by Fiona Keane
Maureen’s heels clinked in the hall, nearing the room in which I stood in a stupor, drink in hand, eyes glossed over while I battled my bounding heart. She can’t be part of this. Not my own damn sister. Her giggle burst into the room before she entered with our grandfather.
I didn’t care that my palm bled, stabbed with shards of broken glass which dribbled with scotch. Expensive scotch. His scotch.
“The date is set,” Satan informed me, as though his order would be easily followed.
“When is it?” I inquired, not recognizing my voice as it snarled.
“April twenty-fourth.”
“Well,” I turned to face my grandfather, his existence a mockery, “prepare a casket, because the twenty-third of April is the day I’m killing myself.”
Maureen gasped in the corner. “How can you joke like that?”
“Maureen.” I turned, holding my bleeding hand in front of her face. “If I can’t be with the woman I love, there is no point in living.”
“You know we wouldn’t bury you if you killed yourself, Julian Patrick. Save us the charade about a casket.” My grandfather’s comment was laced with laughter. “You wouldn’t shame your mother with that decision either.”
“If you talk about her once more—”
“What?” He cackled, the wrinkles of deceit taunting me from his eyes. “You’ll kill me? Get in line, son, right behind my detail.”
Liam followed Satan’s housekeeper into the living room, quick to receive Maureen’s affectionate greeting. I watched as he scanned the room, fixing on me, our sister, and me once more. I noticed the signal of his narrowed eyes, a quick twitch of consideration before both of our gazes stopped on Maureen.
“Where have you been?” Liam inquired, approaching her with his head cocked in suspicion.
“I’m sorry? When do you need to know the details of my life?” Maureen chuckled defensively. Her heels shuffled slightly, enough for me to catch the twitch of her folded hands, which pressed too forcefully against her lap.
“Aren’t you engaging yourself in the details of my wedding? I’m confused, Maureen,” I quipped. “Liam brings up a good point, though. You told me our grandfather informed you of where I was…yet no welcome home party? No congratulations on my release?”
I absolutely had my suspicions of Maureen’s loyalty, her involvement. I looked at Liam, his eyes relaxed as he watched our sister squirm. Her shoulders stiffened as our grandfather cleared his throat, stepping forward from behind Maureen to address us. I tuned him out. Feeding the agony and rage I felt toward my family was futile. My decision was made; they were done.
I cast my gaze once more out the window, my back turned to everyone else, as my muscles tightened with unease. In my periphery, I noticed the housekeeper enter the room once more, her pudgy arms losing balance of an overflowing tray.
“I love celebrations.” Maureen’s excited purr poked a nerve in my spine. I wanted to be back in bed with Aideen, her skin only covered in the fabric of my shirt while we talked of our future. The guilt consuming me in the moments I stood among excess while she suffered plagued my heart, once more torturing me as I was suspended in a twisted liberation while she remained somehow imprisoned.
Maureen’s voice elevated, her laughter turning into a squeal accompanied by additional voices I planned to muffle with a bullet. I wouldn’t even celebrate their deaths.
Liam met me at the expansive table of crystal bottles containing liquor and spirits from each continent. He reached across my front to access a tall, thin bottle of absinthe, chuckling to himself as he poured some into a glass.
“I have an errand so I’ll say my goodbye now,” he said with a sigh before his following words came with a melodic hum. “La fée verte. Why does this bastard keep absinthe around?”
“It’s his celebration,” I mocked, my words hushed and limited. I couldn’t even engage with Liam.
“It doesn’t seem like much of a celebratory drink to me,” Liam replied. “Will there be an open bar at your wedding, Julian?” My fingertips pierced my palm with his words. How the hell can be he so horrid?
“I do hope so,” he continued his death wish, “but might I suggest an alternative?” I watched Liam from the side, observing him take a slow sip from his refilled glass.
“Your fiancée prefers Riesling.”
I turned to him, my heart in my throat. Prefers, present tense. Present. Alive. Liam appeared composed, like the slick devils we were bred to be, while I was breaking on the inside. My skin, burned with the anthology of our lineage; my muscles, formed from the excessive need to work myself raw to battle the demons in my mind; it was all a shell to my shattered soul, only given life by Aideen.
“Does she?” I’m going to be sick. I want to cry. I swallowed the lump building in my throat, watching my brother with an urgency I struggled to contain.
“It’s her favorite. I found some last night,” he whispered. “Dropped a few bottles on the way out, of course.”
“Of course.” I nodded, crossing my arms to keep my composure. “Where’d you go?” My eyes rattled back and forth, trying to pull what I could from my brother’s calm stare. Nothing.
“The hotel room, but now the best bottle is chilling in Duncan Sheehan’s cooler. It’s a sleek bottle too, smart one, had an adorable little bird sticker on it.”
“What spilled?” I inquired as I turned back to the others and chewed the inside of my cheek when I noticed Maureen’s arms wrapped around Noelle.
“Julian!” Noelle cried with an eagerness that sickened me. She was revolting in every sense of the word, and I knew I wouldn’t find a waste bin soon enough to deposit the bile that churned at the sight of her.
“Her friend’s father,” Liam muttered, slapping me on the back as he stepped away from Noelle’s approach. Her talons sank into my shoulders as she tried to hug me; the only response was my skin searing beneath Aideen’s tattooed initial.
I reached to pull Noelle’s hands from around me, aware my repulsed hold was crassly tight as I dropped her hands against her body. “Don’t touch me, Noelle.”
She whimpered like a pathetic puppy. I rolled my eyes away from Noelle and took in our audience. The man who mocked my arrest, who knew too much, stood with his hand clutched around my grandfather’s shoulder. Maureen stood between them, eyes wide with a glowing grin I found myself questioning. Noelle’s hands were on me again, her cold fingers latching to whatever she could hold as our grandfather started to walk toward the pile of booze behind me. I assumed Regan and Noelle arrived with the news of my suicide date, anticipating it as much as me.
Regan’s throaty laugh made me nauseous, but my attention stuck on his every movement while his daughter groped me. I squinted to assure myself I hadn’t lost all of my marbles. With Noelle attempting to occupy me, and our grandfather leaning over his ice bucket, I smiled for the first time in days. It wasn’t out of happiness; it was evil. As Edward Regan’s palm quickly glided over my sister’s backside, the final piece of their twisted puzzle collided like a disastrous earthquake in my mind. There would absolutely be casualties, and I couldn’t wait to watch them suffer.
With my only connection to Aideen gone, I felt hopeless. Liam had an errand, and for once, I was envious of his position in our family. He may have screwed himself into a barrel of filth, but he was proving his intelligence and worth. The efforts he pursued behind my back, for Aideen, for me, were something I could only thank him for with my loyalty to him. Liam killed Charles Foley and, while he was a pathetic ladder climber with no potential, there would be consequences. It wouldn’t be because Charles was killed, or even because Liam pulled the trigger, but because he was that damn far ahead of them, they would retaliate from pure embarrassment. Charles was gone, and his daughter would have no one to run to except Maureen and Noelle. Both of whom I now scrutinized.
“Julian,” Regan acknowledged me, his mouth wide. “The girls are going to get pampered this afternoon, and I thought that would be th
e perfect time for us to talk.”
Maureen followed him, tugging on Noelle’s arms, which were already so frail that they fell from my abdomen almost instantly. The healing wound on my side tingled with liberation as Noelle stepped away.
“Consider it family bonding.” Satan joined us, the ice in his glass clinking with his final gulp. As Noelle turned into Maureen’s side, I noticed the slight bump between her hips that caught against her silk dress. Their heels clicked with irritation as they left us alone in the room.
“Don’t you consider that a sin?” I glanced between my grandfather and Regan, resisting the smile that threatened at their embarrassment.
“If you have morals, yes.” My grandfather snickered, amused at the situation and the burden he suggested I carry into the future for his legacy.
“Noelle’s pregnant,” I stated. “How are you going to explain that to the public?”
“It’s yours,” Regan scoffed.
I felt my temperature rising, a wave of warmth washing over me as I slowly replied, “I have never, would never, and will never sleep with or near your daughter, Edward.” His eyes narrowed at me, the fool thinking he held power over me. But he did…he hired Malcolm, worked with Charles Foley and Gordon Molloy, and they all know about Aideen.
The doors opened across the room, and I hoped it would be Liam, but my eyes failed me again. The slimiest Sheehan tore a path across the room just as my grandfather placed his empty glass on a table to the side. His return to our company would have rattled me, but I trusted Liam. If I died, he would make sure she lived. I would do anything to protect her, to keep her safe…even if that means my brother keeps her.
“What’s this?” I inquired, my gaze hiding the frantic urgency I felt inside as I looked between the men surrounding me. Sheehan’s sloppy fingers reached for my wrists, resulting in Regan’s disgusting grin spreading as wide as his horrendous face allowed.
My grandfather placed a wrinkled palm against my shoulder, an abusive pound, and roared, “A wedding present.”
Chapter Fourteen
The ride was quick, the restraint pathetically limp. They shoved me forward into the dark room, making sure I entered before anyone else. Sawdust flattened beneath my hesitant footsteps. I had been terrified twice in my life, and each time was because I lost Aideen. But this, entering the space in which our life would end, should have filled me with fear. It didn’t. To her, I was already gone, and nothing mattered without her.
With my head low, I turned to survey each side. It was damp, and anyone with a heart would have been swallowed by the chill and foul odor alone, but I knew the instant the metal door opened before us, as the soft whimper and quiet gasp for breath echoed into my soul, exactly what they planned on doing to us. We weren’t alone. I knew they were there with us, listening, watching…waiting. Waiting for me to cave, waiting for me to fail—to fail her, to fail me, to fail their test. It took one shaky intake of her air to let my heart slip, my wrist pulling against its restraint.
“Easy now,” Sheehan’s drunken growl pressed into my ears as we stood in darkness.
“Do you remember the story we’re all told as kids, Duncan?” My question came through a whisper, aware the impact my voice would have on her weary ears.
“What’s that?”
“The one about the princess who falls for the knight. He betrayed his family by falling in love and was banished from the kingdom. Didn’t your parents ever tell you that to keep you from straying?”
“Aye,” he grumbled. Her whimper was silenced, but my chest ached with the pounding of her heart, which echoed into me.
“I’m not a good man,” I declared, hoping to hell Aideen heard me, “but I’ll do whatever it takes for my family.” Her. Aideen was family, is family. My family.
“You can take these off,” I snarled at my uncle. “I’m not running away.”
He grunted before once more shoving me forward with his hand between my shoulder blades. I tumbled further into the space, my throat seared with its putrid scent. I blinked through the burn when the lights flickered on above us. Two buzzing fluorescent rods dangled above the center of the room, humming me into insanity. While the limp bondage was removed from my wrists, two doors opened on each side of the room. I was still methodically searching the shadows for Aideen. I caught Malcolm’s invasively crass sneakers as he entered the room in his cowardly sandwich between my grandfather and Edward Regan.
Their eyes burned into mine, and I had yet to see her. If I gave them any reason to doubt me, she would be killed. I had been in their position before, the one in power, extending a gun toward the thief, the sinner. It was their climax. They wanted to watch us fail so they could win. Malcolm grinned, his graying skin stretched into an inebriated stupor; high on drugs, perceived power, hopefully contemplating his upcoming death. I noticed his glance stray beyond me before he crossed the room, passing me without comment.
“My mother’s wedding china would have been sufficient,” I announced, my words gaining the attention of my grandfather. “I know Noelle would probably want to select her own pattern, but I’ve always been one for memories.”
A light buzzed to life behind me, its bright flicker and flash pulling everyone’s attention to Malcolm…and Aideen. Don’t vomit. Don’t cry. Don’t run to her. Don’t let them win. She’ll be okay. You can fix this. You fixed it once before. My thoughts threatened my destruction, but none of it rivaled the pain I knew she was going through in that moment. The wingless bird left to fend for itself in a garden riddled with famished serpents.
My fingers twitched with desire to strangle as I rubbed them around my right wrist in a pathetic attempt to dull the ache left from Sheehan’s prohibitive binding. His shackle of torn cloth was a seductive feather against my skin compared to the pain peeling apart layers of my soul while I watched Aideen cower in fear against the wall opposite me.
“Ah…” I overheard my grandfather while I studied her bruised legs and frightened figure clinging to the wall, unable to look at me. “Liam, we’re thrilled you could join us.”
I snapped my neck, turning to see my brother enter the room. He was dressed for business, black slacks and a white button down, although his tie was loosened, and I willed him to come closer so I could strangle someone with it. How did he let them get her again? He swore to protect her.
“Julian.” Liam greeted me with a nod, the corner of his mouth lifting to a smirk I wanted to smack from his face and send to our mother’s grave for her disapproval. I noted the gun on his hip, even more prepared than usual.
“Enough formalities,” our grandfather groaned while he nestled onto a folding chair in the middle of the room, twenty feet away from Aideen. “The choice, again, is all yours, Julian Patrick,” he repeated his painful reminder, as though negotiation had been opened. This fucking monster had a death sentence. So do I. Unless I give her up to protect her. To save her. Fucking fuckery. I’m going to kill him. My family. I will use my own teeth to destroy him once this is over.
“It’s not much of a choice.” I dropped my hands while swallowing a breath, hoping I was the only one who heard the tremble in my throat. Liam stared at me, his eyes as lost as Aideen’s behind limply opened lids. I rested my folded hands before me, willing my body to appear confidently composed. I am going to gut them.
“I didn’t know you’d cave so quickly,” Edward snorted from behind me. I slowly turned to acknowledge him. I’m going to strangle the smugness from his fat fucking face with his own belt. This would kill Aideen.
Malcolm, a thug I couldn’t name, and Regan lifted their guns to Aideen. The mouth of Malcolm’s pushed into her hair, causing strands to lift around it as though even her hair hoped to defend her life. Do something!
Her resolve, her being, all would deteriorate with my next declaration. It was the ultimate farce, a sin oozing from my lips. Yet it was the only way to save her right now with guns drawn and her life at stake. Think, you fucking idiot. There was no option. Guns wer
e out, I was outnumbered, and the love of my life was losing her resolve as it left her beautiful eyes with every tear that silently fell against her soft, pink cheeks. I can’t look at her while I do this. If I see her, if I watch her, I will never get her back.
“I’m not caving,” I snapped, piercing my knuckles to restrain my thoughts of killing those people. I needed to get ahead of them before I stood above their rotting corpses. “If I’m to lead, I need to be in charge. You lost your faith in me, and that’s unfortunate. It’s always been my plan to marry Noelle. Miss…”
“Yes?” my grandfather piped up from his chair, intrigue and demonic excitement purging from his eager pursuit. Don’t choke. Save her. I quickly looked at Liam, the small nod from his somber expression the pitiful encouragement I needed.
“Miss Leary is a nothing, a nobody,” I expressed, my stomach exploding as my heart erupted with hatred toward myself. “Let her go.”
My shoulders were painfully tense, my body rigid with betrayal and fear, making movement impossible. She has to listen to those words. She has to remember them. I need Aideen to hear me, to know this isn’t true. The remnants of my soul felt hers leave her glorious body in the quiet gasp of air that emptied her lungs from behind me.
“She’s innocent,” Liam muttered, his head tilting toward the devil, “Let her go.” Our grandfather considered us, his heirs and legacy, an aged finger tapping against his upper lip while deep in thought. I am going to kill him.
“We should kill her,” he said, his threat the final knife into my chest. “But I do much enjoy a classic game of cat and mouse. Malcolm?”
“Sir.” Malcolm stepped forward from the shadows near Aideen, his presence consuming me with remorse. Aideen had been captured and traumatized by him again and forced to stand at his side while my own grandfather decided whether or not to kill her after I have to declare that I don’t love her. I fucking love her. I love her, and I lost her, again.
“Let her go. She’s all yours.” My grandfather snickered, his sneer a smile of delight as he waited for me to flinch. Not happening. If I died in the process, I promised myself that the men in that room would be the final markings against my skin. They were all going to die, and it was with an inhumane bloodlust that I sought their painful and tediously slow deaths.