in your pants.”
“Fuck you,” I snarled, wrapping the towel around my hips and storming by my brother. How dare he consider I wouldn’t break their plans and get my girl?
“Julian, stop. Just think.”
“And give them more time to torture her?” I turned to him, my nostrils flared with violent steam that flowed like a pissed bull.
Liam’s hands spread in the air before me, pausing my panic. “She’s breaking, but I’m her goddamned glue, brother.”
My glare shot to him like darts of death, my throat tightened as my lungs twisted around my heart and stopped all function. Her glue. My brother. I licked my lips in thought, trying to catch a breath.
“Because you love me…or because you love her?” I watched Liam expectantly, concerned when the normal arrogance of his character refused to show itself and he merely dropped his hands and hung his head. It was all I needed for a response, and I turned from Liam, quick to sort through whatever clothes he packed from my house.
“Julian, listen to me. I’m loyal to you, no matter where my feelings are. You and Aideen share something another soul couldn’t fathom experiencing. There’s no chance she would ever feel an inkling of what she feels for you with another man. Whatever I feel for her has nothing to do with what I’ve done. That’s entirely because I love both of you.”
“You’re right, Liam. There is no chance. And the longer I’m away from her, the less of a chance she and I even have. I need to know one thing from you right now. Tell me, on our mother’s life,” I paused while pulling a black sweater over my head, “where your loyalty falls and what you’re willing to sacrifice.”
Liam studied me with a deep exhale before responding. “She’s always been yours and you’ve always been hers. I will do anything for you to be together, to be happy.”
I finished getting dressed, knowing we were minutes from meeting our grandfather and answering his summons. Liam chugged two more glasses of scotch, his hissing reaction gaining my attention as I waited for him at the door.
“I will do whatever it takes to keep her alive, Liam,” I informed him as he quietly approached, wiping his mouth.
“Whatever it takes might break your heart.” His response elicited my curiosity.
“I’m going to get her back,” I threatened, comprehending the risk of my own death as we stepped through the doorway, understanding the risk of Liam getting his hands on the woman who secured my soul, the woman who gave me life, purpose.
“Let’s get your girl her wings, Julian.”
I spent the drive to our grandfather’s home pondering my brother’s revelation of his feelings for Aideen, but I was unable to question his loyalty. It didn’t matter if it was for me or us, but the fact Liam would do whatever it took to keep Aideen alive was all I needed to know, all I could hope as we embarked on whatever was next. I realized I didn’t need to question his loyalty to me because it was Aideen who meant more to me than life itself, and I would die for her to live. We all knew it…and so did they.
It was an uncharacteristic shock that Satan would answer his door without the help of his employees, but we stood across from our grandfather in the threshold of his home shortly after arriving. His blue eyes glistened with inebriant as he impassively observed Liam and me.
“Study,” he directed and turned, expecting Liam and me to follow as though there were no other option. There isn’t. Not right now. Liam walked ahead of me, first to arrive in our grandfather’s study. Satan moved to close the thick curtains before fixing himself a drink, which I assumed must have been his fifth or sixth, and Liam joined. I stood in the center of the room, arms crossed defensively while I waited for his plan of my death for causing embarrassment and a public scene. But I remembered, none of it was real. It was a goddamned farce.
“I spent the last few days covering your ass, Julian,” he announced, turning to stare at me with a tumbler against his lips. “But I realized you’re such an insufferably stubborn bastard that it would be drastically more efficient if I simply killed Miss Leary instead of dealing with your shortcomings.”
“And risk me killing you?” I growled, receiving his inebriated laugh in response. He never displayed a lack of control as he had with the drunken tinge of his words, the slur of speech that anchored the stare between Liam and me.
“You’re talking about innocent lives,” Liam muttered, approaching our grandfather. “Let’s focus on what’s important here.”
“Our reputation. Our lineage,” Satan bellowed. He winked at me, the slimy bastard laughing while walking to his wooden desk and pressing buttons on a remote. A small screen dropped from the ceiling, blocking shelves of antiquated books, with a bright blue glow flashing at us.
“Family movie night?” Liam groaned, swallowing a sip of his drink. I was desperate for something on my lips, but I knew it wasn’t liquor that would satisfy my pangs. It was Aideen. The screen flickered from blue to a grainy film. I squinted, nostrils flared and jaw clenched so tightly I felt a tooth crack beneath my tension. Aideen.
“You boys remember a few years ago when we took in one of the Byrnes who was tormenting your sister?”
I couldn’t take my eyes from the screen. My retinas melted at the sight of her body curled in a corner, held together by herself and no one else. She had nobody…except Liam. I looked at him from my periphery, terrified of removing my focus from the screen.
“It turns out the factory is still abandoned. Technically.”
“Technically,” Liam scoffed. “You’re filming her? You’re watching them torture her?”
“And watching you try to screw her, Liam. Yes.”
A stabbing pain pierced into my brain, slicing apart my resolve. Liam didn’t. Trust him. Don’t let this ingrate tear us apart. I stared at the screen, paralyzed as a voyeur of my lover’s mortification and abuse. The film was grainy, but I read her like my own heart. My blood boiled, pooling with tormenting agony that seared my soul. I felt helpless, unable to stop the damage done to her when someone entered the cell while I stood captive in the gamekeeper’s lair.
Liam remained near the alcohol, and strategically so because our loyalty couldn’t so quickly appear to dominate our grandfather’s before Aideen was with us. I heard our grandfather mumble into his phone while I watched with an aching heart as someone’s foot slammed into Aideen’s side. She folded over, unmoving in response. Good girl. Don’t let them see your pain. I would eviscerate that hurt just like I would destroy the person harming her.
I tried not to focus on the sound of our grandfather’s conversation behind me, but his hum in the background while I watched Aideen was a tragic soundtrack that performed like adhesive with the pieces falling heavily on my burdened soul. He was behind this as much as I feared, and my fear was that he would do whatever it took to keep Aideen and I apart. Whatever it took. I vowed to protect her at any cost, fully comprehending the value o
f my own life and how eager I felt to give it for hers to continue. It was that same loyalty that passed from generations, but mine wasn’t for corruption and power. It was for her, for us, our love, and for our fairytale. That desperation ran as fluidly through my veins as it did through Gordon Molloy’s, and it was with that I understood precisely how intertwined with our trauma he had been.
“How long have you been behind this?” I demanded, my narrowed eyes scouring the image of Aideen’s body projected before us.
“What exactly are you accusing me of, Julian Patrick? Containing my empire, protecting your future?” he snarled after tossing his phone onto his desk. Liam clinked the alcohol bottles, an obvious tremble of awareness.
“The orphan,” I repeated his description of Aideen spoken to me many times, “has no family. It’s suspicious family would act as power of attorney and order medical care when she was in the hospital.”
“Medical care?” Liam added as he stepped away from the alcohol, the clinking of ice in his glass accompanying his movements. “Such as, but not limited to, permitting deep brain electroshock therapy to rid her of—”
“Memories in the hospital,” I interrupted my brother. The overwhelming wave of nausea was difficult to keep down, as it met with boiling blood and steam in my throat. I focused on the screen, unable to cope with my debilitating guilt. I showered, was released by Liam, and stood on territory in which I knew the rules. Aideen, because of my love for her, curled into a ball while the next tally on my skin slammed their foot into her abdomen. I saw crimson, the curdled blood formed behind my eyes and pooled in my vision. I wanted to throw up. He did this to her.
I couldn’t catch my breath. Everything was fading, a blur of red and black that covered my eyes with a fog of unbridled revenge. I turned around to study my companions with urgency; Liam watched me, his head cocked while he read my thoughts, and our grandfather returned to his phone call. I barely contacted the ground as I ran to his desk, my weight pressed onto one palm as I jumped onto the surface and kicked the phone from his wrinkled hand.
Liam screamed profanities in the background, and I didn’t care to determine if it was to stop me or because I was finally doing what we’d planned our entire lives. Our grandfather stumbled backward, his body pausing only against the cart of shattering crystal bottles. His scotch washed along the floor in a golden waterfall and my feet slammed down into it with a splash as I approached, my eyes red and heart exploding.
The ability to speak vacated my function, and all I could do was grab the tie around his throat and wrap my fist in the silk. Liam shook my shoulders, barely snapping me from the haze. He called my name, but I couldn’t hear him over the burn of steam searing from my ears as I punched our grandfather’s stomach. He lurched forward, strangled by his tie and pain. He reached for something on his desk, struggling beneath my hold. Stop. It was her voice. Her scream.
Liam pulled me off, and I tumbled against the corner of our grandfather’s desk, my eyes wide and ears bleeding at the sound of Aideen screaming on the video.
“Julian,” Liam calmly repeated my name, and I aggressively shook my shoulders free of his hold. The pain of a shattering heart, the helplessness of watching your love crumble at the hand of someone else by your own fault, is a violent, repulsive feeling. It left me reeling on the edge of his desk, at his mercy. I can’t kill him without her in my arms. Aideen’s hands covered her face. She tried to subdue her pain, to stifle the scream and sob. My knuckles burned with my tightened fists as I struggled to compose my fury.
“It’s all settled,” our grandfather announced, each syllable a battle for me not to end him in that moment. “The only way Miss Leary lives is if you do, in fact, marry Noelle. Now, as entertaining as this game has been, Julian Patrick, I advised you a year ago that your destiny was to marry her. Had you obeyed me, your friend would never have met you and fallen into such a trap. It’s your fault, really…if you’re looking for someone to blame.”
“Settled.” I repeated his word, wondering what else I could have done to save Aideen. He stood behind me, the poison of his words lingering in a cloud around me as his decrepit voice snarled once more into my throbbing ears.
“You’re forgetting the press,” I muttered through gritted teeth, unable to tear my eyes from the video of Aideen. “They adore her. What’s your plan?”
“Marry Noelle or I kill her with my own hands.”
All I could do was stare at the screen, my arteries preparing to explode while watching a grainy image of someone squatting above Aideen, the reflective shine of their gun resting on the floor, and the woman I loved fading before me.
The doors rattled against the interior walls as they opened with a stampede of men forcefully entering the study. Liam moved from our grandfather, his barked orders only a horrendous drone in my ears as my wrists were again bound. I knew their next steps. I understood what was coming, and it was about to destroy Aideen.
Chapter Ten
AIDEEN
I hadn’t eaten more than crumbs of stale bread and water since Liam, Julian, and I pretended we held the power to solve the mystery about my safety from the protection of Julian’s kitchen. It didn’t matter—my body no longer craved food. The only sustenance to keep me going was hope, however irresponsible it may have seemed under those circumstances. My life was threatened, my body damaged, my dignity revoked, and all I had to hold onto while crying myself to sleep was hope that somehow Julian would survive. I was furious. It became my fuel.
Liam never told me where Julian was. He left me wanting, just like his brother promised I would be—that time with a dead body in the opposite corner. Jack was eerily peaceful, almost as though lost in a dream, but this was a nightmare from which neither of us would wake. I sat in a corner, numb to its discomfort once Liam left. From the shattered window pane, I thought I observed the sun rise three times. I also thought Liam was Julian. Each time I looked around, Jack was still there. While he dozed, I schemed. His silence was eerily conducive because I assumed with nobody’s urgency to remove the corpse, there was no need to further torture me. Unless they’re waiting for something big.
I just wanted to know if Julian was alive. I stopped dreaming of the hospital after my last flashback; now thoughts of Julian were recent. They possessed my heart in such a way that my mind viciously clung to them whenever I would wake, willing the memory to continue or replay.
I thought Jack moved a few times. But each time I looked, squinting to observe the slightest change, he was still curled into the opposite corner in a hardened pool of his blood. I killed him. I was absolutely responsible for his death. As he is for mine. Hope. I thought I would have felt remorse for his death, for the lie I told of his actions, but I felt nothing…at all. There was no anger, fatigue, hate. I stewed in my own filth, reserving all heart for the hope I would hear Julian’s voice, learn he was alive, or feel him once more.
It took trauma to bind whatever shattered pieces lingered in my damaged memory, but they were there—slowly molding, reshaping into the soul of our fairytale. I remembered it all. Julian would be proud of me, redeemed for his efforts however twisted and wrong. Hope.
I stretched out my legs, noticing I only had on one shoe, and let my gaze fall on Jack. I wondered if he let Malcolm’s brother in to kill me, or if I ever could trust him. It must have been the drugs that connected them, drugs and desperation. Malcolm. Now, he still held my hate. Even more so when I felt his laugh curdle my blood before he walked into the room. The suit was at his side, eyeing Jack’s body before leaning against the doorframe. Malcolm held a folded newspaper under his left arm and a wide, smarmy grin upon his repulsive face.
“We have a funeral announcement and a wedding announcement within one week,” Malcolm snickered, his free hand tapping the folded newspaper beneath his arm.
I kept my eyes on Jack’s shoes, letting my gaze follow the weave of his shoelaces while Malcolm tried to intimidate me. In there, out there, in, out…I mindlessly reached
for the pendant around my neck, wanting to connect to Julian, but my fingertips touched only my bruised skin. When did it come off? Where is it? Malcolm watched me, laughing with deviance.
“Remember Jessica?” Malcolm questioned, stepping further into the room while my gaze was everywhere except on him. “I gave your pretty necklace to her. She loved it, by the way.”
“Get to the point,” the suit grumbled from the doorway. As Malcolm spun around to snap back, my gaze darted to him. I scanned what I could of his body and clothes, trying to stay steps ahead of him, and noticed he wasn’t armed—at least visibly. The newspaper fell onto my shins, unfolding with a ruffling sound before I looked at it. I want my necklace.
The photograph of Julian brought me to tears, except I couldn’t shed them. Not in front of Malcolm and his thug. I couldn’t let them know the impact upon my heart that newspaper caused.
“The prince and the princess,” Malcolm read the headline as he squatted next to me. I would have thrown up on him again had I anything inside of me, had the muscle strength to purge existed within my belly. The headline was pathetic—prince and princess, when we were just declared king and queen.
“Did you just roll your eyes at me?” Malcolm snorted, taking the newspaper and shoving it into my face.
“I did. You’re a damn fool, Malcolm. Julian isn’t marrying Noelle,” I scoffed, “because I am the queen. I am the one he loves.”
“Yet…you’re here, and they are there. I’m confused. Dylan, can you help me out here?” Malcolm turned to his companion in the doorway, who shrugged with his reply.
“He’s marrying Noelle Regan,” the suit announced, “and pretty soon.” No, he isn’t.
“Well…I guess that means we won’t need to mess with you anymore, now that your boyfriend is getting married. I’m not worried, though. Noelle’s been around this block once or twice and always comes back.” Oh my God.